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paponikablog · 4 years

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About a three-hour drive from north Korea's capital, Pyongyang, lies what might be the world's most isolated ski resort. Masik Pass offers 11 runs and 4 lifts plus a gear rental shop. The attached luxury hotel features 120 rooms, complete with a swimming pool, sauna, bar and karaoke room.

Snowmobiles were imported from China and chair lifts from Austria, after a Swiss company refused to sell them, which North Korea called a “serious human rights abuse”. The resort has four and a half stars on Trip Advisor from genuine, happy tourists. Most of its visitors, however, come from within North Korea. While the country is almost exclusively portrayed as a poor, starved relic of the past, recent reports from defectors have begun to paint a much more nuanced picture. In reality, Pyongyang cafes are filled with patrons reading from tablets and teenagers making phone calls, some driving BMW's and Mercedes. The key to understanding who is really in charge, whether a revolution will ever occur, and what daily life is like, is to see how North Korea - both the state and the people within it - make money.

After Swiss cheese, bad haircuts, and empty buildings, North Korea is best known for seemingly wanting to end the human race in a giant nuclear explosion. When Kim Jong un-finds his country unusually hungry or one of his yachts, in need of repairs, the country turns into that annoying kid on the playground who will not shut up until you share your hot Cheetos. Insults are hurled, threats made, and missiles launched.

Inevitably the U. S. sees no choice but to respond, agreeing to ease sanctions or grant food aid in exchange for a return to normalcy. Now, with their mouths freshly fed, Kim and his compatriots will suddenly turn from murderous dictators to charming, levelheaded, although admittedly, stylistically eccentric diplomats. Then the six, twelve, eighteen months later, like clockwork, we’ll all have Deja Vu. But while Kim’s seeming obsession with nuclear toys attracts nearly all the media attention, in reality, it's just one of many strategies the world's most secretive regime has for accomplishing its much larger goal: staying alive. The fundamental challenge for North Korea is that it cannot truly, verifiably, and permanently give up its nuclear capabilities Without becoming, at best irrelevant. At the same time, it cannot truly thrive with the level of international sanctions that come with threatening to sink an entire U.S. state. Thus, all three generations of leadership have been forced to master the art of negotiation: to extracted just enough aid to stay afloat well never actually giving up its one and only source of leverage.

Before founding the democratic people's Republic of Korea Kim Il Sung was an unlikely leader. Having fought alongside Chinese communists and later in the Soviet army the first Kim with well-prepared, militarily, but lacked the softer skills considered necessary to oversee a communist Republic. His education was poor, Korean mediocre and understanding of Marxist theory deemed insufficient. Despite this initial hesitation, he was eventually selected to lead the new state, although, with much oversight. Soviet advisors drafted north Korea's constitution and approved all its major speeches in advance, making it a near-perfect puppet state, or, in gentler terms, a “Soviet Satellite Regime”.

By the end of the Korean War, Kim Il sung had become a national hero and icon - praise which fueled grander ambitions. His devotion to socialism soon morphed into a strong sense of nationalism - a desire to be more than Moscow or Beijing's puppet. Many Soviet officers were purged from government positions and for several decades, North Korea intentionally positioned itself between the Soviet Union and China, realizing it could play them off each other. Whatever Moscow gave or promised, Beijing was sure to match, and then some, and vice versa. Both countries knew they were being played, of course, but preferred this to the far worse alternative: ceding influence on the other. This dynamic of reluctant support, in fact, has more less continued to this day. Conventional wisdom portrays China as North Korea's only ally, or even puppet state. The reality is North Korea hasn't been a true puppet state for many decades, and with China, it has less a marriage and more an opportunistic relationship. China’s strategic interests overlap with north Korea's continued existence, not necessarily success or prosperity. At the base level what Beijing wants is nothing – stability. By far, its worst-case scenario is a dissolved or failed North Korea, after which, up to 25 million, unskilled, culturally dissimilar refugees will flood into some of its most economically weak North-Eastern provinces. Even worse would be the accompanying advance of American forces on China's doorstep.

