6 Things You Should Know When You Step Into the PPC World
Have you just started your PPC journey? This is one of the most interesting spheres in marketing, and it is ever-changing and evolving. However, when you first step into this world, there are a few things you must be aware of (well, at least we wish somebody told us about them). When you are new to PPC, everything will seem very exciting as well as challenging at the same time. But in order to master it, you must understand its scope completely first.
In this blog, we are going to discuss the six helpful things that will make this journey a smooth one for you.
- Utilize the Opportunities to Learn
Earlier, the opportunities to learn were scanty, and new PPC executives had to become determined researchers in order to find programs.
Meanwhile, now numerous PPC platforms have started offering plenty of advanced training.
Now you can find lots of certification programs that go in-depth into PPC and help boost your knowledge. Moreover, these programs also allow the candidates to secure various career opportunities in this field.
When it comes to polishing your skill set, these top online paid media platforms won’t ever disappoint you:
- Google Skillshop
- Microsoft Advertising
- Amazon Advertising Learning Console
- Facebook Blueprint
- Pinterest Academy
- Making Mistakes Is Part of the Process and It’s Okay
You must have heard that, in life, it is essential to learn from the mistakes. In fact, most of our important life lessons come from those mistakes.
Although making mistakes in PPC can be thwarting and sometimes cost you a lot.
But fortunately, we don’t usually see a lot of sudden fully-fledged implosions here.
Tracking the performance in real-time and taking immediate actions will help in finding out and preventing the paid media disasters before they take place.
These are the four things you should focus on to steer clear of making costly mistakes in PPC:
- Budget and bid settings – Incorrect set up can lead to your PPC account overspending or exhausting the ad budget on irrelevant clicks.
- Account Structure – If you don’t organize your account structure in a way that aligns with your intended strategic direction, your PPC goals will not be achieved.
- Targeted Keywords – Using too many keywords or wrong keyword match types can stop your ad from reaching the right/target audience.
- Inappropriate Expansion – Untimely or inappropriate expansion into additional audiences or targeting will ruin your ad reach and performance.
Moreover, when it comes to PPC, it is always good to learn from the mistakes of other people.
Typically, every PPC training program will train you in things you should do, but they don’t tell you the things you should strictly avoid doing.
Now, this is where partnering up with other peers in your industry, conducting thorough research, and plenty of reading comes into play.
Blogs, articles, podcasts, and physical meetings are great places to listen to PPC war tales and utilize these stories to determine what you should and shouldn’t do to avoid making the same big, costly mistakes.
- Educate Other People on PPC
There was lots of confusion and wrong/lack of information for people working in the PPC sector in the past.
How much does one-click cost? What is an Ad Auction?
Why is Quality Score important?
But the most scary and mysterious among all was the information regarding click frauds.
Most of the time, those in PPC were unable to get answers to tricky questions at once; therefore, the whole learning and updating process was going on always earlier.
As the PPC marketing world started growing progressively popular over the past decade, organizations and new marketers become more knowledgeable.
Moreover, the skills of PPC professionals will now be going in-depth on technical tasks and strategic approaches, making things even more exciting.
- PPC Platforms and Features Are Ever-Changing
If you don’t know it already, here’s a fun fact about PPC that your learning and work in this domain are never “finished.”
With new updates, features, and releases rolling out for our favorite paid media platforms always keeps PPC professionals alert and attentive, ever ready to adapt to the changes.
Although at times, all these changes demand just a little bit of tweaking by the PPC managers. And sometimes, they require changing or restructuring the whole campaign or account and putting your time as well as efforts in conveying these changes to your clients or company and getting them on board with it.
In addition to all this, as a PPC manager, you will have to describe these changes thoroughly to the concerned people, manage the project, implement all the changes, and then monitor its impact on your campaigns.
This is what makes a PPC executive’s job so difficult – working in an environment that keeps changing continuously.
And in case you are working in eCommerce, it’s an entirely different scenario.
- User Behavior Is Always Changing
User behavior will eventually change, be it now or years later; it is inevitable and only a matter of how and when.
For instance, during the last decade, we witnessed a big shift from desktops to smartphones, and today more than half of the total web searches happen using mobile devices.
Then a couple of years ago, we saw a shift from keywords to audiences giving way to a more audience-centric marketing and audience-powered approach.
Forget about what happened years ago; the biggest example is right in front of our eyes – all the changes that have occurred during this Covid-19 outbreak.
This pandemic has completely transformed how we live, work, eat, communicate, and travel, among others. It has also changed the way customers search for products and services online.
A lot of elements together influence user behavior. Here are some factors, along with common examples that you should keep in mind:
- Platform usage changes – People of specific demographics shifting to Instagram from Google.
- Social trends – Celebrity news and gossips, sports events
- Search habits – Including “near me” in web searches
- Device usage – Wearables
- Universal trends – Climate change, disruptive innovations
- Political trends – Court cases, elections
- Become a Part of the PPC Community
As soon as you enter the world of PPC, it won’t take you much longer to develop a sense of comradeship with your other peers working in the same industry as you.
Online meetings and regular conferences will help expand your PPC network vigorously.
Having mutual interests and the evergreen shoptalk will help you discover new tips, strategies, and more information about different platforms.
However, considering the current situation, most of these interacting opportunities have been limited and gone online for our own good, of course. Still, even then, online platforms offer unparalleled access, and at times it’s free too!
Joining Linkedin and Facebook groups and other professional business memberships and participating in group discussions actively are an excellent way of becoming a part of the PPC community and partner up with co-workers.
Conclusion
One of the many things that no course will tell you is that you will be working in a super dynamic environment that keeps changing and how you can navigate through those changes as a PPC professional.
However, that surprise and constant change are what keeps the PPC specialists excited about their work.
These were the six things you should know when you are new to this industry. Keep them in mind and start your beautiful journey with enough information to keep you going without hindering your growth.