PPC Versus SEO Careers

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

Breaking Up The Pay Per Click Grind

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jan 28 1

If you’re in the corporate PPC world, you definitely know that things can get rather crazy. After enough analysis, keyword generation, keyword deployment, bid changes, ad copy tests, landing page tests, account restructures, product requirements, and executive presentations, your head can really start spinning! I’m here to tell you that it’s all about PPC longevity. After all, longevity has been one of the cornerstones of my early success in the corporate pay per click world. Today, I’d like to take a step back and discuss ways of breaking up the PPC daily grind. Whether you’re an associate or director, I strongly encourage you to take these tips seriously. At the end of the day, they will only increase your employee retention and team morale!

Tip 1: Attend Search Engine Marketing Conferences

Daily Grind

Search engine marketing conferences have been extremely good to me over the years. They’re incredibly beneficial from two angles: First and foremost, conferences present the ultimate networking experience. As someone with well over 500 connections on LinkedIn and a big binder of business cards at home, I cannot say enough about the power of networking. At the end of the day, people are everything in terms of finding long term success in your corporate pay per click career.

Second, conferences are extremely worthwhile in terms of staying up with current trends and sparking innovation. The natural tendency in PPC is to think you know it all. Well, at least that’s my natural tendency. The problem, however, is that things change extremely fast. Even if you know everything today, you won’t necessarily know it all tomorrow. Even if you’re consistently innovating and driving the direction of the industry, a great speaker can totally spark new ideas.

Directors, managers, and team leads: My overall suggestion here is that you get your team full passes to the major conferences such as Search Engine Strategies (SES), Search Marketing Expo (SMX), and ad:tech. I’ve been at companies in the past that have unfortunately been cheap about getting full passes. I definitely suggest pushing for full passes. It’s an extremely small investment in your team’s education and morale, one that will pay huge long-term dividends. From my personal experience, I always come back from conferences extremely energized, full of new ideas, and ready to go! Thinking about things through that lens, conferences are the ideal way to break up the daily PPC grind.

Tip 2: Enjoy PPC Team Activities

I like to compare pay per click campaign managers to Wall Street traders. We’re in the details of a very competitive and focused trade. For that reason, we often forget to take a step back and get away from the computer. From my experience, team activities are always a very welcome break from day to day campaign management. Moreover, the bonds formed during team activities can directly improve teamwork within the office.

My suggestion: Plan a team activity at least once very six months and ideally once per quarter. Some great examples include go-karting, miniature golfing, and bowling. I particularly like team functions that involve actual activity because we’re typically at the computer for so much for our day. The key here is that the team activity is held during the workday and that it concludes right around the time people typically leave the office. That way, the team activity functions as a true reward. Also, team activities are always more rewarding if the company pays for them!

Tip 3: Schedule Regular PPC Team Lunches

This tip is very similar to the last one, but I suggest an increased frequency of perhaps once per month. It’s too easy to rush out of the office and grab a quick lunch, only to come back and start working again right away. From my experience, the time savings from a quick lunch does not add any value. If you actually break up the workday and increase the "fun" factor, the entire team gains immense productivity. For that reason, I highly suggest having PPC team lunches to celebrate milestones, birthdays, or really any reason at all. Another great idea: Invite members of other teams as well, it’s a great way to learn something new!

Tip 4: Proactively Assist Other Departments

One of my absolute favorite things about pay per click search engine marketing is the fact that we’re in the center of it all. PPC is an operationally intensive role, one that involves useful data. For that reason, I enjoy thinking about proactive ways to assist other departments. Some simple examples: Share your PPC keyword list with the SEO team, share your top ads with the design team, send competitive benchmarks to the partnership team. At the end of the day, there exists a plethora of ways you can directly help your coworkers in other departments. Not only will this break up your day a bit, but it will help your overall organization grow. Moreover, I truly believe that the more you give, the more you receive. Next time you need help from someone else, you can rest assured that help will be available immediately.

Tip 5: Give Back To The Paid Search Community

I created this blog to give back. I regularly enjoy acting as a reference for old reports. I thoroughly enjoy writing letters of recommendation. At the end of the day, it’s all about giving back in my opinion. The best managers in the world are your manager for life. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a different company. If someone’s a great manager, they will always support and invest in your career. This is how I view management. Unfortunately, this is against the grain of many managers out there.