The north, in other words, acts as a nice buffer from U.S. troops stationed in the south. As long as the North doesn't push tensions too high, China is happy more less maintaining the status quo. Ideally it would like to see Kim Jong unfollow its own example of economic reform and opening up, making it less dependent on nuclear threats for survival, and potentially justifying a retreat by American forces. Realistically, though, China also knows its influence is limited. China is indeed North Korea's largest trade partner, by a mile, but it's easy to overstate the leverage from trade with a country whose propaganda can offset almost any internal challenge.

In simple terms, Beijing could destroy North Korea - militarily or economically. It almost certainly also has a plan for regime change should it ever be deemed necessary. What it lacks is the fine-grained ability to influence it. And because China wants stability first and foremost, it has no reason, currently, to use its blunt weapon, leaving it with limited leverage. So, while there exists a clear power dynamic between the two nations, neither is likely to do anything too dramatic.

When Kim met with Xi Jinping in 2018, the supreme leader was seen obediently taking notes while the Chinese president spoke. China has historically condemned its missile tests and voted in favor of UN sanctions. And yet Xi recently made the first visit to Pyongyang by a Chinese leader in 14 years. North Korea, for its part, understands the need to, at a minimum, not anger the closest thing it has to a friend. It's all too familiar with the cost of losing an ally. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, North Korea suffered a devastating famine which ultimately killed somewhere between 200,000 and three million people. Before this, food was distributed via its Public Distribution System - PDS - which had formers surrender their harvest to the government, who then allocated it amongst the population. This model worked well during the 50s, 60s, and 70s even making Chinese towns on the border jealous. In the 80s and 90s, however, the system came violently crashing down. 450 grams of food rations per day in 1994 became 128 grams by 1997. Soon only six percent of the population received any food from the government who promised to feed it. This, arguably, was the most pivotal moment in the nation's history, alongside the deaths of its first two leaders. The PDS has never fully recovered, leaving most of its 25 million people to fend for themselves. Officially, Capitalism doesn't exist here - private property and trade are both highly illegal. In practice, however, it can be seen everywhere - from those in poverty all the way to the highest levels of the regime. Almost everyone is assigned a government job, and yet 62% of defectors surveyed in 2010 say they had worked unofficial, gray market jobs. Married women can register as full-time housewives rather than work an official job - giving them the freedom to start a private enterprise. Across the country, women can be seen in roadside markets selling food, and homemade or imported goods like Russian cigarettes and Chinese beer. Ironically, Because of this women's rights are surprisingly strong in North Korea, where they tend to make many multiples of their husband’s income.

As expected, the government is aware of this illegal activity and could, in theory, eliminate it entirely. But having never recovered from a now-three decade-old famine, most of the population has come to depend on private markets for basic survival. Additionally, the majority of this trade is conducted purely for material, not political, reasons. The poor simply wish to get by and the rich only seeking more luxurious life - not an end to the regime.

So the state simultaneously manages my markets through selective enforcement and also sometimes even encourages it. The “August 3rd rule”, for example, allows one to pay a fee and be exempted from official work - essentially profiting from instead of cracking down on private enterprise. Still, there are limits.

North Korean bank notes were ordered to be exchanged in 2009 with a limit of 100,000 won per person - wiping out many family savings and causing the closest thing North Korea has likely ever seen to a protest. This taught north Koreans not to trust their own currency. So, today, most unofficial transactions involve a foreign currency - usually the Chinese yuan. And just as individuals resort to capitalism - so do government committees and departments.

For decades, many offices have been given limited or no resources, forcing them to generate their own. Anyone with any authority, therefore, is likely to use their influence to start a business, sometimes using the national military as workers. Those who bribe the right people and play the game well can become fabulously rich - even by international standards. These newly wealthy families drive luxury cars, own cell phones and eat western food in Pyongyang, which some jokingly refer to as the “Dubai” of North Korea.

In this way, and many others, North Korea is two very different countries: the north Korea seen by the outside world, and the one that lived by the vast majority of its population. The North Korea of tall buildings and bright lights you see in tours and pictures, and the one, only minutes away, of sprawling fields and flickering, if any, electricity. The famous monument to socialism, and the private shops selling Western clothes only blocks away.

