Introduction

ATRA leads the field of finalists for the 12th annual Search Engine Land Awards. The agency earned finalist spots in six categories in 2026, more than any other agency.

ATRA’s eight finalist entries span six PPC categories, including Best Overall PPC Initiative – Small Business, Best Overall PPC Initiative – Enterprise, and Small Agency of the Year – PPC, where it has three entries competing.

Five other agencies earned finalist status in three categories:

  • ANGA Bangkok.
  • Blackbird PPC.
  • NP Digital.
  • Searchbloom.
  • Stella Rising.

Meanwhile, several agencies and brands earned finalist spots in two categories, including:

  • Belron Canada.
  • Digital Hitmen.
  • Eight Oh Two.
  • IKEA Thailand.
  • Ignite Visibility.
  • LOCALiQ.
  • Monks.
  • Nautica Charters.

Competition was once again fierce across all 18 categories, with finalists showcasing impressive results in SEO, PPC, AI-powered search marketing, and omnichannel campaigns.

All the winners of the 2025 Search Engine Land Awards will be revealed next Monday, Oct. 26.

Meet Search Engine Land 2026 award winners at SMX Next

As has become tradition, we’re bringing some of this year’s award winners to SMX Next on Nov. 18 to answer your questions during two “Ask the Search Engine Land Award winners” panels. I’ll host the SEO winners session, while Search Engine Land’s Paid Media Editor Anu Adegbola will lead the PPC winners discussion.

  • If you haven’t yet, make sure to register for free for SMX Next.

The full list of finalists

Best Use Of AI Technology In Search Marketing

  • The $17 AI Search Transformation: How Ignite Visibility & Best Pick Reports Engineered +96% Organic Lead Growth From a Declining SEO Channel
  • Milan Novotný & CloudTalk: 65% More Organic Revenue From 59% Less Google Traffic, With AI Doing Three Jobs
  • How Milestone AI Visibility Flywheel Unified GEO, Content, Schema, Local, CMS, and AI Agents to Drive Measurable Search Growth
  • How Outshine’s custom MCP and supporting paid search intelligence layer helped Airbyte see 2.4x improvement in ROAS
  • Solving a $24M Enterprise SEM Budgeting Challenge with AI ( Thermo Fisher Scientific)

Best Overall PPC Initiative – Small Business

  • ATRA & Medical Monks: Profit-Led Paid Media Strategy
  • How Eight Oh Two Doubled Viking Culinary‘s Revenue by Building Search Demand Where None Existed
  • Art and Science: How Jordan Digital Marketing Leveraged Data Integration and Outside-the-Box Creative to Grow FloatMe’ s New Users by 71% with 38% Reduced CPA
  • Nautica Charters — Navigating a New Course: From Third-Party Reliance to 20.9× ROAS
  • Cost Per Signed Case, Not Cost Per Lead: How Searchbloom Turned $951,360 Into $4.42M in Signed Matter Value, Starting in Punchwork Law‘s First Year in Business

Best Overall PPC Initiative – Enterprise

  • ATRA & Medical Guardian: Scaling Enterprise Paid Search Through Data-Driven Optimization
  • Blackbird PPC & Millboard: 719% Pipeline Increase on a 30% Smaller Budget
  • Client x Agency x Platform ( Coursera x Monks x Google) Collaboration to drive new-customer acquisition in international markets.
  • How a Custom-Built Revenue Attribution Engine Drove 32.73% Revenue Growth, 18% More Qualified Leads, and Lower Spend Across an Enterprise PPC Portfolio ( Ignite Visibility)
  • Turning data into smarter paid search investment across 50+ brands ( TurnPoint Services& Jellyfish)

Agency Of The Year – PPC

  • How ADSQUIRE Delivered A 8,000% ROI For Their Client In One Month
  • ‘+245% CTR. 200% Sales Growth. One Integrated Search Team. Fully Connected ( ANGA Bangkok)
  • How LOCALiQ increased paid-search leads by 203% for The Cut & Craft Manchester while cutting CPC by 57%
  • How Ruby Digital Delivered 106.4% Conversion Growth for Gelmar via PPC
  • Spend Right, Not Spend More: How Stella Rising Rebuilt Paid Search Around Incrementality

A huge thank you to our judges

A much-deserved thank you to our awesome group of judges for the 2026 Search Engine Land Awards. Our panel of judges had the difficult assignment of selecting the best of the best from a large number of submissions.