Welcome to Cultivative’s weekly roundup for all things PPC from around the web—everything you need to know right now about PPC!
At Cultivative, we’re all about making your life easier. We’ve gathered the top PPC news and innovations from around the web and getting it into your hands. Check out what we found this past week.
Last-minute Holiday Social Media Checkup for Ecommerce
By Armando Roggio | Nov 18, 2020

Armando Roggio argues that “Detailed social media audits should be a regular part of an ecommerce marketer’s standard operating procedures.” Especially right now, as we head into the holidays, e-commerce marketers need to have their social media marketing on point, and an audit should include a review of the company’s social-media key performance indicators. He recommends a quick checklist to include:
1. Check Goals, Vision
2. Check Profiles, Pages
3. Verify Your Audience
4. Check Performance
5. Editorial Calendar
How to Use LinkedIn Text Ads: The Budget-Friendly Option
By AJ Wilcox | Nov 18, 2020

Many advertisers are concerned about Linkedin’s high costs and are hesitant to get involved. AJ Wilcox offers a guide to using LinkedIn’s Text Ads, a more cost-effective and budget-friendly option to getting started with ads on Linkedin. He walks you through setting up your LinkedIn campaign and targeting, setting your budget and schedule, and creating your text ad.
PPC Town Hall 28: Optimizing Smart Bidding with Google
By Frederick Vallaeys | Nov 19, 2020

To make the most of Google’s Smart Bidding, advertisers need to monitor and optimize to get the best results for their campaigns. This week’s PPC Town Hall speaks with guests Emi Wayner and Peter Oliveira, from Google, where they share these six insights to understanding and optimizing Smart Bidding campaigns:
1. Evolution of Modern Search
2. Analyzing Smart Bidding signals
3. Optimizing Discovery campaigns
4. Common mistakes advertisers make with Smart Bidding
5. Structuring a Smart Bidding campaign with segmentation
6. Marketing as a holistic approach
Google Analytics 4: What Marketers Need to Know
By Michael Stelzner | Nov 20, 2020

Emerging trends have made tracking online consumer behavior more difficult in recent years—first, cross-device behavior and, second, data privacy. The promise of App + Web was to measure your mobile apps and your website with one property—rather than across the separate properties required in Universal Analytics. This addressed a major pain point for marketers trying to track the user journey between their mobile app and their actual website. However, knowing and understanding Google Analytics or Universal Analytics doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll know and understand App + Web—now known as Google Analytics 4 or GA4. Ultimately, Google Analytics 4 is less of a reporting tool and more of an analysis engine.
7 Things to Prepare for this Holiday Season
By Frederick Vallaeys | Nov 21, 2020

The holiday season is the busiest time for e-commerce and the search marketing community. With all of the unexpected changes 2020 has brought, we’ve seen a large number of online shoppers for this time of year. “We need to look at audience behavior, pay close attention to logistics, and keep a close eye on our messaging,” recommends Frederick Vallaeys. Here are his recommendations to be prepared for this Holiday season:
1. Holiday shopping will start sooner
2. Most shopping will be done online
3. BOPIS will be popular with customers
4. Holiday 2020 will be celebrated differently
5. Figuring out shipping & delivery
6. Sale events will be game-changers
7. Rise of the gift cards
4 New Features to Know About in Google Analytics 4
By Tim Jensen | Nov 23, 2020

Marketers will find that Google Analytics 4 features a major layout change, along with the addition of several new features. As you begin creating properties now for any existing sites currently on Universal Analytics, Tim Jensen provides an overview of some key features you should know about, including:
- New Layout
- New Reporting Features
- Built-In Event Tracking
- Updated Conversion Tracking
7 Content Marketing Trends to Watch in 2021
By Céillie Clark-Keane | Nov 23, 2020

Céillie Clark-Keane at WordStream gathered insight from expert content marketers for their predictions on trends for 2021. As you are preparing your content marketing calendars for next year, here are some trends you may want to consider:
- Building content communities
- Going live with video and webinars
- Improving content experience
- Focusing on products and services
- Testing AI-powered copy
- Doubling down on SEO
- Repurposing content across channels
How to Boost PPC ROI with Call Tracking & Conversation Intelligence
By Loren Baker | Nov 24, 2020

If you’re not tracking inbound calls to your business, you might be missing out on a lot of marketing data. Loren Baker recaps a webinar presented by Jason Tatum, Lead Product Manager at CallRail, where he discussed how to boost your ROI from paid search using a combination of call tracking and conversation intelligence. Call tracking can help you grow your business by:
- Identifying Wasted Ad Spend
- Focusing on the Sources That Unlock Opportunities
- Uncovering New Keywords That Drive Leads
- Improving Customer Experience & Close More Deals
- Eliminating Blind Spots in Your Marketing
We hope you learned something new you can apply to your PPC business strategy. Let us know in the comments below what you want to start implementing. As always, we are happy to be a resource for your paid advertising needs. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.