When it comes to on-going and recurring PPC tasks, every account manager has a little different process for reviewing data, making adjustments and...

DuckDuckGo has been building a name for itself as the privacy-focused search engine, using aggressive promotion to the point of putting up...

This is the second post in a two-part series covering When & How to Expand to New PPC Ad Channels. In my previous post, I shared some...

This is the first post in a two-part series covering When & How to Expand to New PPC Ad Channels. Now more than ever, it's important to...

In today's world of digital billboards, social media clutter, and countless other forms of advertising, how do your PPC efforts fit in anymore? You...

One of the most exciting things about being on the agency side of the digital marketing world is that we get the opportunity to work with brands and...

If you’ve been in the PPC world long enough, you’ve heard some version of this question many times:  “Can you predict how many conversions...

Now that we're more than halfway through 2020, there are some reports you can be running to identify high-level trends with (likely) a decent amount...

PPC performance is impacted by things outside of our interfaces. This post talks you through four areas to focus on to improve your PPC...

It’s hard to know what to do with your PPC during the COVID-19 pandemic. We compiled a list of articles to try and help.

Many clients I work with regularly exhibit at tradeshows to promote their products. At these events, marketers have the opportunity to engage in...

If you're just dipping your toe in the Content Marketing pool, you'll want to go back and read my previous post to help determine if this is a good...

This is the first of a two-part post on how to leverage content in your B2B PPC strategy. This first post will give more of a background on what...

If you're running keyword-targeted search campaigns in Google Ads then you should be very familiar with the search terms report. It's the report...

This is a guest post by Kenneth Andrew, General Manager SMB Strategy and Sales, Bing Ads Alright, you survived the holidays and even the...

Several years ago, I put together a BIG List of PPC Image Ad Sizes. This post stemmed from many questions from both the Clix team and clients about...

As we close out another year here on the Clix blog, we always think it's worth looking back at our top performing posts. 2018 was a big year with...

Over the past year I've had the chance to attend a few digital marketing conferences. In the spring I was at Pubcon Austin, SMX West, and HeroConf....

If you're looking for a new channel for your Software as a Service product (or client), Gartner Digital Market network is a great option that can...

Is performance in your accounts heading south? Out of ideas on how to turn it around? We've all been there. Here are some of our favorite tips for...

  Expanding your local PPC campaigns into new international markets is a strategy that should be well thought out and planned or your expansion...

There are a lot of opinions on best PPC practices and tactics out there in the blogosphere. Let's be honest: Not every "best" practice or method is...

A few months ago, I attended The Social Shake-Up and listened to industry experts, Dan Kneeshaw from Walmart and Jennifer Watson from The Weather...

I came across a post from our friends at PPC Hero about 5 Facebook Settings to Audit in Your Account. I've been spending a good chunk of my days in...

In AdWords there are 7 automated bidding strategies to choose from, so you've got plenty of options. However, let's talk about eCPC because A) it's...

A while back, I wrote a post on Dynamic Search Ad strategies for E-commerce. Now I want to follow-up with tips on how to get the best performance...

Facebook (and sister platform Instagram) are rolling out new features and capabilities all the time. Between the new ad types, interface updates and...

Today I want to talk about one of the features in the new AdWords interface that has been much improved compared to the legacy interface: the...

Happy Valentine's Day! Here are Clix, we're always looking for additional ways to gain valuable insights into our accounts, gather new information...

One of my favorite tasks to undertake is research about a new industry, client or market. Of course, I utilize the search engines to their fullest...

Businesses often store large pools of information about their customers, whether taken down in notes by service techs or stored in back-end...

This is a guest post by Amy Bishop, Director of Digital Marketing & MarTech at ZirMed. The search terms report provides a wealth of information...

If you’re anything like me, you remember one of your least favorite classes in college being Statistics. “What am I ever going to use this for? Why...

When promoting a SaaS product, your target audience is often saturated with messages from multiple competitors to try similar products. Building...

Recently, Google Partners hosted a live stream event as part of their Digital AdWords Bootcamp. They shared several of their best practices around...

Time is one of your most valuable assets, and there are a lot of opportunities to waste time during the workday. In order to increase productivity,...

Whether your clients don't want their ads running on specific websites or performance is bad, there comes a time that you will likely need to...

This is a guest post by Julie Friedman Bacchini, President of Neptune Moon, LLC. Local businesses have had some positive and negative developments...

Launching local PPC campaigns in a new international market involves much more than simply copying campaigns and adding new geographic targets. You...

Many of you have likely inherited accounts from other campaign managers that are not organized; either according to accepted best practices or even...

