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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

A Great Week of PPC Networking

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 17 4

I’m a huge fan of networking, PPC-style. Building your career within pay per click is all about driving results. However, it’s also all about networking and building solid relationships. Because of the career benefits and also because it’s so much fun, I’m always looking for ways to network. Just last week, I visited the offices of InsideVault and also went on The Free COO radio show. This week, I focused on lunches!

I had two really great lunches this week. One was with my team and our good friends from Yahoo. We work with such bright and amazing people at Yahoo, they are true business partners and personal friends. I could not imagine a better team. Yahoo certainly has an amazing strength in account management, way to go Yahoo! My other great lunch this week was with my friend John Rampton, owner and blogger at PPC.org. PPC.org is a great blog about, you guessed it, PPC. John and I had a true blast and chatted all about our favorite topic, PPC. Both lunches were in downtown Mountain View, a really happening downtown for anyone in the online marketing or tech industry. My advice for anyone looking to grow their PPC career: Get out there and network! It’s all about the people.

Lunch With Our Amazing Yahoo! Friends

Yahoo Lunch Mountain View

Great Lunch With John Rampton From PPC.org

PPC Ian and John Rampton

Images in this post © PPCIan.com

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.

LinkedIn Skills Endorsement

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)

Landing Your First PPC Job

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 26 11

Today I’m going to discuss PPC careers and specifically how you can land your first PPC job. It’s exciting: I’ve received a ton of emails lately from PPC Ian readers about breaking into the corporate PPC industry. Many of these emails have been from current college students. When I graduated Stanford, I really fell into this industry out of pure luck and never looked back. Back then, the corporate PPC industry was just beginning so nobody really got into this industry intentionally (because it really didn’t exist as an established industry). They typically found it by accident and then enjoyed the amazing rewards as the industry exploded. Today, however, our industry has truly grown and there are very clear things you can do to ensure you land your first PPC job. Let’s jump into them!

Tip 1: Pursue The Right Major For PPC

PPC Jobs

Pay per click is very technical, but at the same time creative as well. We’re creating bidding algorithms, crunching numbers in Excel, and building financial models but are also writing ad copy, brainstorming clever new strategies, and managing high profile relationships with search engines. It’s really the fact that PPC is so incredibly diverse that it stays interesting year after year!

So, what majors will prepare you for all of this? While there are many different options, I personally recommend going with a technical major and then a more creative minor (or at least picking up some creative activities). What do I mean by technical major? I’m talking about computer science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering, economics, business, and other related disciplines. I personally went with a computer science major and economics minor. I flexed my creativity by functioning as co-president of Stanford’s investment club.

Tip 2: Get An Internet Industry Internship

Experience is everything. If you want to get into investment banking, it’s critical to get an internship at one of the big investment banks. Now that pay per click has evolved, it’s incredibly helpful to have relevant industry experience via internships. Ideally, I would try to get an internship at an SEM agency or at a large direct advertiser in an online marketing capacity. (You may want to check out my post about three PPC career paths. ) That said, there’s no need to focus exclusively on PPC when you’re still in college. Any internship at an Internet company (especially one that has a strong PPC and/or SEO presence) will help tremendously. The experience you will gain by simply working in the corporate Internet environment will pay incredible dividends once you graduate and look for your ideal PPC job.

Tip 3: Start Affiliate Marketing While In College

I’m a huge fan of my friend Dino Vedo. Dino is a college student, but is also an affiliate marketing mogul. I can tell you first hand: There is no substitute for first hand experience, especially when your very own money is on the line. Whether you approach the affiliate marketing game from a PPC perspective or even an SEO perspective (like myself), this first hand experience will prepare you tremendously for your first PPC job. So, how do you get started in affiliate marketing? One great option is to work with an affiliate network like CPA Tank. CPA Tank, run by my friend Vito, will connect you with the best offers and provide expert advice on getting your affiliate marketing campaigns started!

So there you have it! Three quick tips that will help you prepare for your first PPC job while you’re still in college. In my opinion, PPC is the best career around and it’s an amazing opportunity for anyone in college contemplating their first job.

Image in this post © iStockPhoto – francisblack

Three Different PPC Career Paths

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 22 18

As you know, I’m a huge fan of the corporate pay per click career path. This career path has been extremely rewarding for me and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. PPC may sound like an extremely focused discipline and it is. At the same time, there do exist multiple career paths within pay per click (and online marketing in general). Today, I’m looking forward to discussing three of my favorite career opportunities and my thoughts around their strengths and weaknesses.

