PPC

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

PPC

What is Facebook Exchange anyway? The Facebook Ads service got a lot more advanced these last few months with the introduction of a fancy new feature, Facebook Exchange (FBx), that expands the reach and custom targeting of their ads. FBx allows you to run real-time bidding and remarketing Facebook ads through one of their partner… Read More

PPC

With all the talk about enhanced campaigns results in the last week—on PPC Hero, most notably—we were curious to see how they would fly with a well-known brand, both from a smartphone and tablet perspective. A quick enhanced campaigns case study The methodology: Chose 1 brand campaign, 1 non-brand campaign Established baseline of performance for… Read More

PPC

Portent PPC Google+ Hangouts This will serve as the pilot for Portent’s ongoing hangout series where we talk about paid search current events and give you our analysis and commentary. Today’s hangout topic: AdWords Enhanced Campaigns A new feature announced just recently by Google. It’s caused quite a hullabaloo in the industry, to say the… Read More

PPC

Here at Portent, we’re always looking for new advertising platforms to test out. We’ve had our eye on AdMedia’s Bid4Keywords paid search advertising for a while. AdMedia has been offering Bid4Keywords service since 2007, but we had never given it a try, until now. We set up a test to get to know the service… Read More

PPC

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

PPC

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

PPC

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

PPC

If you’ve followed my blog musings in the last year or so at Portent, you’ll know that I’m a bit of a dashboard nut. My Perfect Google Analytics Dashboard post took off in ways I never imagined. (Thanks guys!) But here’s the thing: I was lying to you all – or misleading you, anyway. There… Read More

PPC

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

PPC

IT’S FREE MONEY! Now that we have your attention, Portent is proud to announce a newly created referral program for our PPC Essentials management package. What does this mean? It means that if you refer Portent’s PPC Essentials package to a small business owner or marketing manager and they sign up for our monthly management… Read More

Sean Bean dies in just about every movie and television show he’s in, but that doesn’t mean he’s dumb. And when it comes to paid search, Bean’s Boromir is absolutely right: becoming an expert at PPC takes time, experience, and some good intuition. But before one can master PPC, one must learn the basics. This… Read More

PPC

Rick is the CEO and Co-Founder of CPC Strategy, a comparison shopping engine management company started in 2007. They take client feeds across multiple platforms (Amazon, Nextag, PriceGrabber, etc;) and optimize them for ROI through strategy, attention to detail and expertise in CSEs (comparison shopping engines.) Rick was kind enough to let me ask a… Read More

Google AdWords (AW) Remarketing has been a brilliant tool from the outset, but let’s not kid ourselves – it’s a bit of a chore to set up. You have to generate yet another tracking code, tag various pages on your site with it and wait for those pixels to gather precious user cookies. Google –… Read More

Small business owners on a tight budget need to stretch their PPC advertising dollars to get the most bang for their buck. However, there are countless money-sucking traps along the way that can derail your online advertising goals. Here are five critical tips for PPC success for small businesses on a budget. 1. Separate Networks.… Read More