PPC is an easy way to build brand awareness, generate quality leads and increase conversions. However, it’s a competitive marketplace, and you’re not the only company targeting your buyers with ad copy and paid messaging. If a buyer clicks on your ad and becomes a customer, the return on your PPC investment can be generous. But, if you fail to prioritize PPC expertise, you could also lose a big piece of your marketing budget.
Therefore, you want to be judicious when evaluating your PPC specialist. You need top-tier PPC marketers to design and manage influential digital ad campaigns to increase sales and scale your business.
This article will highlight the leading trends in PPC marketing and list the ten most essential skills for a top-tier PPC marketer.
Trends In PPC Marketing
Before delving into the skills you want for your PPC marketer, it’s worth noting a few trends that we should keep our eyes on.
Customer-centric content has taken center stage. Algorithms are evolving toward delivering greater rewards for content that focuses on the customer and buyer journey. PPC campaigns need to join this trend toward delivering ad content that enhances the experience of their target audience, tapping into their interests and needs.
Artificial intelligence, including PPC, is shaking up the B2B digital marketing industry. Progressive B2B digital marketers are taking advantage of AI to
- optimize ineffective keywords
- determine ad impact
- predict traffic and CTR for future ads
- calculate customer conversion rates.
Mobile users make up a significant and growing percentage of paid search impressions. Therefore, PPC campaigns need to be optimized for mobile.
Collecting first-party data will become more critical and challenging. Successful PPC campaigns will need to rely on new techniques to collect first-party data, including
- surveys
- subscriptions (and gated content)
- Customer feedback
- CRM
- social media
- mobile apps
- Google Analytics.
The 10 Most Important Skills For A Top-Tier PPC Marketer
Your PPC specialist is responsible for the entire PPC campaign management, including creating the campaign, conducting keyword research, optimizing ad copy, designing landing pages, analyzing performance, and optimizing conversion and metrics. They need to be strategic thinkers with sharp analytical minds.
Let’s dive deeper and examine the ten most important skills your PPC marketer should have.
- Highly organized with outstanding time management skills. A PPC marketer typically juggles more than one campaign across multiple channels. Strategizing, executing, managing, and analyzing campaigns is time-consuming. Without excellent time management skills, the PPC campaign could fail.
- Adaptable, ready to shift gears, pivot, and experiment. Even with the best planning and execution, a PPC campaign might not measure up to expectations. Your PPC manager needs to quickly identify what went wrong, adapt, optimize and continue.
- Experienced with your business model, including your business goals, target audience, and buyer intent. An expert PPC manager should also understand the customer journey to create ads that get clicks. They should be able to look at engagement in the context of your entire digital marketing funnel and translate the price you’re paying per click into a price-per-future lead.
- A master strategist. PPC managers must be strategic thinkers with the ability to visualize all possible challenges and outcomes of an ad campaign. They need to bring multiple skills sets to the table, including proficiency in
- utilizing new ad formats
- identifying negative keywords
- optimizing audience targeting
- designing innovative and eye-catching ads
- implementing and testing multiple bidding strategies
- adjusting campaigns for marketing platform changes.
- Passionate and creative. You won’t see a positive ROI if your ad copy doesn’t reach its target audience. Top-tier PPC specialists know how to tap into the pain points of your target buyers to write ad copy that elicits the response you want. In addition, PPC specialists know how to use keywords and emotions to connect with your target audience and increase click-through rates.
- Love data. Top-tier PPC marketers constantly pull new data from Google Analytics or other platforms, searching for new insights and fluctuations in performance. In addition, they should be aware of the latest digital marketing trends, including SEO and Google’s constantly shifting algorithms.
- Knowledge of statistics. Each PPC ad has its own impressions, clicks, CTRs, conversions, and other data points. A top-tier PPC marketer will know how to analyze the numbers and efficiently use the data to make critical decisions regarding ad performance. For example, one ad might have a lower CTR than another. A less experienced PPC manager may want to change the ad with the lower-performing CTR. Yet, at the same time, the ad with a lower CTR rate could have a higher conversion rate. Switching ads would not be the best decision. A top-tier PPC marketer knows to dig deeper into the data points to determine the best strategy to improve ad performance.
- Outstanding analytical skills. Your PPC marketer must be able to interpret campaign outcome data, such as impressions, clicks, conversions, and CTRs. A PPC expert won’t be overwhelmed by a large amount of data and statistics. Instead, they’ll be proficient in turning that data into detailed and comprehensive reports that lead to strategies for optimizing and improving ad campaigns.
- Strong technical knowledge. PPC marketers manage all aspects of your ad campaigns; therefore, they should have a working knowledge of tag management, tracking codes, and other technical skills.
- E-commerce expert. Top-tier PPC marketers have in-depth knowledge of e-commerce platforms to know which platforms best fit your campaign goals and target audience.
Key Take-Aways
Running PPC campaigns is a considerable investment, both in terms of revenue and time. Therefore, you want a highly skilled top-tier PPC marketer to deliver the best ROI possible. It’s worth investing in retaining a master PPC strategist to help you rise above the competition, reach your target audience, and grow your business.
