Getting The Most Out of Your PPC Agency

Do you work with a PPC agency? How about multiple agencies? In my opinion, managing an SEM agency is just like managing an employee on your team. To get the most out of your agency, you need to be a great agency manager. Today, I’m thrilled to share some of my favorite tips for getting the most out of your agency.

Tip 1: Regular Calls (Weekly or Bi-Weekly) Are Key

Agency

When you’re managing a PPC agency, it’s all about frequent touch points. There’s nothing like regular calls. I try to have weekly calls and sometimes bi-weekly calls (when the queue is super busy). Make sure to follow an agenda during your calls. Stick to the topic at hand. Cover results/numbers, successes, challenges, and projects in the queue. Calls with your agency are just like 1-on-1s you hold with in-house employees.

If you work with a local agency, try to have in-person meetings too. Perhaps you could meet for lunch and then go back to the office after for a meeting. I’m a firm believer that SEM is a team sport. You cannot have a solid team without regular communication and touch points. Leverage calls and in-person meetings to manage your agency as part of your team. The results will be so much better as a result of your efforts!

Tip 2: Manage Your Agency’s Queue of Work Closely

I typically get the best results as a manager when I clearly understand the queue of work on each employee’s plate. I’m talking about the projects, the estimated upside, the ETAs, and the current status updates. Why? When I understand the queue of work, I can contribute projects/ideas, provide assistance, manage expectations upward, and make sure wires do not cross. I’m a huge fan of collaborative goal setting. The best goal lists are created as a team effort between manager, employee, and team. I highly recommend leveraging this philosophy when managing your agency. More work will get done, everyone will be more empowered, and the results will be awesome!

Tip 3: Leverage Your Agency’s Perspective For Optimal Results

I absolutely love working with SEM agencies because they have an amazing perspective. They work with many clients across many verticals. All they do is online marketing. SEM agencies can bring substantial value to the table in terms of cutting edge ideas. Make sure to leverage your agency for their expertise. Regularly ask them questions such as, “What are your other clients seeing?” Of course, you don’t need (nor want) specifics. You want high level guidance around the latest and greatest trends.

So there you have it: A few great tips for getting the most out of your PPC agency. Looking for a PPC agency? I highly recommend reaching out to my friends over at PPC Associates and Rocket Clicks.

Image of Agency © iStockPhoto – kondyukandrey

Online Marketing People Management Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jan 27 9

When it comes to online marketing, there are two high level career options when you’re first starting out: Affiliate marketing (start your own business) and the corporate route. I’m a huge fan of both, but prefer the corporate route. Today, I’d really like to highlight one of the main advantages of the corporate route: The ability to manage people early in your career. If you’re on a rocket ship career trajectory like myself, you can expect to start managing a team just a few years out of college (although it does take a little longer these days than when I started in 2004). When it comes to growing quickly, it’s all about leverage. Your team gives you that leverage. However, managing a team is definitely not easy, it’s one of the greatest (and most rewarding) challenges out there!

Today, I’ll be answering some questions one of my readers sent in recently, someone who’s new to people management and is managing his first employee. I hope this post highlight one of the big advantages of the corporate SEM route while providing some tactical people management tips.

Pace of Learning?

Leadership Management

This question really depends on the level of employee you are hiring. However, for the purpose of this post, I’m going to assume the person being managed is an SEM Associate (where I started when I graduated Stanford). It’s actually difficult for me to answer this question because times have changed. When I started my search marketing career back in 2004, SEM was a very new discipline. Due to the lack of SEM tools, documentation, helpful blogs, and overall industry knowledge, the training curve was much longer. Back in those days, you could basically assume that it would take three months to train a new employee before they could start adding value.

However, with all the advances in our industry over the years, the training curve has diminished tremendously. These days, I expect new employees to start adding value within two weeks. It’s important for managers in our industry to remember how far things have advanced and that it’s possible to learn much faster in our current environment.

