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.
5 Tips for a Successful Annual Review
By Abby Woodcock | Jan 7, 2021
You may be in the position to give your clients an annual review of 2020. Depending on how that went (it was a rough year), it could be really good or really not so good! You’ve gathered your data, put together a visually appealing report, and now you need to present your findings. Abby Woodcock offers these tips to make sure the annual review is a success:
- Allow Enough Meeting Time
- Back Up YoY Performance Comparisons
- Take Time for a Competitive Analysis
- Outline All of Your Learnings
- Include Lots of New Ideas
Marketing Measurement BEFORE the Campaign? Yes, You Must Do This
By Moti Radomski | Jan 7, 2021
Moti Radomski argues that marketers need a solid measurement practice to find out what is and isn’t working so they can improve campaign performance. Largely, that falls in what he describes as two categories: In-flight measurement to optimize conversions while the campaign runs and post-campaign measurement to learn how to improve conversions for future campaigns. Radomski asserts that a third measurement needs to happen before the campaign begins or terms the “pre-campaign measurement” to optimize performance further. He explains that “pre-campaign measurement in the form of experiments and testing can help marketers optimize campaigns before they run.”
Google Ads and SMBs: How to drive results on a low budget
By Carolyn Lyden | Jan 8, 2021
Whether you’re a small business or an agency working with a small business, that doesn’t necessarily mean small returns with your ad campaigns on a small budget. Seeing real revenue-boosting results can take time on a smaller budget, so Carolyn Lyden recommends you:
- Avoid head terms and broad match/broad match modified
- Focus on quality score
- Adjusting by audiences
- Exclude what’s not performing well
- React quickly to Google changes
10 Common Mistakes In Google Ads
By Susan Wenograd | Jan 11, 2021
Every Google Ads account comes with its own unique challenges, but Susan Wenograd has noticed emerging trends where account managers make common mistakes over many years of audits. While these mistakes on their own won’t destroy an account, they typically occurred together and combined make for thousands of lost dollars. Here are the top ten most common mistakes:
1. Outdated Conversions
2. Geotargeting Options
3. Regional Trends
4. Revisiting Ad Schedule Modifiers
5. Messy Keyword Matching
6. Not Utilizing Experiments for Testing
7. Lack of Bidding Strategy
8. Adding Audiences for Observation
9. Missing or Disapproved Ad Extensions
10. Watching Partner Performance
Content Marketing: 5 Unexpected Skills to Build in 2021
By Julia McCoy | Jan 11, 2021
Self-built skills in the digital age are becoming more and more important. In particular, content marketing lends itself well to creative individuals willing to expand self-taught skills in areas where traditional college degrees don’t necessarily exist or can keep up with the fast-paced demand in changing trends and technology. To keep up with these demands, Julia McCoy recommends building skills in the following areas to win market-ready placement in the Content Marketing industry:
1. An Understanding of Brand Strategy
2. An Understanding of SEO
3. An Understanding of Great Online Content
4. An Ability to Research Deeply
5. An Ability to See It Through
How to Scale Facebook Ads for More Leads and Sales
By Tara Zirker | Jan 11, 2021
You have your Facebook Ads running, and now you want to scale your results. Tara Zirker introduces two scaling concepts: verticle and horizontal scaling to drive more leads and sales. Vertical ad scaling is when you put small ad budgets across a lot of audiences. One of the benefits is that you’re less dependent on individual audiences. When you have many audiences performing well, it’s not as problematic if one audience stops performing. Horizontal ad scaling is when you have far fewer audiences at a bigger budget, letting the algorithm work in your favor. It doesn’t work for all businesses, so you need to test audiences with horizontal scaling.
YouTube TrueView Ads Demystified: What Marketers Need to Know
By Joe Martinez | Jan 12, 2021
The main benefit of running a YouTube video campaign using TrueView in-stream ads is the amount of consistent, free brand awareness you can get. While building brand awareness is great, you can do a lot more to get viewers to take action directly from your YouTube ads. Joe Martinez shares information to help you set up your video campaigns in Google Ads to either get direct conversions or simply move the user to the next step on the customer journey. He reviews how to use YouTube TrueView Video Discovery Ads for search visibility, Shopping Ads to enhance product consideration, and Action Ads to drive engagement conversions.
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.
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