Selection of the best PPC manager for business managers... Hot topic! The choice of PPC manager for business managers is obviously essential in determining the success or failure of a PPC campaign in setting and achieving long-term business goals. This one choice can change the course of your business to great success, bringing in many new loyal customers and targeted leads. On the flip side, it can drive your business straight into the ground, footing a large bill to be paid with very little to no results or progress to show for it.

In our early education on how to properly manage a PPC campaign, we begin to realize that a PPC campaign consists of building/developing and managing/sustaining stages. Typically, you can assume most business managers who are looking to hire a PPC manager are either outsourcing a currently available PPC campaign for their business or looking to start a new one. This means that as a PPC manager, your first step is to understand the purpose of this campaign.

👉 What is the business manager's long-term goal?👉 What product or service are we trying to promote?👉 Who is our target audience and what do they expect from us?

These questions will draw a clear outline of the stage one development of your campaign. Step two is explained in great detail in another article I wrote.

But what we can derive from this is the fact that there is a significant difference in expertise required for these two developmental phases of the campaign. In stage one, a PPC manager may be very focused on using keywords and text ads to build a sturdy foundation for a certain product or service and ensure that it is well defined to a specific audience. This is fairly straightforward, and there are many PPC managers who are thoroughly skilled in these areas. This is not to say that this manager would not be useful in stage two; he just might not be the best choice, especially if that manager himself has already felt confusion in the difference between the two said stages.

2. Assessing Agency Candidates

By the time you get to this stage, you will have drawn up a shortlist of potential agencies to manage your campaign.

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How did you compile this list?

If it was made up of referrals from friends and colleagues, by cold calling or by marketers tracking you down, it's time to clear the slate and start from square one – regardless of whether any of the referrals are worth proceeding with.

Understand that the very process of selecting a PPC management agency can itself be a microcosm of a small scale PPC campaign. This shouldn't make you apprehensive, however you wouldn't hire just anyone to do just any job - and so it should be with the vetting of potential agencies.

Initial pitches will often be a matter of the agencies quickly spending their "finding out about your business" time before reporting back a day or so later with a broad and somewhat boilerplate strategy. Remember not to disclose any sensitive or internal data relating to your company or campaigns too soon and do also think twice before signing any NDAs – is this agency a known entity or are they the sort that the NDA itself would be an endorsement of their credibility?

2.1. Reviewing Experience and Expertise

Your needs should begin with a strong understanding of the professional's qualifications and experience. You should ensure that the manager will have a proven track record at creating and optimizing PPC campaigns.

The manager's experience and success should have created an accumulation of knowledge and skills in the PPC field. It is common to find that many PPC managers have past experience as they may have transitioned from SEO, IT, or marketing roles. This can give them a diverse understanding of the online marketplace and a unique insight on certain campaign goals. It can also mean that a manager may not have the direct experience but may, in fact, have a natural talent or passion for PPC and is looking to make a transition to it as a viable career option.

It is important to establish whether or not the PPC manager has experience with your type of business. Especially for larger campaigns, the marketplace and business demands can vary, and unique models of advertising may need to be followed.

For example, an eCommerce store could benefit from a Shopping Campaign whereas a local service provider may find more success with a high-reaching local campaign. In this case, the eCommerce store owner may want to find a candidate with experience of managing shopping campaigns.

Past experience can be the most telling factor that a PPC manager will be suitable. Always remember to ask for example cases of past success or problems and relate them to your business.

2.2. Evaluating Performance Metrics

Defining performance metrics is very crucial because these are the yardsticks for success. If you are unable to quantify the success, life will become difficult in evaluating the potential of a PPC company. Keeping a clear vision of the PPC campaign model in mind, one can associate certain KPIs with different phases of the campaign.

Define the success yardstick for each KPI. This is how you can segregate good metrics from bad ones. Good metrics are those which measure the success of the campaign phase. For example, to measure the keyword quality, one can associate the KPI of reduced average CPC and increased CTR with it.

Now, to measure the increased sales due to better keywords, we can associate an increase in sales with an increase in projected revenue. So, here projected revenue is the KPI for measuring the success of the keyword phase. This is a good metric. Bad metrics usually ask bad questions, cause data segregation, and can give unclear results.

For example, if one is comparing the traffic from two different sources and adds a code implementing a session variable of 1 and 0 to differentiate visitors coming from two sources, it might give a differing set of traffic data for one set of traffic. This is a bad question and the data will be unclear. So, this method created a bad metric.

One with overlapping results in the form of completed purchases and revenue, without any accountability of an increase in sales. So, source comparison is not a good metric. Always weigh the value of each metric with the cost and time required to implement those metrics.

