Going Above and Beyond In Your SEM Career

Hey Everyone,
I have been posting less frequently lately. Why? Since I got promoted to Vice President, Search Marketing back in March, I have been pushing my SEM career harder than ever before. I worked all day Sunday, all day and night today, and pretty much every waking hour over the past week. The last week has been intense for sure. It has also been incredibly rewarding, my team and I are accomplishing so much.

Long story short, I am doing everything I can to go above and beyond in my search marketing career. I’m giving my company and my team my 110%, nothing less. I have found it to be an amazing cycle. The more you give, the more you get. It only works in that order. Also, I love what I do and I love working at my company so as a perfectionist I find it hard not to give my 110%.

These days, search marketing is becoming more mature as a career path. There’s more competition. It’s just like the Google AdWords landscape. While CPCs rise and new competitors enter the market, you see new SEM experts growing their careers in our wonderful field. How are you going to maintain your edge? Just as you maniacally optimize your SEM accounts, invent new strategies, and push the envelop of online marketing, you need to do the same with your own career. Go all in! Don’t hold anything back, even if it’s at the expense of other priorities. (Of course, this only works if you love what you’re doing.)

Personally, I need to catch up on some sleep and also work out a bit more. That said, I have made some conscious tradeoffs and it’s this type of attitude that will really take you places. Get out there and grind harder than you ever thought possible. That’s how you can go above and beyond in your SEM career. Just remember to also reward yourself, everything goes in cycles and you’ll need an “off” cycle from time to time.

Wishing you all the best!
All the best,
Ian

Three Online Marketing Career Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 12 2

I’m the biggest fan of the online marketing career around. This career has been amazing to me. I don’t think there are too many corporate careers that offer such rapid growth as online marketing, especially search engine marketing. It’s been a while since I’ve done a career post so I wanted to share a few tips today that will help anyone grow within their online marketing career.

Tip 1: Place Your Company First

Career

There may be days that you go into work and think, “What can I do today that will make me shine?” You may wonder, “How can I get noticed?” Those are definitely great things to be thinking. After all, these types of questions are top of mind for anyone looking to progress in their career.

However, I would first recommend asking yourself such questions as, “What can I do today to help my company?” Ask yourself, “What can I do to catapult the numbers forward for the benefit of everyone?” When you start thinking about the company and your team, and place your own career aside, you will be doing the absolute best thing for your career. Your career is closely tied to results and the success of the company. Help build your company and you will in turn build your own online marketing career.

Tip 2: Arrive At Work Early

If you work in the Silicon Valley like me, you may have noticed that there’s a culture of getting into work a little later at some companies. This isn’t the case at all companies, but at some folks will arrive anywhere between 9:30 and 10:30. These same people totally pull their weight and stay late. That said, if you’re looking to grow your career fast, I recommend being one of the earlier employees in the office. If everyone arrives at 9:30, why not shoot for 9:00 am? If everyone shoots for 9:00, why not arrive at 8:45 am? There are a few benefits of arriving early. First and foremost, it’s easy to think clearly and get a jump start on the day. Second, it positions you as a leader, someone who’s dedicated to the company. Third, it’s a great way to have a strong handle on your numbers as early as possible (especially important for those of us in search engine marketing).

Tip 3: Make Time For People

The greatest asset of any company is its employees. In the world of online marketing, it’s so easy to get ultra focused on work. And, that’s a good thing because the work drives numbers and the company forward. However, don’t forget to take some time to form lasting bonds with your co-workers. Make sure to go to lunch with others. Walk around your office and introduce yourself. Work on cross-functional projects. The more time you spend with everyone, the more everyone will be able to accomplish as a team.

I hope you find these tips helpful! While they are applicable to any career path, I have especially found them to be helpful in my own online marketing career.

Image of career © iStockPhoto – PashaIgnatov

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

PPC Ian Speaks At Google

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 31 9

I’m really excited right now because I spoke at Google today. It was quite the honor and my second time speaking at Google (I spoke on a panel back in 2009 at Google’s Client Ad Forum). Today, I spoke for one hour to a group of 20 Google employees across marketing and product management, an event called Client Connect. I want to sincerely thank James and the Google marketing team for arranging this event, it was a true honor in my career.