My strong advice: Invest in old reports and co-workers. I’ve found this to be a very powerful way to help the community while breaking up my day a bit. Like I said in the last tip: The more you give, the more you will receive. Corporate PPC is a very small but rapidly growing community. Give back today and make a real difference, while keeping things fun and interesting.

Image of Daily Grind © iStockPhoto – BeholdingEye

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 Marketing Interview Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jan 9 12

I recently wrote an article highlighting my favorite paid search interview questions. The article focused on the PPC interview from the interviewer’s perspective. Today, I want to flip the tables a bit and discuss my favorite tips from the interviewee’s perspective. While these tips are applicable to any PPC job interview, they’re especially relevant to those of you interviewing for a PPC role at a larger company. 2010 is here. Is finding a new online marketing job one for your 2010 goals? If so, I hope the following tips help you find all the success in the world.

PPC Interview Tip 1: Focus Exclusively on PPC

PPC Dream Job

If you’ve been reading my blog a while, you most likely know that my interests within online marketing are quite varied. While my heart is in large corporate PPC, I’m also an SEO and domaining entrepreneur in my spare time. Given that context and the general perception that a varied skill set is better, the following tip may seem a bit counter intuitive: Focus exclusively on PPC in your interview and avoid expressing an interest in dedicating significant time to SEO, email, and display advertising.

At large companies, there are separate departments for PPC, SEO, email, and display, typically reporting into the CMO or VP of marketing. The pay per click budgets are large enough that 100% PPC focused employees are mission critical. Without exclusive attention, the campaigns will fail. I’ve been in a plethora of interviews where the interviewee talks at length about their plans to learn the other marketing channels, almost to the extent that shows they’re bored with PPC and looking to move on. My advice to you: Avoid giving this impression at all costs!

I’m certainly not advising you to lie (ethics is everything in this world). If you truly have interests in diversifying your skill set and moving on from PPC, I highly suggest interviewing for a general marketing position at a startup. However, if you’re interested in becoming a Director of Search Marketing at a large company, it’s all about focus.

Of course, it’s important to show that you’re an expert on multiple fronts. As you get to the Director or VP level, a varied skill set is critical. However, it’s important to portray yourself as someone who knows all of the different channels (learn them during your spare time), but is interested in a heavy PPC focus (95% or more of your time). As a real life case study, my personal exclusive focus on PPC over the last 5.5 years has propelled my career from Marketing Associate at a startup to Director of Search Marketing at a large publicly traded company.

Pay Per Click Interview Tip 2: Dress Professionally

A while back, I wrote a post all about the benefits of dressing up for your search marketing job. I truly believe in the power of PPC perception driving reality. No matter how good of a job you’re doing, you can’t ignore perception and the game in general. Since perception and first impressions are everything, please dress up for your interview. Even if you’re interviewing at lunch and have another job try to change before you arrive and then change back before going to your old job. The power of professionalism is often overlooked in my opinion.

Search Engine Marketing Interview Tip 3: Passion Is Everything

The first post on PPC Ian was all about my passion for PPC. This was my first post for a reason: Passion is everything in this world. Whether you’re interested in becoming a pay per click corporate leader, a successful entrepreneur, or a world class athlete, you won’t get too far without passion. For this reason alone, passion is one of the first things I measure when conducting a pay per click interview. Sometimes we’re all low on energy. I can totally relate as someone who’s routinely up late at night. However, take control of your mind and get hyped up for your interview. Get rest the night before, eat a good meal, drink an energy drink, do whatever it takes! Passion will get you very far in the corporate world.

SEM Interview Tip 4: Polish Up On Your Mental Math Skills

As an interviewer, I place a very big emphasis on math. From experiences at other leading companies in the space, I know I’m not alone. I like to ask mental math questions starting on the phone interview, building all the way up to large half hour case questions during the in-person interviews. If you’re a bit out of practice, make sure to polish up on your math skills. The investment will not only help your interview, but will pay dividends in your PPC career in general. The ability to perform quick mental math can make the difference between looking unconfident and like an absolute PPC superstar.

Pay Per Click Interview Strategy 5: Proactively Demonstrate Your PPC Skills

At the end of the day, pay per click is a highly technical trade. There are many moving parts and skills are critical. While I always do my best to get a comprehensive understanding of the candidate’s Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter skills, sometimes time will run out and I’m not fully convinced of the candidate’s ability. I’ve been able to get around this by sending follow-up questions via email. However, what always impresses me are candidates that take the time to clearly spell out their skills proactively. I’m always excited to interview candidates who talk at length about their experiences with the various platforms and the PPC levers: Keyword generation, keyword deployment, negative words, ad copy testing, landing page testing, reporting, analysis, technology and automation, and niche tricks. One of your greatest assets is your trade specific knowledge, make sure to spend the time showcasing it!