PPC Career Path 1: The Agency Route

Careers Achievers

A few weeks ago, I attended SMX West. If you’ve been to SMX or another search marketing conference such as SES or ad:tech, I’m sure you’ve noticed the huge number of search marketing agencies. Put simply, agencies such as iProspect are big business and are only getting bigger. So now that we’ve established that agencies are a huge force within online marketing, let’s discuss a few of the pros and cons of the agency career path.

The biggest pro of the agency career path, in my opinion, is the ability to work with a variety of clients. In the agency world, you’ll typically get several accounts across a variety of verticals and business models. Moreover, these accounts change over time! In my opinion, this puts the search marketer on the fast track to accumulating a very deep knowledge of online marketing. Another benefit of the PPC agency career path: You get serious client face time. If you enjoy the human side of things as much as crunching the numbers, the agency career path can give you that optimal mix.

So, everything sounds perfect, right? Of course not! There are pros and cons with all decisions in life. There’s one big con that comes to mind with the agency path. As an external party, you are one step removed from the core business operations. This typically equates to less day-to-day financial visibility and responsibility. Agency teams are given volume and CPA goals, but it’s sometimes not the same as living and breathing the numbers like an internal team. This isn’t the agency’s fault, it’s a data integration thing. Just think about it: As an agency, you’re not going to be hooked into all of the client’s back end data. An internal team, however, often has access to more intimate data which often equates to more precise financial responsibility.

Pay Per Click Career Path 2: The Startup

Another popular career path in pay per click is the startup route. Let’s start with the pros again. First and foremost, startups offer the ability to grow quickly. When I say grow, I actually mean growing several things: your skills, responsibilities, title, salary, and wealth (via stock options). It’s essentially a case of risk and reward. Startups are the riskiest career path because of their volatile nature (most startups fail). However, if you’re able to join a successful startup (like I did), the benefits can be tremendous! Startups, especially earlier in your career, can be the fast track to rapid pay per click career growth. Moreover, if you leave a startup at a senior title and are able to earn the same title (or even higher) at a more established pay per click organization, you are absolutely golden.

Of course, there also exist several cons with the startup career path. First and foremost, it’s much more challenging to launch brand new pay per click campaigns versus growing and maintaining existing ones (like many of us do at larger companies). This is a good challenge in the sense that you can master PPC much quicker launching a business from scratch. At the same time, it’s a con because campaign launches can fail. If the business model isn’t perfected, your pay per click campaigns could very well lose money for an extended period of time. Moreover, as the pay per click manager, you may get blamed for these losses even if they are not under your direct control. This is definitely pressure that you want to be ready to handle!

The second big con of startups: You may be on your own. Unless you’re rather senior, pay per click is a team sport. Startups, however, have limited budget and often have a pay per click team of one. If you’re super independent, this may be a great route for you. If you prefer a team, however, a larger company may make a lot more sense.

PPC Career Path 3: The Mid To Large Sized Direct Advertiser

All career paths presented here are awesome! However, if I had to rank them, I’d tie the first two as the (very close) runner up and I’d make the mid to large sized direct advertiser the clear winner. Let’s start with the pros of the mid to large sized direct advertiser. Remember in the agency section when I talked about data issues? This is rarely a problem at a large direct advertiser. You can hook directly into your organization’s immense data and leverage it for complex bidding decisions! This alone is the biggest advantage of the direct advertiser: incredible statistical maturity and opportunity.

Now, let’s talk about resources. At the agency, you’re typically working at a company that’s very biased towards one skill set: online marketing. At the startup, you typically have individuals spanning a variety of disciplines but rarely have access to them because everyone is very resource constrained. Now, at the mid to large sized direct advertiser, you frequently have the ability to work with legal, finance, engineering, sales, and product management. In my opinion, this cross-functional nature makes the mid to large sized company a stellar candidate. I said it before: PPC is a team sport. It’s not only a team sport in terms of having a team of PPC managers, it’s also a team sport in terms of working with the broader organization on landing page tests, site tests, ad copy tests, keyword generation ideas and more.

Moreover, let’s not forget budgets! Agencies are often given a fixed budget dictated by the client. Startups are typically budget constrained. Mid to large sized direct advertisers, however, will frequently have unlimited budgets as long as campaigns meet a profitability threshold. You want to be managing budgets in the multi-millions, right? Let’s also talk about budget for hiring and PPC automation. You’re going to have a lot more of it at the mid to large sized organization.

