Breaking Up The Pay Per Click Grind

Posted by: Ian Comments: Be the first person to comment

Jan. 28

If you’re in the corporate PPC world, you definitely know that things can get rather crazy. After enough analysis, keyword generation, keyword deployment, bid changes, ad copy tests, landing page tests, account restructures, product requirements, and executive presentations, your head can really start spinning! I’m here to tell you that it’s all about PPC longevity. After all, longevity has been one of the cornerstones of my early success in the corporate pay per click world. Today, I’d like to take a step back and discuss ways of breaking up the PPC daily grind. Whether you’re an associate or director, I strongly encourage you to take these tips seriously. At the end of the day, they will only increase your employee retention and team morale!

Tip 1: Attend Search Engine Marketing Conferences

Daily Grind

Search engine marketing conferences have been extremely good to me over the years. They’re incredibly beneficial from two angles: First and foremost, conferences present the ultimate networking experience. As someone with well over 500 connections on LinkedIn and a big binder of business cards at home, I cannot say enough about the power of networking. At the end of the day, people are everything in terms of finding long term success in your corporate pay per click career.

Second, conferences are extremely worthwhile in terms of staying up with current trends and sparking innovation. The natural tendency in PPC is to think you know it all. Well, at least that’s my natural tendency. The problem, however, is that things change extremely fast. Even if you know everything today, you won’t necessarily know it all tomorrow. Even if you’re consistently innovating and driving the direction of the industry, a great speaker can totally spark new ideas.

Directors, managers, and team leads: My overall suggestion here is that you get your team full passes to the major conferences such as Search Engine Strategies (SES), Search Marketing Expo (SMX), and ad:tech. I’ve been at companies in the past that have unfortunately been cheap about getting full passes. I definitely suggest pushing for full passes. It’s an extremely small investment in your team’s education and morale, one that will pay huge long-term dividends. From my personal experience, I always come back from conferences extremely energized, full of new ideas, and ready to go! Thinking about things through that lens, conferences are the ideal way to break up the daily PPC grind.

Tip 2: Enjoy PPC Team Activities

I like to compare pay per click campaign managers to Wall Street traders. We’re in the details of a very competitive and focused trade. For that reason, we often forget to take a step back and get away from the computer. From my experience, team activities are always a very welcome break from day to day campaign management. Moreover, the bonds formed during team activities can directly improve teamwork within the office.

My suggestion: Plan a team activity at least once very six months and ideally once per quarter. Some great examples include go-karting, miniature golfing, and bowling. I particularly like team functions that involve actual activity because we’re typically at the computer for so much for our day. The key here is that the team activity is held during the workday and that it concludes right around the time people typically leave the office. That way, the team activity functions as a true reward. Also, team activities are always more rewarding if the company pays for them!

Tip 3: Schedule Regular PPC Team Lunches

This tip is very similar to the last one, but I suggest an increased frequency of perhaps once per month. It’s too easy to rush out of the office and grab a quick lunch, only to come back and start working again right away. From my experience, the time savings from a quick lunch does not add any value. If you actually break up the workday and increase the "fun" factor, the entire team gains immense productivity. For that reason, I highly suggest having PPC team lunches to celebrate milestones, birthdays, or really any reason at all. Another great idea: Invite members of other teams as well, it’s a great way to learn something new!

Tip 4: Proactively Assist Other Departments

One of my absolute favorite things about pay per click search engine marketing is the fact that we’re in the center of it all. PPC is an operationally intensive role, one that involves useful data. For that reason, I enjoy thinking about proactive ways to assist other departments. Some simple examples: Share your PPC keyword list with the SEO team, share your top ads with the design team, send competitive benchmarks to the partnership team. At the end of the day, there exists a plethora of ways you can directly help your coworkers in other departments. Not only will this break up your day a bit, but it will help your overall organization grow. Moreover, I truly believe that the more you give, the more you receive. Next time you need help from someone else, you can rest assured that help will be available immediately.

Tip 5: Give Back To The Paid Search Community

I created this blog to give back. I regularly enjoy acting as a reference for old reports. I thoroughly enjoy writing letters of recommendation. At the end of the day, it’s all about giving back in my opinion. The best managers in the world are your manager for life. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a different company. If someone’s a great manager, they will always support and invest in your career. This is how I view management. Unfortunately, this is against the grain of many managers out there.

My strong advice: Invest in old reports and co-workers. I’ve found this to be a very powerful way to help the community while breaking up my day a bit. Like I said in the last tip: The more you give, the more you will receive. Corporate PPC is a very small but rapidly growing community. Give back today and make a real difference, while keeping things fun and interesting.

Image of Daily Grind © iStockPhoto – BeholdingEye

Posted in: Attitude, Career, Leverage | Tags: , , | Comments: Be the first person to comment!

