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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.

How to Reduce Your Facebook Ad Costs

By Michael Stelzner | Feb 10, 2022 | SocialMedia Examiner

Because of rising costs and less ad targeting capabilities, you might wonder whether you should still use Facebook ads. There’s a good chance that the people you’re trying to market to use Facebook regularly enough for you to reach them, since it’s still the largest social media platform with the most users worldwide. However, costs continue to rise due to competition and the changing privacy laws affecting the data. Michael Stelzner discusses how you can reduce your Facebook ad spend without impacting performance, including:

1. Rethink How You Use Facebook Ads
2. Look for Holes in Your Current Marketing Strategy
3. Refresh Your Facebook Ad Creative at Least Once a Month
4. Test 4 Facebook Ad Campaign Components

Why Google Tag Manager Should Be on Every Performance Marketer To-Learn List

By Jon Quinton | Feb 11, 2022 | Hero Conf

Google Tag Manager (GTM) will celebrate its tenth anniversary this year. Gaining basic, practical knowledge of GTM will make any performance marketer better at their job. Jon Quinton highlights why marketers need to integrate GTM into their workflow:

• Get Behind Your Numbers
• See Events Fire With Your Own Eyes
• Find New Opportunities
• Customized Tracking, At Speed
• It’s Easy

3 changes coming to Google Ads automated extensions

By Danny Goodwin | Feb 11, 2022 | Search Engine Land

Google Ads has announced three changes to the way automated extensions work. Here’s what is changing:

1. Automated and manual extensions can be shown together. Starting in mid-March, automated extensions can be shown with manually created extensions.
2. Reporting. In the coming weeks, Google Ads will provide a report for “Automatically created” extensions. You can view these in the table view of the Extensions page. 
3. Can be added at ad group, campaign, or account level. Also starting in mid-March, sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets from higher levels in your account can serve with extensions of the same type from lower levels.

The 6 Essentials of a Successful Paid Media Strategy in 2022

By Amy Bishop | Feb 14, 2022 | WordStream

A paid media strategy is like any recipe. You have the freedom to customize different ingredients to your liking, but forget one key ingredient and the whole outcome is impacted. In this post, I cover the six essential ingredients you need in your paid media strategy this year if you want to avoid failure. They include:

1. Review and reset benchmarks
2. Build a first-party-first strategy
3. Stay on top of advanced tracking technology
4. Test more paid media channels
5. Be a steward of automation
6. Master responsive search ads

Facebook Ads: When Is Paying For Engagement Worth It?

By Brooke Osmundson | Feb 15, 2022 | Search Engine Journal

Whether your business is starting up or you are an established brand, you may need to consider investing in social media engagement, but how do you know when it makes financial sense? Brooke Osmundson discusses the merits of paying for exposure by engagement in both scenarios and why it’s important at both stages of business. She also provides a few ways to get you the most engagement for your budget, including:

1. Start With A Broad Audience
2. Create Remarketing Audiences
3. Don’t Use Promotional-Only Posts

How Does Google Ads Work in 2022? The Complete, Visual Guide

By Kristen McCormick | Feb 15, 2022 | WordStream

Kristen McCormick helps you learn how Google Ads works once and for all—with a step-by-step tour, a clear and informative visual, and a FAQ section. Learn how Google Ads works, from keywords to costs and everything in between.

Facebook Ads Audit Guide: How to Refresh Your Ads

By Anna Sonnenberg | Feb 16, 2022 | SocialMedia Examiner

“Whether you’re planning to scale vertically or horizontally, you have plenty of options for getting better results from your Facebook ad campaigns. From targeting new audiences and testing new creatives to increasing your ad budget and automating ad spend, these tactics can help you scale Facebook ads efficiently,” writes Anna Sonnenberg. Six ways to improve your Facebook advertising for better results include:

1. Carefully Increase Your Facebook Ad Budget
2. Set Facebook Ads Bids Manually
3. Update Your Facebook Ads Audience Targeting
4. Leverage All Available Placements
5. Expand Your Facebook Ad Sets
6. Set Up Automated Rules to Govern Campaign Management

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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