Corporate SEM Offers Great Speaking Opportunities

PPC Ian with Ryan and Rich From Google

My presentation today spanned one hour, and that hour flew right by! I focused on industry trends, predictions for the future of digital marketing, and opportunities for both advertisers and Google. Throughout my presentation, I had the great opportunity to interact with amazing Google employees and field some seriously great questions! While I’m not able to share the presentation here (it’s confidential to my employer), I wanted to write a quick post to call this out as a major advantage of the corporate SEM career path.

Just in the last year, I spoke at Stanford Graduate School of Business in May, I spoke at Stanford Graduate School of Business in January, and now I spoke at Google. If you’re into public speaking and giving back to the industry (I sure am), search engine marketing is an amazing career path to consider. It’s because of the corporate SEM career path that these speaking events presented themselves.

Google Is Amazing

I wanted to close out by calling attention to Google. I couldn’t be more impressed. My account management team (Ryan and Rich in the picture above with me) in addition to all the attendees to my presentation are truly top notch. Google is innovating so quickly and I really can’t get enough of it. They’re one of the best partners ever and it’s a true pleasure working with the Google Financial Services team. I’m looking forward to my next public speaking opportunity for sure.

Image in this post © PPCIan.com

10 Ways To Sabotage Your SEM Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 6 8

Sometimes it’s not about what you do. It’s about what you avoid doing! It’s all about being careful and consciously contemplating your every move. This especially rings true in the high stakes game of corporate search engine marketing. Today I’m going to present 10 quick, effective, and easy ways to sabotage your entire SEM career. Now, just to be super clear, you will want to avoid these bad ideas at all costs and in most cases employ the complete opposite strategy.

Bad Idea 1: Ask For a Raise Over and Over (and Over)

Here’s the great thing about careers in search engine marketing: You typically have free reign over your salary. The harder you work and the more results you deliver, the quicker you will get promoted (and earn a raise and/or bonus). It’s that easy. SEM is super measurable. It’s easy to instantly prove how much value you have added (in terms of raw dollar margin).

That said, I must caveat this in that promotions, raises, and bonuses typically happen within your company’s HR schedule. Most companies have a very set, strict schedule when employees will be evaluated. You want to be conscious about this and avoid asking for promotions off-schedule. Also, you want to avoid being the employee that constantly asks for a raise. If you’ve asked a few times and have not been able to secure the promotion (and/or raise) you’re looking for, it’s unlikely you’ll receive it by asking over, and over, and over. Rather, that’s a sure fire way to annoy your employer. As an alternative strategy, I recommend working harder and then revisiting six months later once you have some more results under your belt, even if you disagree with your employer’s short term decision.

Bad Idea 2: Ignore The Numbers on Nights and Weekends

I like to think of pay per click search engine marketing as a 24/7 Wall Street trading floor. SEM campaigns never sleep. Even worse, campaigns tend to tank on nights, weekends, and holidays (Murphy’s Law). Search marketing is a high powered career that carriers great responsibility with it. Don’t ignore the stats! Your worst fears will come true and you’ll look very bad if your campaigns tank while you’re not watching. As an alternative strategy, try to find a backup (another team member) to watch your campaigns if you absolutely must take some time off.

Bad Idea 3: Do Everything Manually

Time is money. If you go about doing everything manually, you won’t get one third of the tasks completed that you should. Your operations will grind to a halt and your competitors will pass you by. It’s absolutely imperative to investigate PPC automation platforms such as Marin Software and Acquisio. Confused about where to start? I highly recommend checking out my SEM Automation Buyer’s Guide.

Bad Idea 4: Invest Minimal Time In Your LinkedIn Profile

Ever since my first online marketing job, every single job has come passively via LinkedIn. I cannot say enough about the power of LinkedIn when it comes to growing your career in online marketing. When’s the best time to look for a new job, one with a better title, higher pay, and at a more promising company? Of course, when you already have one! That’s the power of entertaining passive job opportunities on LinkedIn. Want to learn more? Check out my post about growing your SEM career with LinkedIn.

