PPC - Pay Per Click Management

If you’re a savvy business owner, you’ve likely hired a professional digital marketer who knows all the ins and outs of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, how to manipulate SEO legally, and the subtleties of social media marketing.

It’s tough to find someone who has all these techie skillsets, and even tougher to manage them well. This is often a solo job where they’re hunkered down for hours over designs, analytics, and reports. In other words, it’s easy for you to forget about them.

As an employer, it’s your job to make sure all your workers don’t work overtime if that’s not in their job description (or they get paid properly if it is), all breaks are taken, and everyone abides by the schedule. Don’t depend on your workers to be pros at managing their own time.

Use a time clock system not just for the benefit of your workers, but to protect yourself from wage and hour claims. When it comes to managing PPC pros, though, you’ll need to do more than that.

Build a common language

You’re probably not well versed in PPC and digital marketing yourself, or at least not to the degree your PPC manager would be. Make sure you put a system in place — in writing — that ensures you get regular status updates.

You should be receiving easy-to-read reports on where your marketing campaigns are, triumphs and troubles, plans for the future, and conversion rates from your PPC manager’s activities. Ideally, this should be done every week.

You also deserve a manager who speaks at your level and understands that this is a high-tech field that most people don’t “get” right away. The manager should come prepared with charts, summaries, and a willingness to discuss the process with you.

The surest way to make this happen is to hire the right person who meshes with your business and your needs, and who has a great deal of patience. A real professional knows how to explain progress to his or her superior, so don’t settle for less.

Give them the right environment

There’s been a huge trend in recent years toward the open floor plan. (We can probably blame Google for that.) This can be a great setup for some of your employees, such as the social butterflies in the communications department who need to brainstorm with others constantly.

But it can be a nightmare for others, especially your PPC manager who needs peace, quiet, and personal space to work out bugs. Provide the right environment for each employee, and take everyone’s personality and job requirements into account.

Not sure which environment is best? That’s where feedback comes into play. You need to be fully open about receiving it and acting on it.

When you ask your employees what they need on a regular basis and they feel they can trust you, they’ll be happy to clue you in.

Demand results the right way

It’s a PPC manager’s job to get results from ads. That person should set feasible goals, be able to show you results, and in the end provide more revenue for your firm.

There are always a learning curve, best practices to adopt, and of course a limit to the magic a PPC manager can work. However, if you’re not seeing results even after several talks, the person may just not be a good fit and it’s time to try another professional.