As said earlier, there are cons to every career path – no single path is perfect! In terms of this path, I’d say the largest obstacle can be speed. Let’s face it: The larger the company, the more checks and balances. You can’t just test any ad copy you’d like. You need to get full legal approval and your manager’s buy-in. Another con: Sometimes, career progression can be slower at very large companies. You’re just one person in a sea of many. You really need to stand out if you want to grow rapidly. At the same point, I’m confident that you will stand out if you’re taking the time to read this post!

Image of Careers Achievers © iStockPhoto – rjmiz

PPC Versus SEO Careers

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Feb 18 6

As you know, I’m a huge proponent of the PPC career path. It’s hard not to be given my rapid ascent from Marketing Associate to Director of Search Marketing just five short years after college. However, there are also many other great career paths in the other channels of online marketing: SEO, display, email, and social media. Today, I will specifically focus on careers in SEO and how they compare to PPC. If you’re just starting out or considering a transition from SEO to PPC (or PPC to SEO), I hope my insights are helpful in your online marketing career planning!

SEO Careers Offer a Longer Feedback Loop

Careers

It’s all about perspective. You can view PPC’s rapid feedback loop as either a gift or a curse. It’s a gift in the sense that you get to know immediately if something is working. It’s a curse in that the rapid feedback loop promotes an unending queue of initiatives. I’m personally a huge fan of pay per click’s rapid feedback loop because it fuels my drive to succeed. The more great results I see, the more projects I want to complete and I’m totally happy working long hours to continue the growth. If things aren’t looking so good, I try to complete as many projects as possible (while watching the numbers closely) to improve the business.

However, this isn’t for everyone! There’s no doubt about it: The unending queue of projects can be intimidating. Moreover, it can be a challenge for many to have the endurance to keep the PPC pace up. This is why longevity is such a critical component of pay per click career success.

SEO, on the other hand, is a bit more strategic and longer term. Why? It’s really simple: Any given change will take months to evaluate. The feedback loop is much longer, making SEO projects grander in scope. Since the feedback is less fine tuned, it’s important to go after tremendous strategic opportunities to make a measurable impact. I think I’m unique in that I find both the PPC and SEO mindsets enticing. However, the disciplines really are different. As an analogy, I enjoy equating PPC Professionals to Wall Street Traders and SEO Professionals to Investment Bankers. Which one are you?

PPC Careers Have More Day-To-Day Volatility

I actually look at volatility with a smile. Why? It’s all about taking on difficult projects. Because many people can’t take the pressure of volatile numbers, it opens a great opportunity for the brave few pay per click professionals who embrace it! In my opinion, pay per click is just like sales. If you can take and embrace the volatility, the rewards are tremendous!

By contrast, SEO is more strategic. Numbers can be volatile in SEO, especially when Google tweaks their algorithm, but the vast majority of the time it’s smooth(er) sailing. Even if numbers are down, no amount of action is going to reverse the course instantly. This stability and strategic outlook is a very appealing. Leveraging another analogy, PPC is like a startup and SEO is like a large, established public company. Which do you prefer?

PPC Is a Bit Hotter Right Now

There’s no doubt about it, pay per click is hot right now! Despite a rough economy, PPC is a recession proof career. PPC is hotter than SEO and companies are in general hiring PPC Professionals at a faster rate. At the same time, this isn’t a huge reason to jump into PPC if it’s not the right career for you. I wanted to include this point because it’s interesting, but I definitely wouldn’t base your career path on these types of trends. Next month, who knows, SEO could make a huge comeback and become hotter than PPC!

SEO and PPC Careers Both Offer Great Technical Opportunities

To close out, I wanted to point out an aspect that’s very similar between SEO and PPC: Both offer the ability to collaborate closely with engineering. In PPC, it’s all about automation and tools. It’s important to determine whether you leverage the free tools provided by search engines, build an internal tool leveraging search engine APIs, or buy a third party automation tool such as Marin Search Marketer or Kenshoo. Even if you leverage free tools or buy a third party tool, there are always great opportunities to work with engineering, especially on PPC landing pages.

