The following is a presentation I gave last year (2019) in Dublin on Shopping Ads. Learn Inbound is a fabulous conference geared primarily towards content and SEO marketers, so it was a huge privilege to be able to present on all things Shopping Ads at this event. In this presentation, I did my best to gear it at a beginner …
ZATO Partners with Wee Squeak
ZATO is excited to announce a partnership with Wee Squeak Children’s Shoes. Have a toddler who insists on walking on their tippy toes (my youngest currently does this!), there’s a shoe for that! Wee Squeak makes fun noises children love to hear which encourages correct heel-to-toe walking (and is also just pretty darn cute). Not only that, but their …
ZATO Welcomes Sarah Vlietstra to the Team
We couldn’t be happier to welcome Sarah Vlietstra to the ZATO PPC Marketing team. 👏 🎉 💥 Sarah was ZATO’s Google rep for almost 2 years, and we liked working with her so much we decided it made sense to bring her on board the ZATO team! Representing Google for our clients means she already worked with us on numerous …
Does Google Shopping Query Filtering Still Work in 2020?
Nearly 6 years ago, I watched a video of Martin Roettgerding (who would later become my friend) giving a presentation on a brilliant strategy he had devised to better control Google Shopping campaigns. I tested this in our ZATO accounts, developed my own process for building it out and managing it, and then recorded my walk-through on Search Engine Land …
No Long-Term PPC Contracts Required? Then How Do ZATO Clients Stay?!
I wanted to pause for a minute in my normal Ecommerce PPC and Shopping Ads writing, to discuss a little family business. That is, how does ZATO maintain clients if we don’t require long-term commitments? I thought it would be good to share my beliefs from a marketing and business perspective, as well as give you insights into how we …
How to Track Surfaces Across Google (Free Shopping Ads) Revenue in Google Analytics
Have you seen the new free Google Shopping Ads (named, Surfaces Across Google, by… well, Google) yet in your Google Merchant Center account? One of the frustrations with the report in Google Merchant Center is that it only shows clicks. Clicks give us some information, it’s interesting to see what percentage of traffic is being sent between paid and free. …
Limited Budget? 5 Reasons to Consider ZATO’s SMB Program
First things first, it’s harder than ever to succeed at Google Ads with a small budget. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but we can’t ignore the fact that it is harder to do than ever before. If you have been seeing your Costs and Cost Per Clicks (CPCs) rising faster than your ability to raise your budget, you’ve likely wondered …
Free Google Shopping Listings?! What It Means for You
Google announced today that they are now offering Free Shopping Ads for retailers and brands. Here is a great article by my friend, Ginny Marvin, announcing it (and where I first heard of it): Google Shopping Opens to Free Listings. When I first started advertising on Google in 2010, I remember free Froogle listings and how bummed we were when …
Keep Presenting Benefits. Or, How Marketing Hasn’t Changed in a Pandemic.
After being served my umpteenth “QUARANTINED, ALONE, AND DESTITUTE AMIDST CORONAVIRUS? BUY THIS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE.” marketing pitch on Facebook, I decided I needed to scratch the itch of writing and get my thoughts down. Should you discuss the current pandemic in your ads, or not? Should you use the *gasp* coronavirus in marketing efforts at this point? What …
More Free Stuff: The ZATO Microsoft Ads In-Market Audience List
We released our ZATO Google Ads Audience Targeting List FREE to the internet a little over a month ago and one of the questions we kept seeing in various social channels were “can you guys do this with Microsoft Ads?” Well… with the help of our awesome Microsoft Ads friends (thank you SO much John Lee and Christi Olson), we …
Here is A Coronavirus Placement Exclusion List for Google Ads
After a client requested that we pull their ads off of as many news sites as possible because of the increasing Covid-19 Pandemic, we thought it made sense to cease marketing to these unique web pages as people seek out information about the pandemic. Therefore we compiled this placement list from ZATO clients of various news organizations websites to exclude, …
Free Stuff: The ZATO Google Ads Audience Targeting List of Affinity Categories & In-Market Segments
I want to start this post by introducing myself. My name is Chris (that’s me in the picture), I’m fairly new at ZATO but I’ve learned so much about coffee (and PPC) in my time here. I have a background in team-management and sales and I love being organized, efficient, and relentlessly optimistic. Here at ZATO, I’m tasked with growing …
ZATO Partners with Kuru Footwear
ZATO is excited to announce a partnership with KURU Footwear. KURU Footwear is a shoe brand whose revolutionary technology changes the way sufferers of plantar fasciitis and heel pain walk (as well as those of us just wanting a more comfortable shoe), and makes us all look good in the process! In this relationship, ZATO will overhaul and manage …
Google Shopping Clicks for Free? How to Get On Surfaces Across Google
EDIT 4-21-2020: Google today announced even more free clicks for Shopping Ads! Read our hot take on it here: Free Google Shopping Listings?! What It Means for You EDIT 5-7-2020: Want to track revenue from Surfaces Across Google? Of course you do! In this step-by-step walkthrough, we give you an easy way to do that: How to Track Surfaces Across …
What is Automated Bidding and Who Should Use It?
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Corey Braccialini of HubSpot. Read more about Corey in his biography at the end of the post. Happy reading! The days of making an educated guess on how much to bid on your keywords and manually adjusting are behind us. With the help of machine learning, advertisers can take advantage of the …
How to Set Up a TrueView for Shopping Campaign in Google Ads
YouTube’s main benefit is building brand awareness. With TrueView in-stream ads, advertisers can run very cost-effective video campaigns in Google Ads. But we can use video campaigns to do more than just boost awareness. With TrueView for Shopping, ecommerce advertisers can promote their products with engaging video ads. Let me show you exactly what I mean. When a user is …
Should Smart Shopping Include More Data? My Rebuttal to The Rebuttal – Part 6: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns
If you’ve been monitoring the Google Shopping Ads, Smart Shopping Campaign, ongoing data transparency discussions (okay, so all 2 of you) you might have run across this sound article by Patrick Gilbert on LinkedIn in response to my article, both linked to here: The Concerning Lack of Data Transparency in Smart Shopping – Part 5: The ZATO Guide to Google …
The Concerning Lack of Data Transparency in Smart Shopping – Part 5: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns
This is the next segment in our series on Google Smart Shopping Campaigns (SSC). You can read the first 4 posts in this series here: What Is Smart Shopping? – Part 1: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns Establish Your Strategy – Part 2: The ZATO Guide to Google Smart Shopping Campaigns Should You Switch From Standard Shopping …
Video: Adjusting Campaign Daily Spend in Google Ads… the Right Way!
As we move beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you’re likely bringing budgets down to normal levels. But did you know there are a couple of ways to do that, one being better than the other? In this video, PPCKirk discusses how to wisely decrease daily spend to maintain as much traffic as possible. No time for the video? No …
SEO & PPC: Better Together – an SEMRushChat on Twitter
I had the esteemed honor and privilege of participating as one of the guests of yesterday’s SEMRushChat on Twitter. SEMRushChat is hosted by SEMRush and is a fast-paced, educational chat on current happenings and best practices in the digital marketing world. Yesterday, the chat was on using SEO & PPC together, and myself and Craig Campbell were the guests. I …