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.
Get clearer insights on ad performance with prominence metrics
By Nahva Tecklu | Jul 1, 2019

Unlike Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising will be keeping the average position metric, along with clear insights with prominence metrics. Those metrics include:
- Top impression share
- Top impression share lost to rank
- Top impression share lost to budget
- Absolute top impression share
- Absolute top impression share lost to rank
- Absolute top impression share lost to budget
Why You Need Customer Health Scoring (& How to Do It Right!)
By Conor Bond | July 2, 2019

“Customer health scoring is the process of scoring customers based on the likelihood of an outcome you consider important. In other words, customer health scoring enables you to predict how your relationship with a given customer may change in the future. In turn, you can use that information to improve the way you interact with them,” explains Conor Bond. The better the service you provide and the happier your customers are, you will be rewarded with word-of-mouth promotion from your satisfied customers. Bond provides a 5 step process for setting up your customer health scoring to get the most informative results.
The Right Way to Import Google Ads Campaigns into Microsoft Ads
By Andrea Taylor | Jul 3, 2019

Being able to import Google Ads campaigns into Microsoft Ads is one of the biggest advantages of the platform. This can be done two ways: using the “Import Campaigns” dropdown in the MSA platform or within the Microsoft Bing Ads Editor. Andrea Taylor recommends the second method because there are essential checkpoints in the editor to make sure you have everything appropriately imported. She provides a clear walkthrough of how the Microsoft Bing Ads Editor for importing Google Ads campaigns should be done, the right way!
Profit-Driven PPC Management in Practice
By Witold Wrodarczyk | Jul 3, 2019

Big advertisers don’t buy cheaper ads, it’s actually the opposite.
“The more intense the advertising is, the higher the costs per impression, click, and conversion. The total profit (income from campaign less its cost) initially increases, but the higher the volume is, the slower the growth. At a certain point as the profits start to decrease, we say the advertiser has overinvested in the ads,” explains Witold Wrodarczyk. He takes a deep dive on Price Elasticity and the implications that it has on driving profits in PPC campaign management. “Whenever the frequency is high, we may expect that the elasticity of a campaign to be low, and even if the current ROI is good, increasing frequency capping may bring only a few additional conversions. It may be better to increase the frequency of less profitable campaign with low frequency.”
Back to Basics: What Is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?
By Haley Carpenter | July 3, 2019

CRO and PPC are related in a number of ways, but Haley Carpenter finds the most important to be how CRO maximizes ROI out of campaigns. CRO consists of two main areas: testing and analyzing elements that enhance user experience and conversions.
What Are Display Ads? The Complete Guide
By Tom Whatley | Jul 3, 2019

Tom Whatley shares the Complete Guide to Display Ads offering everything you need to know about display ads. Learn how to create engaging ad creative, target the right audience and bring it together in a funnel that generates results– whether your goal is brand building or generating leads. As promised, the article is an extensive guide covering Display Ads, from funnels to targeting to ad copy.
A Different Way to Think About PPC Ad Copy
By Mike Matta | Jul 8, 2019

As Google continues to move towards better and smarter utilization of AI, we can use this to our advantage as we shift to a new way of thinking about ad copy. With the ability to ‘play’ with more characters, should we be looking at more than just small changes ad to ad, but rather test some bigger changes? Mike Matta suggests testing themes rather than shifting words or phrases. He suggests that testing themes allow us to test new ideas, reach audiences differently, and learn about what drives our customers. Use demographic lists to target underperforming groups with ideas that speak directly to them by letting Google’s AI match this ad copy to them as they search.
Voice Search and the Ever Evolving Consumer Shopping Behavior
By Margo Kahnrose | Jul 8, 2019

Consumer behavior continues to evolve rapidly as Voice Search technology transforms how people shop and how consumer choices are guided by technology. Margo Kahnrose explains that consumers find, “the speed and convenience of voice search outweigh just about any of the usual decision-making criteria, including brand preference, ratings, and even price. Because we leverage voice search most when we’re multitasking—driving, cooking, grocery shopping, bathing our toddlers—we don’t have time to read, think, sift through options and click filters until we get the perfect result. In the multitask mindset we don’t care about perfect. We have no patience for a customer journey. We just want the destination… The gatekeepers, standing between brands and customers in this brave new world, are the giants of the tech world, the AI creators and device manufacturers. Successfully navigating these complex partner ecosystems will make or break the lasting brands of the future.”
PPC and machine learning: Where do we draw the line on automation?
By Simon Poulton | Jul 8, 2019

Simon Poulton recaps from SMX Advanced, featuring insights from Frederick Vallaeys and Brad Geddes as they examine Automation in PPC and need to understand the potential impact of unintended consequences. The prevalent theme was that we don’t need to automate everything, but rather draw a line for what still needs a human touch. Frederick Vallaeys’ key highlights were that automation should be used to save time, money, improve quality and reduce churn, and allow for scale. Brad Geddes highlighted that the machine may alert you to problems, but as the human, you still need to decide what to do in two key categories: optimizations and repairs.
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.