2025

Google Ads and the Heat Pump Principle

Heat pumps are slightly unintuitive. They extract heat from a (usually) lower temperature source –…

AI Max, Impression Share, and the Denominator Problem

I recently faced a strange decline in one of my accounts. Impression share tanked on…

Are Ad Group Targets Fake?

The controls that we as PPCers have over bidding have certainly changed over the years.…

Report Editor Revelations in Google Ads

The report editor is great for diving into segmentation that isn’t available in the interface.…

AI Max for Search: When It Works, When It Fails, What to Watch

As PPC practitioners, we’re no strangers to the arrival of new targeting expansion options –…

How to Save a Failing Google Ads Account

Google Ads optimisation is often about small, steady gains. But when it’s clear that incremental…

If Google Ads Campaign Types Were Warriors

A short video reimagining Google Ads campaign types as battle-ready warriors — each with their…

Google Ads Q2 Recap: 5 Updates That Actually Matter

For all the shiny new objects in the world of PPC, the majority of the…

Escape PPC Maintenance Mode: 4 Advanced Tactics for an Account Breakthrough

For all the shiny new objects in the world of PPC, the majority of the…

Sticking to the Point in PPC: Lessons from Alexa, Coldplay, and Broad Match

Here’s an actual conversation I had not long ago: Me: “Alexa, set a 13-minute timer.”Alexa:…

Lessons from my charger: misdirection in PPC

This week I spent far too long convinced there was a problem with the power…

Crazy Bids, Smart Bidding: Under the Hood of Google’s Wildest CPCs

The days of debating whether or not smart bidding is worth using are long behind…

Don’t Be Undersold on the Upside: When Google's Forecasts Miss

Google’s campaign forecasting tools can be useful. The keyword tool, for example, remains the best…

Grow and Prune: How Expansion and Refinement Work Together in Google Ads

PPCers are often working in one of two modes: • Expand targeting to increase volume•…

Account-level automated extensions: which to keep, which to cut

Account-level automated assets (as in automated ‘ad extensions’: a clearer name before Google changed it…

The value of exact matches in Google Ads

Although Exact Match is no longer worthy of the name when applied to a keyword,…

PPC and the split ticket problem

If you’re interested in technology, economics, and human behaviour, you’ll enjoy the podcast conversation between…