Controlling Your PPC Mind

Posted by: Ian Comments: Be the first person to comment

Jan. 13

So it’s 2010 and you’re looking to get promoted in your PPC career. At the same time, you value your work-life balance. You can’t imagine working 80 or more hours a week, trading your personal life for promotion. Well, I’m here to tell you that you absolutely don’t need to! In my opinion, it’s totally possible to ascend the corporate PPC ladder while enjoying your personal life, on a 40-60 hour workweek. How are you going to do this? It’s simple: You need to work smart by programming your PPC mind. Today, I’m going to uncover three of my favorite mind games to unleash leverage in your PPC career.

Force Yourself To Work With Extreme Efficiency In Pay Per Click

Blue Lightbulb

I honestly wrote 40-60 hours above to be conservative. As someone who’s ultra-efficient, I totally believe that the 40 hour workweek is possible in PPC. Just think about the time that gets wasted during the day when you’re:

  • Surfing the Internet (unrelated to work)
  • Logging into your Facebook account
  • Taking a really long lunch
  • Chatting with friends
  • Working at a slow pace
  • Getting distracted and jumping between projects
  • Just sitting there (or even dozing off) without actively doing work

Now, just think about what would happen if you were incredibly focused the entire workday. You came into the office with the "I’m here to work hard" mentality. You actively fought against your mind when it tried to tell you to lose focus. (Believe me, my mind’s natural tendency is to defocus.) The answer is simple: You would get promoted faster and reduce the duration of your workday, dramatically.

In my opinion, all it takes is a little conscious effort and the recognition that you need to force your mind to focus. When you accomplish this, the amount of work you can get accomplished in the normal workday is astounding! While all of this is applicable to any job, it’s especially applicable to PPC because we’re often juggling more priorities than we can count while facing the pressure of hitting numbers. We’re in a situation that promotes defocus. Force your mind to focus and you’ll be on your way!

Two other tips to stay focused in PPC: First, Make sure to vary your workplace. I like to switch between my company’s two offices and even spend some time working at Starbucks. The variety really keeps my mind from defocusing. Second, take time off when you need it! PPC is like a sport, especially when you’re ultra-focused. This amount of focus can be quite draining. If you’re able to really force your mind to focus, I suggest scaling back your hours and taking off days when you need it. Your mind needs time to recover.

Force Yourself To Be In a Charged, Positive Mood Every Single Day

I absolutely love this tip. Are you naturally happy every single morning? Of course not! Even if you’re like me, in the career of your dreams, sometimes you’re tired and grumpy. It’s ok and perfectly natural. Now, I’d like to highlight another awesome opportunity to control your mind. Take a step back and realize that you’re the one in control, not your mood. My strategy: I like to hype myself up. I’ll straight up lie to myself. "Ian, you’re not in a bad mood. You’re in a good mood. You’re the man! You’re PPC Ian!" I’m serious here. After a while, I’ll believe the lie. I’ll program my mind.

Now, let me let you in on a secret. In my opinion, positivity is one of the greatest factors in promotion. Nobody wants to promote the disinterested employee. They want to promote the employee who loves their job, the person who lives for the company. It’s as simple as forcing your mind into a hyped up state even when it’s not. It almost becomes a game. How hyped up can you be when facing difficult situations? As I mentioned in a previous post, PPC perception is reality. If you’re always in a positive mood, you’re carefully crafting the best possible perception.

Some other great points about positivity in your search engine marketing career:

  • Enthusiasm is very contagious. You’re not only hyping yourself up, you’re setting the mood for the entire team. You’re acting like a PPC leader.
  • Those that have a positive outlook tend to realize their goals. When you start thinking negatively, you’re stepping away from your goals. I’m a big believer in The Secret.
  • I’ll consistently hype myself up before any meeting or call that involves sales. Sometimes people think I’m crazy talking to myself in a conference room but it totally pays off.

As a closing piece of advice, make sure to give yourself extra rest. It can be very tiring if you’re in a charged mood all day. You need time to recover so you can consistently deliver results.

Force Yourself To Avoid Conflict and Anger

There’s no way around it. Even if you’re a nice guy like me, you’re likely to get into a situation once in a while that has conflict potential. It’s probably not even your fault. Someone does something (either unintentionally or even intentionally) to step all over you and you’re upset. My advice: Do absolutely whatever it takes to be the bigger person. I repeat, never show emotions of conflict and anger at work.

This is very important in your PPC career. We’re naturally under a bit of stress in pay per click. We’re managing to stretch goals and have a plethora of projects in mix. Now, throw on top of that the fact that someone might not be playing by the rules and you have the potential for career disaster.