In terms of overall pace, I like to inundate new employees with a lot of projects immediately. There’s really no better way to learn than to be thrown into the fire, so to speak. That said, I always stress quality over quantity. It’s important to hire A Players and an A Player will quickly get bored without a backlog challenging projects.

Online Marketing People Management Resources?

This is an awesome question and is very core to my motivation behind PPC Ian. There are many great books out there about people management. Two of my favorites are Winning by Jack Welch and High Output Management by Andy Grove. However, you’ll quickly discover that SEM is very different than other disciplines and requires its own unique management principles. Why? It’s a rapid growth career unlike any other. You typically have young managers managing even younger teams managing millions of dollars in spend. It’s because of this dynamic that I created PPC Ian with the goal of educating and empowering pay per click professionals. Stay tuned and also check out my Management category for Internet marketing people management tips.

How To Keep Them Busy For The Day?

This really ties back to the first question. If you hire A Players they must have a backlog of high value projects or else they will get bored, really quickly! You need to challenge A Players. How do you do this? Well, first things first: You’ll want to spend a lot of time with new employees. Typically, your own productivity will go down in their first few weeks. You’ll be spending a large portion of your day training them! Don’t worry, the long term leverage you will get far outweighs the negative leverage in the short run.

Second, you’ll want to classify projects into two groups: Recurring tasks and strategic projects. An example of a recurring task is sending out daily or weekly reports to the team. An example of a strategic project is launching a new campaign on Google AdWords. You can quickly fill up the schedules of your new employees by assigning recurring tasks. This is stuff you need done but is well defined and recurring (meaning it takes up a lot of time on a consistent basis). Over time, as your employees become more seasoned and independent, you’ll want to assign them more strategic projects.

What Tasks To Gradually Load On Them?

This really ties into the last question, great timing… In a new employee’s fist few weeks, they’ll work mainly on recurring tasks. Over time, they’ll do those recurring tasks in a fraction of the time it used to take them. This will free up tons of time to continue taking on more recurring tasks and also strategic projects. Just remember, we’re dealing with millions of dollars. There’s a lot at stake. Upon completion of their first strategic projects, you’ll want to review their work thoroughly. It’s only after trust and a great track record is established that I would recommend allowing new employees to make changes to production SEM accounts. The timing on this can vary, but I typically don’t let new employees make changes to production SEM accounts (directly) until they’ve been at the company over a month (and sometimes more).

What Should I Expect?

It’s of paramount importance to expect the world. I only hire A Players and expect a lot. By expecting a lot and pushing your employees to the max, they will grow quickly, add amazing value, and drive results. In turn, this makes you a success as a manager. The whole organization grows and everyone gets promoted! Just remember, everyone needs a break at some point so use your judgment. Moreover, we’re all human and we’re all different. Why is management difficult? No two people are the same. You’ll need to change your management style for each and every person you manage. It gets easier over time (once you’ve managed 10-20 different employees), but it takes time. Just remember to trust your instincts and that the relationship you establish with your employees is everything. To your employees, you are the company to them!

Image of Leadership Management © iStockPhoto – turkkol

Pay Per Click Budgeting Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 14 7

It’s Q4 and time to start thinking about 2011. If you’re at a large company, there’s no doubt that the financial budgeting process is in effect (or at least will be very soon). I really enjoy budgeting and forecasting: It’s the ideal time to start thinking about the big picture and all the amazing initiatives you and your team will accomplish during the next fiscal year. Also, it’s the perfect time to start securing the budget you need to accomplish your goals in 2011. I’ve been through the budgeting process many times and today would like to share some great ideas for 2011 strategic initiatives.

Initiative 1: Implement PPC Automation Software

Looking To The Future

Are you managing your campaigns manually? If so, that’s great! Why am I so excited? It’s easy: There’s a huge amount of upside on the table for you. Implement a paid search platform in 2011 and you’ll uncover major efficiencies, save time, make your team more productive, make more money via automated bidding, and much more!

