How Attribution, Custom Columns, and Guessing Help My Ecommerce Accounts

Editor's Note: I'm on vacation this week, so I've asked Kirk Williams to fill in and blog for me. You're going to love this entertaining and thought-provoking post! Attribution. The word strikes fear in my heart. And hope. Let’s call it a … [Continue reading]

Ad Testing: Conversions Per Impression

Ad copy testing is one of my favorite aspects of PPC. Where else can you get so much great data about what people respond to, so quickly? The challenge in ad copy testing isn’t so much writing the ads, it’s deciding how to pick a winner. And there … [Continue reading]

Channels Are Not Strategy

Earlier this week, TechCrunch published an article by Samuel Scott called How Google Analytics ruined marketing. It’s a lengthy but important article saying that's because Google Analytics (and all web analytics packages, for that matter) force … [Continue reading]

Bid Management In 2016

Last year, I wrote a post called Bid Management: Is It Even Still a Thing? In that post, I talked about all the bid management tools PPC managers have at their disposal, from Adwords Scripts to automated bidding in the engines to bid management … [Continue reading]

8 Reasons Why PPC Campaigns Fail

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re a PPC pro – someone who does PPC for a living. At a minimum, you have some kind of interest in PPC: if you’re not doing it for a living, maybe you’re trying to learn, or maybe you do SEO or some other … [Continue reading]

PPC Book Review: PPC SEM An Hour A Day

One of my favorite books for new PPC pros is Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing An Hour a Day by two of my favorite PPC people, David Szetela and Joe Kerschbaum. The format of the book literally takes the reader on a 9-month journey to learn all … [Continue reading]

Yes, The Google Display Network Can Drive PPC Conversions!

I remember when Google launched the Google Display Network. It was called the Content Network back then, and it was part of search campaigns. In the beginning, not only were you stuck with the same bids for search as for display, but you couldn’t opt … [Continue reading]

SMX Advanced 2016: My Presentation

Yesterday, I presented at SMX Advanced on Conversion Rates and the Laws of Diminishing Astonishment. It was a great panel, and I'm excited to share my deck with my readers. Enjoy! It's The Content, Stupid! from Melissa Mackey … [Continue reading]

5 Challenges for PPC Lead Generation In 2016

In 2015, I wrote a post detailing 5 challenges for PPC lead generation. Lead generation in PPC, especially in Google, continues to be a struggle for many B2B advertisers. Here’s why the reasons outlined in my 2015 post are still true this … [Continue reading]

Voice Search and PPC Relevance: A Match Made in Hell

Voice search has come on strong in the past year or so. Bing Ads has been ahead of the pack on voice search, predicting a year ago that it would be big. Purna Virji of Bing Ads talked a lot about voice search in her recent Reddit AMA, as … [Continue reading]