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This day in search marketing history: February 25

Friday, February 24th, 2023

SEOs upset over Google dropping attribution in featured snippets

In 2019, SEOs were not happy about a Google featured snippet format that didn’t immediately show the source of the content.

For the Found on the web card, searchers had to click to expand the featured snippet and then scroll through various sources to see the publisher.

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison said Google’s support of the overall ecosystem (searchers, advertisers and publishers) is important. “We don’t thrive & users don’t thrive unless the ecosystem thrives.”

This is an incredible search result from Google:

• Answers a fairly complex question
• Takes the copy of many 3rd party publisher to create its own independent web page
• Zero visible on-page links to the publishers who provided the data

This is the future of Google Search pic.twitter.com/txNU2Z7HB5

— Cyrus (@CyrusShepard) February 23, 2019

The future of Google search, indeed! Amazingly, you could write a very similar tweet in 2023.

Google’s recent preview of its generative AI search results featured answers to complex questions that were made possible after being trained on content created by third-party publishers, with a grand total of zero links to publishers. Déjà vu!

Read all about it in Controversy over Google Featured Snippets stealing publisher traffic reignites.


Also on this day


IndexNow integrations grow as Bing says ‘millions’ of sites are using it

2022: Duda, All in One WordPress SEO plugin and Rank Math SEO plugin gained IndexNow support.


LinkedIn launches podcast network aimed at professional audiences

2022: The pilot program included shows about topics such as technology, recruiting and mental health, from external experts as well as its own in-house news team.


Google Images to replace dimensions overlay on image thumbnails

2020: Google would instead show product, recipe, video, and soon, licensable labels in place of that dimensions information.


How to use the AMP status report to identify page errors, validate fixes

2020: Google posted an explainer for its AMP (accelerated mobile pages) status report.


‘Made in USA’ ad extensions spotted on Bing

2020: A “Made in USA” label accompanied by a flag icon appeared to be the latest automated ad extension test by Microsoft Advertising.


Google revamps Test My Site mobile site speed tool

2019: Test My Site (which launched in 2016) was rebuilt with more features details on a site’s mobile site speed.


Nearly half of users have a bad reaction to ‘not secure’ browser warning, survey finds

2019: Survey found the flag affected user behavior and brand perceptions.


Google Assistant everywhere: more dedicated buttons, expansion on lower-end phones

2019: The company also was adding local search suggestions in Messages.


Google Explains How Search Console Reports Work

2016: Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller explained how the Search Console reporting works and why it may seem delayed for some of the reports.


Google Testing A Red “Slow” Label In The Search Results For Slower Sites

2015: The slow label would indicate if a particular webpage was slow and warn the user before clicking over to the site that it may load slowly.


Yes, Google Is Testing Green Star Reviews In The Search Results

2015: Google said expect more experiments with the colors of the stars in the search results over the next few months.


Study: Google Now Displays Rich Answers For 19.45% Of Queries

2015: 19.45% of the 850,000 search queries looked at in the study triggered rich answers.


Yahoo Gains Share And Query Volume In Latest comScore Search Report

2015: Firefox deal powered the second straight month of growth for Yahoo search.


Ray Kurzweil’s Job At Google: Beat IBM’s Watson At Natural Language Search

2014: His sole job at Google was to make the company’s computers as smart as humans – smarter, actually – when it came to natural language understanding.


The Marquee HTML Google Easter Egg

2014: When you searched for [marquee html], the results count would scroll from right to left on the page.


Bing Improves Tax Related Search Results Before April 15th

2014: Bing showed smarter results when you searched for [tax forms], [IRS forms], or even specific forms like [irs form 1040].


Quixey Offering Deeper Search Results Inside Mobile Apps

2014: Quixey, which described itself as a search engine for apps rather than an alternative app store, announced deeper “functional search” within apps.


Google Panda Two Years Later: The Real Impact Beyond Rankings & SEO Visibility

2013: A look at what happened to some Panda’s losers.


