Interview with a PPC (Pay Per Click) Expert

Some weeks back I received a telephone call. Some hours later I hung-up the phone after having one of the best conversations with an individual with whom I have never met. The man at the other end of the phone was Aman Singh one of the best kept marketing secrets within the online community.

Since that first call, both Aman and myself have kept in constant touch - having great conversations about everything to do with Search Engine Marketing. I eventually persuaded Aman to whip the cloak of disguise and announce his arrival onto the online marketing community. The following interview is his first step:

Me: Evening, Aman,

Aman: Evening Paul,

Me: You have been running PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns now for a few years with great amounts of success with your company and other companies – how intimidating was it for non-marketing professional like yourself to get to grips with the workings of PPC?

Aman: Well to be honest it wasn't that intimidating as I thoroughly obsessed and researched the subject prior to sepnding even a single penny, I read everything there was available to read on the subject, bought the books, did the courses, so to be honest it wasn't really a case of me taking everything in my stride but more so that because of my obsessive nature and the addictive quality of adwords, I was actually really well versed with the whole set up even before I got started.

Me: Did you make any costly mistakes when you first started and if so what snippets of advice can you give to anyone considering PPC (Pay Per Click). What are the obvious pitfalls to avoid?

Aman: Mistakes yes, as no campaign is ever perfect but thankfully no costly mistakes - PPC in my opinion is a tool which allows so much control that if you've got half a brain then you shouldn't be making any costly mistakes. Having said that I see campaigns everyday where the people running the campaigns are throwing money down the drain just because they don't have a clue, that's why there are so many quick entry and exits into the PPC advertising game.

It's crazy when I see campaigns set up so poorly that they are doomed for failure.

Me: Can you elaborate any, Aman?

Aman: They get it all wrong in how they go about setting up the campaigns, realise they are not making money and then abandon PPC forever, so as not to throw away too much money. What these guys don't realise is that they are not making money because they are doing it wrong not because of the market - the great thing with PPC is that you can switch off at any time so as to avoid those "costly mistakes" and the greatest thing is you always know or should know your ROI (return on investment) - but these so called marketers have got to realise that these other guys in the market are making money so if they do it right, there's always good money to be made or significant ROI in almost all markets especially with Adwords, the Daddy of Pay Per Click.

No PPC account is ever perfect - they key to success is continual and gradual improvement of your campaigns and your accounts.

The obvious pitfalls, gosh where do i start.... lumping all keywords into one campaign (i.e. not having enough niche campaigns), not having enough keywords, not having the correct keywords, not having enough negative keywords, having poor ad copy (particularly not having the keyword inserted into the headline and body), not turning off content and search traffic, not concentrating on conversion, not turning off ad optimizer, not split testing ads, not using "phrase" and [exact match].

The key to success is to continue testing - Adwords in particular rewards smart advertisers - if you know what you are doing you will get more clicks for less money and get greatest ROI.

Me: Through time you have nurtured yourself into a self-taught expert in this field, in my opinion. Where there any on-line learning resources that you found that helped quicken your learning curve.

Aman: Yes, there are a number of courses out there which I found really helpful, but the PPC game is a changing game. Overture has recently done a massive overhaul of how there system works, it almost mimics Adwords now and those guys at Google don't stop still for a moment, they are always changing the rules.

So much of the courses and books out there in my opinion are bit out of date and the so called world leading experts, are just rehashing the old stuff rather than coming out with the new cutting edge ways of staying on top of the PPC game. I now consider myself to perhaps be one of the leading Adword experts in the UK - my advice is get on the phone to someone like me for a half an hour and I guarantee that you will get so much important info on what you should really be doing to stay ahead of the competition.

That you will win at PPC and get the best ROI - they key thing to remember about Adwords is it generally only really rewards the very best advertisers, sure the other guys make a living from it but the ones that know what they are doing, now they really make money from PPC - unfortunately a lot of the resources or guides don't really tell you what you should really be doing to get ahead.

Me: I have read on several blogs and email articles recently that the rising costs for the more popular keywords is driving smaller businesses to seek other alternatives as their budgets can't compete with the escalating prices. What's your thoughts on this, Aman?

Aman: I agree that costs are arising, people are cottoning onto the fact everyday that Adwords is the greatest direct marketing tool in history so naturally the bids for each keywords are increasing on a daily basis – I believe most marketers look at ROI and therefore those with the greatest knowledge and know-how are the ones that will win.

I do agree however that in some markets particularly the competitive ones then yes, if the multinationals have there way they will try and block out the little guy because the Tesco's of this world can chuck money at marketing and make a loss for years just to gain a foothold in a new market - so I agree to some extent but knowledge is power Paul, knowledge is power!

Me: Do your see more and more smaller businesses going down the organic route to fulfill their on-line marketing potential.

Aman: I disagree with that view - that smaller businesses will turn to the organic SEO route - because for the small guy it's all about cash flow - Adwords in particular is a direct marketers dream, you can find out within minutes what works and what doesn't without spending a fortune and wasting months of time.

With the organic route a small business may have to wait several months before they see any return or any results - now as cash flow is undoubtedly king to the little guy! Do you think they are going to want instant results and be able to turn the tap on and off as the heart desires or spend a small fortune optimising the site in the hope that at some time in the not-so-distant future they might rank highly for some of there chosen keywords?

The greatest thing with PPC is you can test what works and see how well it works pretty quickly - this is a godsend to smaller businesses.

Me: Granted, but tell me just how frustrating is it to get your message across within a box limited to around 10 – 15 words to sell your product or service.

Aman: Its brilliant! I love it! I don't have a traditional marketing background and Ad copy of PPC is totally different to Ad's on traditional paper copy - you want to starve a traditional Ad man then ask him to do PPC Ad's - it's a totally different principle and I love the fact that those guys just can't write Adwords.

Me: Have you tried or tinkered with any other engines that offer PPC out-with the big 3 (Google, Yahoo, MSN) such as 7Search, GoClick, Kanoodle, SearchFeed etc...

Aman: Only the big 3 and I can say that Adwords is by far the best and by far the smartest. I value my time too much to run campaigns on the lesser PPC platforms.

My opinion is that they just don't have the traffic so it's not worth my time running the campaigns although I do have a few yell.com PPC campaigns but these are not run by me, I have set them up and a relationship manager sorts the rest - the traffic is very cheap but the low vol. doesn't justify my time.

Me: Finally, Aman, is there anything that you would like to see incorporated into PPC? Whether it be a new tool functionality or a better way to allow the flow of the ad impressions in the top pages to help smaller businesses an in-turn level the playing field somewhat?

Aman: I'd love to make changes but not so much to level the playing field – I'm a great believer that PPC should reward smart marketers, people that give the user exactly what they want exactly when they are looking for it - I don't think Adwords or any other PPC platform should be run as some sort of charity or have any ideology other than giving the user the best search experience – I hate some of the unethical big corporations as much as the next man, but PPC is business and big business at that!

Paul Steven writes for North South Media an SEO Company from Glasgow, Scotland.