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bluegarners · 3 years

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So I got an ask the other day about my thoughts on the Court of Owls; I gave my general opinion, but in this post, I’d like to dive into what I actually know about them

The Court of Owls

"Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time,

Ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime.

They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed.

Speak not a whispered word about them, or they'll send the Talon for your head."

So the Court we know has existed since colonial times and is pretty much a secret society/crime group that resides in the corners of Gotham City. The Court first appeared in Batman V.2 #3, back in 2011. The Court is composed of some of Gotham’s oldest and wealthiest families that use the Talons as assassins (I’ll make another post about them) for political influence and other gains and means. The members are all human (the so called “Owls”) and wear an owl mask to conceal their identities; the mask doesn’t look much like an owl though. It looks more like a smooth, white, porcelain mask with some slits for eyes

However, the rest of the Court is speculated to be mutant human-owl hybrids with long claws, owl-like distorted faces, and owl-like eating habits. I’m not sure what the mutants role is, but I believe they are experiments gone wrong that the Court just hasn’t killed off yet.

The Court’s origin of operations is Gotham City, but they’ve expanded internationally, where they call themselves the Parliament of Owls (this is explored in the Robin Wars storyline) or the Tribe of Judas (the Court is an extension from this religious cult, but that's a whole other can of worms). Not much else is said about the Parliament of Owls, but it can be assumed they do the same things as Gotham’s Court, but on a more worldly scale. For those who do not know, a group of owls is called a parliament, so this suggests that there are more “groups” of Owls stationed across the globe other than the ones just in Gotham, hence the Parliament.

DC Rebirth Nightwing Series

The Court is led by a Judge of Owls, the overarching leader. They wear a bloodstained owl mask, unlike the clean white masks the rest of the court wears, and garb themselves in a dark cloak to cover their head. Not much is known about the Judge, as there doesn’t seem to be specific criteria that needs to be met for one to be the Judge (taking into account that the Judge of Owls was a woman in the Batman vs. Robin the animated movie, but they also called her the “Grandmaster” instead soooo)

Doomsday Clock #6, 2018

So, because everything must always connect back to Batman/Bruce Wayne, many of the Court's bases are in hidden rooms in every building established by the Alan Wayne Trust (Bruce’s great-grandfather), supposedly all located on the thirteenth floors. Hilariously enough, Bruce didn’t believe in the Court of Owls for a long time, as his investigations initially did not prove their existence in Gotham. Previously, he had investigated them because he believed they had something to do with his parents' murder. That line of thinking came from a young and traumatized Bruce Wayne, as he believed it didn't make sense for his parents' to have been murdered over some pearls and loose change; he thought there had to be a greater conspiracy than a mugger named Joe Chill with a gun. At some point, young Bruce had asked his father about the Court of Owls but had been denied a true answer; just like when Bruce had needed a sign to become Batman (a bat flew by his window), young Bruce had found an owl nest in his attic, which he proceeded to destroy and kill the owls in it, and thus began his investigation into the Court of Owls and his conclusion that they did not exist.

I always laugh at this panel because Bruce is so darn sure that he knows everything that goes on in Gotham and that there is no legend or myth he doesn’t know about, going on to say that his own work is proof enough that the Court of Owls doesn’t exist because he couldn’t find them. But then we get this great and ominous quote from Dick (who actually plays a larger role in all of this)

“Look, Bruce. No one knows Gotham better than you. It's your city. It's Batman's city... But it's also nearly four hundred years old. Which means over the years, maybe it belonged to something else, too. Something big. Something dark.”- Dick Grayson, Batman V.2 #4, The Court of Owls, Part 4: Face the Court

All you really need to know about that series is that Bruce didn’t believe in them, then almost got assassinated by a Talon and thus fought the Court. He didn’t defeat them, as defeating them would mean having to dismantle everything, but he fought them. Bruce, I suppose, is a more “seeing is believing” type of guy; won’t believe in a deadly court until they send someone to kill him lol

The last thing about the Court specifically, which I feel like is the most focused upon thing in fannon/fanfiction, is the labyrinth. There is an underground labyrinth that contains a drugged fountain, and it is where victims are trapped before they are killed. In the maze, the stories of all their victims are told, eventually leading the victim to their own room where they are killed by a Court Talon. This was heavily focused on when Batman was captured by the Court, where he was forced to spend a week in the labyrinth without food or water, his only source for sustenance being the drugged fountain.

