The Role of a PPC Manager in a Leading Company - Term Paper Example

Job Role: The role is of a PPC (pay-per-click) Manager in a leading company. The company is an advertising agency that provides customized online advertising solutions for clients to help in their objective of fulfilling their marketing goals. The company offers a one-stop solution for all online marketing needs for their clients by managing their PPC goals. The company aims at boosting the online sales of their clients by providing more qualified leads through their website. They are experts in the domains of search marketing, display marketing, mobile marketing and any form of digital media marketing. This company is looking for a PPC Manager who would be in charge of creating and managing the PPC campaigns for the clients while ensuring that the goals of the clients are met. Here, goals could be varied for clients. For some clients, the aim is branding and for some others, it could be direct response. Some clients focus on improving their return on investment and some others focus on improving the traffic to their website. The role of the PPC Manager also involves identifying the goals of the clients, setting up, and maintaining the campaign in such a way that the aim of the client is fulfilled. Results of the job analysis Based on job analysis, the key aspects of the role include managing a portfolio of client accounts, interacting directly with the clients to understand their business, driving revenue and improving customer satisfaction. The PPC Manager should be able to optimize the performance of the campaign, set and implement strategies to achieve the goal of the client and demonstrate product expertise on PPC models. Apart from being and expertise on analytics and reporting, they should also demonstrate their expertise on industry trends and customer education. In this article, we will be looking at each of these aspects in detail and discussing how to measure each of these aspects during the process of recruitment. As the aspects that came out during the job analysis are very critical for handling the role of a PPC Manager, it is necessary that there would be multiple rounds of interview to see if the candidate fits the role. The basic pre-requisite of the candidate is to have around 3 years of experience in key account management, have proficiency in Microsoft excel, be flexible and open, have very good communication and interpersonal skills. The candidate also should be a graduate with a good academic background. The first stage for the interview would be a phone screening to get a basic idea about the candidate. Phone screen interview The HR Executive would conduct the phone screen interview. The aim of this interview is to see if the candidate fulfils the basic criterion required for the job. The HR Executive will start with a general introduction of the client to gauge on the communication skills of the client. Having very good communication skills is essential, as the PPC Manager would have to communicate effectively with the client on a day-to-day basis. The HR Executive would also ask the candidate about his/her academic background and the grades scored in school. The next stage would be to ask the candidates about the role that they have applied. The job description would be listed on the website of the company and the candidates are expected to go through it in detail before they apply for the job. Here, the HR Executive would judge the candidate’s interest in the profile and see how much they know about the role and if they have the correct expectations from the role. This is important because the role is very challenging and the candidates should have the correct expectations. The HR Executive also would give a brief of the company, its work culture, job expectations and enquire about the benefits and compensation. If the candidates demonstrate good communication skills, have a good academic record and understand the job profile correctly, they move on to the next stage of the recruitment process. The HR Executive also makes sure that the aspects like compensation and benefits fit in correctly with the company standards. Written Test Once the initial phone screening is done, the candidate is called for a written interview. The job analysis revealed that the candidate should have excellent reporting skills. This aspect is crucial because at every stage, a PPC Manager is expected to measure the results and report it to the client. In the online advertising world, the results are measureable. For example, the client would be very interested in knowing about metrics like cost per conversion, click through rates and so on. As there are different metrics available, the candidate also should be able to do projections based on extrapolation. For this, the client should have good knowledge of Microsoft Excel and web analytics. The written test would have questions that would measure these aspects. The key three questions that would be asked during these tests are – 1. A company has revenue of $10,000 during 2001, $30,000 during 2002, $7500 during 2003 and $35,000 during 2004. Calculate the year over year growth between consecutive years using Microsoft Excel. 2. In a class, there are 50 students. 40 students have an average score of 80 marks out of 100. 10 students have an average score of 95 marks out of 100. What is the average score of the class? 3. Web Analytics data shows that the client has 200 visits to the home page on a particular day. However, only 2 of them result in conversions Describe the steps that you would take after you see this data. The answers to these three questions would reveal if the candidate has the basic skills at data analysis. The first question would reveal the skill that the candidate has in Microsoft Excel. The second question would show the basis logic and analysis skill that a candidate has. The third question would test the candidate on analysis of data that comes from web analytics. Here, more than the correct answer, the focus would be to see the approach of the candidate to the question. Once the candidate answers these questions, we would schedule them for three rounds of personal interviews. Each rounds of personal interview would focus on specific aspects. Personal Interview – Round 1 The first round of personal interview would focus on testing how the candidate would be able to manage the portfolio and drive revenue. The knowledge of the PPC industry would also be tested in this round. The PPC Manager would have to deal with multiple clients and would be handling a portfolio with a specific revenue goal. The three questions that would test these skills are – 1. On a Monday morning, when you come to work, you see that three clients have sent urgent emails to you. One client is worried because their ads are no longer running. The other client wants to launch a new campaign next month and wants to discuss that with you. The third client wants you to refine their keyword list to remove any irrelevant clicks. How would you deal with these three clients? 2. Your portfolio has clients who have different businesses. Before the start of the quarter, you are given a particular revenue target for your clients. How would you set a plan at the beginning of the quarter to ensure that you achieve your target? 