Google: PageRank Dilution Through A 301 Redirect Is A Myth

2013: There was no more dilution of PageRank with a 301 redirect when compared to using a normal link.


Europeans Taking Sweet Time In Resolving Antitrust Case With Google

2013: Any possibility of swift action in Europe appeared to be fading.


YP: Our Mobile Ad Network Second Only To Google

2013: YP said it had “over $350 million in advertising revenue [in 2012] attributable to mobile, making it the number two company in the US mobile advertising industry.” 


WSJ Pulls Back On What Google Searchers Can Read For Free

2012: The Wall Street Journal has been keeping some stories out of First Click Free for over half-a-year.


Demand: Google Changes Have Produced “No Material Impact” Yet

2011: Demand Media said its properties were not negatively impacted by the newest Google algorithm change (which would eventually become known as the Panda Update).


Google’s Mobile Search Adds “Open Now” Filter

2011: After doing a Google search, the “Show only businesses open now” filter appeared above the search results.


Report: Google Negotiating With DOJ To Prevent Suit To Block ITA Deal

2011: Negotiations intensified in the waning days of the Justice Department’s investigation into the antitrust implications of Google’s potential acquisition of travel software company ITA.


OneRiot Brings Social Targeting to Mobile Devices

2011: Social ad network OneRiot introded the ability to target mobile audiences by interests, demographics and influence on its ad network of Twitter clients.


Google Caffeine May Be Months Away & You Can’t See It

2010: Google said Caffeine wasn’t live on Google.com, was only at one data center and you couldn’t easily see it for yourself. 


Google Advertises Chrome … On Bing!

2010: Google confirmed that they placed these ads and that they were always looking for ways to promote their products. 


Companies Ask Courts, Regulators To Restrain Google To Compensate For Own Competitive Failures

2010: A Foundem complaint/brief with the FCC argued that Google favored its own products and thus “search neutrality” was required to prevent Google from harming competitors.


Losing Google? Chinese Scientists Say It’s Like Going Blind, Life Without Electricity

2010: 84% of Chinese scientists surveyed said that losing Google would “somewhat or significantly” hamper their research; 78% said that international collaborations would be impacted in the same way.


Opera Says Google Dominating Search On Mobile Web

2010: Google had a lead comparable, almost exactly, to its market share on the PC in the U.S.


Yahoo Answers Gets A New Look

2010: Yahoo announced a fairly substantial overhaul of how Yahoo Answers looked and worked.


Google Toolbar 6 For IE Adds Search To Windows Task Bar

2009: This toolbar, when installed, added the Google Quick Search Box to the task bar of Windows computers.


Google Joins EU Anti-Trust Case Against Microsoft Browser

2009: Google’s move to some degree reflected how important it considered Chrome and its adoption to be in the long term for the company.


Microsoft’s TechFest 2009 Is A Search Playground

2009: Hundreds of Microsoft researchers from around the world gathered at company headquarters to share ideas and show off their latest creations.


Yahoo Mobile Head Boerries To Leave, How Will It Affect Yahoo Mobile?

2009: Yahoo had seen the mobile space as strategic and made a massive global business development effort with carriers and device makers to embed Yahoo services and search on millions of handsets.


Penn State Study: Paid + Organic Listing = 15% Clickthrough Rate

2009: Study also found that 35% of queries did not result in any ad clicks ad all.


SEOs Want The NOINDEX Tag To Not Show A Page In The Index

2008: When asked “How should Google treat the NOINDEX meta tag?” 240 chose “Don’t show a page at all.”


Survey Says: Google Top Brand In UK

2008: Microsoft was second in this survey.


Hackers Launch Goolag: A Google Vulnerability Scanner

2008: A group of hackers launched a search tool powered by Google to help see if your sites were vulnerable to a hacking attempt.


