CPC | The Search Agents

When to Cut the Long Tail

Long tail keyword optimization has long been a cornerstone of search engine marketing strategy, but how well are your long tail keywords really performing? [...more]

What does the success of targeted social mean for paid search?

Mike shares his insights drawn from a recent roundtable on social media and paid search at the Media Post Search Insider Summit in Park City, Utah. [...more]

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Like a Rock: The ‘Bid-CPC’ Relationship

The 'bid-CPC' relationship in pay-per-click advertising is very stable over the period of months, despite holidays and major changes to Google's algorithms and user interface. [...more]

Google AdWords Update: Change to Search Ad Display URL Format

Last week, Google announced another change to the format of its paid advertisement. Read on to learn how the change could affect your paid search campaigns... [...more]

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Analyzing Campaign Traffic by Average Position

Sure, we all know that average position is not always a wholly reliable metric, just as achieving a higher position does not necessarily equate into more traffic. Looking at a small data set from one of our existing campaigns illustrates how decisions change based on the manner in which we group data. [...more]

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Maximize Your CPC

Sometimes I hear pay-per-click advertising account managers say something like "My CPCs keep going up!" as if that's a bad thing. But one sign of the effectiveness of online marketing efforts is the degree to which they increase the observed Cost-per-Click. In this post, Bradd explains why. [...more]

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Escalating Keyword Prices Differentiates the Next Generation of Search Marketer

Keyword prices continue to rise across all the search engines. Effective keyword management and quality score optimization have become even more important as search marketers try to keep their campaigns within budget and profitable. [...more]

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Behind the Scenes of ‘Google AdWords Bidding Tutorial’, Part 2

In part 2 of this post, Bradd provides a simple, visual means for determining your optimal bid from Google’s Bid Simulator. Then, uses some straightforward math to show you how to calculate the optimal bid (and CPA and ROI) for Dr. Varian's example of online retailer selling digital cameras. [...more]

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Optimal Bidding, Part 1: Behind the Scenes of ‘Google AdWords Bidding Tutorial’

Dr. Hal Varian produced a Google AdWords bidding tutorial in which he outlines a 4-step process for determining your optimal bidding strategy. The video includes a number of best practices for any PPC manager to follow, but also leaves out critical information and makes numerous simplifications. Bradd has identified the best practices and limitations from Dr. Varian's tutorial and translates this insight into actionable tactics to improve your campaign performance. [...more]

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Cost per Acquisition (CPA) is a Funny Beast

If you manage bids on search engine ad auctions, you probably spend a lot of time puzzling over spreadsheets looking for opportunities to improve your account's Cost per Acquisition (CPA). But CPA is a funny beast and if you don't know how funny it can act (even in the best of times), you might be wasting some of your effort. [...more]