The point of sending a victim into the massive underground maze is to degrade their minds to the point of hallucinations, of which Batman suffered from and at one point saw his parents, slowly going insane. This also weakens the body, making an easier kill for the Talon or an easier persuasion by the Court to join their ranks as an Owl or as a Talon to work for them. It is here in the labyrinth that the bodies of Talons, past and current, are stored, residing in these coffin-like structures with their pictures placed on top (most are pictures of children).

Now, unfortunately, in Batman V.2 #5, Bruce is drugged out of his mind and hallucinates frequently, so not everything he sees can be proven true; for instance, there’s a floating boat with an owl as its ships’ figurehead, and he punches the head of it off in anger. Bruce also talks to himself, though it can be assumed the voice in his head is someone specific, so it just lends to the narrative of how manipulative the Court is. Other than the coffin room, there is also a room where pictures of all the Court’s victims are laid out, showing how they broke down over time and became more and more insane until Talon was sent to kill them.

There’s also a room showing all the names of every person who has ever been involved with the Court, be it the victims/Talons, the members, or enemies they’ve killed. Along with these names are models of Gotham, little buildings, roads, and city maps built as smaller structures.

Batman V.2 #5

I'll make a post detailing more about Talons (uber cool but sad assassins), but this is pretty much all I know about the Court

The Court is such as cool concept, and I'm excited they're getting more attention! I feel like what they do is undervalued/underestimated considering that they've existed for centuries and are composed of almost every major elite and wealthy person in Gotham

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zacdhaenkeau · 6 years

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5 Things to Make You Better at PPC Marketing

I Love Us

I love the PPC community. We are funny, smart, and, for the most part, do our work without much hubris. And one of the greatest things about PPC Hero is this: we are dedicated to making the funny, smart, humble PPC community better. PPCers are very much interested in knowledge-sharing and the old adage “a rising tide lifts all boats”. So in this post, I am going to give you 5 things you can do today to become better at your job tomorrow. And I will admit, I am probably not going to be telling you anything you don’t already know. But maybe you have lost your way and can’t see the forest for the trees (How many more adages can I fit into this blog post?). Maybe you have gotten away from the basics. Or maybe you just need a little reminder: we can always be better PPC Heroes.

Get Supermetrics

In many conversations with Jacob Brown he has said something to the effect of, “I really don’t think the creators of Supermetrics realize the power of the tool they created”. Word.

The creators of Supermetrics are basically Mark Zuckerburg when he registered the domain “thefacebook.com”. I love this tool. It is so unassuming and there isn’t much gravitas in how it looks. It is just beautiful, raw data in any shape you want. We have written a few posts about Supermetrics but really all we have done is scratch the surface of the capabilities.

Close your eyes (not really because how else are you going to read this?). Imagine what you want to know about your account. All the tiny bits of information diced and spliced any way you want it. If you are managing multiple accounts, imagine being able to create a dashboard where you can see larger trends spanning accounts and platforms. It gets even more fun if you are employing a standard campaign naming convention (ie Platform_Network_Campaign Name_Geo Target_Device Target). Think of all the querying you can do! Doesn’t that sound nice? Good. Now open your eyes. Now go get Supermetrics.

My current favorite way to use Supermetrics? Combining metrics from AdWords and Bing alongside Analytics and segmenting by country. Supermetrics? More like SuperFUN!

ABP

We shouldn’t always be closing, per se. But we should always be projecting. With all of the automation at our fingertips, it is really easy to come up with bid rules and set them live and watch things happen. But before you actually start relinquishing all bid management tasks over to the automation world, do a few trial runs manually first.

I have this great ROAS bid template that uses Supermetrics to pull my data. Supermetrics runs, dumps the data in, and it spits out an upload sheet. Voila! Presto! Alacazam! I’m done.

It is time-consuming to build these types of templates and we often forget to add in columns that will calculate the effect of the changes on the performance of the account. We need this. So badly. If you don’t project even with your automation and all of your knowledge of the account, you could end up in a situation where 4 weeks down the road traffic is dipping and you start looking for lost clicks in all the wrong places. PROJECT.

Think Big. Act Small.

When I started in PPC four and a half years ago, I was drowning in keyword data. I felt I could not keep my head above the water long enough to understand account strategy. I would get so hung up on one rogue (not to be confused with Rogue One) search term and think the account would crash to the ground if I didn’t act immediately.