Pakistan YouTube Ban Propagates Worldwide, Causing Major YouTube Outage

2008: The Pakistan ban of YouTube not only caused Pakistan ISPs to block YouTube, but also spread worldwide and stopped users even in the U.S. from accessing YouTube.


Yahoo, You’re Not Off The Hook Over The Chinese Dissidents Case Says New Lawsuit

2008: Yahoo was being sued again for allegedly leaking personal information and aiding the Chinese Communist Party in Internet censorship and the persecution of dissidents.


Ask.com Adds More Sponsored Ads, Pushing Organic Results Below Fold

2008: Ask.com was displaying five sponsored results for many keyword searches.


Andy Beal Launches Trackur For Monitoring Online Reputation

2008: You coud set up monitoring across a variety of sites on a set of keywords at a much lower price than reputation management firms generally charged.


From Search Marketing Expo (SMX)


Past contributions from Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

These columns are a snapshot in time and have not been updated since publishing, unless noted. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.


< February 24 | Search Marketing History | February 26 >

The post This day in search marketing history: February 25 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




Google Search remains the go-to news discovery platform

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

Google Search remains the top platforms for U.S. adults to research major news events but Gen Z seems to be more inclined to head to TikTok than other generations, according to a new survey.

Why we care. For publishers, TikTok is the new Facebook. As happened with Facebook years ago, publishers flocked to Facebook, only to slowly watch Facebook squeeze the life out of referral traffic and engagement.

Regardless, TikTok right now may be a legitimate path for publishers to reach the so-called Generation Z (or those born 1997 or later). We’ll see if TikTok follows a similar path as Facebook did with publishers, and whether users end up flocking to the “next TikTok,” assuming one emerges.

Google Search and news, by the numbers. Broken down by generation, here’s how many respondents said they start researching a major news event on Google:

Gen Z and TikTok. 14% of respondents said they start researching a major news event on TikTok. This was was significantly higher than all other generations – only 1%.

Does this truly mean it’s past the “wait-and-see phase” for publishers, as the survey indicates? Many large publishers (e.g., the New York Times, Wall Street Journal) have accounts but aren’t super active, while many other publishers (eg., Financial Times, Axios) simply don’t have a presence on TikTok.

Could AI chat in Google/Bing search drive more publishers to TikTok? Anything is possible. We know very little about what Google’s AI chat in search will ultimately look like (perhaps Google is intentionally sitting back a bit to let Bing be the first one through the AI wall and avoid some of the early mistakes?) and whether it will alter the way people search or impact organic traffic.

But as the survey notes:

“As search engine referrals may eventually become scarcer, publishers can’t be too conservative in restricting their most compelling coverage to their websites. This means investing more resources into repurposing portions of paywalled content into posts for social platforms, whether that be vertical videos on TikTok or even video podcasts on YouTube.”

– Kevin Tran, TikTok Really Is Becoming Gen Z’s Google, and More on How Gen Z Gets Its News

About the survey. Morning Consult conducted the survey Feb. 3-5. Results were based on responses of 2,199 U.S. adults, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-2 percentage points. You can read it in full here.

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Leveraging TikTok’s ad content to get valuable insights on top-performing products

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

TikTok has just released a “Top Products” element to its Creative Center.

This data provides insights into the popularity of particular products on the app, as indicated by the frequency of ads featuring the item, as well as metrics such as impressions, view-through rate, comments, and likes. Essentially, all the relevant data points are available to analyze the performance of each product.

???? TikTok releases "Top Product" in the Creative Center! A Game changer?

➡What the CPA is
➡Top ranking videos
➡Which Niche / Product performing the best
➡What the product is and how much they're spending
➡Literally everything

Do TikTok Ads / UGC? Check this out ASAP!! pic.twitter.com/mllxeIHxjK

— Michael Sanchez ???? TikTok (@michaelgrowth) February 20, 2023

How it works. Utilizing the filtering options provided allows narrowing down the Top Products listing according to specific regions and product categories. You can also view the data for the last day, 7 days, or 30 days.