Bad Idea 5: Stay Away From Affiliate Marketing

Jobs in search engine marketing are tough. We’re in a high powered career path with a ton of responsibility. When you come home, you just want to kick back, watch Jersey Shore, and then go to sleep. I’m here to say, however, that this is a mistake. Want to keep your edge? You need to learn new skills within other areas of online marketing. What’s the best way to do this? Invest at least a small percentage of your spare time learning all about affiliate marketing.

Want to learn more? Check out my post about how pay per click jobs are changing and then my review of EWA Private Network. Then, get out there and sign up for a great affiliate network, such as EWA.

Bad Idea 6: Avoid Challenging Yourself

Most people in the pay per click search engine marketing field have aggressive, “Type A” personalities. They want to get promoted quickly and grow within the industry. If you’re more of a steady player, this can become a real challenge because the world will pass you by. If you’re looking for a steady career path, SEM may not be your thing. Want to get ahead? Get out there and challenge yourself today! There are many ways to do this such as public speaking, learning new technologies, or simply diving head first into the most difficult analysis ever!

Bad Idea 7: Ignore The Latest Trends and News

I’m a huge fan of SEM careers because they provide a direct avenue to partner closely with your executive team. When you’re personally responsible for millions upon millions of dollars in marketing spend, you can bet your senior team is going to be involved. Now, what types of questions are you going to get from your senior executive team? Often, they’ll ask about the latest news and trends (and what you’re doing to react). If you don’t know this stuff, you’re not going to instill much confidence in your executive team. And, if your executive team doesn’t have much confidence in you, you’re well on your way to sabotaging your own SEM career!

Bad Idea 8: Avoid Working Long Hours

I’ve said it over and over: SEM is a high powered career path. You’re going to grow quickly and the sky is truly the limit. With the power comes responsibility. You need to be ready to work long hours and truly “own” the campaigns you’re managing. Now, I think there’s also a question of perception here. If you’re super efficient like myself and leverage SEM automation to the max (see idea 3 above), it’s totally possible to work 8-9 hour days if you’re quick to respond to emails after hours and you also keep close track of the numbers at all times (see idea 2 above).

Let’s look at this from another perspective. I recommend staying away from the SEM career unless you truly love this stuff. Now, if you truly love this stuff it will be really easy to work those long hours!

Bad Idea 9: Don’t Put Much Thought Into Picking Your Employer

I’ve been extremely careful about picking my employers, and made it big in online marketing because of stock options in really powerful companies such as NexTag, QuinStreet, and Inflection. This was all intentional – I exercised great precision in picking my employers and viewed them as investments. If you put a lot of thought into choosing the right employer you could be sitting on a gold mine of stock options!

Bad Idea 10: Be a Poor Team Player

To close out, I want to highlight the importance of being a team player. Search engine marketing is a team sport. Search engine marketing often presents the unique opportunity to manage teams at a very early age within your overall career. Be a team player and it will truly take you places. If you’re not a team player, I recommend avoiding this career. Want to learn more? I recommend checking out my online marketing people management tips.

Image of Banana Peel © iStockPhoto – LuisPortugal

Pay Per Click Jobs Are Changing

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Feb 19 12

I’ve been in the corporate world of pay per click search engine marketing since 2004. Back in those days, things were quite different. There was no SEM automation, no AdWords editor, and SEM overall was quite manual. In fact, back in those days it took new search marketing employees at least a month or so to start adding serious value to their employer. These days, however, things have advanced so much. New employees are adding value almost instantly and the leverage in our industry has advanced tremendously. As a result, PPC jobs are changing.

They’re changing in two main ways. First and foremost, advanced analytics, bidding, and testing are becoming mandatory. Second, it’s absolutely imperative these days to go beyond PPC and add value in other areas such as SEO, social media, and email marketing. Today, I’m going to share some quick win tips to embrace these exciting changes.