And finally, an unwavering ally, on the surface, who, in reality, is, at best, ambivalent. For now, the system works. Inevitably, though, someday in the future, like the Soviet-era machines on which its factories run, North Korea will simply stop working - for any number of potentially trivial reasons.

In truth, it’s remarkable how long it has worked. But, for the time being, this tapes together, occasionally in need of kicking, jury-rigged machine keeps slowly, inefficiently chugging along.

For all its strangeness, the genius of North Korea, the reason for its survival - is its relative self-sufficiency. It knows how little say a small nation like itself has in the larger world.

#PapoNika PolyMatter

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

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Melusine - A Review

by Wardog

Saturday, 27 January 2007

Wardog indulges herself with Sarah Monette's debut novel, Melusine.~

Don't you just hate it when you start out liking something in a smug, ironic way and somehow end up it liking it for real? I began Sarah Monette's Melusine (which, for the record, sports a half-naked wizard on the cover with a haunted look in his eyes and a flag of red hair flying out behind him) expecting trashy, easily mockable fun but, having devoured the book with such enthusiasm and responded in such a genuine way to the characters, I cannot in good conscience deride it. Yes, it's trashy fantasy but only in the sense that it possesses in abundance all the strengths of that kind of book, by which I mean it's engrossing, intriguing and blissfully easy to read. Textual chocolate, if you will; the best, sweetest most meltingly delightful Lindt chocolate. Indulge yourself.

Here be (mild) Spoilers

Set in the pseudo-Renaissance(ish) city of Melusine, the book follows the fortunes of two half brothers, the seemingly upper-class Felix Harrowgate, spectacularly screwed up wizard, and the staunchly lower-class Mildmay, slightly less screwed up cat burglar. Felix gets tangled up in a Dastardly Plot to overthrow the city's magic and goes through about three hundred pages of hell, in which he is raped, abused, threatened, driven mad, sent to a lunatic asylum, forced to take the fall for the Dastardly Plot and generally broken into a thousand tiny pieces, before he and Mildmay finally meet.

As I said earlier, the book capitalises on many of the strengths of the genre, but it also shares some of its weaknesses. If you actually want, y'know, something to happen fantasy is perhaps not the genre for you. There is, I am sure, a plot in there some where but the characterisation is so deft and the world so well delineated that I actually didn't notice its absence. The book only really finds its focus when fate and circumstance bring Felix and Mildmay together; the preceding action feels rather like an excessively long prologue. Felix's plot, at least, has the virtue of necessity; understanding what he's gone through is a small step in the direction of not finding him unbelievably irritating and he is, after all, the key to the plot. Mildmay, however, seems to be marking time until the book moves on sufficiently to allow him to fulfil his main role in the story as Felix's only protector. Although things happen to him, they all feel a little irrelevant.

Ultimately, though, this is typical of the genre; it doesn't have prologues, it has first books. And, on the subject of first books, Melusine is clearly the introduction to a series, and very little attempt is made to maintain its readability as a standalone book. If I didn't know Amazon was winging book two, The Virtu, to me as I type, this review would be harsher because I'd be screaming with frustration. The internet tells me Melusine and The Virtu were originally planned as one book, which perhaps goes some way to explaining (if not excusing) the weakness of the ending.

On the other hand, although not a satisfactory conclusion to the action of the story, it was nevertheless a satisfactory conclusion in terms of character. One of the things I particularly relished about Melusine is the depth and detail of the characterisation and, whether it not it was a deliberate decision or a consequence of the division of the book, I found myself appreciating the way the Big Plot is always subsidiary to individual actions and character, especially in the sort of genre where saving-the-world-from-evil tends to be the order of the day. Basically I'm trying to say that if you're used to the way fantasy works then you'll have no problems with Melusine and you'll be refreshed by things-not-happening for legitimate character reasons as opposed to pointless fantasy tourism or spurious authorial intent. If you're not a fantasy aficionado, Melusinemight still be an excellent place to start but wait until Sarah Monette has finished the series.

