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10 Reasons Why PPC Mentoring Is Important For The Search Industry

When people asked me who was I mentored by with regard to PPC, I honestly said no one. Back in the late 1990's and early 2000s everything was new and it was every man or woman for themselves. Many Rockstars to the Industry began speaking at conferences and others (like myself) worked their way up the ladder wearing many hats to identify an emerging vertical of interest and potential financial gain. But, after reflecting a little about how far we have come and how far we still have to go, I realized that (from my perspective) there is not much mentoring going on in this Industry.

So, the "moral" of this post is to identify the top reasons why we should do more of it, because even though a PPC Marketer may the skills and ability to execute a PPC campaign, does not make them a Good PPC Marketer. In fact, much of the "day to day" responsibilities that are NOT taught in the Google Certification include client relations, multi-level strategies, understanding analytics and so on. So here is my list of the 10 areas of PPC which can be taught or enhanced through mentoring.

1. Understanding the Client's Business Goals/Objectives and apply a successful 6-12 month strategy.
2. How to better interact with a client that is either engaged or not engaged in the process.
3. How to better set, manage and achieve expectations with the client during the relationship.
4. How to better create, implement, and interpret Analytics Data that the client can understand.
5. Improve on techniques and overall presentation skills to the client.
6. Mastering the PPC process in terms from kick-off call to optimization.
7. Work and communicate more effectively with Account Managers and other colleagues on the account (if applicable)
8. How to better understand KPIs and identify what online or offline channels could affect conversion.
9. How to be more pro-active by proving to the client your continued value.
10. Teach them how to "think outside the box" which allows for cutting edge strategies.

In Conclusion:
Helping others to get the most out of search marketing is not only a very socially responsible thing to do, but it's also leaving a positive impact on the industry as a whole. The more we educate search marketers coming into the industry and providing them with a more "holistic" approach to delivering the best tactics, best practices ad results for the client, the better for everyone and more and more advertisers will continue to pump money into this Industry.

Political Off-Season? Should Never Be For Paid Search

For many political candidates from Local Congressional Races to the Presidential, many political strategists are turning a blind eye to PPC and Advertising until the races pick up steam in August and September. But in the PPC world, they should have completed their Search Marketing Strategy and have already started building History in Google's networks. As we know, Google's quality score is built on account history and a strong CTR%. Furthermore, with regard to the content network which can provide a great opportunity for candidates for blogs and other related "content based" targeting, takes a much longer time to accrue click history since the CTR%s are historically pretty low.

Convincing the Political Campaigns:
Trying to make the case to spend campaign money on PPC during the summer months is very challenging, as the campaign is used to TV, Radio and Print Ads starting in August/September. It's one of those "hard to break" cycles that need much more persuasion with realities of how the search engines work.

When a new campaign launches PPC, no matter how relevant you make the adgroups, Google will inflate the CPCs to $1, $5 and $10 until the account will accrue the history it needs. So, getting a heard start on the full strategy and getting that history started is the preferred way to ensure your CPCs will not be inflated when the candidate needs it most.

I recommend taking this "downtime" to analyze the following:

Monetization during the Slow Season: When running PPC or Banner Ads, it's important to measure every interaction and put a $$ value behind it. I would also ensure that all analytics is being accurately tracked and that every email sign up, volunteer sign up and donation can be tracked back to your online advertising efforts. I would even put a value on the impressions (eye balls) and clicks as many political analysts are familiar with the offline (TV, Radio & Print) where "eyeballs" are just as important as a click.

Content/Placement Networks: By running the Ads on these networks early in the game, allows the review of which sites are performing well and which ones are bleeding you dry. It also complements your efforts to build the history needed for Quality score.

Ad/Creatives: This is the prime time to perform high level Ad testing to see which messaging works best. This could be Issue based, persuasion based or even language based. Here are some basic examples:

• Donate works better than Contribute
• Conservative does better than Republican
• Democrat works better than Liberal

Keyword Expansion & Long Tail Winners: This is probably the most important to analyze. By allowing for a few months of data to identify which "long tail" keywords are performing best with CTR% and/or conversions is truly the goldmine to winning the "War on PPC". Using Google's search query tool will not be enough to capture this information, so I would recommend using a more robust analytics package which give you the TRUE Queries.

Web Analytics Reporting: To a political strategist, they will throw up at even a 10 page powerpoint of basic analytics which is coined "traditional" in the non-political arena. All they care about is Impressions as they are the same as Eyeballs from a TV and/or a Radio Ad.

So, what's important to a Political Strategist is just the following:

• Eyeballs (Impressions)
• Clicks
• Emails
• Volunteers
• Donations

In Conclusion:
Political Advertising online is being defined by the Presidential candidates such as Barack Obama and Ron Paul who are literally changing the way Politicians connect with the public using impressive websites and effective viral methods. However, there is a disconnect with the smaller political races who don't always have the budgets for an elongated online advertising strategy. It is our responsibility to educate the political process about how this new medium for them.

Google Glitch On Hiding Cost Data From Placement Performance Reports?

