PPC: So Easy an Idiot Can Do It
But is that what you really want? I don’t think so.
Let’s face it, as Search Engine Marketing grows ever more popular the Top Tier Search Engines are doing everything they can to make their platforms more user-friendly. With tools such as Google’s Budget Optimizer and Landing Page Optimizer, the more complex tasks associated with SEM are readily available to the average person. So who needs SEM Agencies these days? Why can’t I just hire anybody with basic computer skills to run my PPC campaigns? Let me tell you why:
Any SEM Agency worth a damn these days runs some type of PPC Management software.
Writing complex ROI monitoring software for your in-house search team probably isn’t the most practical idea out there. Companies like Atlas and DoubleClick offer PPC monitoring software to the masses if you’re able to afford it. The cost of this software is not cheap, but the benefits of implementing this type of 24/7 bid management into you search campaigns are limitless. You get more accurate reporting across all 3 Engines, complex ROI based bid management and more keyword parameters than you can even imagine, and that’s just the beginning. To make the most of this software, however, you need to be trained and you need to have the hands-on experience that only seasoned professionals possess.
There’s low CPA… and then there’s LOW CPA…
So maybe you’ve created you own AdWords account and it seems to be running pretty well. Maybe it took you a couple months to work out the bugs, but after spending 3 hours a day tinkering around in there you finally got your CPA to a respectable number. Guess what? I can almost guarantee you that an experienced search marketer can drop that CPA by at least 20% in less than a month. The intricacies of the Google algorithms will never be fully understood by any mortal human being outside the Googleplex and probably by very few on the inside. The only way anyone can even come close is testing, testing and then some more testing. SEM Agencies again have the advantage. We’ve seen it all before, we’ve had accounts crash and burn for no apparent reason and we’ve had accounts soar higher than we ever could have hoped. Every day the algorithms change and every day we learn something new or figure out how to do something better. It’s the experience you gain as an SEM agency with 50 or so very different accounts at your finger tips everyday that can’t be gained any other way.
Ever heard of QSO? Probably not. Pepperjam invented it. QSO stands for “Quality Score Optimization” and our C.O.O Michael Jones blogged about it earlier this week. Basically, through methods I won’t disclose, we’ve come up with a way to insure that every keyword we bid on for a particular account gets the highest Quality Score possible. This, in turn, lets us get the lowest possible CPC with highest possible CTR for any given term. Not a bad little system. We came up with this system only because we had the resources and the ability of professionals. We educate ourselves and brainstorm various strategies for almost 60% of our time and we spend the other 40% implementing those ideas. The results speak for themselves.
Shouldn’t your entire Internet Marketing operation be under one roof?
Finally, as I stated above, anyone can build out a somewhat successful PPC campaign. Can the same be said about Affiliate Marketing, SEO and other more advanced Internet Marketing strategies? How about making all of these very different techniques work together as a whole? I’m sure it can be done, but it’s not easy. If you’re trying to do it on your own it’s an incredibly daunting task. A good Internet Marking agency can synergize their Media, Affiliate, SEO, SMO, PPC, and other online efforts into an overall product that can’t be matched. The result is an Online Marketing campaign with no holes, no potential customer left un-served and a reservoir of collected data that any marketer would kill for.
I could go on and on, but you should have gotten the point by now. I know its tempting to think that anyone can run a successful PPC campaign and, to a certain extent, that is true. But to really make the most of every dollar spent you need the combined experience and overall professionalism that only a veteran SEM Agency can provide. That’s what we provide here at Pepperjam and I’d like to think that our clients wouldn’t trade that for the world.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:18 am
Great post, Christian.
There’s a very similar theme rolling through affiliate marketing. Each year online spending grows, but so does the number of people doing PPC and affiliate marketing. You need to adapt to make sure that as the pie gets bigger, your chunk continues to grow while all these new hands try to carve out their own piece. That’s what I think sets us apart – we’ll constantly innovate and adapt to new changes in the field as well as the growing competition to stay ahead of the pack.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Interesting article Kris, that raises two questions.
