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.
Which attributes describe a good landing page experience (according to Google)?
By Karine Bengualid | Aug 9, 2023 | Unbounce

Karine Bengualid emphasizes the importance of creating effective landing pages for PPC ad campaigns to ensure a positive user experience and achieve higher conversions. She highlights Google’s role in evaluating landing page experiences, which impacts ad rankings and performance. Bengualid stresses the need for specialized landing pages tailored to each campaign’s goal and audience, citing the example of promoting a product like sneakers for a back-to-school campaign. Google’s criteria for a good landing page experience involve factors like clear calls to action, original and engaging content, mobile optimization, fast loading speeds, using copywriting frameworks like AIDA, and building trust through transparency. The article also provides instructions for checking and improving landing page experience scores and recommends using landing page builders to optimize campaigns for success on Google.
12 Best Practices to Boost Your TikTok Ad Performance
By Emily Sullivan | Aug 10, 2023 | Tinuiti

Emily Sullivan presents 12 key practices for advertisers on TikTok, highlighting the need to set performance goals, stay updated with trends, partner with creators, create full-screen vertical videos, ensure variety, maintain brevity, focus on brand and call to action, add captions, balance entertainment and promotion, infuse fun, use catchy sounds, and engage in creative testing. Sullivan underscores the importance of adapting to TikTok’s youthful audience and distinct platform characteristics. She also addresses common questions, including video specifications, ad formats, choosing between paid and organic approaches, and repurposing content.
3 creative-driven tips to optimize your PPC performance
By Amanda Evans | Aug 10, 2023 | Search Engine Land

Amanda Evans discusses the evolving landscape of PPC marketing, emphasizing the increasing importance of creative optimization alongside data-driven strategies. She offers three tips to adapt to this shift:
- Asset Coverage: Advertisers should focus on having a variety of creative assets ready for different platforms, formats, and lengths, considering video, image, and text ads. Optimal coverage includes 3 asset types, 3 aspect ratios, and 3 asset lengths.
- Diversify Story Types: Brands should provide diverse story types, such as product features, price/promotion, and aspirational/introductory narratives. AI can help tailor messages to engage specific users, allowing for more personalized communication.
- Captivate in the First Five Seconds: The article emphasizes the importance of capturing users’ attention within the first five seconds of an ad. This requires clear branding and conveying the value proposition effectively to engage the audience.
How Google Responsive Search Ads Work & 10 Helpful Tips
By Shannon Mullery | Aug 11, 2023 | Tinuiti

Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) in Google Ads enable advertisers to create multiple headlines and descriptions, allowing Google’s machine learning to generate personalized ads for different searchers. RSAs streamline optimization through machine learning, automatically testing different combinations for the best performance, saving time from manual A/B testing. Advertisers can input up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, creating over 43,000 possible ad variations. RSAs offer advantages such as simplified optimization, increased relevance in searches, and effortless creation of numerous ad combinations. Advertisers are advised to provide diverse headlines, descriptions of varying lengths, and utilize pins intentionally for optimal results.
Google Ads Streamlines Switch to Performance Max
By Matthew Umbro | Aug 13, 2023 | Practical Ecommerce

Google Ads has introduced an upgrade option to transition Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) and Display campaigns to Performance Max campaigns. This upgrade can be found in the “Recommendations” tab of the admin panel. The process involves taking existing assets, settings, and budgets to create the new Performance Max campaign, which is then reviewed by advertisers to ensure correctness. Google’s focus on Performance Max is evident from its recent marketing events, and the company is continuously adding features to this campaign type. Advertisers can gradually upgrade campaigns, run experiments to test Performance Max, and review their performance using scripts that break down results by network.
Google Ads to sunset Enhanced CPC on Shopping campaigns
By Nicola Agius | Aug 14, 2023 | Search Engine Land

Starting in October, Google Ads Shopping campaigns will no longer support Enhanced cost-per-click (eCPC) bidding. Instead, campaigns using eCPC will function as if they are using Manual CPC bidding. This change allows advertisers more control over bids and budgets but requires additional time and management. Google attributes the move to advancements in its technology and the availability of more advanced strategies like target ROAS and fully automated campaigns such as Performance Max. Advertisers are encouraged to explore options like target ROAS experiments or Performance Max campaigns, while campaigns not taking any action will continue using Manual CPC bidding. This shift aligns with Google’s broader move toward automation in digital advertising.
How to Use Google Tag Manager: The Only Guide You’ll Ever Need (with Video Tutorials!)
By Alessandro Colarossi | Aug 15, 2023 | WordStream

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a tool that simplifies tag and tracking code management on websites. This guide provides insights into GTM’s components: Tags, triggers, and variables. It offers practical steps to set up GTM on your site, empowering users to effectively manage and deploy these elements. GTM is a free Google tool that allows website owners to manage marketing tags without modifying code. It consists of three components: Tags (code snippets), triggers (conditions for tag execution), and variables (additional information for tags). Benefits of GTM include efficiency, flexibility, error reduction, version control, improved site performance, and consolidation. The guide outlines steps to create a GTM account, add it to a website, and track advanced features like the data layer and custom HTML tags.
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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