Melusine is narrated in alternating sections from the perspective of its two central characters; the constant changes in perspective and attitude works exceptionally well, and gives the book the same sort of bite-sized moreishness as the early Song of Ice and Fire novels. Felix and Mildmay have very different voices, Felix's very i-centric, faintly evasive, often madness-driven, interiority-focused narration contrasts strikingly with Mildmay's wryly humorous and action-packed street cant. It's the perfect device for exploring the world without subjecting the reader to tedious world-building exercises (sorry if I sound bitter, I've been living on the equivalent of a Super Sized Me diet of fantasy novels) and very soon creates an intense bond between the reader and the characters. I am hugely impressed by Monette's ability to evoke the atmosphere and the richness of her world without sacrificing the pace of the book in unnecessary explanations for the sake of the reader. The complicated calendar is an excellent example of this; knowing it's there enriches the reader's experience but I am infinitely grateful that Monette felt no obligation to inflict its intricate workings upon me.

The character of Mildmay is, quite simply, wonderful. Monette somehow succeeds in completely rejuvenating the stock fantasy trope of the thief-with-a-heart-of-gold. His street-slang is very well judged, never impedes intelligibility and never feels like a gimmick. The language slips occasionally. I remember tripping over "it commenced to rain" Mildmay, surely, would never use commence if he could say start. But for the most part he's beautifully written; his stories of the city and its history, particularly, are fascinating.

The Felix sections are slightly more difficult to deal with than the Mildmay ones I was certainly interested in him but I'm still not sure whether I like him, or how far the author wants us to forgive his flaws and think he's cool. To be fair he spends most of the book being mad or driven mad but, regardless of whatever brilliance he possess, he is still vain, self-destructive and shallow. There are reasons for this but the fact that Mildmay survived his (admittedly slightly less gruelling) upbringing with compassion, integrity and generosity intact and Felix turned into an utter prick doesn't do him any favours. As a case in point, near the end of the book, the brothers finally arrive at the Gardens of Nephele where they hope to find a cure for Felix's madness. Mildmay nearly kills himself getting Felix there; it is telling that, on waking up, his first act is to ask about his brother, whereas Felix's, on being cured, is to ask for some earrings to remind him of his former life of high society glory. Enough said?

Although an utterly absorbing technique, there are some problems with the alternating narration. It focuses the book so completely on Felix and Mildmay that secondary characters seem shadowy. The wizards were particularly indistinguishable, and very often secondary characters would fall away with little or no explanation. It makes sense that they would (Felix and Mildmay aren't omniscient after all) but it does make the book occasionally emotionally unsatisfying. Furthermore, because we only ever see other characters through the eyes of Felix or Mildmay it makes them less convincing than perhaps they could be. The villain, Malkar, for example, purrs in a sinister fashion and does terrible things to Felix but his plans, motivations and behaviour remain so oblique that he seems to be being Evil simply for the sake of it. And as for Felix's former lover, the beautiful Shannon, he basically flounces through the book, professes love for Felix but fails utterly to support him and throws a huff when the abused and broken Felix won't sleep with him. This little betrayal would have been far more effective had I been able to see even slightly what Felix saw in him. Similarly, we are constantly told that Felix has a cruel and devastating wit; but, when he isn't being mad, his flaying tongue seems primarily capable of delivering a fairly juvenile brand of sarcasm. I feel his pain.

Before I wrap this up in a storm of praise and adoration, I probably ought to make some mention of non PG content. Some pretty nasty stuff happens to Felix early on in the book including a rape scene that, although not graphic, is still quite unpleasant. And, let's face it, any book in which one of the protagonists could be described as "an ex-prostitute gay wizard" isn't likely to be appeal to everyone. Oh yes, I should probably say that Felix is gay, which could presumably be offensive to homophobes. I should add that Felix is gay in a rather well-done and understated way. He just is: no big deal. Move along. Nothing to see here.

In conclusion then, and nitpicking aside, this book is one of the most enjoyable works of fantasy I've read for what feels like a very long time. If you don't mind the slightly risqu content and won't be put off by the lack of a concrete conclusion, I heartily recommend that you give Melusine a go. It's immensely engaging, has a genuinely rich and complex setting that never oppresses you with unnecessary detail, and two excellently written protagonists. I'd even go so far as to say that it has revived my interest in fantasy. I could gush more but The Virtu has just arrived and I have to run off and read it.Themes:

Books

Sarah Monette

Sci-fi / Fantasy

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Rami

at 22:17 on 2007-01-27Sounds good! The only other fantasy I've ever read that featured a gay character was Trudi Canavan's Black Magician trilogy, which did do the "OMG it's a GAY! How will the society DEAL with THIS?" thing a bit too much...