I’m a huge fan of paid search software (but I bet you already knew that by now), and recommend checking out my FREE 12 page whitepaper about selecting the right paid search automation platform. Once you’re done with that, I highly recommend checking out the plethora of amazing platforms out there including Acquisio, WordStream, and Marin Software. I also discuss a few other amazing platforms in my post about SEM software. Finding the right SEM platform for your organization is a long and exciting journey. It’s also an endeavor which requires budget and buy-in during the budgeting process. Secure the budget for your SEM platform now, during budgeting season.

Initiative 2: Expand Your Team

Online marketing is growing rapidly. Many large companies are finally transferring budget from offline to online. What does this mean for you and the pay per click career path? Nothing but upside! However, it also means increased work. I’m here to say that no matter how much technology you have in place, it’s fundamental to have a team in place. It’s during the budgeting process that you can secure budget to hire additional resources in 2011. Get your request in there and start working with your recruiter as soon as it’s approved, it can take time to find the perfect match for your team!

Initiative 3: Think Big About Acquisitions

We’re in very interesting times. Cash is abundant for many successful companies, but cash definitely is not king with today’s ultra-low interest rates. Wouldn’t it be great if you could help your organization put all that cash to use? You can! Think big in terms of acquisitions. Any competitors in the PPC marketplace that stand out as particularly amazing? Why not buy them up, especially if they have an amazing SEO presence as well.

Initiative 4: Invest In The Yahoo! Microsoft Search Alliance

When it comes to pay per click search engine marketing, it’s all about leverage. Now that Yahoo! and Microsoft have joined forces, leverage is plentiful. It’s my firm belief that the Search Alliance will take online marketing to new heights. The innovation and opportunities will be unparalleled. My advice? Budget for at least one full time person managing your Unified Marketplace accounts!

Initiative 5: Invest In Landing Pages

Back in 2004, PPC was just like printing money! The marketplace lacked a lot of competition and it was easy to grow by simply adding keywords, refining ad copy, and exploring new channels such as contextual advertising. These days, however, things are quite different. Competition is abundant and the tricks of PPC are not enough on their own to put you in the lead, consistently. The difficult part of this all? It’s the pay per click campaign managers that own the numbers! This is why it’s so very important to secure resources NOW for landing pages. Landing pages are something that will most likely require resources from your design and engineering teams. If you can secure those resources for 2011, you’re definitely setting yourself and your company up for success!

Initiative 6: Don’t Forget About The Basics

To close out, I’d like to highlight that the basics of PPC are still absolutely fundamental. All this other stuff is great, but it won’t get you far if you don’t have a solid foundation in place. Start planning for some major keyword generation, ad copy testing, bidding refinement, campaign deployment, match type testing, negative keyword generation, beta testing, campaign monitoring, and more!

The best part of this PPC budgeting process: You have real world numbers that you can leverage for your projections. Do your best to accurately forecast the results of your PPC initiatives and you’ll be surprised just how accurate your budget turns out! And, don’t forget to set aside at least 20 or more hours for budgeting, it takes a lot of time.

Image of man looking to the future © iStockPhoto – olaser

Search Engine Relationship Management Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 30 5

I’m really excited about today’s post because it covers an important component of the pay per click career path that sometimes gets overlooked: Search engine relationship management. Specifically, I’ll be discussing a few tips to get the most out of your relationships with Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. At the end of the day, it’s all about leverage. Manage your search engine relationships efficiently and your profits will skyrocket!

Tip 1: Your Search Engine Reps Are Part of Your Extended Team

My first tip is really simple, yet extremely powerful. It’s easy: View your search engine reps as if they are part of your internal team sitting just a few cubes away! Thinking of your reps this way is very powerful. Let’s say your internal team is comprised of three people, one for each first tier search engine. Now, let’s say you have three search engine reps, again one for each search engine. Rather than having three team members, you actually have six! Now, just think how much work six hard working individuals can accomplish, it’s very powerful stuff.

