Elizabeth Marsten

Articles by Elizabeth Marsten

Elizabeth Marsten // 5 Mar, 2015

PPC at mozCon – Challenge Yourself to Cross Geek Out

Last year I received an invitation to speak at one of the biggest search conferences of the year, MozCon. MozCon is put on by Moz (formerly known as SEOmoz) an SEO software/tool company in Seattle and MozCon, in the past, has been more commonly known as an SEO conference. As such, I’ve noticed that those… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 6 Nov, 2014

A Big Idea: The International Geek Exchange

As a part of our Big Idea series, I wanted to share more detail to a special pilot program that I took part in recently and will be presenting on in Dallas at State of Search later this month. It’s the International Geek Exchange that Toni Voutilainen, a senior PPC specialist of the Tulos Agency… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 17 Aug, 2014

Unexpected Loss of Control: Google AdWords Exact Match Controversy

Google AdWords’ recent announcement on the retirement of exact match in favor of the “close variant” default setting not only came as a bit of surprise to me, but definitely garnered the expected outrage from the PPC community, including petitions, Tweets and blog posts like this one. (Strangely enough, we seem to have avoided the… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 31 Jul, 2014

Creating Personas for PPC

“Persona” is not a PPC word, but it’s certainly been seeing a lot more attention as we shift more and more away from keywords to audiences, intent, behaviors and (not provided). Some marketers keep their personas in their heads, some write them on Post-Its and some have fully written profiles with pictures and graphs. I… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 4 Dec, 2013

Heads Up, Internet Marketers: How to Use PPC to Bolster Your SEO [Inspired by My Mozinar!]

Elizabeth initially presented the information below during her Mozinar on Sept. 10. But for those of you who aren’t interested in an hour-long audio presentation but want more info than a Slideshare, this is the post for you. Consider this the “Tall,” not Venti version… Give us a break, it’s Seattle. Once upon a time I started… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 9 Oct, 2013

Waste-Per-Click: 10 Ways You’re Losing Money in PPC [VIDEO WEBINAR]

This webinar was given June 27, 2013. Transcript: Ariana: Hello, and welcome, everyone, to the next installment of the Portent Webinar Series. My name is Ariana and I will be your moderator for today’s webinar, which is Waste-Per-Click – 10 Ways You’re Losing Money on PPC, with our very own Elizabeth Marsten, Senior Director… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 20 Sep, 2013

The Amazing Pets of Portent

While we do love SEO, PPC, social, content, and Internet marketing in general, we’re more than that – we’re also people, people who love our pets. (I mean, we love them so much we built an entire Facebook app called the Kitten Moodinator.) So for this fun, furry, Friday post I present The Pets of… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 24 Jul, 2013

So You Want to Do PPC When You Grow Up

When I was 8 years old I wanted to be a paleontologist. So…very…badly. I even had a jean jacket with dinosaurs painted on it with jewels and sequins. (Hey, it was the ’80s.) Then I discovered the amount of biology and sciences (mostly the dissecting and looking at the insides of living animals) that turned… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 15 Apr, 2013

So You Think You’re Buying from Sears

You might not be. I was poking around in Google Shopping results the other day and found that there are some merchants who have partnered with major brands that are essentially “piggy backing” off their name through the Google Shopping Feed. At first, I thought NewEgg was being just really clever/sneaky by changing their store… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 14 Mar, 2013

eBay Proves They Can Live Without AdWords

Duh. eBay commissioned a 26 page study through their research lab with one of their researchers and some reputable sources (a Univ. of Chicago Assistant Professor & UC Berkeley Associate Professor), citing some reputable resources (like Google Chief Economist Hal Varian), doing some pretty in depth research and even formulating their own algebraic equation to… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 8 Mar, 2013

Confessions of a PPC Control Freak on Enhanced Campaigns

We’ve discussed it, talked about it, webinar-ed, convened around the water cooler, blogged and tweeted. Opinions are hot, high, frequent and mixed. One thing is for sure, it’s not going away. Each time it seems as if the proverbial dust has settled, more about EC is announced. Each week a Google webinar reveals a few… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 10 Jan, 2013

Dynamic Search Ads: A Slow and Painful Journey

Armed once again with intern Tim and a few dollars from Portent’s pocketbook, I decided to take Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) for a spin using our small business PPC Essentials management package as a test case. I made up my mind pretty quickly and an informal poll of my massive follower list (massive being a… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 18 Dec, 2012

PPC Predictions for 2013: Why Not?

I’ve never done a prediction piece for the Portent blog before but based on the number of times a year I get asked “how much will I make from PPC?” I must have a crystal ball somewhere. (Particularly since when this question is usually asked, it’s been 5 minutes, I haven’t seen the cart funnel,… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 28 Nov, 2012

Twitter Ads: Terrible or Terrific?

In our endless quest to find the “next big thing” in PPC, we tried a small test at Portent on Portent products and services with Twitter ads. I noticed there were many “how to get started” posts but few data-supported case studies with results. Armed with PPC intern Tim, a $100 head start from a… Read More

Elizabeth Marsten // 26 Sep, 2012

Google Shopping: How We’re All Totally & Utterly Screwed

Well OK, I’m being a tiny bit dramatic. But Google Shopping could totally and utterly screw you over if: You’re not a major brand with an AdWords rep to spoon feed you You’re not familiar with how shopping feeds, shopping engines & AdWords works You haven’t started thinking about this and you’re an ecommerce retailer… Read More

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