Online Marketing Interview Strategy 6: Highlight Your Investment Hobby

This is a simple, yet powerful tip. The vast majority of great corporate PPC employees I have known over the years enjoy investing during their spare time. When they’re not investment hobbyists, they at least know the companies in the space extremely well. As a general way to retire young and accumulate wealth while also looking like a strong businessperson in your PPC interview, I recommend building up an expertise in investing and showcasing it a bit during your interview. From the interviewer’s perspective, we’re hiring SEM managers to basically run an operationally intensive business. Investment experience is a great way of showing judgment and maturity.

Search Marketing Interview Strategy 7: Research The Company and Interviewers

The competitive benchmarking aspect of PPC is very high leverage. If you’re really good at research, you’ll uncover nuances that others miss and make the company a ton of money. For this reason alone, I really like candidates who do a thorough job researching the company and the actual interviewers. Some candidates recently have even mentioned that they read PPC Ian and like it a lot. While some would say that has nothing to do with the job, I’d argue that it does. Candidates who have researched me on the Internet are making sure their future manager is right for their career (see next section) and also are demonstrating their ability to benchmark. Take the extra time and do your research!

Online Marketing Interview Strategy 8: It’s All About You

At the end of the day, the main person looking out for you is you. Make sure to ask the questions that are important to your happiness and career. One of my personal favorites is finding out as much as possible about my future boss. As I blogged about a while back, your manager can make or break your PPC career. My advice: I’d rather have a great boss at a not so great company versus a poor manager at a great company.

It’s still a hot job market for PPC right now since PPC is a recession proof career. Take advantage of this situation to find the absolute perfect match for you. I know from my perspective as an interviewer, I always want the match to be perfect from both sides. I want to hire employees that will be at the company at least a few years. For that reason alone, I always want to ensure the fit is ideal for both parties.

As a closing tip, I’d also recommend keeping your interviews extremely confidential. Again, it’s all about you and your job security. Don’t let your current employer think you’re interviewing. Don’t start slacking off and doing poor work at your current gig. Many times, interviews take longer than expected or don’t work out at all. Your first responsibility is to you and your current employer. Your second responsibility is to your exploratory discussions with other potential employers. Of course, should you decide to leave, please leave gracefully. This will be the topic of a whole other PPC Ian post in the future.

Image of Dream Job © iStockPhoto – exdez

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:

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!
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.
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

Paid Search Interview Questions

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 24 13

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

PPC Interview Strategy 1: Screen For Math Over The Phone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SEM Interview Tip 3: Everyone Needs To Interview The Candidate

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

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

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

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

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

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

PPC Interview Tip 5: Thoroughly Check References Yourself

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

Image of Interview Candidates © iStockPhoto – brainmaster

Focus on Difficult SEM Projects

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 2 2

When I started working at my first search engine marketing job, the CEO gave me very valuable advice. One day, I was working late with one of my co-workers and the CEO came by. We started talking and eventually asked him about his advice around success. His advice was very simple, yet powerful: Focus on the projects that nobody else wants to do. If you master the difficult, unattractive projects, your career will be incredibly successful. To this day, I follow this very advice and it has worked wonders for my career in search engine marketing. Today, I’m going to discuss a few ways I take advantage of unattractive SEM projects.

SEM Career Tip 1: Really Know Your Numbers

Difficult Maze

It goes without saying that you can’t be in search engine marketing without knowing your numbers. It’s an operational role, one where you’re responsible first hand for your company’s bottom line. However, there are varying levels of understanding that range from knowing that the numbers were down yesterday to knowing they were down specifically because conversion dropped 20% on x keyword and you’re working on y strategy to fix the problem with ETA z. Surprisingly, many people in SEM don’t know the numbers as well as they should and this creates a great opportunity for your career. I recommend always knowing the following numbers off the top of your head:

Yesterday’s conversions by channel
Yesterday’s CPA
Today’s intra-day conversions
How yesterday’s numbers compare to last week, two weeks ago, and the same day last year
Specifically why yesterday’s numbers were up or down
Your month to date run rate and how it compares to your targets (You have set targets for yourself and your team, right?)
Specifically why you’re above or below your targets
The same level of detail for any campaigns you might not be directly managing.