In reality, this tip is not completely true because your reps are not exclusively dedicated to your account. Even if you’re one of the largest spenders out there, your reps will still have a handful of clients. At the same time, if you are a large spender, your reps will have extra support on their end making the relationship quite powerful.

Tip 2: Your Reps Are Resources – Keep Their Queue Full

So now that we’ve established that your reps are part of your search marketing team, we’ll discuss some great ways to manage these "new" team members. First and foremost, would you ever have your internal team sitting around without any projects to work on? Of course not! Pay per clickers are very expensive and valuable resources. As such, you want to manage your reps just like your internal team and keep them working on the highest leverage projects possible at all times.

From my experience, most reps will go the extra mile. Some projects you may want to consider assigning your reps: keyword generation (both positive and negative), keyword review, keyword categorization, content match suggestions, account growth opportunities, and advanced intelligence. From my experience, those teams that invest sweat equity really do win the PPC game. Sometimes, however, you really need to divide the manual work on the keyword generation, review, and categorization side of things. Involving your reps in the process (in addition to your internal team) is the perfect way to gain scale on those valuable sweat equity type projects, helping the divide the work!

Tip 3: Leverage Search Engine Reps For Advanced Intelligence

What can your reps do that you’re not able to internally? They can provide advanced intelligence around your overall market, search engine trends, and most importantly what your competitors are doing. Therefore, I always like to have at least one intelligence style project in the queue. Now, here’s a word of advice: If you’re always looking at the market and competition, you’re looking backwards. For that reason, I’m always focused on setting new trends. I want the competitors to be following me. At the same time, it’s important to be aware of the market, just don’t spend too much time or else you may lose your first place position.

Tip 4: Manage It All With Weekly (or Bi-Weekly) Calls

The cornerstone of my personal management style hinges around weekly 1-on-1s with my reports. The 1-on-1 provides the perfect opportunity to dive into projects and also career progression. Now, you’re not going to dive into career progression with your reps, but you’ll definitely want to stay on top of their queue. How will you do this? Weekly (or bi-weekly) calls are essential. You’ll want to take close notes, get ETAs, and really stay on top of your reps just like you would with our internal team. Execute on all of this properly and you’ll ensure great productivity!

Now, let me flip this the other way. Excitingly, many reps will bring up great new ideas that you never thought of! They will help drive your priorities. I also like to view these weekly 1-on-1s as a status check on your own work, the work that is being driven by your reps. It’s a great two way street and a reality check for your own progress as well.

Tip 5: In-Person Meetings Are Key

Something I’ve learned over the years: Personal connection is critical in building great business relationships. You really need to know your reps on a personal level and meet them in person for the optimal relationship. It’s easy if you’re in San Francisco like me and can hop on over to Google’s office in a matter of minutes. However, if you’re out of town, I strongly encourage you to make the trip. It will really impress your account management team and will take your search engine relationships to the next level!

As a closing thought: I’m a huge proponent of beta tests. Build strong relationships with your reps (and add as much value for them as they are for you) and you’ll get included in beta tests. This can be a tremendous way to advance your business while being the first mover on new and innovative products before they’re released to the general market.

Image of Business Space © iStockPhoto – jsmith

Managing Remote India SEM Teams

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 26 3

My career in search engine marketing has progressed like a rocket ship. I owe my success to many factors. One of the greatest ingredients in my early on success was a tremendous manager, someone who saw a lot of potential in PPC Ian and pushed me into the people management track from day one. (Side note: To this day, I’m inspired to be the best people manager ever as a way of celebrating the legacy this manager started.) So how did I get started in the fascinating and rewarding world of people management? During my first year in SEM I had the unique privilege of managing a remote India SEM team!

I learned many lessons through my management of this India SEM team. Whether you’re managing an SEM team in India, China, or another country, there are unique challenges and benefits that arise out of remote SEM people management. Today, I’m looking forward to highlighting a few of my personal remote people management strategies. Moreover, I’m excited to celebrate the global nature of the search marketing industry. I truly embrace this industry because it has no boundaries and I’ve had the amazing opportunity to collaborate with talented individuals all around the globe.