2.3. How to Analyze PPC Manager's Case Studies and Success Stories

Radhika Sarraf, of Hire Quotient, a purpose-driven HR Tech firm from Singapore, stresses the importance of analyzing both case studies and success stories. It is important to dig deeper than simply looking at the 'end result' of any given account.

Often, the most successful PPC managers produce good results on accounts that were predestined for failure. This is because the market for the business in question was not appropriate for PPC, the product was too expensive, or simply the business did not do the necessary research to try PPC. In these cases, the PPC manager may have done 'good work', but came out with bad results.

By looking at such case studies of failure, we can ascertain the types of management that are suitable for that level of market. He can decide whether to employ a manager who has experience with a solid track record, possibly after deciding to try a second manager after a failed account. This decision can bring very similar results to the first choice, but with time, a successful manager will accomplish more results with less work and less trial and error than a less experienced counterpart.

The decision here is obviously dependent on the financial situation and long-term goals for the business. Step four takes us to this very point.

3. Determining PPC Manager Compatibility and Fit

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It is almost guaranteed that the wrong decision will be taken by appointing a wrong person, whether that is employing someone to work for your company or using a particular service. It is a common belief that one of the reasons a wrong decision can occur is that there is no way to measure a wrong one against a right one. In terms of service providers, this is simply not true.

The key to success is measuring the characteristics of the individuals and then measuring those same characteristics when seeking a specific service. If the same values are matched, then good results can be expected. A good PPC Manager will also approach the customer and explain this.

Their desire is that the service will be a success and that they can work together with the right level of support. So don't be afraid to ask questions and ensure that the right fit is there. A big hurdle to this can be the way it is asked. Both parties can be hesitant to not offend the other, and this can lead to not a true answer being revealed.

The PPC Manager can counter this by proactively approaching the customer to clear the air on these issues. By picking the right PPC Manager, the working relationship can be a successful one.

3.1. Assessing Communication Skills

Is the agency accessible? Can the person meet deadlines? Does the potential manager have good project skills? These are all questions you want to satisfy.

This is important to know to establish if the person can communicate in general a well thought out plan for success. A PPC manager will generally have an understanding of traffic trends. If the PPC manager cannot communicate a plan regarding how to capture market share and incremental volume at the expense of competitors, you must question the project plan.

An effective PPC campaign is not about doing large volumes of keyword research and launching a big list of keywords all at once. PPC is about a continuous process of learning, testing, measuring and optimizing. It is important to have a PPC manager that is continuously focusing on improving your campaign, even if you are more concerned with SEO and organic search.

A good PPC manager will embed analytics into everything they do. It will be important for them to communicate their results with you, formalizing different reports and metrics they see as being important for your campaign. If the PPC manager is working for a higher level executive or client with PPC experience, it is important for them to be able to translate results into terms which are relevant for the customer's understanding.

Make sure that the potential PPC manager is someone who understands the potential equaling six role of PPC in customer value sales cycle. They must communicate how they plan to target both higher level information seekers as well as bottom level buyers who are looking for a specific product to buy.

3.2. Evaluating Cultural Alignment

Many business managers assume that an agency that's hired to handle PPC initiatives will also be engaged in a fair amount of SEO that they say is "necessary" to support the PPC programs. Often that is not the case, and there are some very experienced and effective PPC managers who are not conversant in SEO.

Some PPC managers believe that a major reason for failure happens when clicks from qualified prospects are directed to poor landing pages. This results in a failure to convert and hurts the PPC program; the visitors are less likely to click similar ads in the future. See resource for an insightful article by Tim Ash on landing page optimization. These are just a few examples of how varied beliefs can be, but the point is that it's a good idea to delve into in-depth discussions on how the PPC manager feels about the various components of a PPC program.

If there are specific requirements or beliefs held, it's best to see if the potential PPC management candidates are in agreement. One of the easiest ways to determine which agency will give more emphasis to PPC as opposed to SEO is by looking at those agencies which have a large portion of their own web pages found through PPC ads in major search engines like Google. If they are successful in their own PPC effort, it is indicative that they can do the same for you.

Just as two different people might have opposing beliefs, different companies operate in different ways because they have different constraints.

For instance, Google does not allow bidding on the keyword "Google" and various misspellings and pluralizations of it. This might be an issue for a company with a brand name that's also a keyword. Other companies have experienced personalities that are near impossible to satisfy. As the saying goes, you can't please all the people all the time, and often it's a matter of deciding whether a certain demographic can be reached since the probability is low that it will be feasible to make the target population satisfied with search parameter.

One company representative wanted to target US college students to research and purchase a product that was not directly college-related. He felt that it was too difficult to reach them and didn't believe it was possible. This contrasts greatly to an education ad put forth by another company that was intended for college students, in which the very large difference in what was being trying to be accomplished. It's good to know if the PPC manager believes the ad to be worthwhile and feasible, as it may determine their level of dedication to the project.

