Author: Ryuzaki

Marketing mix modeling (MMM) has shifted from an enterprise luxury to an essential measurement tool.  Tech giants like Google, Meta, and Uber have released powerful open-source MMM frameworks that anyone can use for free.  The challenge is understanding which tool actually solves your problem and which require a PhD in statistics to implement. The landscape can be confusing because these tools serve fundamentally different purposes despite being mentioned together.  Google’s Meridian and Meta’s Robyn are complete, production-ready MMM frameworks that take your marketing data and deliver actionable budget recommendations.  They include everything needed:  Data transformations that model advertising decay. Saturation…

Rediscovering Intimacy After 60: Embracing Connection, Love, and Joy Your 60s can be a remarkable chapter in your life—a time when you embrace who you are and leave behind the societal stereotypes that don’t define you. Intimacy, whether emotional or physical, becomes a vital part of fostering connection with your partner. In this journey, let’s explore ways to enhance intimacy and romance in your relationships—reinventing joy and affection in ways that are meaningful and fulfilling. The Value of Emotional Intimacy Emotional intimacy lays the groundwork for a healthy romantic relationship. It’s about genuine connections where both partners feel seen, heard,…

Google today unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that lets AI agents work across the entire shopping journey, from discovery to purchase to post-sale support. Additionally, Google is introducing new AI tools for retailers, including branded shopping agents and ad formats optimized for AI-driven discovery. About UCP. UCP establishes a shared language between AI agents and commerce systems, removing the need for custom integrations across agents or platforms. UCP works with existing standards (e.g., Agent2Agent, Agent Payments Protocol, and Model Context Protocol). Google co-developed it with partners including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, and Target. More than 20 additional…

On episode 336 of PPC Live The Podcast, I speak to Anthony Higman, CEO of AdSquire. Anthony’s career journey is a full-circle story: from starting in a law firm mailroom to running his own company with views over Philadelphia. His experiences demonstrate how hard work, learning from mistakes, and perseverance can shape a successful career. Learning from Client Missteps Anthony shares one of his first “F-ups” with clients who forwarded him countless emails promising quick wins. While some were scams, others were legitimate opportunities misaligned with the client’s strategy. At one point, Anthony let a client pursue an SEO agency…

Advertisers can now compare two sets of assets while keeping “common assets” consistent across both versions. Tests can be set up from the Experiments page under the Assets sub-menu, allowing marketers to see which creative combinations perform best. Google previously launched a similar experiment type for retail campaigns last year, and this expands the capability to all Performance Max campaigns. Why we care. Performance Max campaigns rely heavily on automation, which has historically made testing specific creative assets tricky. This new feature gives advertisers more control over asset-level performance insights without disrupting the overall campaign. The big picture. Tests will…

Google shows AI Overviews in Search largely based on whether users engage with them — and removes them when they don’t. That’s according to Robby Stein, Google’s VP of product for Search. In a CNN interview, Stein explained how Google tunes AI-driven results as it expands ads, personalization, and visual search across its experiences. Engagement drives AI Overviews. Google tests AI Overviews on specific query types and keeps them only if users find them useful. If users don’t click, interact, or show value, the overview disappears. The system then applies that learning to similar queries, Stein said: “The system will…

Advertisers are spotting signs that Google is increasing the number of video assets allowed per Asset Group in Performance Max campaigns — from 5 videos to as many as 15. Why we care. Video is increasingly central to Performance Max performance, but the current five-video cap forces trade-offs. Advertisers often have to choose between formats or ratios, limiting coverage across YouTube, Discover and other placements. What’s changing. With up to 15 videos per Asset Group, advertisers would be able to include multiple creatives while still covering all three major video ratios. That means less need to fragment campaigns or duplicate…

A $4 million Shopify brand recently showed me an SEO audit it received six months earlier – 127 pages, 53 action items, and a $12,000 price tag. Since then, the company has updated page titles and meta descriptions and added a few blog articles – 12 recommendations in total. The remaining 41 were not even scheduled. This is not an execution issue. It is a model issue. This article explains why the traditional audit-plus-retainer approach consistently underdelivers for ecommerce brands. It also outlines a focused alternative designed to capture measurable revenue in 30 days rather than six months. The retainer…

As a Google Ads practitioner, you probably spend the bulk of your time optimizing Search, Shopping or Performance Max campaigns. That makes sense — the Google SERP is the foundation of Google Ads. But there is a big opportunity sitting right inside your Google Ads account that too many advertisers are ignoring. I’m going to go ahead and declare it: Demand Gen is the most underrated campaign type in Google Ads, and that has to end. If you’ve been hesitant to test Demand Gen, or if you tried it once and “it didn’t work,” let this be your sign to…

Google’s Danny Sullivan, the former Search Liaison, said not to create bite-sized chunks of your content because you think Google’s AI results and other LLMs like that type of content. He said, “we don’t want you to do that” and that he spoke with Google engineers about it and they said the same thing – don’t do it for LLMs. More details. Danny Sullivan said on the Search Off the Record podcast that was published yesterday: “One of the things I keep seeing over and over in some of the advice and guidance and people are trying to figure out what do…