Strategy 1: Schedule Regular Phone and Videoconference Meetings

What’s the most important characteristic of a great SEM people manager? There are many but the willingness to drop anything and everything at a moment’s notice to help out a team member in need ranks towards the top of my list. I’m serious here. When someone on my team has a question, I’m ready to assist immediately. It all goes back to leverage. My goal: Zero roadblocks in my team’s path towards success. Moreover, it goes back to your duty as a people manager. You’re there to ensure your team’s success, period.

Now, let’s consider the time zone differences between the US and India. Unless your India team is working the night shift, their workday is most likely during your downtime (if you are in the US). To make up for the fact that you won’t be able to answer questions that come up during the course of the workday, always make sure to schedule regular phone and videoconference meetings with your India team. You’re going to have to stay at the office late and also work late into the evening hours at home. Make sure you do it, hold yourself to high standards! After all, it’s your duty and responsibility as a good people manager.

Strategy 2: Appoint India Search Marketing Team Leads

My second suggestion ties directly into the first one. As your hire and build out your India search marketing team, try to get a few individuals started early before you build out the entire team. These early employees have the benefit of really stepping up and learning before the rest of the team joins. Because of their head start, they will naturally fall into the team lead role. If someone has a question and you’re not available, direct your team to ask the team lead. I like this strategy because it’s practical (questions get answered quickly, removing roadblocks that may come up) and also because it empowers leadership and growth.

As a people manager at heart, there’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing my team progress, grow, and achieve their dreams. One team lead that I appointed in my early days managing my remote India team got promoted from the SEM role to a technical QA role, how awesome!

Strategy 3: Leverage The Time Difference For 24/7 SEM Management

When people ask me what I do for a living, I often draw analogies to Wall Street. One key difference between PPC and Wall Street, however, is the 24/7 trading happening on Google, Yahoo, and Bing (versus Wall Street having fixed trading hours). Sure, volume slows down at night, but swift competitors can still make very interesting moves during these low volume times. Moreover, campaigns and sites can still break during the middle of the night, creating a real headache for you in the morning if they’re not fixed right away.

This all ties back to the India SEM team strategy. Leverage your India SEM team as your eyes and ears while you’re sleeping. Treat your PPC campaigns with the seriousness they deserve, true 24/7 monitoring. While it’s never pleasant getting woken up, I am extremely thankful for the times when my India team called me in the middle of the night to troubleshoot major campaign and site issues that would come up from time to time.

Tip 4: Become a Master of PPC Documentation (and Video)

Anyone who knows me well knows that I absolutely love PPC documentation. At my last gig, I became famous as the PPC guy writing 20 page documents about campaign process. This all ties back to the first tip. The main challenge managing an India SEM team is the simple fact that they can’t come to you instantaneously with questions. However, what you can do is proactively answer any question they could possibly come up with by writing extensive documentation. If you work at a larger organization that plans to hire many campaign managers, invest in building out documentation (an even training videos). The long term leverage you’ll receive is tremendous.

Tip 5: Focus On SEM Career Progression

I’m a huge fan of career progression, who isn’t? I thoroughly enjoy pushing my employees to their limits, holding regular career planning sessions, and making sure that dreams are realized. As an overall management philosophy, I live by the following statement: "There should never be any surprises during a performance review." Career planning should be such a regular discussion that your SEM team should know exactly what to expect.

Now, let’s put things into perspective. PPC is an operational position, one that’s often quite hectic. I always make time for career progression discussions, regardless of what’s going on. However, many managers don’t. When it comes to remote teams, even fewer managers make time for these discussions. My advice to you: Embrace this aspect of people management and make sure to carve out a career path for your remote PPC team. There may be some unique hurdles such as different job titles and organizational structure in your company’s India branch. Make sure to investigate the nuances with your HR department and develop a plan. Your team will thank you dearly and moreover you’ll boost overall productivity, results, morale, and employee retention.

