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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.

Data-Driven Attribution as the New Default in Google Ads: What You Need to Know

By Susie Marino | Sep 30, 2021 | WordStream

“Google announced on September 27 that it is changing the default attribution model for all new conversion actions in Google Ads, from last-click attribution to data-driven attribution (DDA). In addition, it is removing any previously required data minimums for DDA attribution modeling and making it available for more conversion types, including in-app and offline conversions,” explains Susie Marino. To help advertisers understand these changes, Marino answers:

• What is changing about attribution modeling in Google Ads?
• What are the current attribution models available to advertisers?
• What action should advertisers take regarding their own attribution model?

New Google Ads Budget Report Tracks Daily Campaign Spend

By Matt Southern | Sep 30, 2021 | Search Engine Journal

Google Ads is introducing a new budget report that makes campaign spending behavior easier to understand. The new report is designed to help advertisers understand their daily and monthly spending behavior, while also highlighting how campaign performance was impacted by past budget changes. The Google Ads budget report visualizes the following sets of data: 

• Daily spend
• Monthly spending limit
• Monthly spend forecast

5 Optimizations to Boost Amazon PPC Profitability

By Ashwin Balakrishnan | Oct 2, 2021 | Optmyzr

With Amazon being the third-largest online ad platform and the transactional search intent of its users, retailers stand to gain a lot from using this platform for PPC. To help advertisers relying on Amazon Advertising, Ashwin Balakrishnan has five optimizations that can power up your Amazon ad campaigns:

1. Optimize Bids for Placements
2. Increase Budgets for Special Events Using Budget Rules
3. Use Product Targeting to Show Off Your Product Next to Competitors
4. Optimizing your ACoS
5. Harvest Keywords

8 Recent (Important!) Google Ads Updates You Might Have Missed

By Susie Marino | Oct 4, 2021 | WordStream

Google Ads had a lot of important updates come out in the last month or two. To keep you up to date and not suffer from FOMO, Susie Marino tells you what you need to know about:

1. Changes in keyword matching behavior
2. More automation for Display campaigns
3. Data added to the search terms report
4. The sunsetting of expanded text ads
5. The new “about this ad” page
6. A new travel ad type
7. New Google Shopping ad attributes
8. More attribution models for Display and YouTube campaigns

How to Analyze YouTube In-Stream Ads

By Joe Martinez | Oct 5, 2021 | SocialMedia Examiner

“Your YouTube TrueView in-stream campaigns might be focused on actions—meaning you’re looking to drive traffic or push sales and conversions—or building brand or product awareness. But no matter your goal, we’re going to look at a few ways to analyze the metrics of your skippable in-stream ads to see if they’re working toward the results you want to achieve with your YouTube video campaigns.” If you want to get as much information as you can on the real impact of your YouTube TrueView in-stream ads, Martinez recommends:

1. Find Out Where Users Are Dropping Out of Your YouTube In-Stream Ads
2. Determine if Users Are Engaging With Your YouTube Ads Beyond the Initial Watch Time
3. Find Out if Viewers Are Returning to Your Website and Eventually Converting

How to Decide Where to Invest in Paid ECommerce Ads: 4 Questions to Ask

By Jake Rheude | Oct 6, 2021 | Hero Conf

Jake Rheude poses four questions eCommerce shops should consider where to invest beyond purchasing behaviors and new customer habits. The questions are designed to get business owners thinking about what their customers want next and how they can be ready with an offer before they ask. Those questions are:

1. Is paid search driving traffic?
2. Does your audience own smart speakers?
3. Are shipping and fulfillment hurting ad spend?
4. Is your conversion timeline lengthening?

7 Proven Ways to Improve Your PPC Campaign Performance

By Andrea Atzori | Oct 6, 2021 | Search Engine Journal

In PPC, whether it’s an inherited account that needs an audit or an older account that needs fresh eyes, you need to be able to hone in on key areas to make improvements fast. What should you be focusing on? Andrea Atzori shares seven key areas to optimize in order to improve PPC campaign performance:

1. Performance by Location.
2. Performance by Device.
3. Performance by Network (Search vs. Search Partners vs. Display).
4. Audience Performance.
5. Negatives and Negative Lists.
6. Features Available (and Applicable to the Account/Campaign) in the Platform.
7. Conversion Tracking.

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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