PPC | Internet Marketing Blog

What are the important trends in bid management technology?

Following the release of our PPC Bid Management Technologies Buyer’s Guide, we’re continuing to share some of the insights that those working in the field provided us with in the run up to the guide.

Last time we shared 18 key tips for companies considering bid management technology from our contributors. For this post we share answers to the question, “What are the most important trends occurring in the bid management technology market?”

by Andrew Warren-Payne 15 August 2012 09:17am 1 comment

What are the biggest opportunities within paid search?

On the research team at Econsultancy, before we put together our guides we often seek the input of professionals working at the sharp end of their field.

This was no different for our Paid Search Agencies Buyer’s Guide, where we asked leading specialists from paid search agencies to contribute some of their thoughts as to what has been happening within the industry.

As is always the case, we received far more input than we could put in our report, so we would like to share some of it here.

by Andrew Warren-Payne 14 August 2012 09:06am 1 comment

18 key tips for companies considering bid management technology

In our recently published PPC Bid Management Technology Buyer’s Guide, we set out some of the issues that companies should consider when investing in bid management technology.

To provide the best advice, we approached people working at the coalface of paid search and bid management and offered them the opportunity to share their wisdom.

As usual, we received far more material than we could fit in the guide. Here are some of the expert tips to consider and pitfalls to avoid that will help you get the best possible success out of bid management technology.

by Andrew Warren-Payne 13 August 2012 09:51am 2 comments

New report: mobile and social boost growth in paid search technology

This week, Econsultancy published an update to its PPC Bid Management Technology Buyer's Guide. The report estimates that the market for PPC bid management technology will grow by 17% in 2012, in line with the overall North American search sector, which is predicted to grow from a value of $22.9 billion, to $26.8 billion in 2013.

The report shows that many areas of digital are increasingly integrated, with the biggest opportunities for growth in this sector coming from mobile paid search, a focus on multichannel retailing and the continuing forward march of social media.

by Aliya Zaidi 08 August 2012 13:14pm 1 comment

Paid search should be driven by goals not keywords

Setting goals for PPC I’ve often been asked the question, “What keywords should I target for paid search?”. I don’t think this is the right way to approach paid search investment.

Focusing on keywords first risks making your paid search program untargeted and alienating it from your overall business goals.

I prefer the question: “How can paid search support my business goals?”.

When I first looked at PPC (probably back in 2002), I thought in terms of keywords because I didn’t appreciate where paid search fitted in to the direct channel. Now I think in terms of goals. How can paid search support e-commerce goals and what do we want to achieve?

This blog is my explanation for why you should start your paid search project by defining goals and KPIs, and then let the keywords follow.

by James Gurd 07 August 2012 11:43am 15 comments

This week's top six infographics

Here's a round up of some of the best infographics we've seen over the past week.

Topics include social video, the rise of shopping APIs, how social influences purchase decisions, and PPC ads...

by David Moth 20 July 2012 10:56am 0 comments

Examining the paid search impact of the Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance

With the Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance having finally made it to Europe, we looked at whether companies and agencies would be considering spending more money on the platform, particularly given concerns about Google’s near-monopoly within the UK search engine market.

For our UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report, published in association with NetBooster, we asked companies how they had changed their paid search budgets across Google, Microsoft/Yahoo, and other search engines.

by Andrew Warren-Payne 10 July 2012 09:26am 1 comment

UK paid search market worth more than £4bn – new report

The UK paid search market is expected to grow by 14% and reach a value of £4.19bn by the end of 2012, up from £3.68bn in 2011.

The figure, published today in our UK Paid Search Agencies Buyer’s Guide, includes media spend and money spent on agency services and consultancy.

by Andrew Warren-Payne 30 May 2012 12:09pm 7 comments

How healthy is your PPC account?

Whether you’ve been managing your PPC account for a while, just taken over a new account or even want to audit how your PPC agency is doing, it can be overwhelming to work out how well an account is performing.

Here at Confused.com we manage several different PPC accounts, and have compiled a list of reports you could run every month (just using AdWords) to check how ‘healthy’ your accounts are.

(I must thank 2 agencies we work with: NetBooster and Essence Digital for inspiring some of these for us!).

by Heledd Jones 21 May 2012 10:05am 2 comments