This may sound like a time consuming, excruciating level of detail and it is! However, that’s exactly why you should focus on this essential task in your effort to break away from the pack and embrace challenging projects. I promise, you will build intuition around your numbers over time and it will get easier. In the short run, take good notes and bring them with you so you’re always able to answer questions that may get asked of you.

SEM Career Tip 2: Spend 10-20% of Your Time Planning

I really enjoy this tip. While it’s super easy, nobody follows it, creating another great opportunity to set yourself apart from the pack. I can totally relate with those that don’t like planning. We’re on the front lines of operation and have infinite opportunities at our fingertips. We just want to get out there and execute. However, I can tell you from years of management experience that there is simply no substitute for good planning. Planning will make you (and your team) more efficient, improve communication with senior management, and yield improved results. Even though you’ll have 10-20% less time for the execution side of things, planning will set you up for success and will greatly improve the leverage senior management has over you (and your team) which is a huge benefit on its own.

SEM Career Tip 3: Volunteer Yourself

In search engine marketing, we all have more projects than we can handle. This relates not only to the infinite opportunities out there, but also the fact that SEM is typically understaffed in proportion to the value we drive. In light of this, most people in SEM are reluctant to sign up for more work. We’ve all been in the those meetings where action items start coming up and the meeting leader starts asking who will take them on. We’ve all been in the situation where we just want to look down and let someone else take it on. My advice to you: Fight your instincts and volunteer yourself! Of course, you can’t take on everything but leveraging this strategy at the right time can work wonders for your PPC career. Just think about it, everyone is stretched. Sure, some are stretched more than others, but at the end of the day everyone could use more time. If you step up and take on these projects in a team setting, you’re communicating that you’re an SEM leader. This goes a long way!

PPC Career Tip 4: Work Long Hours When It Makes Sense

I’m typically a proponent of working smarter and not harder. However, there are times when this simply breaks down, especially around deadlines. It’s easy in SEM to push a project off a day or so. However, if you push enough projects off enough days, you slow down the growth of your entire organization. My advice to you: Fight your bias to push deadlines out, no matter what. After you hit your deadline, then give yourself a break and get some rest.

PPC Career Tip 5: Focus Very Little Time On Beta Tests and 2nd Tiers

This is a classical PPC time trap. I haven’t met anyone in SEM who doesn’t like exploring new initiatives. There’s an affiliate marketer inside all of us who wants to uncover that jackpot. My advice to you: Focus on the big levers. Beta tests and 2nd tiers are rarely big levers. If you must try experimental stuff, try it on your off-time and consider SEM moonlighting to expand your knowledge base. I’m not alone on this, any seasoned Internet executive will tell you that they don’t want their SEM managers focused on this stuff and it will rarely reflect well on your career even though it’s super fun and appealing.

Condition Your Mind To Enjoy Difficult Search Engine Marketing Projects

While these are just five examples, I really want to highlight the recurring theme here: Consciously fight your instincts each and every day. Look objectively at the projects before you and understand if it’s a difficult or easy project. More often than not, the difficult projects are the ones with leverage. Condition your mind to enjoy the difficult challenges in SEM and you’ll quickly get promoted. I personally like to mix it up and include at least one or two easy, fun projects in my day to break up the difficult stuff. Moreover, I like to take breaks to move my work location to change my mindset. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you simply approach projects with the right mindset! After a while, you will start actually enjoying the difficult stuff and then you’ll be in a league of your own.

Investment Expertise Will Boost Your SEM Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 26 1

As you may know from my about me, I was co-president of The Charles R. Blyth Fund, Stanford University’s prestigious real money investment club. My passion for investments actually dates all the way back to my high school days. I’m still addicted to the game and can’t get enough whether we’re talking public companies, private companies, or even commodities. You may be thinking, "What the heck does this have to do with pay per click search engine marketing?" Surprisingly, it has a whole lot to do with your SEM career.

Connect With Internet Executives on an Investment Level

Bull Market

I have a natural ability to hold lengthy conversations with executives. I’m very proud of my ability and it’s something that I’ve been leveraging since day one when I interviewed for my first PPC job in 2004. For a while, I didn’t really know why I had such successful relationships with senior executives. Now, I do. What am I typically talking to executives about? All aspects of investing!