SEO offers an unparalleled opportunity to have direct influence over your company’s live site. After all, SEO is site structure. From this perspective, SEO provides an awesome opportunity to work with engineering via the live site product manager function. While the technical aspects of PPC and SEO are slightly different, both careers are extremely rewarding from this perspective.

Image of Careers © iStockPhoto – sodafish

Controlling Your PPC Mind

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jan 13 0

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

Search Engine Marketing Perception

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 29 5

Anyone who’s ever worked on my team knows that I live by the following statement: "Perception is reality." When you take a step back and really think about it, my affinity for this line makes total sense in the context of PPC. Pay per click search engine marketing is a very new industry. At many companies, the executive team will not understand exactly what you’re working on each and every day. I can’t blame them! PPC is complex and moreover it’s a moving target. This can become a bit problematic, however, when you’re trying to gain visibility, prestige, and ultimately promotion within your organization.

Let me cut right to the punch line: As part of your daily routine, it’s your absolute duty to educate and set everyone’s perception (and therefore reality). It’s precisely when you’re delivering results and setting perception flawlessly that you’re on the fast track to career promotion. Today, I’m excited to share some of my favorite ways to make sure perception is set perfectly and you receive full credit for all of your hard work!

Tip 1: Leverage Your Company’s Task Manager Consistently

Spotlight on PPC

During the course of any random workday, it’s absolutely amazing how much stuff I get done! At the end of the week, I’ll often have difficultly remembering all of the projects I completed. However, to set perception amongst my organization, I want to take credit for every single project I completed. So, what’s the easiest way to do this?

It’s very simple: Record every single project that takes more than one hour in your company’s task manager (such as SharePoint). Even if you’ve completed the project already, create a new task and then close it out immediately. I’m very serious here and if you only take away one thing from this post, please follow this tip. From my experience, the leverage here is plentiful:

  1. When performance reviews come around, you now have an instantaneous way to pull a list of all completed projects for your self-review. No completed project will ever slip through the cracks!
  2. This centralized repository of your tasks creates a very simple way for your manager (and the executive team) to immediately tap into your projects. The more impressive your project list, the more impressed management will be.
  3. During your weekly team meetings, you now have a very easy way to recall all of your projects from the past week and take full credit for all of them as you summarize your initiatives.
Tip 2: Take Your Sweet Time Presenting Your Pay Per Click Initiatives

The next time you’re in a team meeting, focus closely on presentation. As everyone goes around the table to discuss projects, successes, and failures, pay close attention to the good presenters and the not so good ones. What are the main differences?

From my experience, there are two. First and foremost, the good presenters take their sweet time. They have a lot to say and aren’t going to stop until they’ve exhausted their speaking points. Second, the good presenters are confident and project very clearly. My advice to you: This is your time to shine, take it seriously! Print out your completed tasks from Tip 1 and don’t hesitate to go through all of them. This is your time to not only take credit for all of your hard work, but also to stand up as a leader amongst your organization and inspire greatness. Aside from Tip 1, this is just about the easiest way to set everyone’s perception around your strong work ethic and limitless determination.

Tip 3: Invest Time Managing Pay Per Click Success Upward

This one makes perfect sense. If you think you’re busy, just think about how busy your boss must be! It’s easy for your successes to slip through the cracks if you don’t proactively manage upward. My advice is quite simple: Each time you have a major success, spend some extra time emailing it to your manager. Moreover, make a point of actively mentioning your successes when you meet with your manager.

It is possible for this strategy to backfire, however, if you don’t take your time and fully think through all of the possible questions your manager may ask. My advice: Anything you send to your manager needs to be bulletproof. Think through all of the possible questions and anticipate them. Include relevant metrics and fully explain yourself. Keep things simple, your manager doesn’t have all day to sift through thousands of words. Consider allocating around 5% of your time proactively pushing your paid search successes upwards, you won’t regret it.

Tip 4: Print Your SEM Analysis Out

Here’s a fun one that ties into all of the other PPC perception tips just highlighted. Consider printing out all of your team’s major SEM analysis and compile them into an organized binder. While I don’t invest as much time doing this anymore, it really worked wonders for me during my first gig. Aside from being a really powerful symbol of my dedication, this strategy allowed me to immediately quote any analysis at a moment’s notice, gaining full recognition for both myself and my SEM team. (SEM people managers, please remember to never take credit for your team’s work. You need to celebrate and honor their success. You get to take full credit for training and empowering your team to reach such heights.)

