PPC Training
Filed under: Education and Training, PPC on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 by Jacob WolfsheimerFrom a three day PPC seminar, you can learn the basics of how to build and manage a PPC campaign. You may even be exposed to advanced topics like A/B and multivariate testing. However, gleaning actionable tools and techniques for your own campaigns will likely require more than three days of classroom training if you are running larger and/or more complex PPC initiatives.
We are currently in the latter half of a year-long PPC training program for one of our clients, American Public University System (APUS). Serengeti managed PPC for APUS for several years; however, increased competition and quality scores pushed up the cost per click substantially a little over a year ago. We ran the numbers on the cost of outsourcing the campaigns versus continuing most of the day to day management in-house and subsequently recommended setting up an in-house PPC department for APUS. Our assessment was that, in addition to improving the direct ROI of PPC, an in-house expert would be better positioned to absorb and react to ongoing business marketing priorities on the fly – a key to maintaining their low-cost marketing strategy and meeting aggressive growth goals.
APUS did not have the human resources to take PPC in-house at the time, so Serengeti’s first step was to define the qualifications, experience, and responsibilities of the PPC Manager, and to help the client locate the right candidate. Ultimately, APUS hired a candidate with some experience, though primarily in the creation of new campaigns with landing pages. By her own admission, “I had some experience, but I didn’t know bid optimization. And I didn’t know the conversion tracking tool being used.”
Serengeti built a custom training program around the new employee’s skill set - less time on ad copywriting and search marketing interface training, and more on reporting, optimization, and analytics skills. Through a tiered approach, we worked from the monthly reports down to the daily reports based on level of detail. Learning the daily reports first helped create an understanding of the overall cost and conversion data, but the monthly report had keyword-specific data that was more actionable. By focusing on monthly reporting first, the client learned optimization tactics. Weekly and daily reporting indicated the immediate gains from the steps taken to optimize.
During the training period, some of the PPC priorities changed for APUS, so the program was altered to accommodate shifting needs. An expanding enterprise means more keyword categories, more ad groups, and more campaigns. The client had no trouble adding new keywords to old campaigns and the training enabled her to work with them in the conversion tracking tool. However, adding new campaigns to the conversion tracking tool was a bit more complicated, so Serengeti provided ongoing phone and email support to ensure a continued level of accuracy and effectiveness.
How did the one-on-one, ongoing training approach work for the client? There was no interruption in quality or results. “The hands-on training was really helpful when I was learning bid optimization and the email and phone support was great. I’ve enjoyed the training experience.”
Thanks! So have we!
