subject: Pay Per Click Specialist - What Do They Do? [print this page] Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is one of the two most important tactical tools of Internet marketing (the other being Search Engine Optimization). Simply put, PPC advertising is placement of ads that are optimized for certain keywords or phrases and appear on a search engine results page (usually at the side of the page) or on a web page, when a visitor types in that search term; the advertiser paying a predetermined amount (the bid amount) to the website (or the PPC service provider) only if a visitor clicks on the ad. While the number of targeted visitors to the specified website (and ad) makes up the Pay-Per-Click traffic, it is not enough to simply generate a high volume of traffic; the traffic (as much of it as possible) has to be converted to sales through sustained PPC campaigns and other promotional efforts.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or PPC Search Marketing (as PPC advertising is also called) has many advantages (it efficiently directs quality traffic to your website), but can very easily become uneconomical if you bid too high for keywords (or choose too expensive keywords) or click rates increase as competition for your keywords increases (Pay-Per Click usually requires you to bid on key words or phrases of your choice). Bid management skills and a systematic keyword bidding strategy help to reduce your ad expenses - and increase your returns. Further, proper keyword research and selection and other optimization practices are most important since major PPC search engine service providers evaluate and rank your ads (on the results page) on a number of criteria including relevancy (Google, for instance, uses a Quality Score). All in all, successful Search Engine Marketing requires knowledge, experience and expertise. This is where the Pay-Per-Click Specialist comes in.
The Pay-Per-Click Specialist (either a freelancer or working for a company providing Search engine Optimisation services) is a trained professional experienced in PPC advertising who helps clients achieve ROI-driven marketing results. While you can try and optimize your PPC ad campaigns on your own by reading and acquiring knowledge (and many people do so quite successfully), you need to have a fair idea of how Ad ranking is done by the PPC Search Engine industry; which is by no means easy as PPC service providers do not divulge details of their algorithms/evaluation systems. It is therefore advisable, budget permitting, to hire an experienced Pay-Per-Click Specialist (after a thorough background check, of course, to avoid fly-by-night operators) for the purpose.
The Pay-Per-Click Specialist helps clients to plan, manage and optimize their Pay-Per-Click marketing campaigns successfully by, inter alia, creating, categorizing and refining keyword lists; implementing cost-effective keyword bidding strategies and ensuring proper keyword management; continuously monitoring, revising and optimizing ad text as necessary; collecting and analyzing keyword performance data from web analytics or by using commercially available analytical tools etc. In short, as already mentioned, the PPC Specialist helps to plan, manage and optimize all PPC campaign components including keyword strategy, ad copy, bid prices, cost-per-conversion, cost-per-click etc to maintain/improve a positive ROI.
