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.
Amazon Posts: A feed-based shopping experience on Amazon
By Danielle Waller | May 12, 2020

Amazon has added a feed-based shopping experience with Amazon Posts, allowing brands to post lifestyle or branding imagery for free. By using the same creative specifications as other channels, like Facebook, Amazon made it simple for brands already creating content to load it directly on Amazon to participate in Posts. Amazon is providing limited data on how these placements are performing, with only impressions, clicks, and click-through rates available. If your brand is already creating social content, this is an easy feature to take advantage of to expand your real estate.
What’s Up With the Rise of Retailer Media Networks?
By Elizabeth Marsten | May 13, 2020

To boost visibility and discoverability, advertisers have been using more retailer media networks on a larger scale. As more consumers are shopping online, the rise of retailer media networks may either complement or compete with what advertisers may be doing on search or social platforms. Elizabeth Marsten reviews several retailers and comments on how Google Shopping fits into the trend.
4 LinkedIn Ad Testing Ideas
By Andrea Taylor | May 13, 2020

If you’re in a rut when it comes to LinkedIn ad copy, Andrea Taylor has several ad testing ideas for you to try out. She recommends trying A/B testing short vs. long copy, testing lead forms vs. landing pages, testing text on images, and testing video vs. static images.
Context Marketing: 5 Foundational Elements to Consider When Mapping a Content Campaign
By Jeff Riddall | May 13, 2020

If you’re creating a new piece of content or an entire campaign, how do you stand out from the competition? Jeff Riddall suggests that content marketing should become context marketing, making your content flow in a way that search engines can optimize every part of your campaign. He offers these five foundational elements to achieve proper context and optimal results:
1. Get Intimate with Your Audience
2. Have Content to Answer Their Key Questions
3. Keywords Still Power Content (& Search)
4. Know Your Content Goals
5. Measure for Success
Ad Copy Tips For the COVID Era
By Jenna Kelly | May 13, 2020

Messaging during the COVID era has meant that marketers need to strike a balance between the promotional and the socially conscious, requiring a sense of empathy. Pulling from Google’s weekly webinar sessions called Mobile On Air, Jenna Kelly relates some of what was shared in the first session, from May 5th, on design principles as it has a universal approach for ad messaging. She shares concepts for color and tone, and how it relates to messaging right now.
3 New ‘Must-Know’ Trends for Marketing
By Lee Wilson | May 13, 2020

Lee Wilson shares some of the search trends emerging out of the Coronavirus climate, along with practical ways to leverage them for your business. Because search trends are changing so rapidly, now is the time to adapt campaigns and maximize new, growing, and changing opportunities. He reviews the following trends:
1. ‘When Will [Insert Service] Reopen’
2. Online Buyer Behavior Changes
3. Time to Do Intent Targeting
How consumer intent has shifted across the globe
By Adam Goodman, Jagoda Sobolewska | May 14, 2020

The current global crisis has impacted consumers in a variety of ways over almost every vertical. Microsoft Advertising has released a new eBook, “Search trends in the time of COVID-19,” that can be downloaded from this article. This article also provides links to several valuable resources worth bookmarking for marketers and advertisers to stay on top of the rapidly changing trends.
How To Eliminate Wasted PPC Spend
By Emma Smith | May 14, 2020

Avoiding wasted spend is a main priority for almost every PPC account manager, especially right now. Emma Smith shares some tips to help you find and eliminate wasted spend in your accounts. She recommends checking in on your DDNT (Device, Demographic, Network, and Time) settings and optimizing bid modifiers accordingly, removing non-converting keywords, and using automated scripts for things like negative keyword conflicts, disapproved ads, and errors with landing pages.
Google’s Rising Retail Categories Report Gives Advertisers Consumer Behavior Trend Data
By Melissa Reilly | May 15, 2020

Melissa Reilly discusses Google’s recently released tool Rising Retail Categories. The reports are designed to help advertisers see period-over-period snapshots of consumer behavior searching patterns. While the report is helpful for digital marketers to get a quick snapshot of what new topics are top-of-mind for consumers relative to past periods, she stresses that it’s important to consider context before taking action. Within categories, you should look into specific queries to determine purchase intent and then compare category and query trends to your own search campaigns to identify opportunities.
Your Marketing Know-How, Augmented: Introducing Conversion Intelligence
By Garrett Hughes | May 15, 2020

“The highest conversion rates aren’t an accident—they’re the result of fine-tuning each element of your campaign on a continuous basis.
And yet optimization remains inaccessible, especially for small teams. Too expensive. Too time-consuming. Too complex,” writes Garrett Hughes. He contends that as a marketing community, we’ve not yet evolved to a place where we spend the majority of our time improving our campaigns. To maximize your marketing knowledge and intelligence, he recommends augmenting your strategies with conversion intelligence – the pairing of your marketing expertise with AI insights to create and optimize the highest-converting campaigns possible. He leads an insightful discussion on the benefits of using conversion intelligence.
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.