Updated: May 01, 2019
If you ever wondered what it’s like to be a PPC Specialist, good news for you, you’re about to find out. Now I’m not speaking for everyone who’s in paid search, but I’m sure many can relate to my story.
It’s a normal Monday and I’m the first one in the office (I like to come in early). The first thing I do when I sit at my desk is to make sure my paid search campaigns didn’t blow up. Are all campaigns still generating conversions? Still running smoothly, Great! As a PPC Specialist, I constantly want to make sure ads are running and campaigns performing as usual as there are many things that can disrupt performance. For example, declined credit card payments, the new ads you uploaded are disapproved, etc…
After that, I update my budget trackers to make sure ad spend is on pace to spend the budget for the month. It’s important to make sure you are on pace because if you are overspending, you need to figure out how to bring the spend back down without lowering conversions. If you’re under spending, you need to figure out how to increase spend while effectively increasing conversions and maintaining/lowering your cost per conversion. And if you can’t find a solution to your under/overspending, then it’s important to let the client know what is going on and that you are working on it. An unhappy client is a client that finds an issue before you say anything or one that is not in the loop
When that is all done, I start optimizing a few of the campaigns with the ideas I thought of from the previous week. I’m five minutes in and I get a Google calendar notification that I have a meeting. It’s an easy meeting so I prep real quick and sit in on the call. Call’s over and I’ve been tasked to write a PPC proposal and landing page recommendation doc that’s due end of the day.
I get back to my campaign optimizations. 15 minutes in, I get interrupted by our blog enforcer because we need a blog for the site in two days and I’m up next to write one (this blog to be exact). I do not know about you, but everyone I know, including myself, are not very keen on writing blogs, it takes me forever to write one. Another task added on top of the proposal and landing page recommendation doc. I still had to research hotel ads for a client and learn a brand new CRM system from tasks that I was assigned with before.
I get back to my optimizations. I’m almost done and I get called into an unexpected meeting. Will I ever finish my optimizations?! Thankfully it was a quick 15-minute meeting. I finish my optimizations before anyone else can interrupt me. I look at the clock and it’s already noon! I still had to start my blog, write the proposal, and landing page recommendations. So I decide to prioritize my tasks. It’s important to set your priorities as you’re not jumping from one task to another and end up not finishing anything.
After a quick lunch, I write down a few talking points for my blog so I didn’t forget and since it wasn’t due for another two days and move on to the landing page recommendation. I move on to the landing page recommendation and I’m on a roll. Luckily I wasn’t interrupted and finished the task.
I start the proposal and there are only a few hours left in the day. I now have a production meeting which normally takes up some time, so I bring my computer. I’m half listening and half working on the proposal throughout the meeting. I realize I need more information from the client before I can finish my proposal. I email the client my questions and let them know that I may have to send over the proposal the next day in the morning possibly to set expectations. The meeting finishes and I spend the rest of the time working on parts of the proposal that I can work on. It’s the end of the day and still did not hear back from the client and will have to finish the proposal in the morning. I said my goodbyes and left for the day.
Every day won’t be as crazy as that day, but it could also be crazier. Sometimes your day never goes as planned, but you have to adapt that’s agency life. Some days you get to do all the things you wanted to do without any interruptions, but generally, won’t see those days too often. So if you see a PPC job description about a fast paced environment or ability to prioritize, they mean it.
Now that you know the typical day of a PPC Specialist, let us know if you have any questions or want to share your PPC experiences, just comment below!