Starting this month, the Chrome internet browser will start flagging any website that is HTTP as "not secure" if they contain login fields, forms,...

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post with 7 key questions to ask before tackling your mobile PPC. If you've got the answers to these questions, then...

Every great pay-per-click campaign manager knows that 'set it and forget it' is never the way to go when responsibly managing a PPC campaign. PPC...

Mobile is becoming more and more important to PPC success. Globally, the percentage of internet users on mobile and tablet surpassed desktop last...

I have always been a believer in collaboration. In our small, but ever-growing, tight-knit PPC community, I have met lots of people along the way...

When I first started in the PPC industry, I remember being a little overwhelmed by how much there was to learn. I was fortunate to have received...

A good ole' Google Display Network (GDN) remarketing campaign is one of the first things we recommend firing up for new clients. The reach and power...

This is a guest post by JD Prater, Head of Customer Acquisition at AdStage. Larry Kim wrote that 98% of your keywords are essentially useless,...

  If you've run an AdWords Display campaign you've likely seen the placement 'anonymous.google' in your Placements report. If you're like me,...

This is a guest post by Paid Media Manager Jessica Cates. When a company hires a PPC pro or agency to take on their account, their minimum...

Having worked in the PPC industry for over 10 years, I've built a lot of campaigns. The AdWords default setting for ad rotation when you first setup...

ABM, or Account Based Marketing, strategies are becoming more and more prevalent in business marketing strategies as companies find it's sometimes...

As we celebrate the first day of Spring this month, it got me thinking about spring cleaning. My husband and I bought a house last year, and even...

This is a guest post by Paid Media Manager Jessica Cates.   PPC Agency Challenges in Hyperlocal Marketing So far in my PPC career, I’ve had the...

  If your company or client wants to promote an app, Apple Search Ads is a great channel to reach people on the App Store. Apple Search Ads...

This is a guest post by Paid Media Manager Jessica Cates. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday 2016 sales exceeded anticipated...

After working for 7 years in the paid search industry, I have a long list of best practices taking up space in my brain. Many of these I...

  Scripts have been a PPC buzz word for awhile now. If you haven’t tried them in your accounts or seen any presentations about them, you might...

All of PPC is very detail-intensive. For me, tracking codes and tagging URLs can be  one of the most time consuming details. Make a mistake and you...

Google announced earlier this year that device bid adjustments are coming to AdWords. This means that advertisers will have more control over...

I've come across a few blog posts in the last few months discussing how AdWords was a complete failure. Working in the paid search industry for the...

I love checklists. Sometimes my checklists have checklists and I add things to my list that I already did for the pure satisfaction of checking the...

I know there's a lot of focus on Quality Score in the paid search world. I even co-authored the Ultimate Guide to Quality Score back in 2011. But as...

Account analyses of any kind are some of my favorite tasks. I love digging in and finding the source of problems and helping come up with effective...

Video is the new black. It's been part of my Google Rep Bingo for the last 6 years, but now it's squarely out of the early adopters phase. Most of...

UTM parameters, or UTM codes as they're often called, are simple snippets attached to a URL in order to send tracking information to Google...

Anyone who has been driving with me knows that I'm not very patient with sub-optimal drivers. My pet peeves range from passing lane campers (the...

Last week I had the pleasure of attending SMX Advanced and it did not disappoint! I came back home with a wealth of knowledge… and a few...

The bulk of my accounts over the years have been lead generation, so optimizing accounts to reduce CPL is a task I’m well acquainted with. There are...

As I was attending Pubcon Austin 2016 I made the wise decision to attend a session being presented by Purna Virji. For those of you who don't know...

The holiday season has officially commenced and with that comes more to do (cue – ugly sweater Christmas parties and forced family fun) and less...

"An image is worth 1,000 clicks." Er, something like that. PPC is forever changing. And with that trend comes the shift away from text based ads to...

It's the mooooooooost wonderful time of the year. And the most stressful. And the one with the most offers. And the one where the "do all the things...

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at HeroConf London and it was a blast, as usual.  I presented an introduction to Scripts, including: The...

Only 58 more days until Christmas!  While this statement likely sends eCommerce clients and their PPC managers into a tizzy, it means something...

Today we'll be building on our post from yesterday about demographics. Search marketing makes it so easy. You set up a campaign, pick some keywords...

This is the second in a series of posts Digging Into Display. Check back daily for new tips and strategies for succeeding in the world of Display....

Lately when I have been pulling down my normal PPC reports from AdWords, I have been trying out different ways to finagle the data in the...

