Will Automation Destroy Your PPC Career?

I’m a huge fan of digital marketing automation. I have written extensively about SEM automation here and all of my favorite platforms. One of loyal readers, ppcKnight, wrote in with a super interesting question. (Thank you ppcKnight for reading and for the question, you rule!) I have pasted ppcKnight’s full question below, and here’s the main punchline: Will automation eliminate careers in digital marketing? Today, I will respond to ppcKnight’s question. Preview: I’ll share why automation is absolutely critical. It enhances and grows careers in digital marketing.

Will SEM Automation Eliminate My Career?

Production Automation

Hi Ian, remember me? Long time ago I asked some questions about work-life balance in PPC and you gave some brilliant answers! I now have a new, very important question, and would appreciate to hear your thoughts on that.

I am still at the same company (client side) and am the global PPC Manager. My role is less technical and more… marketing. Recently, our tech guys helped the Director of Online Marketing automate everything (you surely have heard about AdWords API etc) thereby making 80% of the PPC team redundant. That was a lot!

I have heard of slightly similar stories in other client-side PPC departments/teams – If this trend continues, will in-house/client-side PPC become extinct as a career? If not, how can a PPC professional be more valuable than automation, especially in-house/client-side?

Would really really appreciate to hear your thoughts on this, especially because I love my job, I love PPC, but I don’t want to be replaced by a machine…

My 2 Cents On Digital Marketing Automation and Digital Marketing Careers

I’m here to say that SEM automation absolutely does not eliminate careers in digital marketing. In fact, it enhances them! Here’s why:

Digital marketing is getting more and more complex by the day! Digital marketing professionals are doing even more than before, with no end in sight. Many digital marketing professionals are expanding from Google AdWords and Bing Ads to manage new programs such as Facebook, LinkedIn, display advertising, retargeting, and so more. Many digital marketers are taking control of new programs, including the customer experience. I, for one, love utilizing ion interactive for building incredibly sophisticated landing page experiences. Many digital marketing professionals are venturing into other closely related marketing channels such as email marketing and even direct mail. Many digital marketers are testing new beta opportunities on Google AdWords and Bing Ads, expanding the sophistication of their core programs. The only way to scale, in my opinion, is via automation. Automate as much as possible so you can focus on new initiatives and new complexities. Automation is your key to career growth.
Advertising dollars are shifting online at a rapid pace. Competition in many/most categories is increasing with little relief in site. The only way to keep your edge? Innovation! Marketers are being challenged to push the limits of digital advertising. I’m a huge proponent of automation because it offers precision and scale. Let computers do the manual stuff so you can focus on clever new strategies to outsmart your competition. As marketers we are judged on performance. Automation is your friend in hitting your numbers and goals.
Humans are incredibly smart and creative. As marketers we deserve to be thinking about marketing strategy. I’m talking about truly knowing the customer and crafting amazing campaigns. This vision becomes so much more possible with great automation. Automate the routine, manual tasks so you can focus on the higher level strategy. While automation may change the day-to-day of many online marketers (less manual, repetitive work), those same marketers will now be focused on new, more exciting challenges. Automation grows careers and allows marketers to push our industry forward with new strategies.
Automation requires incredibly intelligent marketers to set up and manage the system. Many savvy marketers are integrating automation deeply into their organizations. They’re starting to import CRM data into their bid management platform so the automation can bid even more efficiently. Such integration requires a truly seasoned marketer, one who can work cross-functionally throughout their organization. There are always more opportunities to integrate. There are always increased opportunities to leverage automation in new ways. Platforms are always releasing new features that will help you and your company scale. Exciting work for digital marketing professionals, especially those that can manage the technology platforms, has no end in sight!
Automation helps grow teams. I have managed digital marketing programs at four large companies during my career in online advertising. In all four cases, we implemented and grew our automation. In all four cases, we actually ended up expanding our teams as automation grew. Why? Complex programs need amazing teams. As programs grow, companies make more money. With more money, comes more responsibility and more future opportunity. There’s no better way to tap into that opportunity than to hire world class marketers. As someone who has embraced automation for ten years, I have never seen automation actually shrink a digital marketing team. It’s always the other way around!

This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but just a few of the top reasons why careers in SEM and digital advertising are here to stay. In my opinion, technology and automation increase the need for talented individuals. What do you think? How has automation impacted your team and digital marketing program? Do you leverage a digital marketing technology platform? If not, make sure to start auditioning right away, you will be super impressed!