At the end of the day, all executives are investors. All executives enjoy talking about investments. From my experience, all executives are passionate about investing in their personal portfolios, but let’s put that aside for a minute. Focusing just on the operations of your organization, executives are in strategic roles where they’re often making investment decisions for the company. They need to know the market thoroughly and are always thinking on a merger and acquisition level. From that perspective, it’s impossible to be an Internet executive without being an investor. Now, If you’re a passionate investor, you immediately have a common point of interest that you can leverage to make a great name for yourself and increase your odds of promotion.

Your Investment Knowledge Will Add Value To Your Company

Now, you may be thinking, "Ian, this sounds a bit superficial. So I’m supposed to shoot the bull with the executives about tomorrow’s hot stock and I’ll get promoted?" The short answer: Yes and no. There are two important takeaways here. As you get promoted, you’ll become a visible leader within your organization. You need to prove you can hold a conversation with the decision makers (and investing allows you to connect and prove your abilities).

Second, I truly believe your knowledge about investing will add serious strategy level value to your organization, which is exactly what leaders need to do. There exist a multitude of ways your investment knowledge could pay off greatly. I’d like to highlight just one small example next.

I’m passionate about sifting through thousands of small company stocks. One day, I took this passion to the next level by searching for small Internet businesses that could make great acquisition opportunities for my employer. I started frequenting sites like Buy Sell Website to find website investment opportunities. One day, I came across a perfect acquisition opportunity for my current employer. I drafted up a proposal and after our due diligence we ended up acquiring my recommended investment. Needless to say, this definitely helped my career.

Learning About Investment Essentials – A PPC Manager’s Guide

So this all sounds great, but you’re not sure where to start. First, there’s absolutely no reason to worry at all. You’re a pay per click search engine marketer. The tasks that you’re performing every single day are precisely the same skills that will help you become a great investor. You’re great with numbers, modeling, Excel, operating to a solid margin, and identifying growth opportunities. PPC is the quintessential operational role and it sets you up to become an investment superstar.

In terms of building your investment toolkit, following are my top pieces of advice specifically for those in pay per click search engine marketing:

As soon as you hit your stock option vesting cliff (typically one year after your start working for your employer), exercise at a least a percentage of your stock options. This will give you access to your company’s annual report, not to mention putting a little bit of your personal wealth on the line. Spend time reading your company’s annual report at length. You’ll learn a whole new dimension about your organization and will be armed with the very information that decision makers are pondering daily.
Know all the players in your industry, both public and private. You’re probably already familiar with your competition from the PPC landscape. Take it to the next level by researching them from a strategic investment perspective. A great place to start is Yahoo! Finance. The ties you’ll start forming between your operational knowledge and the strategy side of things are astounding. The ties will help you formulate and communicate your PPC strategy on a whole new level.
Read as many investing books as you can. I know, you have limited time. You need to make time. Robert Kiyosaki is a great introductory author and my favorite financial mentor. Over the years, I’ve read a huge number of investment books. Because you love PPC odds are you’ll get addicted to investment books like me!
Last, make sure to invest a few of your own dollars. There’s no better way to learn that putting your own money at risk. Never risk more than you can afford to lose and start small. Your company-sponsored 401k might be the best place to start. Then, consider a brokerage account and start investing in individual stocks. This experience will greatly reinforce everything else.

To close out, I want to underscore the importance investing as a tool to accelerate your SEM career. PPC and investing go and in hand. Armed with the two, you’ll start seeing major strategy opportunities and will climb the corporate ladder to become a PPC executive in your own right.

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?

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.

Increase Your Search Marketing Leverage

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 8 14

There’s no doubt about it! Pay per click search engine marketing is a time-intensive career. Look at the Wall Street trading floor. Pretty hectic, right? Now, consider a 24 hour, 7 day a week Wall Street. That’s pay per click in a nutshell. All of us in pay per click have faced the challenge of time. We never have enough time to get it all done. Moreover, our job often permits very little personal time which is just not sustainable in my opinion. Today, I’m going to go through 10 tactical tips with the goal of saving you time immediately. In my opinion, the 40 hour work week is not only possible in pay per click, but it’s preferred if all 40 of those hours are passionate, high energy, and high leverage.

Tip 1: Outsource Manual Work, Spend Your Time on PPC Process

Cube Standing Out

There are certain routine manual (yet extremely valuable) PPC processes that can be well defined with the right manager who’s passionate about good documentation. Leverage the global business economy to find cost-effective resources to focus on your well-defined processes. This is quite possibly the best way to quickly gain more leverage for your entire pay per click team! (Side Note: Documentation is a cornerstone of solid pay per click people management. I’ve written a few hundred pages of documentation during my various gigs and have gotten tremendous leverage through documentation. What’s the ultimate leverage? It’s when you can leave the equation and your team continues to function smoothly thanks to your flawless documentation.)

