Marketing by the Numbers
We live in a time when information is literally at our fingertips, accessed either by our computers or our smartphones. With the almost omnipresent access to the Internet, we can find whatever we want in an instant, be it answers to an urgent question or the closest Thai restaurant. Search engines like Google and Bing make all this access to information possible, and businesses do their part to get found by users through search engine marketing, both organic and paid.?
Businesses need both organic and paid search marketing to increase the chances of showing up in search results—and thereby get more customers. Organic search marketing is done through?search engine optimization (SEO), an effective method but one that marketers have little control over. Paid search or?pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, on the other hand, gives marketers a great deal of control, especially when a paid search specialist is on board to make decisions that generate results.?
And?that makes paid search specialists very important indeed!?
If you’re someone who enjoys the field of marketing, but you’re more analytically minded, then a job in paid search marketing might be the perfect fit for you. Also known as a PPC specialist, a paid search specialist does research, makes purchasing decisions, analyzes results, and changes course when necessary to optimize those results. Because it’s such a focused skill, it’s one employers seek out.?As of this writing,?Glassdoor?lists almost 3,000 PPC jobs in the United States alone.
If you’re considering a PPC job, but you’d like to know what your daily tasks might be, read on to learn more about a typical day in the life of a?paid search specialist.?
Every Day Starts With Emails
You’ll probably start your day with emails. Any job in marketing tends to involve a lot of communication back and forth with coworkers and/or clients. In our always-on work culture, emails land in your inbox at every hour of the day and night. So your first order of business each morning will probably be tackling that inbox to answer questions and put out fires.?
After that, your typical tasks will depend on the priorities for that day, but each day will probably include a mix of research, analysis, and coordinating with others.?
Keywords Are Key to a Paid Search Specialist’s Day
Your goal as a PPC specialist is to create compelling, targeted campaigns that drive traffic to your company’s or your client’s websites. For a paid search specialist, most of the daily tasks revolve around online advertising via PPC campaigns as a result. That means a large part of each day will involve setting up and managing those campaigns by researching keywords and groups, analyzing traffic and trends, monitoring results, and optimizing ads based on those results.?
Depending on the size of the organization you work for, you might also manage other tasks related to online advertising, including writing ad copies, developing display ads, and building or optimizing landing pages for those ads.?
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Monitoring, Analyzing and Reporting
As with any kind of advertising, PPC campaigns must be monitored. Money is being spent, and the paid search specialist must make sure that money is delivering a return on investment (ROI). To do so, part of your typical day will be spent analyzing ongoing campaigns to look for any changes in activity and to make sure the ads are meeting the goals set for them.?
In addition, you’ll consider ways to improve those ads to generate even better results, as well as create reports to demonstrate the effectiveness of each campaign to the management or your clientele.?
Working With Others
Marketers rarely work in a vacuum, and paid search is no exception. Whether you’re working on PPC in-house or?at an agency doing paid search for clients, you will be part of a team and working closely with others. Those coworkers or teams might include:?
In addition to those coworkers, you might be working with clients if you’re employed by an agency, and you’ll definitely be working with a manager who is overseeing the budgetary side of the marketing efforts, to ensure money is spent judiciously and the ROI meets expectations.?
Staying Current With Industry Changes
Anything related to Google is subject to change, and that includes PPC advertising. Staying current with those changes is part of your daily job as a paid search specialist. Although you’ll have more time some days than others for reading blogs and articles like those of?PPC expert Brad Geddes, doing so will be one of your tasks. If you fail to carve out time to keep up, you’ll miss out on critical information. For example, if you don’t know how the functionality of Exact Match changed, you won’t adjust your keyword research accordingly, and your ads will suffer as a result.
Getting Started As a Paid Search Specialist
The job of a paid search specialist is unique to the digital marketing world. Does this unique combination of analytics and marketing appeal to you? Then get trained to be a sought-after PPC specialist. Simplilearn offers a?PPC Specialist Master’s program?that can get you industry-ready and fast-track your career with a clear, structured learning path recommended by industry experts. As part of your training, you’ll learn to master the nuances of pay-per-click, display advertising, conversion optimization, and web analytics. You’ll also get extensive project experience to prepare you for managing paid marketing initiatives. You will complete your training ready to create compelling, targeted campaigns and drive increased traffic to websites.
And when searchers go looking for answers online, you can help to make sure they find the websites that matter to you and your employer or client.?