Tip 1: It’s All About SEM Automation

Change Ahead

I’ve talked about this point quite a bit here on PPC Ian so I’m going to keep my first tip relatively short. It’s important these days to bid more effectively than ever, take your analytics to the next level, and manage your campaigns with precision. Why? Back in 2004, the lack of competition created a scenario of somewhat easy money. These days, you not only have to fight to win the PPC game, but you need to prove to yourself, your team, and your company that you’re doing everything possible to optimize your PPC program to the highest possible degree.

How do you accomplish this? Easy! It’s all about getting the right systems and technologies in place. Want to learn about making the best possible purchase decisions for your SEM platforms? Check out my SEM automation buyer’s guide whitepaper. It’s automation like this that will free up your time to diversify your skillset into other areas such as SEO, social media, and email marketing.

Tip 2: Become An Affiliate Marketer, Today!

I wrote about this topic when I first launched PPC Ian with a post titled moonlighting will accelerate your SEM career. I’m more confident in this philosophy than ever. To be successful in affiliate marketing, you must be an incredibly savvy marketer. You must challenge your intelligence, test wild new strategies, and push the boundaries on online marketing. Simply put, affiliate marketing is the education of a lifetime. The education I have gained from my blogging and portfolio of over 80 SEO websites has been truly invaluable. I’ve been able to take this education back to the corporate environment and perfect PPC operations while taking on major responsibilities within other areas of online marketing.

So, how can you get started? I took the affiliate plunge back in 2007. I basically started from scratch and learned as I went. In this day and age, I’m a huge believer in the affiliate network route. A good affiliate network can truly jump start your affiliate marketing career. You want to make sure to have the best offers, the best payouts, and of course expert advice and mentorship. That’s precisely where industry leading affiliate networks such as EWA Private Network and Blam Ads step in! So, what are you waiting for? Go sign up today!

Tip 3: Read Everything You Can Get Your Hands On

To close out today, I want to underscore the amazing wealth of information out there. If you want to get ahead in the corporate world of SEM, it’s imperative to read all of cutting edge material about PPC, SEO, Facebook, social media, domaining, email marketing, display advertising, and more. These days all areas of online marketing are intersecting and you must become an expert in everything.

One thing that’s really important, in my opinion, is to purchase eBooks and online courses that will take your education to the next level. Sometimes, the best information costs a little money (not much, but some). The leverage on your investment, however, is so much that it’s a no-brainer. Two must-haves include Jonathan Volk’s Facebook Ads Guide and Chris Guthrie’s Niche Profit Course.

Image of Change Ahead © arcady_31

PPC Jobs Are Great For Travel

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Feb 14 7

I’m the largest proponent of the pay per click search engine marketing career path around. This amazing corporate career can really take you places! As you may know, I wrote an entire eBook about PPC career tips (I highly recommend reading it). Moreover, I wrote about three different PPC career paths (agencies, startups, large direct advertisers) and also PPC versus SEO careers. Today, I wanted to do a really quick career-oriented post because I just got back from an amazing trip to Boston, all because of my great PPC job.

A Great Leadership Opportunity, Travel For Free

Airplane

Last week, I had a truly great time at my company’s office just outside of Boston. It was a great opportunity to travel and see new things, get a bit outside of my day-to-day routine, and function as a leader in my organization. I really love my PPC job at a large direct advertiser because I get the opportunity to travel a few times a year, the perfect frequency for me. Just within the last year, I traveled to Seattle, Las Vegas, and now Boston, all free of charge thanks to my amazing job (my company pays all expenses).

Different Levels of Travel for Different Paid Search Jobs

Are you someone that likes to travel a lot? How about not much at all? I have advice for you! If you can’t get enough travel, the SEM agency career path will be perfect for you. As you get more and more senior within an agency role, you will have many opportunities to travel extensively and visit your clients face-to-face, all paid for by your company. If you like traveling a few times each year, but not as much as someone in the agency role, the large direct advertiser career path will be perfect for you. If you can’t stand traveling and would prefer to stay in one location, the startup route might be more up your alley. When you’re at a startup, there’s less need to travel, especially if you’re in an SEM role.