To gain a deeper understanding of a particular product, click on the ‘Details’ element on the far right of the listing. This will provide you with a comprehensive product overview, including data such as CTR, CPA, impressions chart, and more.

The ‘Audience insights’ element allows you to see an age bracket breakdown of who’s engaging with these ads, along with related interests, providing key data for analysis and planning efforts.

Dig deeper. You can check out the Creative Center here.

Why we care. This could allow advertisers to make informed decisions about new strategies. By analyzing the performance of specific products based on metrics such as impressions, CTR, CPA, and more, advertisers can determine which products are popular and which are not, and adjust their advertising efforts accordingly.

This data can also help advertisers identify trends in consumer behavior, which can inform their future product development and marketing campaigns. Ultimately, the insights gained from analyzing this data can lead to more effective and efficient advertising strategies, resulting in increased sales and revenue for the advertiser.

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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




3 ways to strengthen customer relationships and drive revenue by Cynthia Ramsaran

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

Research has shown time and time again that existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products of yours and spend 31% more with you when compared to new customers. So how are you fostering these relationships and delivering repeatable and measurable revenue?

In this session, marketing experts will share how you can build customer relationships that not only scale but drive revenue for 2023 and beyond.

Register today for “3 Ways to Strengthen Customer Relationships and Drive Revenue,” presented by Sendoso.


Click here to view more Search Engine Land webinars.

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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




New LinkedIn feature to boost your content visibility

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

You will soon be able to highlight what type of content appears in the Activity section of your LinkedIn profile.

Why we care. LinkedIn continues to add helpful tools and features for marketers and content creators. This change, while minor, is another small way to help increase the visibility of your content, which hopefully can help increase your presence on LinkedIn, expand your professional network (connections/followers) and ultimately help grow business or advance your career.

What is changing. You will get to choose which content type your Activity section shows first:

What it looks like. Here’s a GIF of what this will look like:

The green, highlighted tab is what will show first for people who view your profile.

When the change will roll out. LinkedIn said this will be available to all members in the “next few weeks.”

LinkedIn’s announcement. You can read it here. It recaps several other recent updates, including the LinkedIn SEO change we reported earlier this month in LinkedIn now lets you add an SEO title and description.

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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




Musk gave engineers one week to make Twitter’s ad targeting work like Google

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023

Despite announcing an end to layoffs at a meeting held on November 21st, Elon Musk has continued to terminate Twitter employees, even after already forcing out approximately two-thirds of the workforce in just a few weeks.

What’s happening. Musk intends to revamp Twitter’s ad targeting system to resemble that of Google’s search ads, which primarily focus on keywords searched for rather than a user’s activity or profile data. Although this approach has proven successful for search engines, where users seek out specific information, it has yet to prove effective for social media businesses.

Sorry for showing you so many irrelevant & annoying ads on Twitter!

We’re taking the (obvious) corrective action of tying ads to keywords & topics in tweets, like Google does with search.

This will improve contextual relevance dramatically.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023

Set up for failure. Following his recent termination from his position as engineering manager for monetization at Twitter, Marcin Kadluczka suggested in a tweet on Saturday that the one-week deadline imposed by Elon Musk was impractical, stating that he believed it would take 2-3 months for Twitter to genuinely enhance its advertising capabilities. My sources have confirmed that Musk set this demanding timeline just before dismissing Kadluczka, as well as other employees in the ads, consumer, and sales departments last Friday.

