Launchpad Blog

On the Launchpad Blog we clarify and put into perspective issues and trends of interest to business advertisers.

Our focus in our client work is Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising. On this blog we also write about related competitive ad platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. 

PPC Advertising Success: 3 Things to Know

Three Things to Know

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is not the most important metric to pay attention to, when measuring PPC advertising success. ROAS is secondary! Steve explains why in this 3-minute video.

The most important PPC metric is adverting cash flow, which is simply the revenue generated by campaign(s) minus the ad spend used to generate the revenue. It is calculated from the same two variables used to calculate return on ad spend (ROAS). The difference is that ad margin is calculated by subtracting cost from revenue, will ROAS is calculated by dividing cost into revenue.

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Exposed Email Addresses Are PPC Killers

On many sites today you find an “exposed” email address, which is an email address in text form. For example, in the footer of a …

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ppc hero conference

PPC Hero Conference 2022

  The PPC Hero Conference The first in-person conference (The PPC Hero conference) on paid search advertising was held on Monday, Jan 31, and Tuesday, …

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Mobile Responsive Search Ad

Google Seizes Control of Search Ad Copy By Eliminating Extended Text Ads (ETA)

Last year, Google announced that they will shift to the “responsive search ad” format only within search campaigns, by eliminating extended text ads on June 22, 2022. Now that the day has almost arrived, it appears we’re seeing a preview of it now. 

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5 Keys To Developing High Performance Search Ad Campaigns

5 Keys To Developing High-Performance Search Ad Campaigns

Steve discusses 6 things to consider when deploying an eCommerce Shopping Campaign starting with “Smart Shopping” Campaigns vs. Standard Shopping Campaign

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search ad conversion tracking

PPC Call Tracking Benefits

PPC call tracking facilitates the capture of search engine metadata associated with call conversions. This metadata becomes powerful information when it is used as the fuel for automated bidding or “machine learning” algorithms within a PPC platform.

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8 Ingredients For High Performance Search Ad Campaigns

8 Ingredients For High Performance Search Ad Campaigns

8 Ingredients For High Performance Search Ad CampaignsSteve details 8 ingredients that should be present when developing high-performance search ad campaigns: a product marketing perspective; a strong keyword base, volume and CPC filtering; a semantically-based…

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auto apply recommendations

Google PPC Auto Recommendations As Default

Do you want to convert your PPC auto recommendations to apply without your intervention? Would you like all your keywords to be converted to a …

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Boost PPC Performance with Display & Search Campaigns

Boost PPC Performance with Display & Search Campaigns

Digital Ad Tracking ProgressWhy is it important to set conversion values? Without it, you won’t know the two most important metrics in digital ad campaigns. Steve shows you how to estimate conversion values in this short video.

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Mobile Responsive Search Ad

Responsive Search Ads – Machine Learning Meets Advertising

Responsive display ads first arrived as a new Beta display ad type in Google PPC display campaigns in 2018. Responsive…

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Video Sales Funnel Principle

Sales Funnel Principles For PPC

Campaign DeliverablesWhy is it important to set conversion values? Without it, you won’t know the two most important metrics in digital ad campaigns. Steve shows you how to estimate conversion values in this short video.

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Sales Funnel Fundamentals

Paid Search Sales Funnel Fundamentals

When a lead is generated through advertising, the marketing process, or another source such as a face-to-face encounter, the lead is usually characterized as a prospective customer.  At that point, the salesperson will designate that the prospect is “in the funnel”. This is only the start of transit of the lead through the imaginary “sales funnel”.  The early funnel area is represented by the opening at the top, in the accompanying diagram.

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How To Set Conversion Values In Digital Ad Campaigns

How To Set Conversion Value In Digital Ad Campaigns

Positive PPC ROIWhy is it important to set conversion values? Without it, you won’t know the two most important metrics in digital ad campaigns. Steve shows you how to estimate conversion values in this short video.

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PPC Quality Score Meter

PPC Quality Score – 4 Things To Get Right

Quality Score (QS) is a core mechanism in search engine ad platforms. Both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising platforms use them. The platform assigns quality scores to each keyword in the campaign. Their workings are a bit opaque by design and can seem arbitrary at times.

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Campaign Automation

PPC Machine Learning

This series of articles takes a look at PPC automation available today, both how it works and associated controversies. We’ll share the high points of what we’ve learned, including the positive and less positive angles. Digital advertisers are already…

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PPC Machine Learning

The Magic of Automated Bidding in PPC Campaigns

Three years ago, we managed the majority of our campaigns using different types of manual bidding; sometimes “enhanced CPC” bidding. 

Automated bidding requires more traffic volume to function at it’s peak potential so our campaign architectures have changed.

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