Tag Archives: pay per click
PPC Chad Kearns // 9 Oct, 2014
Six Ways to Win on your Competitor’s Branded Keywords
Occupying your competitor’s SERP space with a pay-per-click ad provides the ability to capture traffic and convert visitors into customers who may have had previous intentions of spending their money elsewhere. While bidding on the branded terms of your competitors is not an innovative practice, poor execution is something we see over and over again.… Read More
PPC Chad Kearns // 3 Oct, 2013
Proof Even Small Businesses Should Be Utilizing Product Listing Ads
After switching from free listings to commercial in October 2012, a lot has been made of Google’s transformation around Google Shopping. Almost a year later, while maybe no concrete winners (besides Google’s bottom line) can be drawn in the sand, we have seen significant opportunities for small businesses within Google’s increasing focus in its shopping… Read More
PPC Timothy Johnson // 31 May, 2013
Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Crafting Engaging Ads
In charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. We’re in week four of our six-part blog series in which Portent PPC Strategists Chad Kearns and Tim Johnson lay down the knowledge on best practices for achieving PPC success. Follow along… Read More
PPC Timothy Johnson // 24 May, 2013
Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Keywords
In charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. We’re in week three of our six-part blog series in which Portent PPC Strategists Chad Kearns and Tim Johnson lay down the knowledge on best practices for achieving PPC success. Follow… Read More
Ryan Moothart // 23 May, 2013
Meet the PPC Team (Star Trek: TNG Style)
Here at Portent, we have many Internet marketing teams: SEO, content, and design, just to name a few. But the best team, objectively speaking*, is the PPC team. *This is completely subjective as I am a member of the PPC team. That does not mean what I say is not the truth. We are a… Read More
PPC Chad Kearns // 10 May, 2013
Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Account Structure
In charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. Over the course of the next six weeks, Portent PPC Strategists Chad Kearns and Tim Johnson will be laying down the knowledge in a six-part blog series detailing… Read More
Kiko Correa // 11 Mar, 2013
An Easy Way to Automate Your Facebook Reporting Using Pivot Tables
I hate doing things twice. I also hate doing things by hand. When it comes to PPC reporting, there is nothing quite as cumbersome as recreating reports from scratch month after month. Thankfully we have the tools available to us to make easy and effective automated reports a cinch. Assuming you have Excel, you’re pretty… Read More
PPC 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
PPC Timothy Johnson // 28 Feb, 2013
How Facebook Exchange Worked for Us and Why It Could Work for You
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 Michael Wiegand // 22 Feb, 2013
Testing AdWords Enhanced Campaigns: Tablet CPCs Suffering Thus Far
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 Michael Wiegand // 20 Feb, 2013
AdWords Enhanced Campaigns – PPC Hangout
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 Timothy Johnson // 7 Feb, 2013
AdMedia’s Bid4Keywords: Quality Traffic or Scam?
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 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
Blog 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
Blog 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