However, if you’re smart and have perspective you will always handle the situation gracefully. My two pieces of advice: First, never react right away. If you feel like you’re going to get upset, take some time to really think about it. Sleep on it. Never start sending that nasty email before it’s really well thought through. In fact, once you think it through, you will never send that email, trust me. Second, make sure to exercise regularly. If you get upset at something, it’s very easy to take out your aggression at the gym and then come back to work the next day in your charged, positive attitude.

While this is probably the most difficult mind-controlling trick, it’s the one that shows the most maturity. If you’re able to consistently work efficiently, stay positive, and avoid conflict at all costs, you are playing the PPC game to win and will be promoted to the top. These are all attributes of the most effective pay per click leaders out there. These are all mind games that are directly under your control.

Image of Blue Lightbulb © iStockPhoto – BlackJack3D

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Keeping Detailed PPC Records

Posted by: Ian Comments: Be the first person to comment

Nov. 15

In pay per click search engine marketing, a lot is going on at once. Even more is going on if you follow my advice around making progress in your search engine accounts. Now, if you’re like most search engine marketers, your records may be less than perfect. Today, I’m excited to discuss my thoughts around records in PPC and why they’re import both for the health of your campaigns but also your personal SEM career growth.

Good Records Will Help Your SEM Career

PPC To Do List

I’m going to jump right to the fun stuff. How can good records in pay per click help your personal career? It’s simple: Records are the easiest way to remember all the hard work you have invested when the time comes for your performance review. Pay per click is a very fast paced career. We’re getting so much done and often switching tasks so quickly that it’s absolutely impossible to remember everything you’ve accomplished. Here’s where good records come in. Take the time to thoroughly document everything you’ve done and then leverage this information during your performance review. Even better, proactively send your manager regular updates on your (and your team’s) accomplishments. One of my all time top teachings about the search engine marketing game: If you don’t proactively take credit for the projects you’ve completed, you’ll never get credit. It’s up to you!

Good PPC Records Will Improve The Performance of Your Campaigns

Now, let’s see how good records will help the performance of your campaigns. (As a side note: Again, this really is a career boost for you as well because solid campaign performance is the engine behind rapid career progression.) It’s all really simple: Too much is happening in SEM. Just think about all the changes and all the different people involved! Not only are you making changes, but everyone on the team is making changes, your search engine reps are making changes, search engines are changing their algorithms, the engineering team is regularly updating the site, and the list goes on. Keep track of everything in a detailed manner and it will greatly improve your campaign management abilities. Good records will instantly answer many of your campaign questions.

How Do I Keep Good PPC Records?

So I’ve convinced you and you’re ready to improve your record keeping practices. I’ll start out with an interesting story. When I first started out managing teams in pay per click, I used to print out every single analysis my team completed and kept them all in a binder which I carried with me everywhere. If I ever got a question about what we were working on or what was happening with a campaign, I would quickly pull out the binder and flip to the right analysis. While this is an extreme example, there’s nothing wrong with it and it only makes you look more prepared as a PPC team manager.

While I’m not carrying around the binder these days, I still take incredibly good records. Following are my favorite tips:

  • First and foremost, leverage your company’s internal task list infrastructure (such as Sharepoint) if they have one. If they don’t, talk to your manager and request that your company invests in one. Even if I finish a project that only takes one hour, I’ll open a ticket and then immediately close it just so I have detailed records. At the end of the quarter, you can easily look at all the completed tasks both for yourself and your team.
  • Second, if you’re a people manager spend at least 20 percent of your time planning, forecasting, and keeping records. If you’re an individual contributor, spend at least 10 percent of your time. While this may sound extreme, I’m a big believer in SEM productivity leverage. If you simply take a step back, you will immediately improve your productivity. If you don’t take a step back, it’s very easy to get absolutely lost in the sea of projects going on, losing your ability to see up from down.
  • Third, regularly send updates to everyone involved including your team and manager. Even though you’re tracking your projects in Sharepoint or whichever system your company uses, don’t assume everyone is on the same page (especially your manager). Send regular email updates on what was accomplished, what’s on your list, relative priorities, and most importantly forecasted and real numbers.
  • Finally, always include numbers with everything. I’m sure you already know it: numbers are everything in pay per click. As a pay per clicker, you need to become a master at forecasting. Always forecast the benefits of each project, but make sure to close the feedback loop and report back on the accuracy of your forecast. If you’re able to accurately forecast and consistently deliver results, you will get promoted quite rapidly.

To close out, I hope I’ve convinced you to keep good records and leverage them to your advantage in growing both your personal SEM career and also your campaigns. Moreover, I hope these tips provide some "quick wins" in your search marketing career. One things is for sure: I will continue to push myself each and every day to keep great SEM records!

Image of To Do List © iStockPhoto – nigelcarse

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