Now, let’s contrast this with the affiliate marketing career path. If you’re a super affiliate and are wildly successful, you can travel all you want (but it will be on your own bankroll). However, let’s say you’re just starting out don’t have a ton of funds. Then, you’ll definitely have less of an opportunity to travel. This is just one more reason I’m a huge proponent of the corporate online marketing career path.

Image of Airplane © travellinglight

Employee Performance Review Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Sep 27 6

When it comes to the pay per click search engine marketing career path, it’s simply not enough to do great work. You need to do great work and get recognized. How can you get recognized? It’s all about dressing up for your job and creating the right search marketing perception. Now, what’s one of the premier ways to set everyone’s perception about your great work? Easy: Your employee self performance review! Today, I’m going to discuss some of my favorite tips for optimizing your annual self review.

Tip 1: Keep Detailed Search Marketing Records

Employee Performance Evaluation

I can’t stress this tip enough! In fact, I wrote an entire post about keeping detailed ppc records. Just think about it: Pay per click can get crazy! There are numbers we have to hit, fires we need to put out, and initiatives we need to complete. When we’re moving a mile a minute, it’s easy to move from one thing to the next without keeping good records.

However, resist the temptation and keep detailed records. When your annual self review comes around, leverage your records to your advantage. It’s time to go into painstaking detail listing out every single project you worked on. It’s time to leverage your records and shine!

Tip 2: Spend An Entire Day On Your Self Review

So now that you have detailed records, it’s time to work on your self review! Your schedule is crazy and you have limited time. As such, the natural tendency is to spend a few hours maximum on your self review. My advice: Spend an entire day on your employee self review. Block out all distractions. Go in a private conference room if you must. Turn off Outlook. There is no higher leverage event in the SEM career path than your self review. Remember, your boss may not know the true details of your accomplishments since you’re moving so quickly.

Tip 3: Go Above And Beyond In Your Self Review

What do I mean by going above and beyond? It’s probably easiest to illustrate this by example: I wrote a 15-page essay for my last self review! I included granular numbers and metrics, accomplishments and projects, successes in my team’s growth, and even pasted some of my recommendations from my LinkedIn (I have 58 recommendations on LinkedIn, after all)! Moreover, I spent some time seriously outlining my goals and aspirations for the next year. One thing is for sure: By going above and beyond in your employee self review:

You tell your manager that you’re really serious about your PPC job.
You know that you did everything in your power to ensure a positive outcome to your review!

How I Made It Big In Online Marketing

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Aug 16 12

You hear a lot of stories about people making it big in the world of online marketing. Today, I’m looking forward to sharing my own story about how I made it really big. The great part: I did it all in a nontraditional way, one which has higher leverage than any other in my opinion.

The Typical Online Marketing Fortune

My wife and I at Tryst, Las Vegas. PPC paid for our trip to Wynn last week!

I’m always hearing about online marketing fortunes. It seems like every blog I read is boasting of tremendous profits. Typically, these fortunes are coming via affiliate marketing, blogging, or even starting a small company that takes off. I have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone that makes big money on the Internet. Why? It’s not easy, period. It takes a lot of hard work, hustle, and intelligence. However, I’m here to say that I think the three methods just mentioned are lower leverage these days than the corporate route (the route that produced my success). I’d like to start out by talking about some of the difficulties with affiliate marketing, blogging, and starting your own business. Later, I’ll transition and discuss my personal success and leverage via corporate marketing (in addition to my secret money-making strategy).

Let’s talk about affiliate marketing and blogging. Most obviously, everyone is trying to do it! We live in a global economy, which is currently in a recession. Basically, you have everyone in the world trying to make some extra cash online. What does all of this competition mean? Less upside and thinner margins. Now, let’s think about corporate marketing. The corporate world requires a certain mindset, you’ve got to have that professional swagger and the degrees to back it up. Moreover, while most corporations are global, those with huge budgets want someone on call in their hometown.