Tip 6: Celebrate Your Remote Team’s Success Amongst US Executives

I’m closing out with a fun one. As you may already know, I’m very vocal about celebrating my team’s success. Now, I’d like to encourage you to be even more vocal about celebrating your remote PPC team’s success amongst US management. One of my favorite sayings in PPC: "Perception is reality." Make your team visible within the organization. Celebrate their success. Draw executive attention to what’s happening in India. The benefits are plentiful and you will form management’s perception of your India team. One thing is for sure: I’m just about the largest proponent there is of remote India search engine marketing teams and am thankful everyday for the global nature of the PPC game.

Image of Digital Earth © iStockPhoto – enot-poloskun

Paid Search Interview Questions

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 24 13

Over the years I’ve conducted more pay per click interviews than I can count. Interviewing is extremely important in the world of search marketing, even more so than other roles. Just think about the extensive training you’re going to invest in your new employee. From my experience, it will take a good three to six months to get a strong positive yield out of your new hire, with the months increasing the more junior the candidate. Precisely because of the large "ramp up period" in paid search (even for candidates that already have experience), I place the highest possible importance on the interview process. Today, I’m excited to share with you some of my favorite interview techniques and questions in an effort to help you get the most out of your PPC interviews.

PPC Interview Strategy 1: Screen For Math Over The Phone

Here’s a fun tip that will save you an immense amount of time: Ask the candidate math questions during your first phone call. In fact, I don’t even wait for my first phone call – I ask my recruiter to ask math questions during the first phone screen. PPC is both technical and creative. Unfortunately, many candidates are very creative but cannot perform mental math. Right from the beginning, ask some questions such as:

What’s 3% of 2,000,000?
What’s 9 * 350?
What is the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5?

Some candidates will immediately ask if they can use a calculator. You’ll want to explain that the purpose of these exercises is to understand their mental math ability and that calculators are not allowed. Reassure the candidate and let them know there’s no rush and to think the questions through. (I’m not testing how well they can work under pressure here but am simply trying to the get to the bottom of their basic math abilities.)

At the end of the day, this strategy is invaluable because it will save you a huge amount of time. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gotten a candidate to the late stages of the interview pipeline only to then find out they cannot perform mental math.

Paid Search Interview Strategy 2: Don’t Delay The Long Case Question

During the SEM candidate’s first in person interview, I always like to start off with a long case study question, one that involves analytical ability, judgment, and of course math. Here’s what I’ve observed from some other interviewers: They either delay the case so much that there’s little time for it or they forget to ask the case altogether. In pay per click search engine marketing, you’re hiring someone to operate on the front lines of your business. The case question is everything, in my opinion!

For this reason alone, I always start with the case during the first in person interview and I allocate it a good half hour of more. Like the first tip, this one can save you a ton of time. Most candidates will pass all of the fuzzy, subjective questions. However, case studies are either right or wrong. Make your pay per click candidate pass all of the difficult hurdles first and save yourself and your organization time in the PPC interview process.

SEM Interview Tip 3: Everyone Needs To Interview The Candidate

PPC is like sales in that we’re directly driving revenue for our company each and every day. Like sales, we make the big bucks. Also like sales, the pressure is on! For this very reason, it’s absolutely essential everyone meets the PPC candidate before an offer is made.

I’ve seen it too many times: Everyone meets the candidate except the one person that is on vacation. Don’t make this mistake! Retaining your current employees is everything and this is not always easy in a high pressure environment. Before someone joins your PPC family, make sure everyone is on board. The last thing you want is to bring someone new on board who may not mesh well with the existing team. Moreover, you want to give your existing team the authority to have a say in the decision as an overall tool for empowering and growing your team.

