Who is a PPC Expert?
Pay Per Click is popularly termed PPC by digital marketers. Pay Per Click advertising is a faster means of marketing products, brands, services, and businesses as compared to other forms of organic digital marketing. This is because an ad created through PPC starts reaching out to the targeted audience the moment it gets approved. The results are seen the moment the ad starts reaching out to the target audience. There are a whole lot of aspects within digital marketing of which, PPC advertising is one such form. In order to be able to consult as a PPC expert or become a PPC expert, it is important for you to keep yourself up to date with the latest in the PPC advertising industry.
What does it take to be a PPC Expert?
Digital marketing has a lot of subdomains which are niche areas. Not everyone will or compulsorily have to be good at each one of them. At the same time, there are full-stack digital marketers who manage to grasp the entire digital marketing ecosystem. These digital marketers are much sought after since they possess the same skills as 3-4 individuals with a combination of skill sets.
You need to have a basic understanding of how to create PPC campaigns in order to be able to at least set foot into the PPC industry. Apart from this, it is great to know the basics of the multiple sub-domains within digital marketing. You need to understand how different digital marketing techniques fit into a complete digital marketing strategy and where PPC fits in.
In order to ace the PPC domain, you need to understand the platforms primarily used to carry out pay per click advertising campaigns. These include Google Ads, Bing Ads, and so on. It is important to understand the main features of each of these platforms in order to be able to handle PPC campaigns effectively and make the most revenue out of them.
The best way to ace any aspect of digital marketing is purely by getting your basics right and implementing your theoretical knowledge in the practical sense of the word. Any concept in digital marketing is best understood when applied practically to a variety of situations and scenarios. It is the sign of a good PPC expert to be able to understand the technicalities of running PPC campaigns across clients of different industries, across budgets, and across a variety of target audience groups. If you, as a pay-per-click expert are able to get good results out of a campaign while ensuring the budget set aside for the campaign is not crossed and the cost per click is as optimized as possible, nothing like it!
Google Certification to become a PPC Expert
In order to be certified as a PPC expert, it is important to undertake relevant certifications. These certifications will add value to your role as a PPC manager or a freelance PPC person. Google offers free certifications which you can take once you feel prepared enough to be able to answer the questions.
Google provides a lot of reading material online about PPC advertising. Reading these materials diligently will help you ace the certification tests. While the certifications give you added credibility, it is important for you to understand how to apply the theoretical concepts of pay per click advertising in a practical scenario.
There are a number of AdWords certification tests Google offers. There are different parameters to qualify for each of the certifications. But, all the certifications provided by Google are completely free of cost. These certification tests can be taken multiple times until you clear them. However, there is a time period you will have to wait until you can retake the test if you fail to clear it in your first attempt or even subsequent attempts.
Hiring in-house vs Outsourcing to a PPC expert
Often, businesses are faced with the dilemma of hiring digital marketing and PPC experts as opposed to outsourcing the work to an external digital marketing agency. This is a dilemma that has existed ever since the advent of digital marketing. To make things easier for you to understand, we are going to look at the pros and cons of both options.
The main advantage of hiring an in-house PPC expert is his or her availability as and when the need arises. You can directly walk up to the person, communicate the work to be done and follow up regularly without wasting time on phone calls or even traveling to the agency and meeting them in person.
The cost of hiring an in-house PPC expert is much lower compared to outsourcing your digital marketing paid advertising needs to an external agency. And the deliverables from an agency’s end are fixed depending on the contract.On the other hand, if you hire in-house PPC talent, you have the option of training him or her in other aspects of digital marketing.
On the other hand, hiring an agency to handle your PPC campaigns also means you will not have to hire graphic designers, content writers, and other resources required for your PPC and digital marketing needs. An agency will have specific teams for each of those requirements and it is like a one-stop shop for your digital marketing needs. This not only reduces your hiring time but also reduces the costs of hiring individuals for each of these sub-departments.
How and from where do you hire PPC experts?
Once you have decided to hire a PPC resource in-house, the next question that arises is where to look for the right PPC expert. Also, the question arises as to what are the basic skills to look for in the ideal candidate. When you are searching for PPC experts India or specific cities like Delhi, Bangalore, and so on, look specifically for such groups on social media or individuals based on location.
Suppose you want to hire PPC Delhi experts, you can get onto job portals, login as an employer, and look for candidates in Delhi. Such job portals will give you the option of filtering out people based on different parameters. This is a much easier way of scouting for PPC experts India, PPC Delhi experts or anywhere else in the country. You get to see a list of potential employees in the PPC domain specifically and digital marketing in general.
Social media is another powerful recruitment channel. On social media, depending on the specific platform you are exploring to recruit from, there are various groups you can post job openings on. On different types of social media platforms, it is important to be as specific about your requirements as possible. Otherwise, there will be numerous people responding to the post without really fitting the requirement.
Understand the Digital Marketing Ecosystem
Overall, it is important and a necessary part of being a PPC expert to be able to understand how the entire digital marketing ecosystem works. Stay up to date with the latest trends in the industry and you will find yourself enjoying the role of a PPC advertising person with each passing day.
The trick is to be on top of your game and keep a check on how others in your field handle similar challenges, and exchange notes on the best practices of PPC advertising. This is feasible via undergoing a Search Engine Marketing certification to become a PPC Expert yourself!