Image of Production Automation © iStockPhoto – ralex3D

Tips For Marketing Contracts

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Feb 6 1

When you work in the corporate world of online marketing, you’ll be working with a multitude of search engines, partners, vendors, and technologies. Each interaction will require contracts – NDAs, Ts and Cs, and IOs. When you have a technology and/or marketing background, the legal side of things can often be daunting. Today, I wanted to provide some practical tips for managing marketing contracts, especially for those that work within marketing at a large company.

Contract

Whenever you start talking to a new partner, get an NDA (non disclosure agreement) in place. A mutual NDA allows two parties to share sensitive information without risk of the information being shared with other parties/competitors. Without an NDA in place, you simply cannot have an in-depth business discussion with an outside party. Of course, always keep your confidential numbers close at hand, even with an NDA in place and whenever in doubt ask your legal team (or your manager) if it’s ok to share the information at hand.
Get really good at project management. When you have a lot of contracts in your legal team’s queue, it’s easy to lose track. Keep everything in an Excel spreadsheet. Follow up with your legal team regularly. Make time to fully explain the business side of the contract. Assign a dollar value to the contract (by projecting the value of the program at hand). Keep circling back with your legal team and the partner to make sure the ball keeps rolling. Dealing with legal contracts gives online marketers a true opportunity to flex our project management skills.
Always read your contracts before sending over to your legal team. A good percentage of the time, I find errors in contracts. There’s nothing like providing a first line of defense and truly understanding your contracts. Your legal team will truly thank you and you will do your company a true service by taking this extra step.
Request editable contracts (as opposed to PDFs) from your partners and vendors. This will make it easier for your legal team to add their red lines and save a ton of time. Make sure to do everything possible to help out your legal team.
Never click to accept any contract before running through your legal team. When you’re creating a new search engine account, for example, there are always Ts and Cs you must click to accept. Unless you are an officer at your company, you will not be authorized to accept any agreement without going through legal/officer approval first.
Form a really strong relationship with our legal team (and your finance team too). Make sure to take them to lunch, stop by their cubes, and become friends. Your legal team will truly be one of your greatest assets. Without the support of your legal and finance teams, your marketing initiatives would grind to a halt.
Do everything possible to negotiate a great deal. When you’re in the contract phase, especially with a new vendor, you can often negotiate great rates. When you’re testing, push the limits on pricing and terms. Get your company the best possible arrangement.
Keep a contracts database. Understand end dates and renewal dates. Stay on top of your IOs (Insertion Orders). The worst thing in the world of search engine marketing is when an IO expires and then your campaigns go offline.
As soon as a contract is approved, make sure to file a purchase req / purchase order. You cannot pay a bill at most companies until an approved purchase req / purchase order is in place. Just like your contracts and IOs, make sure to stay on top of your purchase orders and the amount of funds left on them. Just like your legal team, your finance team should be your best friend!

I hope these tips help. When you work at a large company, marketing is such an inter-disciplinary field. Leverage these tips to flex your legal skills and make the most of your contracts!

Image of Contract © iStockPhoto – courtneyk

SEM Careers & Dealing With The Flu Season

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jan 28 1

Have you gotten the flu this year? It’s horrible! I was sick all last week and that’s the main reason I went a bit silent here on PPC Ian. I’m glad to be back to normal, more or less. The flu this year is the worst I have experienced in a very long time (many years). I was so thrilled to go into work today, healthy!

As you probably know by now, I’m the biggest fan of SEM careers around. The SEM career path is super fun. It’s a very high-powered career with tons of upside. That said, it can be quite the challenge thriving in any high-powered career when you come down with the flu. Today’s post offers tips that will help you get through the flu (or another illness) while thriving in your SEM career.

Tip 1: Stay home and get rest. In our line of work, we tend to be ambitious. However, don’t let ambition get the better of you. Rest is critical. Otherwise, you will not get better. Even more important, the flu can spread. Make sure to stay home and rest. Otherwise, your illness may spread to others at your organization.
Tip2: Work from home when you are up to it. When you start feeling better, start working from home. You will not be super-productive. The first day I started working again last week, my mind was half-working. I was trying so hard but the flu had influenced my ability to power through work. That’s ok. In SEM, some work is better than none. It’s all about keeping a pulse on things and making incremental progress. Each day, you will get more and more productive.
Tip 3: Rely on your team. I have said it many times: SEM is a team sport. Great teams can cover for each other. Those that are healthy can pick up the slack. Then, those that are sick can repay the favor later!
Tip 4: Make up for lost time on the weekend. When you are ill, you will fall behind in your work. Even if you work from home, you will probably start off working at half-capacity. SEM is a career where lost time will catch up with you very quickly. As such, I always recommend working weekends after you are feeling better. That extra work will get you back on-schedule, as if you never got ill at all. I worked all weekend last weekend and am caught up.
Tip 5: Maintain work/life balance. This final tip ties into my last post about Achieving Balance In Your PPC Career. Strive for balance and you will get sick less frequency. It’s that balance (eating healthy, exercising, sleeping) that will keep you in the game for the long run.