Now, I am sure this is just a glitch and a few loyal readers confirmed for me that it might of been just a rare glitch (Thank You), but tell me why Google has has these "bugs" when making it difficult to see how much their placement/site targeting partners are costing us when we run a Placement Performance Report. It appears that when you utilize the new conversion tracking option and select "ACTION NAME" in your report, it deactivates all other metrics relating to costs and sales/leads values.

Obviously, we can get this costs data while in the campaign & Adgroup level management area of Adwords, but I must ask the following questions:

Why is this data not available to us in a report format?

1. Is Google doing this on purpose?
2. Are they waiting for their recent Yahoo Search Partnership to roll out something new and exciting?
3. Are they simply trying to hide us from the "Macro-level" analysis that could hinder the continuous growth of ad spend on content and placement networks, since the Search Network CPCs are out of control and advertisers are migrating to these networks?

Here's a description of the report:

Placement Performance report
Create a report showing statistics (Cost is a statistic right?) for ads that appeared on specific domains or URLs in the content network. Note that complete statistics for the current day aren't available until the next day at 3:00 p.m. PT (Does Cost pertain to complete? You cannot even choose Cost as an option)

In conclusion
I know this post is rather short and it was intended that way because there's not much you can say about Google's continuous mind games with regard to data. In a blog post I wrote some months back, I talked about how Google makes it very difficult to identify the "actual" parked domains, for which they refer to as DOMAIN ADS. Reason for the importance, is because they base their assumption on what is working, instead of the advertisers "real"experiences. I just find it interesting that Google has a nifty way of hiding data when it comes to $$$ and their network partners for which your ads are being run on. Maybe with the recent Yahoo deal, they will shed some light on that.

Hierarchy Is Key To Creating An Effective PPC Strategy

When you kickoff or start a new client, it's important to have at least a 6-12 month plan in the back of your mind. In order for that plan to be successful, the key to that success is a clear understanding of the client's website structure. What I mean by structure, is it's categorical levels of products or services that are being offered (aka Hierarchy) thanks Spell check!.

The Hierarchy (or pyramid effect) is the client's navigational structure of Main categories, Subcategories and even specific product offerings on the website. It’s just one of those things that must be “mirrored” in PPC because the last thing you want is a confused visitor who typed in a specific keyword, and clicked on a specific ad promoting a specific product or service and not giving them the ability to easily browse other similar products or services.

The PROs of "Hierarchical Mirroring"

• Quality Score (no brainer, right)
• Easier to manage inventory levels & discontinued products
• Easier management of seasonality
• Improved budget allocation for top selling products/services
• Improved "User experience" with higher relevant landing page options
• More efficiently create additional campaigns and adgroups for new products/services
• Web Analytics is more "tightly" defined and easier to report on

The NEGs of "Hierarchical Mirroring"

• Obviously takes more time to develop the structure, instead of the "production line" style that I have seen (aka Google's Optimization Proposals)
• Dependent on the quality of the client's website
  • Navigation
  • Product selection
• Budgetary Issues preventing tight categorical breakdowns

Here's an basic example of a targeted Adgroup Structure

Going Beyond Mirroring:
In some cases, depending on the demand for specific products/services that are historically good performers, you will sometime need to break away from the traditional campaign structure of the site hierarchy and create individual campaigns and Adgroups. Perhaps your client's total sales came from 10 products/services, and as part of your PPC strategy you switch it up a little and dedicate a higher level of attention to the details. This would include Ad Testing development, deeper keyword expansion on "Longtails" and traditional A/B Testing of landing pages. These top 10 products would also deserve specific budgetary setting to ensure they are "active" 24 hours a day and you don't run out of spend.

In Conclusion:
There are many ways to make money using paid search and many PPC experts will tell you it's all about the (1) keywords, or (2) Ad/Creatives, or (3) Landing Pages, etc... However, unless you have an intelligent PPC structure in place which supports not only those (3) tactics above as well as a user friendly website and shopping cart supported by "working" web analytics tracking visitors, conversions, etc... your performance will be skewed.

Google Uses YouTube To Counteract The "Infomercial-ism" Of The Search Industry

Yes, it's the Official Google Channel on Youtube which is counteracting all of the disturbing trends going on in the viral video world of YouTube. The problem is that prospects who are new to PPC are getting SCAMMED by Knuckleheads left and right who are promising gimmicks like "Free $1 million dollars in Google Adwords advertising", "tricks to getting free clicks", etc... Where is Susan Powter telling us to "Stop the Insanity" Perhaps, Google has seen this and is trying to counteract the B.S.

To help justify my rant on these "get rich quick" schemes, I made it easy for you to see my disgust. Here's a link that will be sured to get you all fired up. Youtube and Google Adwords Once you go through these falsified videos you will start to see people coming out of the cracks promising things that are simply 100% WRONG. It's sort of like those annoying infomercials at 2am in the morning promising that you can lose 20lbs. by wearing a heat belt, then after enough complaints you see stories like this online "Sauna Belt Burning the Crap Out Of People by www.infomercialscams.com" Crazy huh? Well, it's happening to our Industry.

