Managing a paid search campaign is different from your typical job in that our work is never done and the rules are constantly evolving. It takes a mix of staying on top of updates, while also mastering proven optimization strategies to excel in the field. As someone who will happily spend hours with eyes glued to solving a jigsaw puzzle, I like to think of paid search as a multi-faceted puzzle with a variety of different combinations that come together to achieve a multitude of desired outcomes.
 

Recently, I attended Content Marketing World 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio. With over 4,000 attendees, 225 speakers, and more than 120 comprehensive sessions and workshops, it’s easy to see why Content Marketing World reigns supreme when it comes to conferences within the content marketing industry. All five days of Content Marketing World were a whirlwind of the latest industry news, concepts, and perspectives—even information I was already familiar with was presented in new and intriguing ways. I couldn’t wait to share everything I learned with my Zion & Zion team members and apply it to our work. Below are my top…

 

It’s no wonder businesses frequently switch their advertising and marketing agencies. According to a survey conducted by Marketing Week, only 8% of corporate marketers say they are “very satisfied” with their agency.

Since so many businesses are looking for a new agency partner, here are 16 questions you should consider during an RFP or RFI process. Discovering the answers to these crucial questions will help you select the best agency.

1. Who Are The People You Will Work With?

Agencies are notorious for introducing their top executives during new business presentations, but then substituting them with junior…

 

The first year for the US Census to collect information on computer ownership and use was 1984. They reported that only 7.9% of US households had a computer. It was during that same year, 1984, that a husband and wife in Wisconsin formed a punk rock band named Timbuk 3.

In 2016, the Census reported that the ownership of one or more home computers had grown to 89.3%. The mostly unknown band, Timbuk 3, was able to secure a place in history as an 80’s one-hit-wonder. The name and chorus of that song could…

 

What the heck is human-centered design? I once heard it dubiously described as college art students surrounding a nude model as they sketched. But, mostly the term elicits a shoulder shrug from people who feel like they should know what it is, but don’t. For me, however, I’ve been lucky enough to have been exposed to it over the last few years at Zion & Zion, where I spend my days as a Sr. Copywriter. Prior to participating in a weeklong design thinking bootcamp at Stanford University’s d.school, I had coworkers previously participate in the same human-centered program—and pass along…

 

During your career as a designer, you’ll develop skills with a lot of approaches that you can add to your ‘toolkit’ to help spark creativity or portray ideas. Each one is valuable in its own unique way and may not be used every time for every project. It’s like when you need to pound in a nail; there’s probably a screwdriver in your toolkit. Great tool, but you need to grab that hammer. Here are five design process tools I find myself pulling out of my toolkit quite often.

1. Opposite Day

The Opposite Day exercise helps challenge our normal…

 
When it comes to running successful paid search campaigns, ensuring ads are shown only when you want them to is key, and dayparting is the way to do that. Through this article I will go over what dayparting is, how it can be beneficial to various industries, how to determine the best schedule for you, and finally, how to set up dayparting for your paid search campaigns.
 
This year, I was fortunate enough to have Zion & Zion send me to an executive program at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, also known as d.school., with two of my colleagues from Zion & Zion. Stanford d.school’s Design Thinking Bootcamp is an intensive four-day program which helps people develop their creative abilities.