Image of Flu © iStockPhoto – KLH49

Achieving Balance In Your PPC Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jan 20 6

The online marketing career path is an intense one. There’s no doubt about it! It’s a career that involves true dedication, long hours, and an unbelievable level of responsibility. Of course, with intensity comes true opportunity and rewards. I wouldn’t want to be in any other career than this one!

Recently, my friend PPCknight asked some really great questions about achieving balance and longevity in one’s PPC career. Google AdWords and Bing Ads are 24/7 marketplaces. When you’re working long hours and have so much responsibility, are there any hacks and optimizations to make things a bit easier? Today’s post is all about achieving balance in your PPC career. From someone who’s thrived over the long run (8+ years in this great industry), I hope the following tips help!

Balance

Rely on your team. Paid search is a true 24/7 marketplace. It’s like Wall Street, except trading never stops. It’s impossible to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As such, it’s all about covering for each other. PPC is not a one-person sport, it’s all about working as a team. If you do not have budget to hire a team internally, check out some of the tips below.
Rely on your agency. Do you have an SEM agency? I recommend looking into SEM agencies, even if you have an in-house team. SEM agencies are always on call and can help you out 24/7 when you are in a true pinch.
Hire help on oDesk. If you don’t have budget to hire an internal team, you can always consider getting help on oDesk (or another outsourced marketplace such as Trada). The more talent on your side, the more you can divide the work and function as a true team!
View your search engine reps as an extension of your team. Search engine reps are amazing. Yahoo! and also Google are truly going above and beyond these days. They keep upping their game, and if you ever need help with anything, make sure to relay on your search engine reps.
Hire interns. The theme of this tip ties into the last few. It’s all about building out that team.
Automate and improve manual tasks with SEM software. I’m a huge fan of SEM automation platforms such as Kenshoo and InsideVault. Not only can they be huge time savers but they can also take your SEM operations to the next level. If you’re not using an SEM platform, chances are you will be working much longer hours for the same (or worse) results.
Get smarter and more efficient. Are there any tasks you work on that can be crossed off the list? Are there any components of your day that are consuming extra time? Sometimes it all comes down to efficiency. The advanced online marketing professional is looking for ways each and every day to improve efficiency.
Consider changing your location. In the world of SEM, it’s all about productivity. Don’t just sit at your desk all day. Visit Starbucks, travel between your offices (if your company has multiple offices), break up the days with work/meetings, and make sure to enjoy industry conferences. The more you break things up, the ore productive you will be.
Remember to take time off. I’m talking about vacations, staycations, and random days off here and there. It’s super important to recharge your batteries in the world of SEM. If you forget to take time off, you will not last the test of time.
Avoid making changes on Fridays and weekends. Also, avoid making too many major changes at one time. SEM can be quite unpredictable when you are not able to watch changes closely. Make sure to phase tests and changes for maximum ease of management.
Work at a world-class company. I cannot stress this point enough. SEM is so much more fun and powerful when you have an incredible product and team behind your marketing. It’s so much more fun and exciting to market a product that truly changes lives. Get behind something great! Marketing is difficult. Make sure to stack the cards in your favor as much as possible by picking a world-class organization.
Focus on your health. It’s all about exercising, eating well, and getting enough rest. If you push yourself too hard, you will not stand the test of time in the PPC industry. You have to pace yourself, it’s a marathon and not a sprint. Bonus tip: If you’re ill, make sure to stay home and get proper rest.
Love what you do. PPC is an intense career path so you’ve got to love it. Make sure to do a sanity check from time to time, make sure you love what you’re doing.

Image of Balance © iStockPhoto – malerapaso

Online Marketing Tips To Close Out 2012

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 27 3

Today marks my 300th post here on PPC Ian. Thank you so much for reading, I truly appreciate it! We’re heading into year end, can you believe it? As we close out 2012 and head into 2013, there are some important tasks you will want to complete as a professional online marketer. Today’s post is geared towards those who work in the corporate world of SEM. I hope you find this year end checklist helpful.

