Tag Archives: ppc
Elizabeth Marsten // 10 Dec, 2008
Paying your Yahoo Search Marketing bill with Pay Pal
Back in September of 2007, Yahoo announced the ability to choose Pay Pal as a payment method for adding funds to your search marketing account. Up until now, I hadn’t had a use for the option and continued doing manual refills, automatic deposits or invoicing for clients. But then a client came along (me) that… Read More
Michael Wiegand // 18 Nov, 2008
3 New Google Analytics Custom Reports a PPC Marketer Should Be Using
If there’s one amazing thing about Google Analytics, it’s that Google’s ability to improve it is never dormant. At their Mountain View compound, they’re always looking for a way to constantly better their products. Here at Portent, we have a similar resolve – except that ours is to exploit Google’s tools to achieve our internet… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten // 27 Oct, 2008
Winning In the Wedding Industry with PPC
We’re all familiar with the wedding industry’s spending power, no matter what the economic climate, the lavish wedding will always prevail. The industry is highly competitive with high barriers to entry, so how do you generate a positive ROI in a sector that can bleed your budget dry within an hour? Build Up & Be… Read More
Michael Wiegand // 16 Oct, 2008
The AdWords Quality Score Hammer Has Fallen, Now What?
Google AdWords is a mystical beast sometimes, capable of dumbfounding and goring the best of us. My cost-per-click cohort, Elizabeth, kindly tipped us off to Google’s most recent Quality Score update – and it appears the latest changes are starting to affect the paid search landscape in a big way. For some, scores have dropped… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten // 13 Oct, 2008
More Revenue for Google with First Page Bids
Since the latest Quality Score update, one of the new features was doing away with the “inactive” classification for keywords whose maximum cpc was below that of Google’s set minimum bid. Instead we have the “first page bid” qualifier which will label keywords with a maximum cpc too low to appear on the first page… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten // 30 Sep, 2008
ABC Search | A Positive ROI
Continuing our coverage on 2nd and 3rd tier PPC engines, we’ve come to ABC Search. A little platform that could out of Encino, CA. ABC Search is a search engine themselves, but also rather a mediator and distributor of ads to partner sites from advertisers through their “Adentify” content network. They claim 1billion searches a… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 8 Sep, 2008
PPC Hero Guest Post – PPC Quality & Relevancy
Editors Note: Today Portent Interactive welcomes guest blogger Joseph Kerschbaum, Senior Search Marketing Consultant with Hanapin Marketing and one of the funtastic writers of the PPC Hero blog. For Portent Interactive, sharing effective methods and best practices is a passion. Joe shares that passion, so we are thrilled to have him share a little of… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten // 13 Aug, 2008
Top 11 Tips for Picking a 2nd or 3rd Tier PPC Engine
Most optimization tips and instructional guides cover the big 3 of PPC search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN. But what about all those little guys out there? Have you tried any of those yet? I’ll review some 2nd and 3rd tier interfaces in the coming weeks, how the traffic was, how much it was, the… Read More
PPC Elizabeth Marsten // 1 Aug, 2008
No Deep Secrets In PPC Marketing
If you’re like me, you have your Google Reader set up to feed you all the latest, greatest and newest news, tips and tricks in the world of pay-per-click marketing. At the very least you’re set up to receive recaps or topical news items. I noticed that when I receive recaps from Search Engine Land,… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten // 28 Jul, 2008
Yahoo Outsources Your PPC Ads to India
Not everyone has the ability to work with Yahoo and receive the occasional free optimization help from their “experts.” If you do, carefully review the ads that come back. Several times, I sent in existing ad groups for help with ad optimization (who knows what will get a better quality index score than the search… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten // 15 Jul, 2008
Do Not Waste PPC Display URLs
The display URL in any PPC ad is a great place to stuff additional keywords, attract attention to your ad and/or increase branding. So it is definitely not a space to be wasted or ignored. Next time instead of simply putting “www.yoursite.com” as the display URL, try some of these simple tests and see if… Read More
Tom Schmitz // 14 Jul, 2008
Paid Search & Organic Search Require Different Content Strategies
When you read that paid search and organic search require separate content strategies you might think, “Duh! That’s obvious.” Except that something happened to me last week, and this was not the first time. A Portent’s client earned a top ten ranking for an important keyword, one right near the top of the keyword chart.… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten // 1 Jul, 2008
Get Started with the Google Content Network
When I first started in pay per click marketing the content network was considered a dark, black hole where clicks went to die and impressions soared. Nowadays there is a lot more success, a lot more transparency and a lot more of control that an advertisers can exert over their campaigns. So, when starting a… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten // 24 Jun, 2008
PPC FAQ – Bidding on Trademarked Terms
I answered some questions about PPC keywords last week then realized that you might find these useful. Ask your own question in the comments. Depending on how many questions I receive I’ll answer either all or the best ones in future blog posts. What about PPC bidding on branded, trademarked or copyrighted keywords? The fact… Read More
Elizabeth Marsten // 19 Jun, 2008
PPC FAQ – When to Stop Using PPC Keywords
I answered some questions about PPC keywords last week then realized that you might find these useful. Ask your own question in the comments. Depending on how many questions I receive I’ll answer either all or the best ones in future blog posts. How do you know which PPC keywords to stop using? Rolling right… Read More