“What do you believe has been your greatest career accomplishment? Why?”
When I got to the point in my career where I was able to confidently give advice over just receiving it. For me, this validated that I had grown in my knowledge and experience from where I had originally started.
“Never let your ads write checks that your website can’t cash.”
The world of PPC Account Management is constantly changing. What’s in stock today, might already be gone by tomorrow and your rivals never rest.
99 times out of 100, paid search is a component of a business’ overall marketing strategy. It may complement traditional media or display advertising. It is also the first step of a sales cycle or lead generation campaign that has additional steps after the “conversion.”
PPC advertising has the potential to deliver targeted traffic, but it takes technical know-how to do it properly. Even marketing veterans can make mistakes when they enter into a new market, or start selling a new product with PPC. Hence, it takes an expert PPC analyst to review every potential facet of the account.
Our interview today is with such an expert PPC Account Manager – Meet Gil Hong
Gil is currently pursuing a career in Search Engine Marketing, as a PPC Account Manager with Seer Interactive. His interests lie in analysis, observation, and competitive strategy. His passion for analyzing how different systems and stakeholders work together led him to a perfect fit in SEM.
Sharing his tips on PPC Account Management, it’s truly an honor to host Gil Hong in our Agency expert interview series:
1. How did you get into Account Management in the first place, and how did you get to where you are now?
I naturally have a love for strategy and seeing how things work. When I was first introduced to PPC it was a perfect match with learning how different industries operate and keeping up to date with the changing landscape of digital marketing. I owe a lot of where I am today to my experience on accounts as well as the collaborative and helpful environment of #PPCChat on Twitter.
2. What do you believe to be the most important PPC task you do on a daily basis? Why?
Actually looking at your accounts on a daily basis is VERY important. Being able to notice when things look off in your account at a glance can help in pivoting tests or capitalizing on small/large opportunities.
3. How do you balance what you know is best in an account with what the client wants? How do you and your clients agree on what a successful PPC campaign looks like?
Setting goals and expectations at the start is key. Often times the disconnect stems from a lack of context on either side of the conversation. Are your recommendations in line with the client’s bottom line? Or could this be an education opportunity with the client?
4. Where do you think the most miscommunication with clients/bosses happen in PPC? (and Why?)
I believe the most miscommunication stems from complacency with performance and the status quo. If you aren’t having active discussions on how things can improve you are likely missing out on something.
5. What tools do you use to track and analyze PPC performance? Separately, what client facing reporting tools do you use?
Depends on if the client uses specific tools, but my go to is excel and GA. For reporting I’ve used a variety of tools from Acquisio to Super Metrics in Google Sheets.
6. Talk about a failure or mistake that helped shape your work for better?
On a reporting call with a client I had enthusiastically shared about a particular product’s ROAS performance without taking into account any outside factors that could affect the end result ROI. The product’s shipping cost ultimately gave it a negative ROI. From this experience I had learned to be more tactful in considering the client’s business first over the performance of the campaign at face value.
7. How do you defend PPC against other forms of advertising?
Tracking and measurement. End of discussion.
8. What metrics are vital when proving ROI of your PPC campaigns?
- For Ecommerce: Average order value & ROAS.
- For LeadGen: Lead quality & ability to upsell
9. What do you believe has been your greatest career accomplishment? Why?
When I got to the point in my career where I was able to confidently give advice over just receiving it. For me, this validated that I had grown in my knowledge and experience from where I had originally started.
Today we got to know key traits of an awesome PPC Account Manager. Going forwards there are many more specialists that we want to chat with. We will resume our discussion with another expert next week.
Until then, Happy Marketing!!