Start Your Own Business, Delay Your Payout By 10 Years

Now, let’s quickly talk about starting your own business. I have huge respect for anyone that starts their own business, it’s a lot of work and a very respectable route. However, as I see it, there are only two real small business routes within online marketing. The first is the small affiliate marketing shop. I love this route because it involves zero investors and is pure profit for the owner. I even went this route myself and started IJL Productions. However, affiliate marketing margins are getting thinner and competition is getting more fierce (not only from other affiliate marketers but also from large corporations which have a lot of money to throw at their campaigns because of their high margins).

The second route: Get some funding and start a small business that may get bought out or go public one day. One problem with this route: Investors will dilute your ownership tremendously. My bigger problem with this route: The payoff is WAY in the future. You often have to wait five to ten years to be able to sell. Moreover, when it comes time to sell there are so many restrictions that you may not be able to dump all of your shares at once. You hear about all these Internet millionaires who started their own business, but I wonder how much of their fortune is liquid versus stock that can’t easily be sold. If the money isn’t in the bank (or in very liquid assets), it’s not real in my opinion.

How I Made It Really Big

Now, I’d like to talk about my personal career path and how I made it really big. You may be thinking, Ian’s going to talk all about working your way up the ladder and earning a big salary. Well, that certainly is a great thing and I do highly recommend it, but it’s not the point of today’s post. Today, I’d like to talk about stock options in high growth private (and public) companies.

Invest Like a Venture Capitalist and Get Rich

Who are some of the richest people you know? The richest people I know tend to be venture capitalists. Why? Easy! They got in on the ground floor of amazing companies. They own a diversified portfolio of private companies that later got bought out or go public. They own the leverage because they simply need to pick the right companies and then sit back and profit as the companies take off (leverage in its purest form). So, why not just become a venture capitalist? Again, an easy answer! The only people making money at the VCs are the partners (requires many, many years of tenure) or the folks wealthy enough to invest in the VC funds.

However, there is another way! Why not join the best companies in an online marketing capacity and accumulate stock options? That’s exactly what I did. I own stock in NexTag, QuinStreet, and Inflection.com (the first two had major liquidity events which I’ll discuss below)! When I started, there were haters for sure (and there still are). People were telling me I should discount stock options because they’re rarely worth anything. People told me stories of friends that worked at companies, but their options expired worthless. Well, what these haters didn’t know is that I was co-president of the investment club at Stanford and that I’ve been picking stocks my entire life. I intentionally picked the top companies in Silicon Valley. I intentionally negotiated a large portion of my pay via company stock. And, I intentionally worked hard and received additional stock option grants. Now, I’m one of the rare individuals in the world that owns stock in both NexTag and QuinStreet, two of the largest success stories of recent years.

Stock In NexTag and QuinStreet, PPC Ian’s Secret Leverage

I was one of the earlier employees at NexTag back in 2004. Because of the power of the pay per click career path, I eventually ended up running the entire PPC team and having a lot of clout at the organization. In 2007, 2/3 of NexTag got bought out for $830 million! I profited handsomely, not only from my own work, but through the leverage of everyone working hard at this great company. I also got in early at QuinStreet, well before their finance business took off. Earlier this year, QuinStreet went public and the company is currently valued at nearly $500 million (even in this bad economy). I’m confident that I picked my other companies correctly as well and that there is more great stuff to look forward to!

So there you have it, my leverage strategy: Accumulate stock in privately traded companies and profit like the big VCs. You may be thinking: Couldn’t I do the same thing even outside of PPC? My honest response: Not really! PPC is very well regarded because we’re dealing with huge multi-million dollar budgets. It’s an exclusive club and a skill (on a multi-million dollar level) that is very rare. As such, PPC professionals are truly in the driver’s seat when it comes to choosing the ideal companies and getting as much stock as possible. There’s only so much time in the day. Do you want to accumulate stock and enjoy the leverage of everyone’s hard work (not only your own), or stay internally focused on your own affiliate campaigns or business? My take: The corporate world offers an unparalleled amount of leverage! Want to learn even more PPC career strategies? Make sure to check out my free PPC eBook.

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!