Setting The PPC Success Stage
PPC success is a drama with many actors and factors.
Recently a potential client contacted my agency wanting PPC management. They wanted to run PPC using a pulse method: One month on and one month off. In short, run when you need traffic and pause the account when you don’t.
I turned the client down. I had to be honest because such an approach was not in their best interest. It was not a win-win for our agency or the client. The client appreciated the honesty. We lost money but knew it was best for all. Some things in PPC are more important than money. Read more to see why.
PPC success is a marathon and not a sprint. No hundred-yard dashes. It takes time plus data plus patience to work and win. You also have to add some reminders on understanding. There’s no escaping this. Sure, some Google AdWords and Bing accounts rock and roll immediately, however this is the exception rather than the rule. Rome was not build overnight.
The same applies to paid search. And just think, Rome is still standing and so is Google AdWords and the world of digital marketing. There are ruins along the way but usually that’s due to internal and external factors rather than the tool itself.
Since I’ve been managing AdWords for almost 8 years I’ve experienced some fulfilling PPC success client stories. There are also some client struggles, however in many cases PPC accounts that performed poorly did so for two reasons: 1) Impatience. 2) Inadequate budget. I can also tell you some fantastic client lessons that both my clients and myself have learned along the way.
Like most sports, the agency-client relationship is a team effort. It’s a two-way track. It’s a give and take business relationship that requires clear communication and understanding. A good agency sets realistic expectations and communicates those clearly from client intro to proposal to contract signing to management of the accounts.
An expert PPC agency has often learned the hard way how to navigate what creates the PPC success equation. What follows are the critical elements in PPC Success.
Time & PPC
Time is far more valuable than money. Money is replacable. Time is not. Once it’s gone it’s gone forever. You can make another dollar; you can’t make another minute. And in the PPC equation patience is more valuable than budget but you often need both. Time is so important because a new PPC account is like a toddler learning a language. It takes time and input from all types of data sources to learn the nouns, verbs, and nuances of the human language.
With PPC, the language is all the keyword search query data plus things like time of day and day of week clicks, geo-location clicks, and other engagements that generate trends over time.
The Mutual Fund Metaphor
PPC is like mutual fund investing. There will be ups and downs over time but the goal is a positive return on investment, or yield. A snapshot of data does not work–a feature length film over time tells the story. It allows you, based on the data, to make decisions that lead to a positive return on investment. Much like a mutual fund manager, a PPC manager buys, sells, and holds based on the financial performance over time.
Like digital marketing clients, some stock and mutual fund investors get nervous when they don’t see immediate returns. However, those that hold on are rewarded over time. That’s why looking at a stock’s one, three, and five-year return is much more valuable than an obsession with daily trends. In fact, since 1926 the average return for the S&P 500 is just over 10%. There were some wild fluctuations over the years but the average, the overall trend is what mattered. To let that matter requires patience. Some clients have it and some do not. Some PPC agencies have it and some do not.
Be patient with a PPC account. It pays off even though you have to pay. The very term ROI (Return On Investment) cannot work unless time is part of the equation. You invest in an ad budget, but to get a return your target customers take time and require time to engage. With PPC, time is your friend and not your enemy.
External Demand Factors & PPC
There are many external factors that contribute to the need for PPC patience. PPC success is all about capturing demand, not controlling it. If I could control demand, Bill Gates would be my busboy!
Just to name a few variables, demand fluctuates depending on seasonality, pricing, and what your competitors are doing. If a competitor launches a new product this could impact your product or service demand until the market evaluates the strength of this new product. Furthermore, factors related to the economy impact demand. Job growth, interest rates, trade, taxes, and a host of other variable events may or may not increase or slow your specific product demand.
PPC Captures Demand
The beauty of PPC is that is captures demand. Relevant demand. Specific in-the-moment mobile and desktop consumer or B2B demand or interest. This ability to capture demand happens at the very moment of an internet search. For example, when a potential customers types, “carpet cleaning in Tustin California” into their Chrome browser that’s a relevant and immediate warm lead. They are looking for carpet cleaning. Now. In the very moment.
There are many moments in our search lives. Google call them Know, Go, Do, and Buy moments. PPC captures those demand moments, especially the buy moments, better than any other digital tool. Capturing relevant not random demand is key.
As for competitors, their advertising budget may be larger than yours. As a result, their ads will show more than yours. A skilled PPC agency will see the impression share data and know where your ads stand relative to your competition. Bid adjustments can impact impression share in a matter of seconds or minutes. So PPC does allow one to–in a sense–monitor demand and make adjustments to capture more demand. That’s powerful, yet it does take time as data and search trends flow in to the Google AdWords and Bing accounts.
