A Plethora of PPC News: 7/25/13

Happy Thursday, everyone! Who’s in the mood for some exciting news from the world of PPC management? I’ll just assume that everyone is raising their hands right now, so let’s get to it! Below are some of the most interesting developments in the field of online advertising in the past week. Enjoy!

The biggest story of the week is one of the first positive pieces of news for Facebook’s ad team in a long while. Over the last quarter, Facebook’s mobile ad revenue has jumped by almost double. This made Zuck and the Facebook crew both very happy and a lot of money on Wall Street. Many consider mobile to be the battleground of the future and with Facebook making such a strong showing in the last 90 days, Google might be shaking in its boots!
Speaking of Wall Street, Google posted modest profit increases this past quarter but the real story was about the price of ads. AdWords search ad prices are down 6% from last year. Although this may have advertisers smiling–who doesn’t want to pay less for the same click?–it very likely has the Google brass frustrated. With the launch of enhanced campaigns, it will be very interesting to see what the third quarter looks like in October.
But it’s not all doom and gloom for Google, they always seem to have an ace up their sleeve. In this case, that ace has been the Product Listing Ads (PLAs). Google’s “Shopping” product used to be free and when it moved to a paid model, many were up in arms. That din has quieted, though, and now Google’s PLAs are the dominant force in the comparison shopping engine (CSE) arena. With the buying season right around the corner in the form of back-to-school and the holiday shopping, this new foothold is likely to be a lucrative one for the search giant.
Finally, I’d be remiss to mention the words “Google” and “lucrative” without talking about billionaire playboy Eric Schmidt. Although the former CEO is no longer running Google, he’s still enjoying the fruits of its success. His new $15MM New York apartment is proof positive of that! The looming gossip will be about why he bothered to make the place soundproof. Perhaps it’s so that his frequent romps with New York’s loveliest ladies will go undisturbed or perhaps it’s so that he avoids hearing complaints about Google’s worsening customer satisfaction!