So it is four years later, and I’ve seen some things. I know some things. You must keep your eye on the prize (is that adage #3?). Ask yourself these questions:

What is your goal for the account in the next 3 months?

What is your goal for the account in the next year?

What is the company’s or organization’s goal for PPC?

How does PPC fit into the overarching marketing strategy?

What does it mean for the company or organization to be profitable?

Growth and profitability don’t always play nicely together. Knowing the larger picture will help you prioritize tactics and focus on the right little things. Maybe that rogue search term is pulling in a new audience and you are really focused on growth and wanting to expand your reach, if so, then no need to worry about it. But if profits trump growth, that tiny little search term pulling in a new audience may not be contributing to the overall health of profitability and therefore it needs to go.

When I say Think Big, Act Small, I also mean you shouldn’t be reinventing the wheel every month. Small, impactful changes can compound upon each other and create movement in the right direction. When we say we want to “move the needle”, we don’t always mean we need to move it the length of a football field. Slow and steady wins the race (I am on a roll).

Know Your Competition

PPC Hero has many great posts about competitive analysis through tools such as the Auction Insights Report. Competitor analysis is key to understanding your auction. Understand who is in the auction with you and you can build strategy for everything from dayparting to ad copy.

Recently, I learned another simple way to understand your industry and competitors. Google Alerts! Go to google.com/alerts and type in any business, industry, or topic. Select how often you want to receive alerts. And you are done! News about your keyword will start appearing in your inbox.

Company mergers, bankruptcies, news stories, among other things will all effect performance of your keywords. This is super helpful if you want to stay in the know about external factors contributing to the success or decline of your efforts.

Have an Opinion

Have you been on Social Media lately? Everyone has an opinion. I think we as humans are becoming inundated with other people’s opinions. I’ll try not to get too heavy for a PPC blog, but we shouldn’t become so hardened to others’ opinions. Also, opinions are not always arguments. I want to be challenged by opinions and I want to have my own opinions and have others challenge my opinions!

What I mean to say is this: it is okay to disagree on strategy. It is okay to disagree on tactics. There is no such thing as “Best Practice” (though I am guilty of tossing around that phrase a time or two). Focus on what you know to be true and focus on the account goal. There will always be more than one way to peel an orange (Adage!).

Homework time! I want you to seek to a differing opinion on PPC Strategy and do two things:

Listen to understand, don’t listen to form a rebuttal.

Then use your voice to challenge the opinion and share your own view.

Note that I did not say “raise your voice”. Though the PPC community is a civil one, it is always a good reminder to be respectful of one another.

Birds of a Feather…

At the end of the day we are all just a bunch of PPC nerds trying to turn hard work into (insert passion here). In summation, to be a better PPC manager, you need to try out new tools, understand cause and effect, focus on strategy, keep an eye on the competition, and speak up. I believe these 5 things will make you a better PPC Hero and in turn raise the bar in our community.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://www.ppchero.com/5-things-to-make-you-better-at-ppc-marketing/

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maxslogic25 · 6 years

Text

5 Things to Make You Better at PPC Marketing

I Love Us

Get Supermetrics

In many conversations with Jacob Brown he has said something to the effect of, “I really don’t think the creators of Supermetrics realize the power of the tool they created”. Word.

My current favorite way to use Supermetrics? Combining metrics from AdWords and Bing alongside Analytics and segmenting by country. Supermetrics? More like SuperFUN!

ABP

I have this great ROAS bid template that uses Supermetrics to pull my data. Supermetrics runs, dumps the data in, and it spits out an upload sheet. Voila! Presto! Alacazam! I’m done.

Think Big. Act Small.

So it is four years later, and I’ve seen some things. I know some things. You must keep your eye on the prize (is that adage #3?). Ask yourself these questions:

What is your goal for the account in the next 3 months?

What is your goal for the account in the next year?

What is the company’s or organization’s goal for PPC?

How does PPC fit into the overarching marketing strategy?

What does it mean for the company or organization to be profitable?

Know Your Competition

Have an Opinion

Homework time! I want you to seek to a differing opinion on PPC Strategy and do two things:

Listen to understand, don’t listen to form a rebuttal.

Then use your voice to challenge the opinion and share your own view.

Note that I did not say “raise your voice”. Though the PPC community is a civil one, it is always a good reminder to be respectful of one another.

Birds of a Feather…

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://www.ppchero.com/5-things-to-make-you-better-at-ppc-marketing/

0 notes