Budgets & PPC
Budget blended with time is essential for PPC success. Even if you have the best designed PPC account that’s managed with adept skill and attention, a weak budget will kill the success potential of the account. For PPC success, you have to pay to play. You must show up for customers to sign up. Often companies advertise in a panic mode. “We have to get more sales. Hurry. Let’s advertise!” That’s not a strategy. That’s unneeded stress.
A strong PPC budget allows your company to get the exposure it needs to compete with larger competitors. PPC allows a smaller company to level the playing field with larger companies. However, I sometimes hear from potential clients that think they can get big success with small budgets. That’s often not the case unless your average cost per click is lower than normal. Of course, you need to spend within your allocated marketing budget, however a few points to think about:
- Advertising is a cost of doing business, just like any other essential business cost.
- Good advertising is based on planning, not panic.
- Advertising needs to be consistent to work.
- See advertising as an investment in your brand and bottom line.
- Pay to play means more revenue to play more, if done right.
Websites and PPC Patience
In digital marketing a website is foundational. Without a good one, your building your brand on sand. Furthermore, if your Google AdWords campaign is built perfectly but your sending ads to either a weak website or poorly designed landing page, your shooting yourself in the foot. The customer journey needs to end at a destination that invites them to stay. Your digital advertising is only as strong as the weakest link. Often, that means a website.
For example, a former client of ours was a medium-sized company that sold custom engineered water treatment products. They had good products in a niche industry. Their PPC account was performing well, yet two things hurt them the most: Their budget and website. The budget would fluctuate up and down depending on external marketing budgets beyond my control. During the periods when they did have a strong budget, ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) was much higher. The bigger budget got them a much higher impression share which lead to more clicks and in turn more leads and revenue.
Secondly, it was like pulling teeth to get website pages or simple content changed. The process took forever and often did not get approved due to internal company road blocks. The usability of those web pages was also not conversion friendly. It was an engineering-based company that was myopically focused on engineering speak rather than website usability.
Don’t neglect your website. Often, a good digital marketing agency can make recommendations that will increase both the organic and paid search engagement and conversions on your website. Website usability is one piece in the patience puzzle for PPC success.
Business Model Roadblocks
A patient client is a gift. Good agencies know how hard it is to learn a new client’s products and their business model. You don’t just slap on some keywords and ads with hopes it will work. “Build it and they will comes does not work.” Again, it takes time. If lead generation is a goal for your business, a good agency’s job is to bring you high quality, warm and relevant leads. That may be phone calls, form fills, or email sign ups just to name a few. The agencies job is to bring you the leads; it’s your job to close them.
For example, if your business needs live phone calls, PPC is brilliant at generating lots of them. However, closing those live leads is another matter. The CSR (Customer Service Representative), answering the phone must be trained on how to differentiate, explain, and turn the lead into booked business. There are many leads lost simply due to poor phone skills and/or a CSR’s inability to truly differentiate a product compared to a competitor.
That’s why advanced call tracking is so important. My agency often sends clients the permission-based, recorded phone call sessions for improvement and training. These calls are generated from our ad campaigns. Listening to those calls often reveals a window into the world of missed opportunities and sales.
Ask yourself if there’s anything in your business model that’s a roadblock to sales? Is it easy or hard for a live customer to buy? Make it easy, professional, simple, and clear. If your serious about digital advertising, you’re spending hard-earned money on it. Make sure the cost of every lead counts so that leads pay for themselves and generates a positive ROI.
There’s No Guarantee
In life, business, and marketing there’s no guarantee of success. In fact, if any digital marketing agency guarantees you success, run for the hills! In the proposals I send clients, I include the following clause:
“There are many factors in your marketing — product, market, pricing, demand, consumer preferences, competition, major events — which Atkins Marketing Solutions cannot control. Therefore, Atkins Marketing Solutions does not promise and cannot guarantee specific results.”
This is realism not negativity. The quality of our agency work is guaranteed but the results cannot be. Mind you, the reason we’ve been in business for 12 years is because we are successful. It’s important to understand that the PPC success equation is two-fold: agency and client must work together. There’s two sides to the success coin.
As mentioned earlier, the key to PPC success is this:
Time Plus Data Plus Patience
There’s no escaping this equation. It’s a constant and the reason we often require a minimum six-month contract when signing clients. We know from experience that the best end-result relies on the time and patience factor. Both agencies and clients owe it to themselves to apply this time-honored principle.
We can always generate more dollars, however we can’t generate more minutes. Minutes are more valuable than money so let’s let them work together for ultimate, long-term PPC success.
By Stuart Atkins
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