Musk has been trying to improve Twitter ads since he acquired the company. While it’s uncertain whether altering Twitter’s ad targeting system to prioritize keywords, similar to Google ads, will result in better quality advertising, experts in the field have raised questions and identified potential drawbacks

As the former lead for Ads at Twitter, I can confidently say this man has no idea wtf he's talking about https://t.co/Hw4TfkFNJH

— bruce.falck() ???? (@boo) February 17, 2023

Good luck with that. This is the essential difference between search and social networking. You search for things you're looking for, which makes keywords so effective for Google. You post about things you're interested in. Thoughts and prayers to advertisers buying keywords… https://t.co/2eGCr3xgKH

— Tom Morton ???????? (@tommorton) February 19, 2023

Why we care. If the new targeting strategy fails to produce satisfactory results (which is the most likely scenario), advertisers could be wasting their advertising budgets on ineffective campaigns.

Additionally, any changes to Twitter’s advertising platform could have broader implications for the social media advertising industry as a whole, potentially leading to changes in advertising best practices across multiple platforms. The uncertainty and changes could cause the few advertisers still on Twitter could leave the platform.

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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing




Social media engagement hits a new low, except for TikTok

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023

Social media as we’ve known it seems to be in its dying days – with one notable exception, Tiktok. That’s according to a new social media engagement rate benchmark report.

TLDR. There are five important takeaways for brands from the 2023 Social Media Benchmark Report, which was released today by Rival IQ:

  1. Organic engagement: falling or flatlining. Engagement rates declined on Instagram for the third straight year but have held pretty steady for Facebook and Twitter.
  2. Posting frequency declining. Post frequency was flat on Instagram but took a ~20% dive on Facebook and Twitter.
  3. Hot holiday hashtags. Almost every industry earned top engagement rates from holiday-hashtagged posts, while contests and giveaways were less popular than in other years.
  4. Reels rule on Instagram. Reels dethroned carousels in multiple industries to become the most engaging post type.
  5. TikTok tops the charts. With a median engagement rate of 5.69%, TikTok was every industry’s best friend this year.

Why we care. The report provides valuable information that can help advertisers gauge the effectiveness of their social media strategies and identify areas for improvement. By comparing their own brand’s engagement rates to the industry averages, you can determine whether your social media performance is above or below par and make necessary adjustments to optimize their campaigns for better engagement and conversion rates.

About the report. It examined the mean engagement rates for different brand verticals across major social media networks.

It’s important to note that Rival IQ chose 150 companies, at random, from each of the 14 industries they studied, including:

The companies they analyzed had active presences on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter as of January 2022, and had Facebook fan counts between 25,000 and 1,000,000 and minimum Instagram, TikTok, Twitter followers of 5,000 as of the same date.

Interesting statistic. Among all industries, the average engagement rate for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter never goes higher than 0.47% (Instagram). Even still, Instagram took a 30% dip in 2022 compared to 2021, while Facebook and Twitter remained flat.

The rate of weekly posts on Instagram remained steady in 2022, while it decreased on Twitter and Facebook, likely due to reduced investment by brands.

TikTok’s engagement rate, on the other hand, comes in at a whopping 5.69%. But brands are posting less frequently on TikTok than any other channel.

Higher Ed, for example, posts the least, but sees the highest engagement, whereas retail, influencers, and beauty post more frequently, but

“Higher Ed sees epic engagement rates on TikTok but is one of the least frequent posters, while Media brands’ lagging engagement rates prove once again that more posting isn’t necessarily better.”

Rival IQ

The bigger picture. Organic social, in general, has been trending downward in terms of traffic and engagement for years. Which is why brands have been flocking to TikTok (which arguably isn’t even a “social network” as it’s more about content discovery).

Enter AI. In addition to playing a key role in ChatGPT, AI and machine learning created some new possibilities for social networks.

“At first, social networks showed you stuff your friends thought was interesting — the Facebook model. Then they started showing you stuff based on the people that you chose to follow, whether you were friends or not — the Twitter model.

TikTok’s innovation was to show you stuff using only algorithmic predictions, regardless of who your friends are or who you followed. It soon became the most downloaded app in the world.

TikTok’s innovation was to show you stuff using only algorithmic predictions, regardless of who your friends are or who you follow. It soon became the most downloaded app in the world.”