3. You have a client who is very new to online advertising. They are willing to invest $5000 in the online advertising industry but do not have much idea of how to use this budget effectively. They sell flowers and have a very good website. What plan would you come up with and what would be the ways in which you will ensure that $5000 is invested effectively? These three questions would reveal if the candidate has a fair idea of account management and PPC knowledge. The way the candidate deals with the first question would reveal if they were good at a key aspect of account management that is prioritization. Here, three different clients have different urgencies in their requests. A good PPC Manager should be able to judge which of these client requests are urgent and assign different levels of priorities. The second question is crucial to test whether the PPC Manager always has a focus on the revenue aspect of the business. The clients are investing their money and would always be very focussed on the revenue they get out of their PPC campaigns. Here, as the portfolio consists of various types of business, and the PPC manager should be able to provide a revenue focus with the help of factors like seasonality and industry trends and prioritize the portfolio based on which business is projected to do well in particular seasons. The third question tests the candidate on their knowledge of the PPC industry. There is no definite correct answer to this question, but we will be looking at different cues that the candidate is able to catch. For example, we mention that the client has a good website and a flower business. Here, we would test if the client is able to suggest the various types of PPC advertising – like image ads, mobile ads and so on. Similarly, the PPC Manager should also be able to suggest strategies like combination offers during Valentine’s Day and Christmas. Along with this round, the candidate has another personal interview round. Personal Interview – Round 2 This round aims at testing the client focus that a candidate has. The company has a mission of providing excellent service to the client. As the bottom line of the company is entire dependent on the clients, an ideal candidate should be able to understand the clients really well and take actions keeping the clients in mind. Through this round, the candidate has to show how good they are at client communication, how they work towards improving client satisfaction and how they are able to educate the customers. The following questions would test these skills – 1. On a very busy day, a key client leaves in a voice mail for you. You can see that he is very angry by the tone of the voice mail. He feels that his money has not been invested properly as his campaigns are getting a lot of clicks but very few conversions. The client thinks that he is wasting his money and wants to pause his entire online advertising program. What would you do in this situation and how would you handle this client. 2. You have a portfolio of 10 clients. After a period, you notice that you have been focusing on only 2 of them, as they are your biggest clients. These clients take up a lot of your time and you do not have much time to devote to the other clients. The rest of the clients contact you only when there is some issue and you try to solve those issues. How would you work to improve the client relationship with these clients? 3. This year you have acquired three new clients who are very new to any form of online advertising. They are wholly dependent on you for every aspect of their PPC campaign and contact you for even the basic things like adding some negative keywords or understanding basic data. This is taking up a lot of time. How would you deal with this scenario? These questions would be able to bring out the focus of the candidate towards clients For example; the first question would test the skills of a candidate while dealing with a client who is angry or annoyed. It is a given fact that there would be some clients who have very high demands and who get angry very easily. A good account manager should be able to negotiate with these clients and show them value in their work. The second question brings out the skills that they have in improving the customer satisfaction of the company, as the PPC Manager should be able to strike a balance in the way they deal with clients who have different levels of investment commitments. The third question measures if the client is able to come up with the concept of customer education. The role of the PPC Manager also aims at customer education as there are a lot of people who are willing to advertise on the web but do not advertise because they do not have a basic understanding. While there are no correct or perfect answers to these questions, the approach the candidates take in dealing with these clients shows their attitude towards the clients and hence, it is necessary to test how candidates deal with the clients. Personal Interview – Round 3 Once the candidate clears the first two rounds of personal interview, they go through the third round where advanced aspects like strategy-setting, optimization and industry knowledge is tested. As the online advertising industry is very dynamic and hence, the PPC manager should be able to customize the strategy as and when needed. As the industry is dynamic, campaigns require frequent optimization and only an account manager who has good industry knowledge can manage the campaign effectively. The following three questions will test these skills – 1. In the era of financial downturns, a financial company that offers loans has been badly hit, as there are no takers. They have cut down heavily on their online ad spend. As their PPC Manager, what are the next steps that you would take after analyzing their business? 2. A client advertising on the Display Network notices that their ads appear on many websites and opt out of the Display Network. What optimization strategies would you employ to convince them to come back to the Display Network? 3. One of your clients sells Halloween products. They advertise online only during the 2 months prior to Halloween. What would you do to convince them to advertise for a longer period? Here, the first question would reveal the understanding of the PPC Manager of the current economic scenario specific to the financial vertical. The aim of this question is to see if the candidate thinks out of the box and comes up with something innovative, like advertising loan closures or remortgages. The second question is to test how effectively the candidate is able to show the value of a particular product to the client. This also tests the optimization skills that are necessary for any person working in the online advertising industry. The third question is to see if the candidate understands the dynamic nature of the advertising industry. The candidate should be able to co-relate the aspect of Halloween costumes also being party costumes. Party costumes are in demand through the year and hence show the value to the client. Again, there is no perfect or correct answer for these questions, but they show how much innovative the candidate is. Through the phone screen, a written test and three rounds of interviews, we would be able to narrow down on the correct candidate who is ideal for the role of the PPC Manager. Read More