One is that in my experience the majority of the one stop for all your marketing needs agencies do not have a staff that is skilled in organic SEO, never mind PPC marketing. Pepperjam excluded, there are not a lot of large agencies that can provide exceptional SEO and PPC. In most cases I have found that companies prefer to hire to vendors, one for SEO and one for PPC to make sure they are getting the best advice in both of these critical areas.
Second is that software like Atlas and DoubleClick is not cheap. What do you suggest for the average company that is not ready to step up to a Pepperjam level, but still want to receive expert advice in both SEO and PPC?
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Christian,
First off - GREAT article.
Second - You are completely right about the concept of SEM. There is no better way to understand it than to do it for 8-10 hours a day. I remember when I was still doing search marketing, and in a way I still am BUT the point is it was a little scary and overwhelming at first, you make some mistakes here and there. But working on it for so many hours a day, working with seasoned people and reading about it on blogs and newsletters ups your knowledge base an incredible amount. In about 3 months I was up to par and perhaps beyond the curve thanks the our great directors and their ability to really push you to understand the field in a way that NO ONE else can do.
Dean
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
PS — Get a picture
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:38 pm
braveheartdesign (David),
One of Pepperjam’s senior SEM Ninjas wrote this blog, Christian Wenzel.
Christian - your thoughts on David’s comments?
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Thanks Kris!
David,
To address your first question I’d like to point out the trend we’re noticing here at Pepperjam with our various search accounts. While Google (and now the other engines) have tweaked their Quality Score algorithms, we’ve had to tweak our landing pages to be more optimized. Both Organic and Paid rankings are now affected by SEO work and I predict that in the future any PPC vendor that doesn’t have a good SEO team will be left behind.
As far as addressing your second question, I really haven’t seen a solution like DART or Atlas that would be practical for the average advertiser. Hopefully at some point in the future a more affordable option will become available. The market for such a solution is certainly out there.
Hope that helped, or at least gave a little more insight into this topic. Thanks for the great comment!
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Christian
That is an interesting concept of home based PPC management. There definitely is a market out there. Perhaps it can be an open sourced application, API interface or something else that is completely customizable.
Cool Ideas
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Christian / Dean,
Pepperjam has a solution to the problem of high-priced PPC Management software - we’ve been working on a solution in R&D for 18-months and should announce something in the near future that includes a pricing model for small and medium sized clients who may not be able to afford Pepperjam’s premium management services, but nonetheless would benefit from a high-end software solution that is typically enjoyed by only the largest of clients.
Readers stay tuned.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Great post and comments guys. I mentioned in a blog post the other day that you guys didn’t update often, now you’re making me out to be a liar.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Narc - I’ve been asking these guys to post more.
In fact, I read your post and it’s one of the reasons I sent out the battle call.
Hope you enjoy - we have some really creative folks here on staff.
May 25th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Good stuff, Kris. Creative indeed. I particularly enjoyed this post beacuse I think it echoed something I was trying to say earlier in the week about not needing to be a rocket scientist to understand this stuff, but needing a certain degree of intelligence to do it.
Of course, Christian got his point across a little better than I did.
August 19th, 2007 at 12:30 am
[…] From pepperjamblog.com […]
June 12th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
“we’ve come up with a way to insure that every keyword we bid on for a particular account gets the highest Quality Score possible. This, in turn, lets us get the lowest possible CPC with highest possible CTR for any given term”
100% BS.
You’ve hitched your wagon to a black box algorithm? While optimizing landing pages is obviously critical and having good copy is important, I think your statement one paragraph up is a better representation of the market.
“the Google algorithms will never be fully understood by any mortal human being outside the Googleplex”
That is directly at odds with your “QSO” marketing language.
How do you know you have the “highest Quality Score possible” from Google’s “never fully understood” algorithms? Are you really going by the simplistic ratings they provide to their users? Do you really believe yourself? Do your clients?
P.S. Love the consultant speak in the original QSO blog post: “Synergy”, “synergies”, “paradigm”, “synergy” (again). Yup, well done.