Getting Ready For 2013

Make sure to request your budget for 2013. Perform several models – top down, bottom up – to truly understand the right amount. Get as granular as possible. Understand how your budget request fits into your overall company’s goals.
Plan out your team’s initiatives for 2013. Understand how they fit into your company’s strategic goals. Make the process interactive. Work closely with everyone on your team and solicit ideas. Maybe even create a mini offsite for 2013 planning.
Think through new media channels (such as display advertising, email marketing, and remarketing) in addition to new product lines. Do you want to expand your online advertising campaigns to more lines of business? Factor such decisions into your budget and plan.
Audit your resources for 2013. Do you have enough people on your team? Do you want to hire someone new? If you will be making new hires, make sure it’s accounted for in your company’s budget. Think through internal employees and also consultants/agencies.
At the end of 2012, not only is it the end of Q4 but it’s the end of an entire year. Make sure to get your finance department an accurate picture of your Q4 expenses. They will be working hard to close out an entire fiscal year. PPC is typically a big cost marketing channel so the more details you can provide the better.
Take a serious look at your technology needs. Are you currently leveraging an SEM platform? Do you want to stick with it or change to a new one? SEM platforms cost money and the competitive evaluation can take some time. Make sure to start the process early and budget sufficient funds. And, get out there and audition awesome technologies such as InsideVault and Acquisio.
Take some time to reflect and perform a 2012 recap. Create a PowerPoint and send it out to the executive team. It’s truly important to send out regular updates and discuss progress. It’s amazing how much we all accomplish and I cannot underscore this step enough.
Don’t forget to send out holiday cards (and gifts too). Pay per click is truly a team effort. I don’t know what I’d do without help from search engines and partners. Make sure to thank them for everything. Cards and gifts can take some time, but it’s truly worth it.

Thanks everyone for reading, and I hope these tips help you close out an amazing 2012 and prepare for an even better 2013!

Image of 2013 © GRAZVYDAS

Become A Search Engine Marketing Career Mentor

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 27 1

I’m a huge fan of the search engine marketing career path. My career in this great field has been so exciting that I decided to create this blog to empower professionals all over the world and share the excitement! One of my favorite parts of this career is giving back. I have benefited from great mentors over the years and feel strongly about the power of mentoring. Following are a few quick tips on how you can give back and help build SEM careers.

Which Way

Tip 1: Become a people manager. SEM is a fast-paced career path. It’s possible to get promoted and become a people manager quicker than many other careers, if you’re really great at what you do. The best managers are those who truly mentor and give back to their team. Set your sights on people management, not only as a way to grow your career but also as a way to mentor and give back.
Tip 2: Offer your time to help others. We’re all so busy these days and it’s super easy to get wrapped up in your day-to-day campaign management. However, don’t forget to take a step back and offer your time and assistance to others. A perfect example: I spent one hour on the phone today with a good friend I met at SMX. The purpose of the call: Sharing actionable career advice and tips.
Tip 3: Set up a PPC internship program on your team. No matter how good we are at SEM automation, there always exists some level of manual work in paid search. The solution: Why not hire an intern to help out and give your team more leverage? This is a rough job economy for fresh college graduates. A PPC internship program for college students can truly help you pass on valuable skills and give your intern the job experience they need!
Tip 4: Schedule lunches with others. In the paid search career path, it’s important to remember to take a step back. Make sure to schedule lunches with others. I’m talking about people on your team, and also people on other teams. Make friends and see how you can give back and help out. Such lunches are always a two-way street. Leverage the opportunity to build your own knowledge as well.
Tip 5: Invest in informal presentations. This tip ties into the last one. Consider presenting your knowledge and areas of expertise via brown bag lunches. This will help build your public speaking skills while presenting valuable insights to others.

Image of Which Way © iStockPhoto – wildpixel

LinkedIn Skill Endorsements & Your PPC Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 9 4

From a PPC career perspective, I’m a huge fan of LinkedIn. LinkedIn offers a great way to build your personal brand and obtain career opportunities. LinkedIn also offers a great way to give back and help out others! One of my original posts here on PPC Ian (and one of the really popular ones) is my post about Growing Your SEM Career With LinkedIn.

Today, I wanted to do a quick post about a brand new LinkedIn feature. LinkedIn now allows you to endorse skills. If you go down to the Skills & Expertise section of someone’s profile and click that little plus sign, you will endorse their skill. Check out the screenshot to the right, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. You may have already received a few emails about your friends and colleagues endorsing your skills!