Tip 5: Celebrate Search Engine Marketing Success

I’ve talked about this subject over and over and it’s a strategy very core to my personal management style. It’s powerful and simple yet often overlooked. Please check out my post all about celebrating SEM success.

Conclusion: It’s All About The Numbers, Not Projects

It’s a battlefield out there. Each and every day things are hectic and it’s very simple for your analysis and successes to get lost in the shuffle. For that reason alone, I truly believe in the power of investing in perception. Perception is reality after all, and you want to make sure reality credits your hard work.

However, as a closing point I really want to highlight that numbers are everything. All the stuff in this post is great and all, but it means a lot less if your numbers are not at their maximum potential. First and foremost, never forget about your commitment to the numbers. Now, if you’re maximizing your numbers and creating the proper perception of your work, there is no limit to your upside in the pay per click industry.

Image of Man With Spotlight © iStockPhoto – mevans

SEM Career Progress and Your Manager

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 22 4

When I first started my career in search engine marketing, I thought salary, title, and company were everything. Don’t get me wrong, all of these things are super important. However, at the end of the day, I now advise placing the most emphasis on selecting the right manager.

Where is Your Search Marketing Career Going?

Select Button

As you might know by now, Robert Kiyosaki is my favorite financial author and mentor. One of the things he constantly highlights is the velocity of money. The rich keep their money moving. It goes from one solid investment to another and doesn’t sit still. This velocity keeps the portfolios of the rich growing. Through this lens, it’s not really about where you’re investing now, but where you’re going to be investing next.

I really like this concept because it applies perfectly to your career in SEM. Seriously! Our industry is moving very fast. The best strategies today will be commonplace tomorrow. If you’re not thinking one step ahead, you’re destined to plateau. I personally place significantly less importance on where I am today versus where I’m heading tomorrow. Now, the crux of the issue: Without a great manager, you’re not going to have sufficient velocity to achieve that next level of excellence. You’ll be stuck. While your current salary, title, and company are important, all of this is worth a lot less if you’re going to plateau in the high velocity industry of SEM (where the value of tomorrow is tremendous).

Bad SEM People Managers Will Hold You Back

As you may know from prior posts, I place tremendous emphasis on good people management. People management gets me up each and every morning! There’s nothing better than mentoring my team to success and promotion. Unfortunately, not all PPC people managers think like this. We’re in a very young industry with many SEM team leads having just a few years of work experience. I’ll cut right to the point: A bad manager can wipe all the velocity out of your promising SEM career.

How might a bad manager accomplish this? The worst PPC people managers:

  • Take personal credit for everything their team accomplishes
  • Spend little or no time coaching their team
  • Have low energy and are perfectly fine with a boring work environment
  • Rarely give their team exposure to senior management
  • Feel the need to compete with their own team members
  • Focus exclusively on themselves
Great PPC People Managers Give You Velocity

Now, how does a great SEM people manager differ from a bad one? Basically, they avoid every single thing on the above list! It’s really fundamental: The best SEM people managers give you velocity. They give you education. They give you visibility. They set your SEM career up for long-term success. They are selfless and take no credit for your work. They take full credit for your training, your morale, your progress, and your contribution to the organization. Moreover, a great SEM people manager will be your mentor for life regardless of whether you still report to them.

To close out, I’m writing this article because I have been blessed with great managers. My first manager is my mentor and friend to this day and I owe a lot of my own success (and managerial style) to him. If you take one thing away from this article, please place all the emphasis in the world on picking the right manager in your next SEM career move.

Image of Select Button © iStockPhoto – lauriek

Moonlighting Will Accelerate Your SEM Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 3 11

Many companies out there discourage their employees from moonlighting. I can totally understand where they’re coming from. Salaries in SEM tend to be high and the company wants to get their money’s worth. Moreover, they want their employees getting the appropriate sleep and rest on their off-time so they can come in recharged. Also, there’s the big fear about employees actually working on their side business during company business hours. I’m here to not only argue the other side, but strongly encourage you to start your own business on the side. If you do it the right way, the ethical and mature way, it will only accelerate your corporate search engine marketing career. I personally run a small portfolio of websites and I cannot say enough about the business and SEO knowledge I’ve gained from my side web publishing business. I cannot say enough about my personal growth from this endeavor and its benefits in accelerating my corporate career!