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Wardog

at 22:54 on 2007-01-27Yeah, I loved it to pieces. I've so far ducked the Black Magician Trilogy but I may get round to it at some point. Mercedes Lackey does a selection of gay wizards as well, but they spend all their timing angsting and never getting laid. What is with wizards and teh gay - there's probably an article in there somewhere. I think it must be the fact they're generally depicted wearing dresses...err...robes. Can't be good for the manhood. I really like the fact Felix's sexual preferences are incidental - of course he's getting all incestuous over Mildmay now so it'll be interesting to see where Monette goes with that.

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 10:51 on 2009-09-13Another one wich is perhaps rather more bisexual is David Feintuch's The Still, which is also handled very realistically when it comes to peoples reactions and all.

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Wardog

at 13:05 on 2009-09-13Oh really? I'm kind of burned off pretty, vulnerable, sexually ambivalent heroes for the moment (I didn't enjoy the 4th book of this series, for example, there's a Damage Report knocking around somewhere) but thanks for the recommendation. I'll look it out one of these days.

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 13:00 on 2009-09-16It's a good book and it was nice to remember it after I read your article. That has happened quite often after I stumbled in your site while reading the articles. I read The Still as an adolescent in 1997 and I was a bit confused to really appreciate its kind of...hard fantasy, if that's the correct term.

I should probably read it again myself, since on recollection, it is a very well written work, with good characterization. It takes the risk of intentionally building the central character as an arrogant whiny teenager who, although with some reason, alianates people close to him before he learns how to behave like an adult and be a good leader. Although the he is a he and a heir to the throne to boot, it really centres on his development into aa adult and what it costs a person to be a leader.

Also, I'm not sure, but I think it might be pretty unique in a western fantasy story to have a love triangle of two males and a female where its center is on the male and it is represented completely straight and serious without comedy and with significant effect on the plot and not necessarily in a good way.

Sorry, but I'm unaccustomed in writing in english so the sentences seem to build up a bit. Oh well, more practice I guess.

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Wardog

at 16:32 on 2009-09-16Your English is thoroughly excellent - and much better than my command of any other language. I'm definitely curious now, sounds like a really interesting book and I'll certainly try to lay my hands on a copy now, and I think you're right, a straight up love triangle that isn't two women / one man seems pretty rare. I can't think of any other examples, actually.

I'm not quite sure what 'hard fantasy' is compared to say, 'hard sci-fi' (which I know is lots of science) but I guess I'll find out when I read it :)

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http://ruderetum.blogspot.com/

at 19:35 on 2009-09-16I use it in the sense that if there's a thing called magic, it is very rare and very restricted in its application if there is any magic at all. For example Guy Gavriel Kay's The Sarantine Mosaic with only mystical phenomena a few times during two books compared to the Wheel of Time series.

#Ferretbrain #Sarah Monette #Wardog #Melusine

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maxslogic25 · 5 years

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Google Recommendations: Are they Helping or Hurting my Paid Search Strategy?

Let’s face it. There are plenty of rabbit holes to dig into when going through your Google Ads account.

Collecting data, recognizing the trends for optimization and other paid search strategy efforts often do not come as quickly as we’d like. The problem? As digital marketers, time is not always on our side. We are expected to bring in results in a timely manner but some factors are slightly out of our control.

Cue in Google, who offers time-saving options, courtesy of their massive amounts of data. But do these options actually improve our campaigns?

Here are some experiences I’ve seen during my time working with various Google Ad accounts at Directive, a search marketing agency focused on B2B and enterprise. Let’s break them down together.

Targeting Tools

Setting up proper targeting is a crucial paid search strategy for your Google Ads campaigns. With search, you can control targeting through keywords you bid on as well as the match types you utilize.

With display, it is through the audiences you build or the ones available in the Google Ads platform.

See below:

Each campaign type also has options that allow Google to increase your targeting range.

With search campaigns, you have the option to show your ads to Google search partners. This extends the reach of Google search ads to hundreds of non-Google websites. These also can extend to YouTube and other Google sites.