Casey Newton, Platformer

Which gets us back to where we started. Facebook, Twitter and other social networks are trying to catch up (read: emulate) TikTok. Meanwhile, advertiser budgets have also followed. And TikTok continues to find new ways to improve reach for brands.

Dig deeper. You can download the report from Rival IQ here.

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[Next week] All-new training on ChatGPT, GA4, and more

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023

Don’t miss your chance to participate in tactic-rich, expert-led training on your search marketing specialty: Register now for your choice of live, two-day SMX Master Class for just $299 each – happening online next Wednesday and Thursday, March 1-2!

(Need to convince your boss to let you attend? These handy talking points and templated letter can help!)

Breaking news! Many of our instructors are making last-minute additions to their curriculum that tackle ChatGPT and the expanding role of AI in marketing! Here’s a sneak peek:

Bruce Clay’s Advanced SEO class will now examine how ChatGPT can speed up your content writing process – provided you leverage it appropriately (hint: human fact-checking, wordsmithing, and so on).

Eric Enge’s Technical SEO class will now also explore the impact of conversational chat systems like ChatGPT:

Brad Geddes’ Advanced Google Ads class will include examples and assistance for using OpenAI (and ChatGPT specifically) to:

Michael Brenner’s SEO-friendly content marketing class will now examine how you can (and when you shouldn’t) leverage AI in your creative endeavors:

And there’s more to come! Don’t be left behind. Explore the hottest topics in search alongside industry legends who are ready to answer your burning questions – all from the comfort of your own computer. Secure your spot at one of these exclusive SMX Master Classes for just $299 and join us online next week!

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Google Search Console users and permissions management updated

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023

Google has updated the Google Search Console user and permissions management feature to incorporate functionality related to ownership and user management. These features were in the old Google Webmaster Tools and has finally been brought over to the current version of Google Search Console.

What is new. Google added to Google Search Console’s user and permissions management these features:

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot Google shared in its blog post of this updated management interface:

Permission best practices. Google also posted some best practices around permission and user rights, including:

Why we care. With these permission updates, you will have a bit more control on who has access to what areas of your Search Console profiles. Make sure to “review the leftover ownership tokens so that removed owners cannot regain access to the property,” Google said. Also, make sure to review the new help documentation and permission levels to learn what levels give what access.

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PPC management checklist: Daily, weekly and monthly reviews

Tuesday, February 21st, 2023

Despite the hype surrounding automation and machine learning, managing a PPC account requires human hands on the wheel.

If anything, all these capabilities make it more complex. So set and forget, but at your own peril. 

No one truly understands this more than PPC pros who manage a diverse set of accounts – large and small – in B2B, ecommerce and serveral other industries. 

Several of those pros were kind enough to offer their insights to be compiled into the following simplified PPC checklist for daily, weekly and monthly account reviews. 

Let’s dig deeper into each item below.

Daily account review

Progress of new campaign elements, especially:

Why: You’re introducing something new into the wild. Even if you planned and executed it well, you still want to ensure everything’s approved and progressing as desired, without unintended consequences. 

Budget pacing

Why: You’ll also see this one in the weekly section. Depending on the size of the campaign, you may not need to check this every single day, but you want to find the right cadence

If a campaign underspends or overspends at the end of the month, quarter, or custom length, that’s usually a bad thing. It means you missed some potential opportunities or you blew past the budget. 

You may have one campaign where you struggle to spend the budgeted amount but another consistently running up against caps. 

Review any flags, disapprovals, or other notifications to address

Why: These things always happen, even to the best pros. 

The only difference is the best pros stay on top of it and quickly take corrective action or make appeals when needed. 


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Weekly account review

Recommendations

Why: Dismissing anything irrelevant will raise your optimization score and hopefully train the machine learning system algorithm to offer better ones in the future. Also, in the event there is a recommendation that’s actually helpful you want to try it. 