Tip 2: Build, Buy, and Leverage Free SEM Technology

I learned this very early on: Automation and leverage through technology is everything. In my early SEM days, I spent half my time product managing complex internal bidding and campaign management solutions. The good news: Times have changed and the off the shelf solutions are absolutely amazing and better than what most organizations could build internally these days. Moreover, the desktop editors available today make free what many companies have invested significant time and money building. The end verdict: Stay on top of the technology and leverage it to your advantage.

Tip 3: Reports and Alerts Are Your Friend

Tired of cycling through all of your campaigns and adgroups every morning just to make sure everything’s ok? Even more tired of knowing that your entire team is doing this as well? Invest some serious time building reports and alerts. While you’ll spend more time up front, it scales rather quickly. Another tip: While you’ll be able to leverage free alerting and reporting (Google’s alerts are great), I highly recommend talking to your internal Engineering and operations teams for more robust intra-day solutions.

Tip 4: Leverage Your Search Engine Reps

I view my Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft reps as extensions of my internal pay per click team! When I report on my team’s priorities, I include my reps side-by-side with my internal team. Make sure your search engine reps always have a full meaningful queue of work and your leverage will reach a new level.

Tip 5: Get Sleep and Exercise: Make Every Hour High Impact

I’m a huge proponent of the 40 hour work week. It’s absolutely amazing what you can accomplish when you’re firing on all cylinders. How do you accomplish this? Get sleep and exercise. You may even want to consider a personal trainer. My wife and I see our trainer regularly and it’s one of the best investments we’ve ever made!

Tip 6: Proper People Management and Delegation Is Key

What’s the number one pitfall I’ve seen in the world of search engine marketing people management? Improper delegation. Why? In my opinion, there are two reasons. First, most SEM people managers are young and aren’t formally trained in management and delegation. Second, we’ll often face such complex problems that it’s “easier” to solve it ourselves. As someone who takes people management very seriously, I encourage you to delegate and invest time training your team. Otherwise, you’ll rob your team the ability to learn and you’ll rob yourself the opportunity to manage and leverage your time.

Tip 7: Prioritize Your Queue of SEM Work Effectively

You arrive in the office a ton of stuff is thrown your way. You just jump into the action and start doing stuff. Sound familiar? This is a very common scenario in the world of search engine marketing because our job is incredibly real time and complex. While it may sound counter-intuitive, I strongly encourage you to spend at least 10% of your time planning. The ramifications on your productivity and prioritization will yield incredible results.

Tip 8: Audit Your Time Allocation Regularly

I’ll admit I don’t follow this SEM productivity tip too often. I’ll perhaps audit my time allocation once every year or two, typically when I find myself in a rut. My advice to you: Invest the time in this one. Seriously! Keep a log of everything you do throughout your workday for two weeks. You’ll oftentimes be absolutely amazed at the stuff you’re wasting time on and how little time you’re spending on the important stuff.

Tip 9: Leverage Every Excel Shortcut Imaginable

Excel shortcuts really add up. If you can save second here and there throughout your day, all of the sudden you could find yourself saving 15 minutes or even a half hour per day. That’s some serious time. Moreover, you just can’t call yourself an expert search engine marketer without leveraging every Excel shortcut out there! Side note: If you’re managing a team of pay per clickers, this is one of the first things you will want to teach them because it immediately streamlines their work by getting rid of the tedious stuff.

Tip 10: No SEM Project Should Take More Than 2 Hours

Rewind 5 years, Ian’s first day of work in search engine marketing. I received some incredibly valuable advice that day: never spend more than 2 hours on any analysis. There are exceptions to every rule. However I strive every single day to hold myself to this rule. The rationale: If something’s taking more than 2 hours, it should be automated, outsourced, completed by someone who can do it quicker, or approached in an entirely different way.

Bonus Tip 11: Change Your Location of Work

I really enjoy my current job because I’m splitting my time between two different offices. This change of location is really helping my productivity and focus by keeping things fresh and interesting. My advice to you: make sure to change things up. If you’ve got a flexible employer, try to spend some time working on your laptop at Starbucks one or two days a week (a strategy that really helped at my last search marketing job)!