I love shortcuts when pulling reports and sorting data. I really dislike being inefficient with my time, so when learning something new or pulling...

I've noticed a trend recently when talking with potential clients. The days of clients coming in with little to no PPC presence seem to be fading....

The Dimensions tab in Google AdWords is a powerful and useful tab in your arsenal of reporting tools. Sometimes I forget how handy these puppies can...

I had the privilege of being invited to represent PPCers on a SEMPO hangout yesterday that was put together by their education committee. Never...

  One of my favorite necessary PPC tasks is checking out the search query reports in AdWords and Bing. It’s a great way to get an inside look...

PPC campaigns have been a staple of many marketing budgets over the past five years, but a lot has changed in that same time. All CMOs know changing...

A while back I read this article on the SEER blog about adding in Income Targeting without adding in any bid adjustments and it got me thinking: why...

We all know that landing pages need to be relevant, concise, and encourage action by the visitor. In fact, we have written quite a lot about landing...

Labels can be infinitely helpful in accounts and the uses are nearly limitless but we all have our favorite ways to leverage them. Detailed below...

When it comes to learning PPC, there's a lot of content out there. My search for "how to learn ppc" had 3,020,000 results, in fact. The internet is...

Late last week I read this article about rebranding your company and things you should take into account while doing so. The article was solid and...

For many PPC managers, it's an easy jump to begin targeting other English speaking countries in accounts. No translation help required and as long...

Yes, it's that big of a deal. No longer do we as PPC pros need to wait a week (or more) for our next chat with a new client only to find out that...

When's the last time that your PPC team got together for an old-school, creative brainstorming session for your accounts? Since we're all busy...

Reporting, reporting, reporting – if you’re anything like me, you probably spend a decent amount of time reviewing reports and Excel pivots to make...

Lead generation accounts are their own unique challenge. Unlike ecommerce accounts where each conversion point adds revenue, lead generation can...

Keyword research is a necessary task in PPC, but luckily, there’s lots of great tools out there to make us more productive. Whether you’re new in...

It’s a tale as old as time – high CPCs and low budgets. They go together like… well, like oil and water, basically. It’s not uncommon among...

Facebook added call-to-action buttons to its newsfeed ads last October, allowing users to click a button to either call or get directions. These new...

By now it's no secret that managing a Bing Ads account on a Mac isn't the easiest thing in the world. For years now, a section of the PPC industry...

Yesterday, John wrote about massive account disruptions when major changes and restructures are made.  This is especially poignant when you bring on...

Excel is your window to a more productive world. The more formulas, hacks, and shortcuts you can learn – the better. But you already knew that! We...

As a search marketer, we’re constantly reviewing and optimizing campaigns to improve performance. But at times we can get a bit myopic and focus...

Most colleges are wrapping up their spring semester, but it’s never too early to start planning your marketing strategy for the fall semester and...

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak about optimizing for geography at HeroConf. In case you missed my panel, or would like to reference it,...

Last December, for the first time, Google began reporting in-store visits so advertisers could finally measure how their online efforts translated...

A few months ago on our blog we discussed the differences between retargeting and remarketing. Up until now, these terms have been used...

Things. We are all surrounded by things. Some of them we use daily with little chance for dust to collect. Others languish in dark corners, closets...

Whether you use a competitive research tool, Google tools, or a mixture of both - there is plenty of valuable information that can be harvested...

In previous articles, I've talked about a couple of business principles that play large roles in your PPC campaigns. If you didn't go to business...

This post marks the fifth of a 6 part series on sharing insights across marketing channels focusing on the benefit of combining paid digital media...

This post marks the fourth of a 6 part series on sharing insights across marketing channels focusing on the benefit of combining paid digital media...

Demographic data, connected with search intent, is the Holy Grail of online marketing. Demographic data allows you to make sure you're targeting the...

Often we hear companies provide vague descriptions about the demographics that they want to target (read: "men who make somewhere between $x and $x"...

Businesses are multidimensional. There's not one silver bullet goal that can be achieved and make each a success. Many marketing managers know this....

If you’re a Scandal fan, you’ve watched Olivia Pope work her magic; making molehills out of mountains.  While most of us will never advise the...

In the post-holiday haze of gluttony, millions of people each year vow to start a new diet and exercise regimen at the start of the new year. Are...

Say you're a small business that has quite a few products for sale on your website. You want to promote your products via Google AdWords and you...

Final destination. The end. You can't cheat death... or at least you can't cheat the performance of your PPC campaigns. Knowing that a final...