Word of caution: Google makes it very easy to simply “Apply” changes so be crystal clear about what you’re approving.

Recommendations

Budget pacing

Why: See above under daily checks. 

(If you’re checking this daily then by default it would be getting weekly attention. Either way, hopefully you get the message that proper budget pacing is critical, especially on enterprise-level accounts where a hard budget cap is spread out across multiple ad groups, campaigns, etc.)

Conversions

Why: When necessary, pivot spend to campaigns with higher conversion rates or lower cost per conversion and you’ll be the hero.

Conversions

Search terms report 

Why: The last thing you want to do is waste money on keywords irrelevant to your business. The second to last thing you want to do is miss out on keywords you should be bidding on. 

Abnormal performance spikes (up or down)

Why: It’s always better you be the one to catch and analyze an abnormal spike in performance rather than be caught by surprise. Plus, you need to see if any recent optimizations are making the desired impact. 

On the flip side, if you’re regularly monitoring performance spikes you can catch red flags and resolve any issues sooner.

Display placements

Why: If not checked regularly, display can be quickly taken over by low quality or irrelevant placements. 

Every week you should look to verify where display dollars are being spent and don’t be shy about making exclusions when you think you’re wasting budget. 

Keywords / search terms

Why: Check weekly to ensure you’re not wasting budget on irrelevant terms.

This means tracking keyword performance to see if any should be removed. This is also useful for seeing search trends in real-time, which may present you opportunities to capitalize on.

Device performance

Why: Sometimes it matters. If you’re a B2B supplier with a very limited budget, you may find mobile campaigns just don’t convert. Or maybe they convert better. Perhaps they convert fine, but the cost per conversion is far too high and not profitable. Just check it! 

Cost per conversion (CPC) at an ad group level and adjust based on performance trends

Why: Make sure you’re not paying too much. As a general rule, always optimize for success metrics that justify more budget. 

Country performance (traffic spikes or performance variations)

Why: This applies only if you’re running campaigns in more than one country. If you are, don’t assume performance is consistent across borders.

Monthly account review

In-depth performance review and analysis

Why: This is fundamental to managing a PPC campaign. Changes in performance happen. It’s your job to know why and what action to take. 

In addition, you’ll get more buy-in if you can take the complex and present it in an easy to consume report for your clients and stakeholders. 

Client KPI metrics

Why: Make sure the performance of the campaigns you’re managing are serving the needs of the client’s business objectives. This is the time to analyze and make adjustments as needed.

Key trends 

Why: Analyzing YoY trends is more likely to provide an apples-to-apples comparison since you’re looking at a similar time period.

Analyzing MoM data will help you identify key turning points resulting in the YoY number.

Auction insights report

Why: An aggressive competitor with deeper pockets than you can quickly change the dynamics of your PPC campaign. Ignorance is not bliss.

Auction insights report

Keyword research

Why: Look for new keyword ideas relevant to your campaigns. 

It’s best to understand volume, intent, cost, and likelihood of conversion before you allocate budget toward them.

Quality score audit

Why: Low scores generally mean poor performing campaigns. 

Look to improve low scores by analyzing the data to ensure the keywords you’re bidding return ads relevant to the query intent and ultimately lead to a landing page that converts.

Ad copy audit 

Why: Keep improving your ad copy until you can’t improve it anymore and you’ll have well-optimized PPC campaigns. 

Look at the individual ad copy snippets and how they get assembled together. 

Is there anything that needs a pin? Is everything submitted headline and t audience? Create new ads to test based on past performance. 

General deep data analysis

Why: You must understand what’s working and not and use experiments to test new hypotheses.

Regular review is key to successful PPC performance

Even with automation in ad platforms, taking your eyes off your campaigns for too long isn’t advisable. Without proper monitoring, paid search accounts can go sideways.

While not a complete list, following the above checks will keep your PPC campaigns on a much better path. 

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