Having worked with many different types of companies on their paid search compliance strategy, I’ve seen my fair share of program abuse. Paid search abuse takes many forms and involves a variety of bad actors, including trademark abusers or affiliate program violators.

With the rise of referral programs that reward users for referring new members, a new type of abuse has emerged. Referral programs are a useful means of acquiring new customers and users. By encouraging word-of-mouth with incentives, companies can accelerate growth at a reasonable and consistent cost. Referral programs are also a great way to transform loyalists into full-fledged brand ambassadors. With the opportunity to gain some extra perks, these star customers can bring on a lot of incremental traffic and revenue.

Compliance managers at credit card issuers, networks, and publishers have the unenviable task of keeping their programs compliant in a constantly changing space. Every time a credit card issuer changes a rate, for example, there is a risk that webpages across the ecosystem of content housed on the web, will be out-of-date. The risk for non-compliance is high and the consequences range from frustrated or misinformed customers to fines and legal action taken by regulatory agencies. Every word published—by the issuer, by a partner, by an affiliate, or even by a consumer—creates an opportunity for risk.

Community service and volunteering are an important part of BrandVerity’s culture. We volunteer 1% of our time each quarter to serving our community. We feel it’s our responsibility to give back to the communities that house us, our families, and our business.

The search engines’ rules around trademark use in paid search ads in the United States are nuanced and complicated. Unless you work with them every day, as we do, it can be difficult to know when an ad complies with the rules.

What is crystal clear though is the frustration you have when you see a competitor showing up on the search engine results page (SERP) using your branded keywords. Infuriating? Yes, but is it allowed? It depends.

As part of our celebration of International Women’s Day, I thought it would be fun to sit down with Georgia Gier, our VP of Customer Success. Georgia was the first woman hired at BrandVerity six years ago. She started as a Customer Success Manager and now leads a geographically dispersed team of eight and is a key member of BrandVerity’s leadership team.

In January, Microsoft and Verizon Media announced a major update to their partnership. Starting in March, Bing Ads will be the sole advertising platform for Yahoo and AOL ads. We’re excited about these changes because it will become easier for Paid Search Managers to run their campaigns.

We are excited to announce that BrandVerity has been selected as one of Built In Seattle’s Best Small Companies to Work for in Seattle! This distinction is awarded to companies that have gone the extra mile in creating an awesome work culture that empowers employees to live their best lives.

The Rise of Google Shopping

Most paid search experts believe Google Shopping is a big opportunity for online retailers and it will continue to play an important role in years to come. According to Merkle’s Digital Marketing Report for Q4 2018, while text ad spending fell 9% Y/Y following three quarters of single-digit growth, spending on Google Shopping ads grew 42% Y/Y in Q4 2018. This was the highest growth rate for Google Shopping spend since mid-2016. For retailers, Google Shopping ads accounted for 63% of all Google search ad clicks–an all-time high as well.

We recently asked six paid search experts what they thought were the most important PPC trends for 2019. While there were a variety of answers, the clear winner in terms of impact on SEM for the coming year was automation. Like it or not, automation is unavoidable and search engine marketers need to learn how to thrive in this automated paid search world.

Noticed anything different when setting up call-only ad campaigns in Google Ads? In December, Google made changes to their call-only ads policy. While the changes may appear relatively minor, they have implications for advertisers wishing to use this type of ad. These updates are in line with Google’s philosophy of providing a smooth customer journey and ensuring that people engaging with ads on their search engine are finding what they want.