Choosing this option includes a notification that informs you that “most advertisers include their ads on Google search partner sites.”

See below:

After auditing an account, we found a client of ours did indeed decide to include search partners and saw the following results:

We do see a large spike in conversion volume from search partners, but also a much higher cost-per-conversion.

Additionally, there is a 90.25% impression share from Google search, meaning there is still room to show ads there. Had more budget gone to Google search and a bit less to search partners, this client would have obtained conversions at a cheaper cost, and ultimately a lower cost-per-conversion in this campaign.

While setting up a display campaign, you can boost your reach through automated targeting.

See below:

Looks pretty great right? One of our clients set up a remarketing campaign using the above settings. Here was the overall performance:

Something did not seem right here!

By targeting users who are already familiar with your brand, you should have a better conversion rate than .25%, right? So what happened? Well, when looking at how the site visitors performed we saw the following:

And in comparison, this is how the set of conservative automation performed:

We see a massive difference here in performance. Even at “conservative” automation, 82% of the budget went towards automation, despite it performing much, MUCH worse.

Proper targeting is the foundation for success in your campaigns! Please keep this at the forefront of your mind.

If your goal is lead generation, avoid opting into automated targeting until you feel you are capped out. Even then, do not set and forget; you could be wasting spend on audiences you have no control over.

If your goal is awareness, these options are an excellent way to expand your reach, get more exposure, and drive more users to your site.

Bid Builder

If you’ve got a lot of keywords in your account, manual bidding can be quite a pain. Google’s smart bidding can alleviate the time-consuming chore of keeping track and adjusting your keyword bids. Additionally, they provide multiple options to fit the campaign’s needs:

Target CPA: Sets bids to get the most conversions possible while reaching your average cost-per-acquisition (CPA) goal.

Target ROAS: Sets bids to help you get the most conversion value while maintaining your target return on ad spend (ROAS).

Maximize Clicks: Sets bids to help you get the most clicks within your budget.

Maximize Conversions: Sets bids to help you get the most conversions within your budget.

Target Search Page Location: Sets bids to help you get your ads to the top of the page or on the first page of search results.

Target Outranking Share: Sets bids to help you outrank another domain’s ads.

Enhanced CPC: Adjusts your manual bids up or down to help you increase conversions.

Target Impression Share: Automatically sets your bids to increase your ads’ chances of appearing in the search page area you select.

These can all be beneficial options depending on your campaign goals. One of our clients had a campaign rich with conversion data, averaging around 200 conversions a month.

The more conversion data, the better, as Google’s algorithm can learn quicker and begin producing more “bang for your buck” in a shorter amount of time. We decided to run an experiment here testing out max conversions against the manual strategy and saw some pretty interesting results:

After a few weeks, we were not seeing much difference in terms of volume or conversion rate. The big difference here was in the costs associated with each strategy:

Using the automated strategy, our CPC’s went up a whopping 63%! So while conversion volume may not have grown, our CPA certainly did! We ended up ending the experiment and sticking with manual bidding.

This isn’t to say automated strategies are always going to be wasteful. We’ve used this strategy on many clients and have seen it deliver the best volume and lowest CPA one of our client’s campaigns had ever seen.

We’ve seen the Target CPA turn around performance and improve account level CPA. We have keywords that we want showing 100% of the time due to their value, and Target Impression Share worked towards accomplishing that goal.

The lesson here? Always experiment before switching over. We’ve seen varying results depending on the industry, offer, and branded vs. non-branded keywords. Personally, I’ve seen these strategies work best after the campaign has been running for a while and is well optimized. After it’s been up, experiment with Smart Bidding to get your campaign to reach that next level.

Creative Collaboration

So, everything we’ve talked about thus far has been on the backend, but what about the creatives your customers see?

Google has an answer for that as well in the form of responsive search and display ads!

With responsive search ads, you can input multiple headlines and descriptions and have Google mix and match to find a winning combination. Ideally, this frees up time from creating tons of different ad variants to try and find the winning combination of copy. Let’s take a look at one:

We can see a superb click-through rate, but not so great CPA. What is more troublesome is the inability to find out what exactly is wasting spend. If you click on the “view asset details” outlined above, you’ll be met with the following:

We can see the different combinations and the percentage of times they showed, but impression numbers are all you get; no conversion numbers, conversion rates, or cost-per-conversions associated with the combinations.