I like this feature because it’s easy to use and fun. Personally, I think written endorsements are king. These are the original endorsements on LinkedIn that require a written statement/paragraph. They take a lot more effort to generate and mean a lot. However, as a way to supplement written endorsements, these skill endorsements are fun. I like to think of them as “micro endorsements”.

So, what’s my strategy when it comes to these skill endorsements. It’s really the same as my strategy for written endorsements: The more you give the more you receive. I try to help others by endorsing them for their best skills. In return, I have been organically getting quality skill endorsements. Really, LinkedIn is a great way to give back to the online marketing community. Get out there and use skill endorsements to thank others. Also, don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn!

Image of PPC Ian’s LinkedIn Skills Endorsement © LinkedIn and PPCIan.com (the PPC Ian logo)

Tips For Landing SEM Jobs

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Sep 17 4

Right now, my team is hiring! If you’re looking for an SEM Job (located in Mountain View, California for candidates with 0-1 years SEM experience), please feel free to contact me with your resume and cover letter.

As such, I thought it would be the perfect time to share some tips for landing SEM jobs. While this guide is geared towards landing your first SEM job, it will also help with later stage jobs too. I wrote a post a while back about Landing Your First PPC Job. I recommend reading that post first, since this one builds upon it. I’m the biggest proponent of the SEM career path around. Best of luck in landing your SEM dream job!

Tip 1: Demonstrate Your Analytical and Math Skills

Hired

SEM is one of the most analytical jobs around. Ideal candidates are incredibly strong at complex puzzles. In this stage of the SEM game, competition is paramount. The only way to win is taking a numbers-driven approach and building complex programs that outsmart the competition. While SEM involves a huge number of skills, the data-driven analytics approach is most important.

So, how do you demonstrate your analytical and math skills? One easy way is choosing a college major such as engineering, computer science, economics, or business. (This was one of the top tips from my last post on the topic.) However, let’s say you pursued more of a liberal arts major or just want to go above and beyond? Some other tips include: securing an analytical internship (such as investment banking), making it clear in your interviews that you are great at math (make a conscious point to convey your skills), and becoming an Excel guru (and bringing in examples of your work). Paid search requires a strong, expert-level understanding of Excel. If you’re able to do this before you even start your first SEM job, you will be golden!

Bonus Tip: Make sure you really enjoy data and numbers before pursuing PPC. If you are not as interested in numbers, no problem at all! You have to be realistic with yourself. In that case, I would consider alternative career paths within online marketing. There exist online marketing career paths (other than PPC) that can be a bit less heavy on the numbers/spreadsheets such as business development and social media.

Tip 2: Assemble A Marketing Portfolio

I always respect a well-prepared candidate. Go the extra mile and assemble a marketing portfolio. This may be difficult if you’re new to SEM, but not impossible. Following are a few ideas… Get out there and try some affiliate marketing. Build some sites, craft landing pages, and buy some paid traffic. Bring in the results, but also screenshots of your sites and campaigns. Or, consider starting a blog. Blogging teaches you so much about online marketing, especially social media. As part of your blog experiment, run some paid “like” campaigns on Facebook. Bring in some printouts of the results. Another idea: Study big brand online marketing campaigns and bring in some printouts of your favorite examples. While this wouldn’t be your own work/portfolio, it clearly shows that you love marketing and went the extra mile to prepare. At the end of the day, it’s all about getting creative and arriving prepared. Also, blogging/affiliate marketing can help jobs “come to you” since you will be building a brand for yourself online.

Tip 3: Complete A Campaign Audit

Building upon the last point, I always recommend arriving at interviews prepared. Take a look at the PPC campaigns of the company you’re interviewing at. While you won’t have access to their AdWords account, you will be able to perform a cursory audit by searching on Google, checking out landing pages, and looking for opportunities. Get creative with it. Perhaps you also look at SEO and social media (these are easier to audit with the data available to you). Just be careful to demonstrate that you’re primary focus is paid search. These types of audits will not only show that you’re prepared but they’ll also sharpen your PPC skills. Not sure what to audit? New to PPC? Start reading eBooks and whitepapers (I cover many of them here on PPC Ian).

Bonus Tip: Don’t have any interviews lined up yet? First identify the employers you’re interested in. Then, consider sending your audit (or at least a summary of it) with your resume and cover letter. It’s all about going above and beyond!

