The iMarketing Cafe Team
Lisa Raehsler is a widely-known SEM/PPC consultant, Speaker and Founder of Big Click Co, an online advertising company and Google adwords certified partner.
She has 16+ years of marketing experience in tech, online, interactive advertising. Her areas of expertise include search engine marketing (PPC & SEO), social media advertising, ecommerce, web analytics, website advertising, display advertising strategy including behavioral targeting and onsite merchandising.
Lisa has worked with prestigious brands like AOL, Arctic Cat, Cargill, Truvia Brand, Concordia University, CenterPoint Energy, Cox Business Services, Filson, Hartford Financial, Hamline University and more.
She has also been a contributor to reputable industry publications such as Search Engine Watch, ClickZ and FBPPC.
Lisa is often invited as conference speaker at many popular industry conferences such as SES, OMS, MIMA, HeroConf and SMX.
In this post, she answers 8 Interesting PPC questions. Here we go..
1. What qualities do you think a PPC professional should possess? Or what does it take to become a PPC expert?
I think there are three components: experience, education, community/collaboration to become a PPC expert. Having an appropriate educational background and Adwords/Bing training is helpful, but experience in running accounts hands-on will ensure problem solving and strategy. Community and industry colllaboration helps for gaining knowledge/feedback from other PPC managers.
2. Do you think any business can go for Google search ad campaigns? Are there specific types of businesses for which Google adwords might not be the right fit?
Even if an advertiser has a business that does not appear to be a good fit, they can still use PPC for branding purposes. In this post I talk about PPC for brand impact and it might be helpful to see the metrics linked to branding http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2296370/ppc-for-brand-impact
3. In your experience, apart from Google, which ad platform is generally more effective than others when it comes to PPC ads?
This depends on the advertiser, but Bing ads can be more cost effective for some advertisers. LinkedIn can have a strong value for B2B. Advertisers should test different platforms to find out what works for their business and ad goals.
4. For Google adwords, what is the minimum budget would you suggest to a small business owner to start with?
Technically there is no minimum, but a small business owner will want to determine the type of keywords they want to use to find an average CPC. Let’s say that’s $1 per click. Then take a monthly budget amount, for example, $2,000 and divide that by days in the month. $2,000 / 30 = $66 a day. In this example the advertiser would get 66 clicks in a day. If the budget amount is too small, they may not be able to get many clicks per day, and it will be difficult to run a campaign.
5. According to a recent study conducted by Google and Ipsos MediaCT, “search Ads Lift Brand Awareness”. What’s your take on that?
Absolutely. It often takes multiple touches with a consumer before they make a purchase, so this research is consistent with what many advertisers know. Having brand and conversion focused campaigns in an account ensures the PPC approach is well-rounded and has the most impact. To find out more on how big brands use search, check out this post on ClickZ I wrote “How the Top 5 Brands Are Using Paid Search Ads”
6. What are some of the common mistakes made by inexperienced business owners when they try their hands at PPC?
Using the PPC platforms’ defaults campaign settings. Take the time to read through the basics and what the settings mean and how they impact performance and spend.
7. How different is the keyword research for SEO vs. PPC? What is the major differentiating factor?
Keyword research for SEO will net fewer keywords that link to content. Whereas in PPC, we can select from many different keywords themes from branding to competitive to keywords closest to the sale. PPC and SEO complement each other and should be part of an overall online marketing strategy.
8. Google is often criticized that their algorithmic and manual actions against sites are aimed at driving businesses to go for PPC search ads? Google has often vehemently denied these allegations and categorically stated many times that their actions are always aimed at providing best search results for their users. What’s your take on this?
Conspiracy theories are common on this topic, but its well-known there are two different teams at Google and algorithms for organic search results and ads. I’d be more worried about the personal information they collect on you and how much they know about you if you really want to be paranoid.
You can connect with Lisa on Twitter, Facebook and Google+
