FN Paid SEM News

"TripAdvisor takes flight, Skyscanner ups the marketing game, People moves, The wonders of wearables, Content is king and more…our pick of the week's stories"

"If you segment by "This Extension vs. Other" you can see if that extension is encouraging clicks on the headline or other links."

"Auditing your PPC account is a necessary step to ensure success, but it doesn't have to be over whelming. This article focuses on the 10 most important pillars you need to check in order to have a solid PPC account on Google AdWords."

"We are once again happy to announce the release of the latest RKG Digital Marketing Report featuring our analysis of fourth quarter and holiday shopping trends for 2013.  Our full report offers over 40 charts covering paid and organic search, mobile, PLAs, social media, comparison shopping engines, multichannel and more."

"Was Expedia Targeted By Negative SEO?"

"Google Potentially Looking To Relaunch 'Flight Search' And Compete With Other Travel Comparison Services"

"Voice Search May Lower CPCs"

"The challenge that Microsoft faces in the online search landscape could be a business school case study: how to capture market share from a competitor whose very brand ("Google") has become synonymous with the act of searching online. Imagine that you are the person at Microsoft responsible for Bing's success and are tasked with moving the needle on market share. It seems to me you'd have three basic strategic options: out-feature the competition, develop the brand and go on the attack."

"While most weren't expecting this algorithm change to have much of a negative effect on performance, we did see minor sitelink changes affect CPCs."

"Engagement ads are very similar to display ads but are more interactive. The ad expands when hovered over for at least 2 continuous seconds. Once the ad expands, users can interact with your brand."

1. Audience Data Takes Center Stage 2. Facebook Gets Closer to Search, and Vice Versa 3. Mobile CPCs will Rise 4. Ad Tech Opens Up 5. Attribution Gets its Due

"If you weren't able to make it to Fashion Digital New York this year, you missed out. But here I'm going to share the same six tips I shared there, to help improve your digital marketing and customer acquisition efforts. The six tips include: Be visible Be smart, be fast Be scalable Be mobile Be social Be ready"

"Marin, BlueKai Partner For Search Ad Targeting Marin Software will begin to offer a targeting option that integrates first- and third-party data through a partnership with BlueKai. The agreement, announced Monday, allows marketers to customize ads and optimize bidding by specific audience segments in search campaigns, as well as display, video, analytics, native advertising and site optimization through a platform the company calls Audience Connect. "

"Even further, our research shows that sponsored ads for high-commercial-intent keyword searches receive 64.6 percent of clicks. In other words, those searchers looking to buy a specific product are more likely to click the sponsored ads than organic results. This is in part because Google populates the SERP for these commercial queries with a large proportion of highly compelling sponsored ads, such as Product Listing Ads. These splashy above-the-fold ads include eye-catching images and detailed product information. They're hard for searchers who are shopping to ignore, and they may not even recognize them as ads."

Broad and Broad Match Modified Google's moneymaker and an SEM manager's worst enemy, this match type should be used sparingly but still can help catch unique, long-tail search queries. More than 25 percent of Google searches are the first time a specific query has ever been searched for, so attempting to cover every search query with exact match is impossible.