Written by Amy Hebdon - It’s been a year since I published my Google Ads Pacing Dashboard to Search Engine Journal, and digital marketing changes pretty quickly in a year. Google Data Studio changed how it handles blended data, then changed its name altogether (Hello, Looker Studio!). What hasn’t changed is that we still can’t add goals and targets to [...]

Written by Amy Hebdon - If you’ve been working with Google Ads/AdWords for a while, you know that it’s great for targeting intent. By serving ads against keyword searches, you can promote your product or service to someone exactly when they’re looking for it. But “the almighty keyword” is losing its potency. Not because keyword targeting isn’t effective, but because [...]

Written by Amy Hebdon - Imagine you’re looking at a bar chart of Google Ads conversions by month in Google Data Studio. You want to know how brand campaigns are affecting performance. Image by author, April 2022 You decide to add Campaigns as a “breakdown dimension” so you can see conversions by campaign. That segmentation doesn’t give you the result [...]

Written by Amy Hebdon In their new book ‘Making Numbers Count,’ co-authors Chip Heath and Karla Starr explain that our brains have not evolved to easily understand large numbers. We really only have an instinct for small quantities – as in, five and fewer. Beyond that, it’s just some vague notion of “lots.” But with 2.5 quintillion bytes of data [...]

As paid search managers, sometimes we don’t have all the tools we need to do our job. Even simple tasks like Google Ads pacing can be much harder than they should be.That’s because you can’t enter your budget or conversion targets directly into the platform.Without that basic context of goals vs. actuals, it becomes hard to know the right action [...]

You’re subject to scrutiny and even skepticism as a data-driven marketer.It doesn’t matter how impressive your results are, or how impeccable your process.Stakeholders question your numbers. They devalue your analysis. They’re being courted away by “all-flash-no-substance” vendors.And while it might not seem like it, you may be complicit in the situation.You’ve convinced yourself that your clients only care about the [...]

So you’re thinking about changing the attribution model in your Google Ads account.Maybe your rep is pressuring you to switch. Maybe your client is questioning your current model.But you’re not sure what to expect when you pull the trigger, and you don’t want to make changes that can’t be undone.Here’s what you need to know about editing Google Ads attribution [...]

If you’re looking for digital marketing reporting software that’s both powerful and free, look no further than Google’s Data Studio.Google’s free visualization and reporting tool has been around since 2016, and has only gotten better over time, rolling out new feature updates and improvements every month.While Data Studio makes it easy to connect to data sources and automate reporting, you [...]

No matter how good you are at paid search, your campaigns won’t succeed if the offer’s bad.But who, exactly, is responsible to make sure the offer is successful?Paid search marketers don’t control the products and services they promote, so it’s hard to ensure the offers are compelling.Brand managers and business owners aren’t usually familiar with what makes a good offer [...]