Advertising Strategies

Google has been pushing smart bidding for a long time now, using everything from prompts in the ads manager interface, to employing call centers that contact advertisers and strongly advise them to adopt it wherever possible. They always sound confident in this being the right move, warning that you could be missing out on better performance from your campaigns. As if we didn’t have enough FOMO in our lives… It’s worth clarifying the difference between “automated” and “smar

“If you ain’t first, you’re last!” Some of you may know this quote from Talladega Nights , others may have heard it from a boss/client insisting that appearing at the very top of search results is the paramount goal of their online advertising. While no one would object to placing first in any sort of competition, whether sports or marketing, it’s quite the generalization to say that’s the only result of value. Is that idea based on real business outcomes , or is it more a ma

Should you advertise on multiple platforms or stick with just one ? Everyone likes the idea of their brand showing up in more places, the question is whether you actually get better performance dividing up your budget to do so. Most of our clients at IBA use multiple platforms because addressing all parts of their marketing funnel has many moving parts, and a diversified approach is useful. However, in some cases there are reasons to keep it simple and focus on one thing. We

Logging into any ad platform lately means getting bombarded with popups and notifications. You get used to it, and dismiss them without...

One of the most common questions anyone who runs Search campaigns (such as those on Google Ads ) will receive is: “Why didn’t we see our...

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and they sat you at a table you didn't like? Maybe it was wobbly, next to a busy doorway, with the AC...

Updated December 2025 "Should I bother bidding on my own business name in search, or should I simply rely on the organic listing?" This is a classic question that anyone who runs search ads, such as on Google or Microsoft (Bing), encounters at some point. Arguments Against Running Branded Search Ads There are many opinions on this topic in the PPC world, some going so far as to say that bidding on branded keywords (which is targeting searches where the potential customer use