Motivation For My Personal SEM Business: Passive Income

Moonlighting

I’d like to start out with my own story. The corporate route has been awesome for me, better than I could have ever imagined. However, I know more than anyone that things can change. As a low risk kind of guy, financial stability means everything to me. How do you achieve financial stability and freedom? In the words of my favorite author and mentor, Robert Kiyosaki, it’s all about passive income. We’re in a unique space where SEM is the cornerstone of passive income. Build some great web properties and with minimal ongoing support you can keep receiving Google AdSense and affiliate commission checks month after month after month! This alone was my strategy. In addition to income from my job, why not build up a small base of passive income from web publishing? It seemed obvious to me…

I Gained A World of SEO Knowledge Too

As someone who didn’t have a ton of money to invest in my side business, I decided to go the SEO route, with a little bit of PPC. I was more interested in slow growth fueled by free traffic from search engines versus fast growth fueled by pay per click traffic and the potential cash flow (and risk) issues that come with it. I’ll definitely say, without a doubt, that my hourly salary from my side business has been very low (although ramping as expected). I now do have a base of passive income that without fail comes in month after month. I’m extremely proud of it and take great pride in cashing my AdSense checks every month. However, what I value more than this stream of passive income is the SEO knowledge that I’ve learned.

As you know, the name of the site is PPC Ian and not SEO Ian. I’m “the man” when it comes to PPC, period. I’m good at SEO too, but not the industry authority. My next goal is getting to the VP of marketing level. How do I accomplish this? I need to fully understand all of the marketing channels thoroughly. My game plan: I need to learn the other marketing channels on my spare time because there’s never enough time at work. A side web publishing business is one of the best ways to learn SEO during your free time, an awesome byproduct that I never intended from my little side business.

I Learned Email Marketing Too

In addition to SEO, I’ve recently picked up email marketing. Once you have a solid base of SEO visitors, why not add AWeber to your site and start building some email lists and sending newsletters? During my regular job, the extent of my email experience lies primarily in advertising on second-tier email search engine AdKnowledge. The beauty of my side business is it’s taken my email knowledge to the next level, allowing me to harvest email lists, craft newsletters, and learn new tricks to extract more value form my web properties while rewarding my visitors with the best experience ever.

I Even Learned PR

You’ve already got the point, but I really want to drive it home. I have had the great opportunity to write and publish press releases for my websites, leveraging PRWeb. This is something that I simply wouldn’t have time for during my regular job where I’m heavily focused on pay per click. Because of my side business, I’ve gained valuable skills in SEO, Email Marketing, and PR, making me a very well rounded marketer. All of these skills have directly translated into higher quality output during my regular job, better intuition and judgment, a strong ability to manage people, while positioning myself for the VP of marketing role one day. It worked out perfectly because I always kept the context that my corporate job is my first priority and that I need to schedule and balance my activities carefully.

Disclaimer: Please Don’t Lose Sight of Your Primary Job

Here’s the big risk: You love your side business so much that it takes away from your regular job. It can take away in several ways. First, you may find yourself staying up too late, compromising your sleep. Second, you may find yourself thinking (or even worrying) about your business during work hours. Third, you may find yourself losing interest in your regular job because you like your side business more. This is where maturity comes in. You need to be mature and stay focused on your corporate career. You need to have the perspective to understand where the majority of your money is coming from and allocate time and mind share appropriately. You need to do what is right. If you’re mature about things and able to balance these risks with the rewards, I highly recommend starting a small business on the side.

Who knows, one day your small business may become your exit strategy. You may get to the director or VP level and then decide it’s time to make it on your own. This is all great stuff. In the short run, be mature about things and leverage your knowledge to do an even better job at work. You owe it to your employer and yourself to do the best job possible. Also, please remember, not all employers allow side businesses. Be open with your boss about things. Come up with a strategy to make it work. Perhaps you can make it your hobby to launch a site or two on the side, but not a “side business”. It’s all about perspective and following the rules. The equity value of integrity and reputation will pay dividends your entire life!

Image of Moonlighting © iStockPhoto – HelleM

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About PPC Ian

Ian Lopuch (PPC Ian)Hi, I'm Ian Lopuch, also known as PPC Ian. I'm a Silicon Valley business executive with an incredible passion for dividend stocks (and investments that provide true passive income for the long-term). In fact, I have built a portfolio of 40 stocks that will one day pay for all of my living expenses. I enjoy blogging here about my passion for cash flow investing, while also sharing some other business and digital marketing insights from time-to-time.

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