You wake up feeling great, have yourself a fantastic morning, then get settled in and ready to look at your PPC account. Something’s off. Maybe...

Marketing principles permeate into every aspect of online marketing, but they’re less pronounced and little discussed. Especially in PPC. Having a...

Best practices are around for a reason: more often than not they work. It’s almost always a good idea to follow best practices when dealing with PPC...

I had a terrible experience today. I just finished up my morning tasks and was heading out with my wife to grab some lunch. We jump in the car and I...

When running ppc campaigns, increasing conversions is always on the forefront of our minds. So any new potential idea for increasing conversions is...

AdWords has always offered some really cool targeting options, whether that's retargeting or income level targeting. However, there are a couple of...

The phrase “Big Data” has been all the rage recently. Companies talking about using their Big Data to make decisions based on well, large amounts of...

March Madness is upon us. That delightful time of year when every casual sports fan of any variety becomes a veritable guru of sporting...

Small businesses the world over want to play ball with the "big boys" generating new business with PPC. They can and should do just that. However,...

One of Google’s most recent changes in AdWords is the ability to track phone calls as conversions. While this might be the answer to some...

The complexity of any advertising campaign rarely correlates with money spent but usually hinges on the number of channels, products, audiences and...

Naming convention certainly isn't the sexiest part of PPC, but in my opinion it's one of the most overlooked areas of efficiency in account...

Sitelink extensions are a great way to expand your ad copy real estate, and in the battle of visibility sometimes they’re the easiest way to stand...

Bid adjustment strategies are a dime a dozen. Every account is different and every manager has their own ideas about when and why bids should be...

This is a guest post from Andrew Lolk, CMO and co-founder of White Shark Media. After reading the excellent post about the 6 PPC Tasks you can...

Search partners. Syndicated search partners. Audience network. These are terms used by Google, Bing & LinkedIn for partner websites where they...

One of the immutable best practices of paid search revolves around tightly focusing your campaigns. Sometimes that process involves understanding...

In my last article, “Digging For Gold in Your Channels Using Google Analytics New Acquisition Overview Report”, I covered how analyzing your...

This past week I was reviewing search query reports (SQRs) and came across a whole batch of keywords related to European soccer. This was perplexing...

AdWords has a tendency of making unpublished interface changes, some so small that they can even go unnoticed to its user base. A simple switch...

Tis the season to get your PPC account ready to smash it during the holidays. Website changes are being put on lock down, ad copy is written and...

Google Analytics seems to morph into a new forms at a dizzying rate. Sometimes the result feels like window dressing without any real substance....

Time and time again I review PPC campaigns for small businesses and find so much missed opportunity. Opportunities for a phone call here, a lead...

As search and social marketing professionals, we live by the mantra: "Always Be Testing." However, many search marketing professionals focus on the...

Mistakes happen, especially when you’re knee deep in PPC burnout! When this happens, it’s even more important to keep your eyes open and pay...

Last week, the #PPC Chat topic was "Using Excel for PPC", and I've got to be honest, it was one of my favorite chats we've ever had. There were so...

You don't have to work in a PPC account for very long before the symptoms start to manifest. You dread writing another ad variation. You loathe the...

With the litany of online tools for PPC available for Search Marketers, we felt it time to weigh in. Now, with tools ranging from free to “*chokes*...

So many tasks, so little time. No matter if you're new to PPC or a seasoned veteran, you can always improve on time and task management. Below are...

In the words of my ole pal Heraclitus, "The only thing constant is change." Most of us know this to be true in our daily lives. But for me, I find...

All Agencies and Advertisers deal with the somewhat sticky issue of Brand terms. How do you assign a target Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA)? Are you...

One of my first activities every morning is to log into my MCC and go check up on my client accounts. I'm making sure the account is running okay,...

One of the major benefits of pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is the incredible granularity of data. Nowhere is this more visible than the search query...

Lately, I've been meeting a lot of new people and inevitably I'm asked what I do for work. This is a pretty common dialogue: Me: I'm an internet...

As PPC marketers, our day-to-day actions generally consist of bid management, ad copy testing, adding negative keywords, etc., but we don't always...

Over the past few weeks, I've become increasingly interested in efficient PPC account management. I've come to see the value in being able to go...

It happens to all of us eventually. We manage our PPC campaigns day in and day out and then one day -- boom! We hit a wall. What do I do next? Is...

If you're like me or thousands of other Google AdWords advertisers, you have lamented the loss of the "old school" AdWords reports. Last year Google...

by Joseph Kerschbaum Director of Client Services, Clix Marketing Recently, we acquired a client whose AdWords accounts were in a state of disarray....