It’s been a while since I’ve posted here on PPC Ian. I’m so incredibly excited to be blogging again. I wanted to take a moment to share some exciting updates so you know what’s going on in the world of PPC Ian. Also, I wanted to share some recent thoughts on life and business. First, a cool picture, from my recent London/Paris vacation:

Let’s start with some fun updates. Why haven’t I been blogging as much?

• My wife, Nicole, and I recently traveled to London and Paris. Nicole had business in London so I made sure to take advantage of this amazing opportunity and tag along. Above, you can see a cool picture of PPC Ian in London! I plan on doing an entire post about our journeys in Europe. We had the time of our lives, and experienced so much amazing culture. My London/Paris post is going to be a long one, reminiscent of some of my old Hawaii posts. (Side note: We visited Hawaii last summer, and I never blogged about it. So bummed out that I never wrote about that vacation, I’m going to make sure to blog about London/Paris soon.)
• While in London, I attended Adobe Summit EMEA, one of the best digital marketing conferences I have ever experienced. There have been a lot of these lately. (Check out my post about AdWords Performance Forum 2014.)
• I’ve been running, a lot. I’m slowly but surely getting back into great shape. My strategy of running right after work before I ever head home has been working wonders. I’m putting my tips about Great Ways To Exercise During The Workday into action, and even have a 5k run coming up soon. I’m a huge believer that exercise and a healthy lifestyle lifts one’s overall well-being.
• I have been given a tremendous amount of responsibility at work. I do not think I have ever worked so hard in my entire career. It’s simply amazing, and I’m honored to be in such a fortunate and exciting position. My hard work is truly paying off. This has given me a little less time for other endeavors, such as updating this blog, but I’m determined to make just a little time for myself each and every day, and take my efficiency and productivity to a whole new level. With less time and more responsibility comes the need to work with great speed.

With my recent European travels and responsibility at work, many exciting thoughts and theories have been running through my mind. Here are some of my high level thoughts and priorities:

• There is so much cool stuff out there. It had been quite some time since I have had the opportunity to visit London and Paris. This vacation truly opened my eyes, and re-ignited my passion for travel. I’m looking forward to future opportunities to travel to exciting places.
• Work time and personal time is a blur. I’m basically working days, nights, and weekends. Fortunately, I do what I love, leading an amazing team of professionals and helping others (through the practice of Customer Acquisition Marketing). That said, it’s easy to get bogged down in the work and forget about yourself. I’m consciously trying to set time aside to exercise, write, and get personal stuff done. Modern-day tech jobs are very different than traditional employment. I’m extending a very flexible work environment to myself and my team, understanding that personal stuff needs to be blended in throughout the day during breaks. I’m looking at things more as a continuum as compared to work time vs. personal time.
• When you’re really busy, don’t forget about the people. I have personally caught myself from time-to-time keeping conversations very short/frank to optimize time. I’m all about time-optimization and productivity. However, people are the one place where you do not want to cut corners. It’s all about relationships and people. For that reason, and because I love helping others, I’m trying to be more productive while maintaining my high level of priority on the friendships and partnerships that truly matter.
• It’s ok to say “no”, you can’t do everything. Focus in on the people and opportunities that matter the most. Say “no” to the rest. Invest where you are doing good and/or where you will see returns in the future.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted here at PPC Ian, so I truly appreciate all of you who are still reading and hanging around! Your support means so much, and I’m wishing you all the best.

Image of Ian Lopuch in London © PPCIan.com

It’s been a while since I did one of my musings posts. (Here, you can check out my last mid-week musings.) Since there’s so much great stuff going on, I thought I’d capture some of it today, in the second edition of my mid-week musings!