However, I am not bashing YouTube, in fact there are some great success story videos. For example, Google AdWords Success Story: Happy Hound which is "not surprisingly" sponsored by the Official Google Channel which really show the power of Adwords and how it impacts lives.

Should the FTC Step In? They did for Infomercials!
So who's gonna stop this? The FTC? Well, they did it for the $91 Billion Dollars a year Infomercial Industry and I cannot see why they cannot do this to the Internet Industry of False Advertising.
According to an MSNBC article entitled From the inside out by John Larsen he states "The infomercial industry is booming, enjoying $91 billion dollars a year in sales, offering safe, reliable products, and making household names of super pitchmen who offer you products to buy from the comfort of your own home.

But despite offering thousands of reputable products, the industry does have it blemishes. The Federal Trade Commission has launched an on-going crackdown targeting ads after the FTC found deceptive weight loss ads running ‘rampant’ and more than half of all weight loss ads studied contained at least one false claim."

In Conclusion:
The Search Industry is reaching an enormous plateau of market share and size. It's only going to be a matter of time before the FTC starts to crackdown on what SemGeek calls the  "infomercialism of PPC". Too many people are gonna get burned and be left out in the cold and we've got to speak up about it. Perhaps we can put together our own Youtube Video and have it endorsed by the Official Google Channel on YouTube. Any thoughts?

Why Too Much Data Can Kill A PPC Client

Do you think the "traditional PPC client" has the time or interest to read through 50 different reports, and find it as interesting as you the Search Geek that got all excited that changing a keyword to "phrase" match to [exact match] caused the CPC to lower by 2 cents? Nah, I don't think so. Is it that important to create a 30 page Powerpoint presentation to tell them that they saw a 5% increase in their overall CTR% because it was over the holiday weekend and impressions were down. Wrong again! Let discuss why this stuff does not matter.

If I were a client on the receiving end of a 1-2 hour weekly and/or monthly PPC status call, I would dread it, because I would not want to hear the PPC Guru or the Account Manager on the other end telling me every stink'n  little change in the traffic metrics different from the previous week or month. The first thing I want to know is the following:

Ok, I put $10,000 in the Cash Register this month, so how much did I get back?

That is the only thing I really care about because I gotta tell the VP, CEO, President that we are not losing money, so that I, myself can sleep at night.

Trying to Sound Smart To A Client? They Don't Care!
They can honestly care less about how smart or good you were to figure out the latest Algorithm or idea to create a 2 month Ad/Creative test where the only change in the Ads is a SINGLE WORD. They would also care less about how you broke out some adgroups to increase relevancy which will keep your keywords from going Inactive and forcing $5-$10 CPCs. Sounding smart can only do one thing, Make you feel better about yourself or to ensure your own boss that you are worthy of your next paycheck.

However, If you tell them that you created a new campaign from a new line of products which is delivering a 500% ROI, that is where you have something interesting to say. It's all about talking combining the "Weeds" with the "High Level" business conversation. Personally, in the past I have been at this crossroads where I had a difficult time switching from "In the Weeds Boy" to a polished high level and strategic presenter. But you always have to keep in mind that RESULTS is what matter most.

Too much Data, Too Much Overhead:
Not only can too much data confuse a customer or give them a MIDOL moment, it can also take a toll on you or your analytics team who is responsible to preparing these extensive reports that typically get thrown in the trash or deleted from the email a couple days later. Why overdue it when you could be doing something else, like say improve your client's PPC campaign.

In my opinion, the only slides that truly matter to a PPC-Only client are the following:

• Performance Metrics (orders, leads, CPA, Revenue, ROAS%, ROI%, Conversion Rate, AOV)
• Monthly Traffic (overall: clicks, new vs. returning, impressions)
• Monthly Engine Breakdown
• Month to Month Comparison (all metrics)
• Top Products (margin, Revenue)
  
• Next 1-4 month projected plan (seasonal, offerings, testing, etc..)

> Slides that Matter to some PPC-Only clients:

• Top 25 keywords & ads (revenue & traffic only)
• Events that made an impact (offline, online, seasonal calendar, etc...)
• Funnel Report (if conversion enhancements have been made or for benchmarking)

Information that MAY not be important to a PPC-Only client are:

• Avg CTR%
• Avg Time on Site (horrible metric these days with Tabbed Browsers in the background)
• Bounce Rate
• Entry Pages
• Exit Pages
• Path Analysis
• Browser type, screen resolution, time zones, etc...

In Conclusion:
It is obvious that Analytics is extremely important for measuring success of the client's investment of both the search engines, as well as your PPC knowledge and experience. We have to always realize that PPC is a business that is "cut-throat", has a high turnover rate and is all about results and making money for the client.

However, even with these realities, it is also a very rewarding and exciting industry to be apart of. To be a great PPC marketer, you not only have to work in the trenches and perfect the craft of being proactive, you also start thinking strategically about the client's business goals and through experience and confidence, you will realize that the metrics that may be important to the "Geek" in yourself, doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot to the client.