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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.

Broad or Exact Match? Our Study Says It’s Time to Reevaluate Your Match Type and Bidding Strategy

By Navah Hopkins | Sep 27, 2023 | Optmyzr

Navah Hopkins discusses a study comparing the effectiveness of broad match and exact match keyword types in online advertising, along with a comparison of bidding strategies: Maximize Conversions vs. Maximize Conversion Value. The study analyzed 2637 accounts and found that in most cases, exact match outperformed broad match in terms of CPC, CTR, CPA, ROAS, and conversion rate. It suggests that advertisers should not make drastic changes if broad match is already performing well but consider testing for potential benefits.

Regarding bidding strategies, Maximize Conversion Value generally performed better than Maximize Conversions in terms of CPC, CTR, CPA, and ROAS for most accounts. The data challenges the belief that higher CPA can lead to higher-value customers and recommends using Max Conversion Value to determine conversion value based on customer value and channel conversion rates.

Hopkins also highlights the importance of regularly testing assumptions and not taking conventional wisdom for granted in online advertising. Advertisers are encouraged to keep evaluating their accounts and bidding strategies to optimize costs and performance.

How to Run Microsoft Professional Service Ads (+How They Compare to Google Local Services Ads)

By Mark Irvine | Sep 27, 2023 | WordStream

Microsoft Advertising offers a solution called Professional Service Ads designed to help small businesses in niche markets promote their professional services effectively. These ads, displayed on Bing, are aimed at connecting service providers with users seeking relevant professional assistance. Unlike regular search ads, Professional Service Ads include images and detailed information about the advertiser. They can appear at the top of Bing’s SERPs, Bing Maps, and within the Bing Local Answer pack. These ads cater to businesses of all sizes and can coexist with existing search ads, providing more visibility without raising costs per click. They require a feed submission with service details rather than keywords, simplifying setup. Currently available for industries like insurance, tax services, real estate, home services, and doctor/clinic ads, Microsoft plans to expand this feature to additional sectors. Compared to Google’s Local Service Ads, Microsoft’s Professional Service Ads offer a simpler setup, greater flexibility in management and optimization, and a different pricing structure, with the latter being charged per click. Setting up Professional Service Ads involves creating a data feed, creating an ad campaign, and following best practices like running these ads alongside traditional search campaigns, starting with an appropriate budget, managing bids effectively, reviewing search terms, and leveraging audience targeting. Early adopters of Professional Service Ads on Microsoft Advertising have reported higher conversion rates and lower cost-per-acquisition compared to traditional search ads on the platform.

What to do when performance tanks in PPC

By Jason Tabeling | Sep 28, 2023 | Search Engine Land

When your PPC campaign underperforms, swiftly address the issues, categorizing them as internal or external factors. Internal problems, like budget errors or incorrect keyword choices, are within your control and should be investigated using tools like the change history report. Collaborate with other teams, such as development, to ensure website changes don’t harm the campaign. Monitor competitors and consider seasonality for external factors affecting performance. Proactively prevent issues by using report annotations, implementing quality assurance, and maintaining strong password security. Rapid issue identification and resolution are crucial for guiding your campaign back to success.

7 Proven Retargeting Strategies for Higher Conversion Rates

By Justas Markus | Sep 28, 2023 | Optmyzr

Retargeting is a powerful advertising technique that targets previous website visitors. It relies on browser cookies to track user behavior and create tailored ad campaigns. Benefits of retargeting include increased conversion rates, reduced cart abandonment, cross-selling opportunities, and improved customer engagement. To make the most of retargeting, focus on copy rather than visuals, offer discounts to incentivize users, incorporate FOMO, remind buyers why they chose your brand, polish your call to action (CTA), test different ad display times, and track ad data for optimization. Retargeting is a valuable strategy for converting returning visitors into customers.

5 Google Analytics Reports Every PPC Marketer Needs To Know About

By Brooke Osmundson | Sep 29, 2023 | Search Engine Journal

Brooke Osmundson discusses five essential Google Analytics reports to aid in making strategic decisions for PPC campaigns. These reports help marketers adapt to the new Google Analytics 4 interface after the migration from Universal Analytics. The reports include:

1. Interests Segment Report: This report provides insights into the behavior and interests of users who have purchased on your website, allowing you to target relevant interest segments effectively in Google Ads campaigns.
2. Site Search Report: This report helps understand how users search for content on your website, aiding in keyword strategy and identifying gaps in user expectations versus actual search behavior.
3. Referrals Report: Often overlooked but valuable, this report shows top websites sending traffic to your site and their conversion rates. It helps identify high-quality referral sources and can be used to create placements for Google Ads Display campaigns.
4. Top Conversion Paths Report: This report is crucial for analyzing the performance of top-of-funnel (TOF) campaigns, providing insights into user touchpoints and conversions, which is especially valuable for channels like YouTube and Display.
5. Geo-Location Report: This report allows you to analyze the performance of campaigns in different geographic regions, helping you identify areas with high or low revenue and conversion rates, enabling location-based optimizations.

3 tips for boosting sales with paid search promos and discounts

By Max Trotter | Sep 29, 2023 | Search Engine Land

Max Trotter highlights three effective ways to use promotions and discounts in paid search to boost sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

1. Create New Ad Copy: Emphasize promotions and discounts in new ad copy to attract customers. Use multiple headlines and descriptions to generate excitement about your offers. Ensure the ads start and stop at the correct times by using labels and automated rules.
2. Leverage Promotion Assets: Promotion assets allow you to highlight promotions without creating specific ad copy. They can be added at the campaign or account level and do not reset performance data. You can also set specific time frames for their display, making them useful for flash sales.
3. Consider Dynamic Keyword Insertion: Use dynamic keyword insertion to tailor your ads to individual user searches without creating multiple ad groups and variations. This feature dynamically updates your ads with keywords from your ad group that triggered the ad, providing personalized ad copy.

7 Ways to Stop Google Ads From Wasting Your PPC Budget

By Frederick Vallaeys | Sep 1, 2023 | Optmyzr

Frederick Vallaeys highlights several ways in which Google Ads may lead advertisers to overspend and provides recommendations on how to address these issues:

1. Using Broad Match Without Negative Keywords: Broad Match keywords can trigger ads for both expensive and less relevant search terms. Advertisers should create a robust list of negative keywords to exclude irrelevant searches and control costs.
2. Using Broad Match Without Smart Bidding: When using Broad Match, it’s advisable to enable Smart Bidding strategies like Target CPA or Target ROAS to optimize bids for different search queries and control CPCs effectively.
3. Changing Budgets Too Frequently: Frequent changes to daily budgets can result in Google overdelivering on certain days, leading to unexpected monthly spend. Automated tools can help manage budgets throughout the month to avoid exceeding the intended budget.
4. Ignoring Quality Score: Quality Score impacts CPC in auctions. Advertisers should actively monitor and optimize factors that influence Quality Score, such as click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
5. Turning On Auto-Applied Recommendations: Google’s auto-applied recommendations may not fully align with an advertiser’s conversion goals. Advertisers should manually review and tailor recommendations based on their specific objectives.
6. Not Tracking High-Value Conversions: Advertisers should track high-value conversions beyond simple form submissions to ensure Google optimizes for the desired outcome, reflecting the true goals of the campaign.
7. Using the Display Network, Performance Max, and YouTube Without Excluding Placements: Failure to exclude irrelevant placements in the Google Display Network can lead to wasteful spending. Advertisers should use placement exclusions to target only relevant sites.

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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