• I’m thrilled that my guest post about 5 Ways To Leverage In-House Paid Search Insights Across A Company was published on the PPC Associates blog today. PPC Associates is Silicon Valley’s SEM Agency. My good friend David Rodnitzky is CEO of PPC Associates and I’m also good friends with their marketing manager, Hillary Read. Thanks, David and Hillary for sharing my guest post! I’m really happy how it turned out. If you manage paid search campaigns at a company, I highly recommend heading over to PPC Associates and checking out this post.
• I love working at my company. Not only is the job super exciting, but the team is the best I have ever had the honor of working with. Last night, my company treated my wife and I to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert at the Oracle Arena. We enjoyed the concert in style, at the luxury suite. I have been lucky to enjoy many sporting events from luxury suites, but this was my first concert. I actually saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers open for the Rolling Stones back in the day, when I was in high school. It was great to see them again. It was also an incredibly fun time enjoying the concert with my wife, co-workers, and their spouses too. It’s all about the people!
• It’s all about Going Above And Beyond In Your SEM Career. Things have been intense ever since I got promoted to VP six months ago. And, I love it! I’m so energized and excited about online marketing. The online marketing career path is one of the best around and it’s never too late to get started! My advice: Push yourself each and every day. Always strive for excellence in everything you do.
• Finding Inspiration is super important. One of my favorite sources of inspiration is my good friend, Morgan Linton. Why? I’m always focused on getting stuff done and Morgan is one of the most productive people I have ever met. His blog empowers me to be as productive and energized as possible, and it’s also taught me a great deal about domain names. In life, it’s always important to follow your dreams. Everyone has different dreams, and it doesn’t matter what they are as long as you’re true to your own path. Morgan’s Dream Has Come True – He recently started his own company, and is focused on it full-time. Morgan’s company, FashionMetric, got written up on the Microsoft BizSpark Blog since they were finalists at AngelHack. Way to go, Morgan and team, you rule!
• I really enjoyed attending SES San Francisco last year. Even though the conference is right here in San Francisco (just a short drive from our home on the SF Peninsula), I couldn’t attend this year. Too many exciting projects at work, but that’s ok. My wife is attending the event and I can’t wait to hear her recap!
• I’ve been getting a lot of great emails from readers recently. I’ve been doing my best to keep up, but sometimes a few will fall through the cracks and I just forget to respond. If I don’t respond, please feel free to email me again. I’m here to educate and empower online marketing professionals, I’m here to help!

Image of chili peppers © iStockPhoto – eli_asenova

I really enjoy writing my Weekend Musings posts. It’s been a while since my last weekend musings so I thought I’d go ahead and do a mid-week musings post. Here are a few exciting updates in my life / thoughts going through my mind right now…

1. I’m now advertising on Twitter! Thanks to the American Express / Twitter partnership, I was able to secure $100 free Twitter advertising credit and get my Twitter account (@ianlopuch) set up for promoted accounts and promoted tweets. My campaign is already off to a great start and I know that the insights I learn will make me a better online marketer (and will be directly transferable to my corporate role). I’m especially excited because this will help me achieve goal three of my Twitter Advertising Challenge. (You can read about my results so far here.) I’ll definitely do a follow-up post when I have more insights from my Twitter advertising.
2. I have a major speaking event scheduled for next week. I can’t wait. Public speaking is really thrilling and rewarding for me. In both 2010 and 2011, I spoke at Stanford Graduate School of Business. So far in 2012, I spoke at SVForum’s CXO Forum. I will definitely do a recap of my speaking event in a future PPC Ian post. I’m truly thankful that people are thinking of my when it comes to these speaking opportunities.
3. My blog, PPC Ian, may have had its most major success ever. PPC Ian is really about you, my readers. I blog here due to my passion for helping others and giving back to our industry. Thanks to PPC Ian, I have formed some amazing friendships and business partnerships. Just last week, I was able to connect a PPC Ian reader who has become a personal friend to a really stellar job opportunity. That PPC Ian reader ended up landing the job! Of course, all credit goes to this person for landing the job, but I like to think that I helped out in a small way by connecting two parties that I respect incredibly. Without PPC Ian, it’s unlikely I would have formed such a great relationship with either party. This news really made my day/week. Helping others always puts a smile on my face and is the goal of PPC Ian.
4. Surround yourself with positive people who have a “can do” mentality. Remember and document the positive feedback you receive. Winners work with other winners. Ignore the haters, but also embrace them because they are a direct reflection of your success (more haters = more success). Here are some of my Sources of Inspiration.
5. I was over at Google’s Mountain View campus today. My team and I met with several members of Google’s product management team to give client feedback. Earlier this week, Microsoft met with my team to collect product feedback. There is a clear trend in our industry of soliciting feedback directly from the end user, via in-person meetings. I’m a huge fan and can’t thank the search engines enough!
6. I have been building great friendships with SEM Agencies such as Rocket Clicks and PPC Associates. I’m a huge fan of SEM agencies and recommend working with agencies even if you have an in-house team. They provide such a valuable perspective and value-add. If you’re looking for a great SEM agency, these are two awesome ones to contact.

I hope you’re having a super week. Thanks so much for supporting PPC Ian!

Image of Twitter Ads © Twitter