If you have ever re-organized an inherited AdWords account to get in line with best practices by moving keywords into new campaigns and creating new ad copy, you may have noticed how you don’t immediately get the results you were expecting. In fact, you may have concluded that all of the work just made your [...]
Articles by Ryan Moothart
Ryan is currently a PPC strategist and manages several paid search accounts. He also doubles as the office political guru, enjoys listening to U2, and is a fan of Seattle Sounders FC.
Awesome Memes Explain the Basics of PPC
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 [...]
Not Adding Up (Literally) – Google AdWords’ Glitch
This is one of those short posts that will make you squint your eyes slightly, furrow your brow, tilt your head, and say, “Wait, what? This doesn’t make sense.” Like this: I have an account in Google AdWords that has had a conversion metric calculation glitch. I first noticed it a few months ago when [...]
The 3 Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned as a PPC Strategist
I started working at Portent a year and a half ago as an intern. I was fresh out of college and did not know any specifics of internet marketing. I was introduced to the world of paid search during my first few weeks and found it intriguing. As I starting to do more work in [...]
Microsoft adCenter’s Illogical Ad Position Calculations
Not too long ago, Bing introduced text ads appearing at the bottom of the search results page in addition to the top and along the right side. However, what you may not know is that these ads can be duplicates with different ad positions. Yes – the same exact ads on a single results page [...]
6 Tips to Increase Your Click-Through Rate
Click-through rates (or CTRs as we in the business call them) are an important indicator for both your keywords and your ads. It may not be a direct indicator of your conversion performance, but it is a direct indicator of how effectively you’re reaching your target audience. If you’re dissatisfied with the CTR levels in [...]
The Idiot’s Guide to AdWords Extension Ads
You can say a lot of things about Google. You can praise them for setting the standard all search engines seek to meet. You can damn them for being the closest thing to a monopoly we’ve seen on the internet. But one thing you can’t do is chastise them for being boring. Have you seen [...]
Utilizing Facebook Insights to Identify Potential
When you run an ad campaign in Facebook to get more fans for your business page, you’re able to analyze your performance using Facebook Insights. Recently, Facebook completely removed the old version of Insights and made their new version mandatory. If you’re not familiar with the new Insights, they feature more in-depth and granular information [...]
PPC Hero’s Ultimate Guide is Even Better Than the Real Thing
Google AdWords has an indicator it uses to measure the value and fidelity of any given advertising account: the all-mighty quality score. OK, I’m exaggerating the eminence of this barometer just a bit, but it’s still a highly important measurement that every PPC account manager has to be consistently aware of. For those that are [...]
The Yin and Yang of PPC – Search Network Campaigns vs. Display Network Campaigns
The concept of yin yang is not one based in the morality of good versus evil; rather, it pertains to the diametric relationship between two parts of a single force. I have found that PPC advertising pertains directly to this concept. Those of you who have managed an account on Google AdWords will know that [...]
