The ultimate goal, when searching for a PPC specialist, is to find the strengths and motivations of each person, then build around their unique, individual traits.
What Is Pay Per Click (PPC)?
Pay per click – or PPC as it’s known – is a form of online advertising whereby the advertiser only pays for every user click. With this digital advertising platform, companies are able to quickly improve visibility, break into the market, and adjust their campaign as it progresses by analysing real-time data.
What Does a PPC Specialist Do?
A PPC specialist is hired to envision, manage and report back on an organisation’s pay-per-click advertising campaign. This includes everything from strategy, SEO and design, through to implementation and performance analysis.
Some PPC Specialist Duties Include:
- Defining the target audience
- Designing and creating the PPC advertising campaign
- Trend watching
- Researching keywords for the campaign
- Writing advertising copy
- Identifying the best PPC platforms for the campaign
- Running the advertising campaign on the PPC platforms
- Running ongoing tests and analysis
- Measuring and optimising conversions
- Testing the keywords
What Are the Types of PPC Advertising?
To get a sense of what a PPC specialist will focus on, here is a look at the leading PPC advertising types currently available (among others).
Search Advertising
It is the most common and effective PPC advertising technique. This is where consumers are reached when they search for a particular product or service. The most common types of search advertising platforms are Google Ads and Bing Ads. A search ad is labelled “Ad” somewhere in the title to make it unique from organic search engine rankings.
Display Advertising
This is where the advert is displayed across various partner websites to reach people while browsing on the web. This allows for specific targeting so that you get maximum exposure for your investment.
Social Media Advertising
Social media has fast become a lucrative advertising platform which narrows the target audience substantially. The most common platforms being used are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, with ads sending people to specific landing pages.
Sequential Remarketing
Within these platforms you can incorporate another version of PPC advertising whereby you’re advertising to people who’ve been on your site, but show them different messaging. These are the ‘we miss you’ adverts or those offering even greater deals than previously displayed to users.
Why Is PPC Important?
There are so many benefits of PPC to a modern organisation, which is why bringing in a PPC specialist is key. Here’s why PPC advertising is the best route to take.
1. Achieve Business Goals
By implementing PPC advertising, businesses are able to break into new markets and attain high-level brand exposure in a short space of time. PPC advertising also supports a company’s sales objectives as long as the campaigns are effectively designed and implemented.
2. Break Into the Market
It doesn’t matter how much of a lead your competitors have, with enough budget, PPC marketing will propel your business quickly, allowing you to directly reach a new target audience. A PPC specialist will know how to leverage available PPC tools to assist in running an effective campaign.
3. Monitor Progress
With traditional advertising, it’s difficult to track who the advert is reaching, or gauge what works and what doesn’t. With PPC advertising, the entire process can be monitored, with performance outlined by impressions, clicks and conversions. This means you know what you are getting for your investment.
4. A Controlled Campaign
There is a lot more control and flexibility within a PPC marketing campaign. You’re able to choose the keywords and target audience, adjust your budget, and even modify campaign settings halfway through.
5. Complements Other Marketing Platforms
Implementing effective SEO is valuable for business exposure and can work well alongside a well-designed PPC advertising campaign. The target audience is often the same, so the data collected from SEO can advise PPC where opportunities are available.
PPC Specialist Skills
For a PPC specialist to effectively perform the daily duties required, there are a variety of skill sets that need to be identified and honed.
- Analytical skills: A PPC specialist needs to analyse the current market and existing ad campaigns to determine what will work for a particular campaign. Once a campaign is launched, the data will need to be analysed continuously to determine what is working and what isn’t, make necessary adjustments to achieve the required results.
- Organisational skills: The work of a PPC specialist is both time-consuming and multi-tasked. To stay on top of the campaign, a specialist will need to remain incredibly organised so as to not miss out on anything.
- Flexibility: When a campaign isn’t performing as it should, a PPC specialist will have to pivot the strategy to reach campaign objectives. The nature of digital marketing itself is fluid, which means constantly changing and improving the strategy.
- Creativity: A PPC specialist is required to come up with innovative campaigns, craft great copy and identify compelling visuals that accurately expresses the brand’s message.
- Consumer insight: Understanding what the consumer wants before they even know it themselves is what will set a PPC specialist apart. This means having a complete understanding of the business, the product, and competition.
- Technical knowledge: A PPC specialist will have to have a sound understanding in various technological aspects such as HTML and JavaScript.
- Communication: The entire process of a PPC advertising campaign requires clear and constant communication. This means effectively communicating the message with the target audience, communicating the campaign with the team, as well as communicating the entire process to the client as well.
- Storyteller: Any good marketing professional needs to be able to convey a brand’s message through a story. It’s through storytelling that humans are able to make a real connection, are able to actually experience something that has not personally happened to them. A PPC specialist will put this skill to use in the campaign, as well as a way to explain the data reports to clients.
- Ongoing learning: This industry is incredibly fluid which means constantly learning new platforms, techniques and technologies. A PPC specialist needs to be keen to learn new things and maintain a competitive edge.
- Passion: It’s difficult to get clients and consumers excited about a PPC campaign if the specialist isn’t passionate about it. A specialist needs to be enthusiastic about PPC.
How to Become a PPC Specialist?
It’s quite clear that PPC marketing is an impactful tool for business growth, which is why there is a growing demand for PPC specialists. If this is a career you want to pursue, you’ll need to display the aforementioned skills, and can also look to complete a PPC course for certification. There are several online courses for PPC specialisation and many companies are also offering in-house training programmes. This is a highly-competitive industry which means honing your existing skills wherever possible. Showing proficiency in software such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console can assist you in landing a job. It’s also worth gaining work experience wherever you can.