Search Marketing Interview Tip 4: Assign Take Home Pay Per Click Exercises

Let’s face it: It’s impossible to ask every single question during your interview. Interviews fly by and there never seems to enough time. Moreover, some candidates are very skilled at interviewing and may be more "talk" than "skill". My solution: Assign in depth take home exercises after they pass the first round of in person interviews. I like to ask a variety of questions that test:

Understanding of the industry
Creative ad copy ability
Judgment and overall analytical ability
Attention to detail
Mathematical ability
Excel skills
Persistence and dedication to the process

On a rare occasion, I’ll assign a second round of take home questions if the first round is borderline and the read on the candidate is mixed. However, if you make the first round of questions extensive enough, it will be come readily apparent if the candidate is qualified or not. As with the mental math question and the in person case, I like to give these questions as soon as possible in the process to save everyone time if the pay per click candidate cannot pass the test.

PPC Interview Tip 5: Thoroughly Check References Yourself

I’d like to close out with an important one that’s often overlooked. It actually all goes back to what I touched on earlier: Some candidates are very skilled interviewers. They absolutely ace the interviews and are great and hiding their flaws. For this reason, I take pride in personally checking the candidate’s references (as opposed to outsourcing this duty to my recruiter). Take the time to really chat with the references and learn everything you can. Another positive benefit of the reference check: You get to build out your network and potentially find candidates for other positions that you’re hiring for in the future!

Get To Know Your PPC Team Personally

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 24 0

Even though the economy is rocky right now, those of us in pay per click search engine marketing are very lucky. If you’ve built out an impressive SEM LinkedIn profile, you’re most likely getting job offers regularly (if not weekly). Now, this is great from the standpoint of job security and opportunity, but it places PPC people managers and team leads in a difficult situation.

Just when you think everything is working perfectly, all of the sudden you get notice that your star player found a better opportunity and is leaving in two short weeks. As a manager, what could you have done differently to prevent this situation? Today, I’m going to discuss one of my favorite management strategies, one that can help you retain your entire team even in this competitive recruiting environment. The tip is actually quite simple: Develop a personal relationship with everyone on your team.

Break Free From Your Work and Chat With Your SEM Team

Learn and Lead

If you’re anything like me, you have a strong internal instinct to sit in front of your computer and power through work all day, ignoring any and all distractions. If you do this, don’t feel bad. The vast majority of PPC campaign managers do the same thing and it’s really a function of our role. However, now it’s time to take a step back and break free from this habit.

As you may know, I’m a big champion of attending SEM conferences at every possible opportunity. I’m going to give you the same advice here: Take every opportunity possible to break free from your work and have regular side conversations with your search marketing team. Sound crazy? Trust me, from 5 years of SEM team management this is totally essential. While you may feel like your productivity is decreasing, it really isn’t. Your entire team will be more productive and energized. After all, as a manager your personal output just isn’t that important. It’s all about your team’s total output. Moreover, this technique will work wonders for your employee retention in an industry where everyone’s trying to take them away from you! (Just remember how long it took you to train your last new employee and that quickly shows just how important employee retention is for your long term productivity.)

The Importance of Forming a Bond With Your Team

Relationships are very important to all humans. Positive relationships help us thrive. They keep the day interesting. They help us connect and form bonds with others. They help us get through challenges. They simply keep us going and give us essential social interaction. We all know how addictive social interaction can be from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The point here is really simple: Take your relationship with your SEM team seriously. If you form a strong bond with your team members, you will experience all of the benefits of a strong relationship: loyalty, excitement, employee retention, increased productivity, and so much more.

You may be thinking, how do I build a solid relationship with my team? It’s actually easier than you think. Take a few minutes each day to chat. Make sure you can answer the following questions:

What did your report do last weekend?
What’s their favorite hobby?
What are they doing next weekend?
What do they enjoy doing outside of work?

Who Qualifies as a PPC Team Member?

I wanted to make the point here that I define "PPC team" very loosely. In my opinion, almost everyone is a team member: Direct reports, search engine reps, co-workers, superiors, and vendors. The more people you get to know, the larger the network effects of your relationships. Everybody likes a personable manager. Develop that reputation today!