3.3. Considering PPC Manager Work Style and Approach

Factual details will help you to determine the work style of any PPC manager. A few important topics to cover would be how often and in what detail will he report to his clients.

The level of control you can have over the PPC account can vary greatly depending on the manager's approach. Some clients prefer to be involved in campaign creation and the set-up process, while others will want the manager to take full control and only inform them when specific tasks have been completed.

Try to establish this level of control early on, as it can become a point of frustration for both parties if expectations do not match. A detailed work log will be extremely useful if any discrepancies/problems arise in the future. Finally, will the work be proactive or reactive? Will the manager stay one step ahead e.g. by preparing for seasonal trends and being aware of industry changes, or simply make changes when necessary?

Think about what level of engagement and or advice you will be getting when the PPC manager has a tough decision to make. If it's an issue that may affect your company's branding or what the manager feels is a risky strategy that could easily backfire, you will probably want to know about it. Other clients will be happy for the manager to make any decisions themselves and simply inform them at a later date.

4. Understanding PPC Agency Resources

Understanding the specific resources that your allocated account team uses to manage your PPC program is critical to achieving the best results.

While their technology resources are important, this is an advertising medium and at least 80% of the effort will be human. Is that effort focused on the size of the potential profit from your account? All too often, junior and mid-level staff will be put on accounts to make the business profitable and the results are often all too clear.

You should also request and get specifics about the exact tasks that will be performed by the account manager. For example, administrative tasks such as keyword and ad copy development can often be done offshore at a much lower hourly rate than say creative improvements and strategic consultation.

Having your account managed by higher paid employees could be a good thing if the right strategy is being implemented. This is a simple matter of asking what cannot be outsourced offshore and emphasizing the importance of high-level strategy and long-term results for your business.

This of course leads into the question of whether you are buying a direct service or a result. This is something you should be understanding from any engagement with an agency. If errors during your account can be costly and result in a large loss of money with little results, a performance-based agreement may often be advisable with the risk taken by the agency.

Often though, it is not the best long-term strategy for the agency is incentivized to make more money off the mistakes. Any agreement must have clarity on what the desired results are and what the measures of success will be. For either type of agreement, the single most important factor in the success of your account is who will be doing the work.

4.1. Examining Team Structure and Size

When considering an engagement with a paid search team or agency, it's critical that you understand how that organization is structured. Search marketing is no longer a one-person job. It has become a discipline best managed by a team of specialists. Top search engine marketing (SEM) and pay per click (PPC) experts have moved away from being jacks of all trades and masters of none to compartmentalizing their search marketing activities into silos, much like the search engines themselves.

The five primary silos of search marketing consist of:

- Business and industry knowledge - Competitive and marketplace intelligence - Keyword research and selection - Content creation and optimization - Performance analysis and ROI measurement

Within each of these silos is a myriad of tasks and activities that require unique skill sets and resources. It is highly unlikely that one person will be an expert in all areas. Therefore, an organization that has a team of specialists and resources behind them holds a distinct advantage over a one or two-person shop. A PPC manager must be adequately staffed to manage the entire spectrum of SEM activities, or else there will be a compromise in some area. Be sure to investigate how the search team is structured and if there are dedicated resources to each silo. Ask if the team is:

- In-house - Housed within the client organization, but staffed by agency employees - Completely outsourced to an external agency

If the team is in-house, there may be communication and coordination advantages as well as an increased vested interest in the success of the search campaign. However, smaller companies and some larger ones do not have the resources to staff and maintain a top-notch team. An agency with a team of specialists could be a cost-effective way for these clients to gain a competitive advantage.

4.2. Reviewing PPC Manager Technology and Tools

Of utmost importance for a PPC campaign is the technology behind the drive. The effectiveness of the campaign can only be measured if the technology to measure ROI, track user behavior and build statistical data is in place. PPC managers should establish what programs or technology they or the PPC management firm has in place to measure marketing results. For example, implementation of a tracking pixel that builds regional statistical data on user behavior can be extremely effective when initiating a Geo-targeted campaign.

If a PPC manager is looking to attain traffic from a specific vertical a good option would be to implement a technology which will serve the ads only on websites which are in that sector. As weight is attached to detailed reporting, managers should ensure they or the management team are well versed with the user interface of the program being run. This should increase the chances of campaign success as time can be saved on refined editing and issues can be quickly identified and rectified.

4.3. Assessing PPC Reporting and Analytics Capabilities

A transparent and detailed analytics and reporting process is an essential element of an effective PPC strategy. The first aspect to consider is the level of access the PPC manager can provide. Ideally, the given access should be 'read-only' as this allows for added security on the client's end.

However, providing access to a Gmail account may be necessary so that regular updated reports can be sent through Google Analytics.
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