This prevents us from being able to double down on what is working, and pause what is not.

Responsive search ads could potentially be a game changer if each piece of copy had the previously mentioned stats to accompany, but without them, we cannot really analyze the copy winners and losers.

A certain combination served may get you a lot of clicks, but may not resonate with your landing page compared to another combination receiving fewer clicks. There’s just no way of knowing for sure at that moment.

On the display side, you can work with responsive display ads.

Rather than manually creating different banner ad sizes, you just upload an image and a few lines of copy to accompany. Then, Google is able to fit your ads in more placements and create various combinations like responsive search ads.

We tested one of these against our standard banner ads and got some excellent results. The top row shows the entire ad group’s metrics, while the bottom shows the responsive display ad’s:

The ad was responsible for more than half of the ad group’s conversions, despite being less than a quarter of the spend. Automation seemed to perform well here. Like responsive search, however, there is no way of understanding what is working or not. In this case we ended up just pausing the manually built display ads, and testing the responsive against another responsive to try and get a better grasp.

All in all, responsive ads can save you a chunk of time in the creative process but lack the insights to dive into what messages seamlessly transition users from ad to landing page and then to the desired conversion action.

These ads are worth having in your back pocket though, so test them out against your current ads and see how they perform for you!

Overview and Recommendations Refresh

Have a big account? Don’t know where to start?

These tabs within Google Ads give you general insights into various campaigns, ad groups, and keywords.

See below:

This tool helps you gain a high-level understanding of trends or abnormalities going on within your Google Ads account. For example, in the Overview section, we get insight into some words that triggered our ads, without having to dig through search terms:

If you’re seeing a lot of irrelevant terms here, it is a good indicator you need to go in and clean up your search terms and add some negative keywords. In the example above, we’ve outlined a word used in a search, which triggered our ad to show. This word is not relevant to our services, and therefore we would add this as a negative keyword.

Removing these types of words is crucial for reducing wasted spend and prevents your ads from being triggered by searches that are not related to what you offer.

The recommendations tab offers advice on where you should boost spend or expand your campaigns. Take the advice here with a grain of salt. Sometimes the recommendations may not have your campaign goals in mind.

For example, we were running a video campaign and were met with the following advice:

Seems pretty obvious that adding more money into our daily budget will earn us more video views, right?

But what about engagement metrics? Are these users actually making their way to the site? If they do, are they bouncing quickly? If they don’t, how many pages are they visiting?

The whole point of this campaign was to spread awareness for one of our client’s products and see if video ads enticed users to travel to the site. We cared more about how our audience was performing and whether they were making their way to the site to learn more after a teaser clip, than just showing a video to the masses.

The above recommendation does not provide those insights, only how to increase your cost and views. Click-through-rate, bounce rate, and pages per sessions are a better way to understand your goals and should be considered before adding more money to your daily budget for more views.

Again, take everything on these pages as simply suggestions. Use them as a roadmap, as they can be good indicators of areas to dig into within your account. However, make sure you follow the breadcrumbs and investigate before blindly adding more funds.

More spend simply for visibility does not necessarily mean better account performance.

Final Focus

Setting up a Google Ads account to ultimately benefit your paid search strategy can be time-consuming and requires strategy and research.

With so much to do within the account, it is tempting to let Google take over and run on autopilot. However, taking shortcuts early on can provide subpar performance and wasted spend on your PPC campaigns.

But isn’t automation built to learn, adjust, and improve our search marketing efforts? To quote one of the most frequently used phrases in Directive’s pay-per-click department, “it depends.”

While these options are available to make your life easier, they are not guaranteed to work. Should you try them out? Absolutely. Optimize, then test, but keep a close eye on what is happening within your account. Do your due diligence and ensure there are no holes in your search marketing campaigns that allow automation to hemorrhage your paid search budget.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://www.ppchero.com/google-recommendations-are-they-helping-or-hurting-my-paid-search-strategy/

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racheltgibsau · 5 years