Where To Draw The Line

In closing, I wanted to draw attention to a very important point: Never forget that you’re a people manager. As a manager, it’s always your duty to give both positive and negative feedback. It’s your job to call out mistakes and help your team grow. To that end, you want to develop a great relationship with your team but you need to know where to draw the line. You can’t forget you’re a people manager. The best people managers in the word walk this fine line each and every day and get the benefits of both bonds: the manager bond and the friend bond. If you’re new to this, my advice is simple: Predominantly wear your manager hat but try to spend a few minutes each day wearing the more personable friend hat. Investing just a little bit of time could make all the difference the next time your star player gets a call from a recruiter!

Celebrate Your PPC Team’s Success

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 7 10

What gets me most excited about my career in search engine marketing each and every morning? There really are a variety of factors including responsibility, excitement, and making lots of money (both individually and for the company). However, above and beyond all of this is the great thrill of managing and mentoring my team. I’m passionate about people management. More than anything, I measure my personal success in terms of my team’s success (morale, retention, promotions, results, and overall career success). In that spirit, today’s post focuses on one of my favorite people management tips: celebrating success. A lot of SEM team managers overlook this simple, yet highly effective technique.

Celebrate Your SEM Team’s Success

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Search engine marketing is just like sales. As pay per click campaign managers, we’re on the battlefield each and every day, driving revenue and margin. Things can get a little crazy. When things are going well the thrill is unparalleled. When things are not going well (especially in our current economy), morale can be low and this is where the strong people manager can make a huge difference.

My advice to you: Please, make a conscious effort to celebrate you team’s success. When someone does a great job, take a step back and really highlight their success.

Why Celebrate Pay Per Click Success?

The answer to this question is really simple. Celebration of success is the ultimate motivator. Just think about it. What happens when you get a compliment? It’s motivating and empowering. Similarly, when you celebrate someone’s success, they feel a charge of energy. The success is addictive and they immediately want to work hard and achieve more success. The feedback will also encourage your broader team because they will want to get congratulated on future projects.

Another way of looking at this: What happened when you got your last raise and promotion (perhaps when you got promoted from PPC Associate to SEM Manager)? If you’re like me, you started working even harder because you were so fired up by the positive reinforcement. Now, celebrating success isn’t going to give the effect of a promotion, but you can certainly think of it along those lines.

Why Does It Work?

I especially like this PPC management tip because most managers don’t subscribe to this model. We’ve all had a few bad managers in our careers. The worst managers take credit for all of their team’s work. However, when the team fails, they blame the team and not themselves. If you’re a good manager, you never take credit for your team’s work. You give all the credit to the people doing the work. What do you take credit for? Training, managing, and enabling the team to do such great work! Most likely, the people who work for you have had bad managers at one point in their careers. If you start giving credit where credit is due, you’ll really stand out and build loyalty and trust for life.

How Do You Celebrate Your Team’s SEM Success?

There are many ways to celebrate. By far, my favorite is sending out an email to the entire team while including key executives. I spell out the specifics of the project, the impact, and focus on the fact that the project was driven by XYZ team member. This is a really great strategy because it highlights successful members of your team in front of the senior management team, something that might not happen on a day-to-day basis (especially at a larger organization). Another idea: Why not have team lunches or dinners (on the company) to celebrate successes?

A Closing Word of Caution on Celebrating Your Team’s Success

This is an extremely powerful tool. I’d like to close out with two words of caution, however. First, don’t go overboard. As with any strategy, if you leverage it too much it quickly becomes old and loses its impact. Second, please remember to also give your team constructive feedback. You don’t want to become the manager that always congratulates but never provides guidance and feedback when things aren’t perfect. One of the things that your team will appreciate even more than celebration is candid, constructive, and critical feedback. From my experience, most people in pay per click search engine marketing want to grow their careers rapidly. This is the exact type of person that craves regular constructive and critical feedback on how to improve!