PPC as a career is a truly fun journey. I hope these tips help in your PPC job search and interview process!

SEM Jobs: A Guide For Affiliate Marketers

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Aug 20 2

One of the best things about blogging is all the great emails I get from you guys! Lately, several full time affiliate marketers have asked me the question, “What should I do to get my first corporate SEM job? That is a great question, and today I’m thrilled to share a few tips on getting SEM jobs, specifically for affiliate marketers.

Tip 1: Leverage Your Affiliate Marketing Skills

Affiliate Marketing

Corporate search engine marketing jobs offer a very different experience than affiliate marketing. At the same time, affiliate marketing provides a great introduction and education that will help anyone become a great corporate marketer. My advice to any affiliate looking for an SEM job: Leverage and embrace your background. Stay true to your affiliate roots! During your interviews, consider bringing in case studies from your affiliate campaigns. I’ll never forget the candidate who brought in a portfolio, complete with Google Analytics and Google AdWords reports/graphs from his very own website (that he had built and marketed himself). I definitely respect someone like that and am betting a lot of other hiring managers have the same perspective!

Tip 2: Make Sure You’re Ready For Change

SEM is the best career path around, in my opinion. SEM is also an amazingly intense career path. Meaning: You will be working around the clock. Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter are 24/7 marketplaces, they never sleep. If you’re an affiliate (and love PPC), you will love the work so this should be a breeze. However, you can’t do everything and you’ll likely need to ramp down your affiliate operations. Your new SEM job will be priorities 1, 2, and 3. Make sure you’re ready for that change. Mentally, you cannot be thinking about anything at your new SEM job than the job itself. The caveat: Don’t completely stop your affiliate marketing, it can be your competitive advantage and your pulse on the industry. Affiliates are savvy and my personal affiliate marketing efforts have helped accelerate my corporate career.

Tip 3: Focus On Professionalism

Due to the number and nature of “super affiliate” blogs on the Internet, affiliates have become the rap stars of the online marketing industry. Don’t get me wrong, rap music is my favorite. However, gold chains and the party lifestyle don’t mesh will with the corporate world. Just keep in mind that corporate SEM is all about professionalism.

Tip 4: Just Go For It!

In my opinion, corporate SEM is the way to go. Affiliate marketing is great, but I personally feel like corporate SEM takes it to the next level. You will be working with some of the largest budgets around. You will be optimizing to new levels. You will work with amazing bidding platforms. You will learn some serious creative skills (both ad copy and landing page creative). You will get to test new stuff all the time. You will get amazing exposure to some of the brightest minds around. You will become a world class businessperson, responsible for your company’s bottom line. These are just a few benefits of corporate SEM, I could list hundreds. If you’re interested in making that move, just go for it!

Growing Your Marketing Career With Golf

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jul 20 1

Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to attend my company’s leadership team offsite. It was held in the Sacramento area at Thunder Valley Hotel and Casino. After an incredibly productive and intense offsite, we went over to the Granite Bay Country Club for a round of golf. This marked my second big work-related golf outing in the last few months (I played in the Randy Cross Invitational at Stanford Golf Course back in May). And, I’m already set to play in another tournament in September, again at Stanford Golf Course. I really enjoy these golf opportunities, and highly recommend them for anyone in the online marketing career path. Following are some of the main reasons I love these golf outings…

They present an amazing opportunity to really get to know your co-workers. After a round of golf, you can truly get to know somebody.
Golf presents a great way to meet co-workers who you may not work with on a day-to-day basis.
If you’re on an upward career trajectory (as I’m sure you are since you’re reading PPC Ian), golf helps build leadership skills. Golf helps make a name for yourself at your company.
Oftentimes, golf tournaments benefit charity. It’s an honor and privilege to represent your employer in that capacity. Giving back is so important. Remember to donate whatever you can afford as well, whether that’s time and/or money.
Golf is a great way to connect with partners and clients. Marin Software took a co-worker and I to the US Open recently. It was an amazing experience, thanks Marin! If you work at an agency (side note: I recommend Rocket Clicks and PPC Associates, they truly rule), you could leverage golf to connect with your clients.
It’s great fun and super exercise. You can enhance your online marketing work by staying in great shape. Golf keeps your mind clear.

As a closing tip, I wanted to point out that our golf event had players of all levels. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner. Get out threre and have fun. Even if your score is not great, just remember to have fun and keep a great attitude. Follow these tips and you’ll be on your way to career success, while having a blast!

PPC Ian Golfing At Granite Bay