Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is essential to any effective digital marketing strategy. PPC ads let you target people searching for products or services like yours. Yet, managing PPC campaigns requires specialized skills and extensive experience. That's why most businesses hire PPC experts to handle their PPC advertising.

Hiring the right PPC specialist or agency can impact your marketing success. But finding and vetting qualified candidates is easier said than done. This article walks you through hiring top-notch PPC consultants for your business.

What do PPC Experts do?

PPC experts and consultants manage every aspect of pay-per-click advertising campaigns from start to finish. Their core duties include:

  • 1

    Keyword Research:

    The keyword research process lays the foundation for the entire PPC campaign. PPC specialists use tools and expertise to build a good keyword list for the client. They review monthly search volume, competition, suggested bids, and more for each keyword. The final keyword list balances high-funnel broad match terms and more focused phrases.

  • 2

    Campaign Setup:

    After finishing keyword research, PPC experts build new campaigns, ad groups, and ads on platforms like Google Ads. A Google AdWords expert can manage different types of campaigns efficiently. PPC specialists group campaigns by products, services, target customers, or other logic. Ad groups are kept focused, with one themed keyword per ad group. This level of organization is critical for successful ongoing optimization.

  • 3

    Bid Management:

    The PPC expert must set initial bids and budgets for each keyword and ad group. Using their auction knowledge, Google ads experts set bids. The bids balance ad rank, traffic volume, and cost per click. Based on daily performance and the desired outcomes, bid adjustments happen in real-time. As an account matures, more advanced Smart Bidding strategies may be leveraged.

  • 4

    Ad Copywriting:

    Effective ad titles, descriptions, and display ads are crucial to generating clicks and traffic. PPC specialists use copywriting techniques with emotional triggers tailored to the target audience. They test different ad copy against the control to improve click-through rates.

  • 5

    Landing Page Optimization:

    PPC experts ensure landing pages match the messaging and intent of associated ads. To help conversions, landing pages need clear value, easy navigation, and well-placed calls to action.

  • 6

    Reporting & Analysis:

    Understanding performance is how optimizations occur. To find opportunities and know the true return, PPC specialists analyze critical PPC metrics. Key metrics are impression share, click rate, conversion rate, cost per sale, ROI, and more.

  • 7

    Budgeting:

    Managing daily and monthly budgets across campaigns is paramount to success. PPC specialists change budgets based on seasons, conversion volume, and CPA goals. They also adjust campaign objectives. Budget pacing ensures that spending is distributed throughout the month.

  • 8

    Account Organization:

    Well-organized campaigns, ad groups, and keywords keep accounts simple to navigate and optimize. PPC experts audit account organization, condense bloated ad groups, and apply new labels if required.

  • 9

    Split Testing:

    The top PPC consultants test and optimize to increase campaign performance. They use A/B and multivariate testing methodologies to experiment with ad copy, landing pages, bids, targeting, placements, and more. The key is testing one variable to isolate the true impact.

In addition to core PPC duties, leading PPC specialists give strategic direction drawing from their background, running profitable PPC accounts across many industries. They understand the client's unique business, products, services, and target audience. This allows them to make smart optimizations and impactful recommendations on campaign structure, bids, platforms, landing pages, and more.

The best PPC experts are an extension of the client's marketing team. They update the client on major changes, performance trends, tests, and strategic recommendations. They aim to maximize ROI from PPC ads while getting insights to inform other marketing. This gives PPC campaigns that drive quality traffic and conversions for phenomenal returns.

Why Should You Hire a PPC Expert?

Here are some of the top reasons businesses hire PPC specialists:

It Frees Up Your Time

Managing PPC campaigns requires at least 2-5 hours per week for a small account. As your account grows, more time is needed for optimization and reporting. Most business owners don't have those extra hours to spare. Outsourcing to a PPC expert lets you focus on running your business optimally while you leave the campaigns to the experts.

You Gain Access to Expert Strategies

Qualified PPC consultants stay up-to-date on the latest PPC trends, strategies, and platform updates. They can tell you about advanced tactics a beginner must learn. This gives you a significant competitive advantage in your PPC advertising.

Your Cost Per Acquisition Goes Down

An experienced PPC specialist will be able to generate more conversions for every dollar you spend. By optimizing targeting, bids, ads, and landing pages, they can increase the ROI of your PPC campaigns.

It Enables Faster Testing and Optimization

Since PPC is their full-time job, most Google ads experts can test and optimize faster than in-house marketers juggling multiple priorities. This leads to better performance and increased productivity.

You Gain Access to Better Tracking & Analytics

Most freelance PPC consultants and agencies have access to advanced PPC analytics tools. These provide better campaign insights than native analytics in platforms like Google Ads.

Your Risk Of Policy Violations Decreases

With their extensive platform experience, PPC experts know every PPC advertising policy. This means they know how to avoid violations that could get your account suspended. As a PPC beginner, those risks are much higher.

7 Questions to Test Your PPC Expert's Knowledge

Not all PPC consultants are created equal. Before hiring a PPC expert, you must vet them to ensure they have the qualifications.

Here are seven questions you can ask potential candidates during interviews to check their real-world PPC skills:

  • 1

    How do you structure campaigns and ad groups in Google Ads?

    Listen to how they structure campaigns based on your products, services, and target customer segments. Their structure should reflect best practices like single keyword ad groups.

  • 2

    What metrics do you focus on to gauge PPC campaign health?

    They should at least track impression share, quality score, click rate, conversion rate, cost per conversion, ROI, and budget burn.

  • 3

    How would you optimize a campaign with a high impression share but a low click-through rate?

    They should discuss checking for low-quality scores, adding negative keywords, adjusting bids, split testing ad copy, reviewing search query reports, and analyzing landing page relevance.

  • 4

    What strategies would you use to reduce our cost per conversion?

    Possible tactics include refining:

    • Refine targeting
    • Adjust bids
    • Improve quality scores
    • A/B test ad copy
    • Create more relevant landing pages
    • Find cheaper, qualified traffic
  • 5

    How often would you optimize and report on our PPC campaigns?

    They will make incremental optimizations each week while reporting and analyzing monthly performance.

  • 6

    What advanced Google Ads features would you leverage for our account?

    Relevant options include:

    • Scripts
    • Experiments
    • Custom intent audiences
    • Responsive search ads
    • Customer matches
    • Similar audiences
    • Automated bids
    • And more
  • 7

    How would you track and report on PPC campaign performance?

    They should discuss:

    • Accurate conversion tracking/tagging
    • Using analytics platforms
    • Reporting KPIs
    • Documenting takeaways
    • Optimization recommendations

Assess consultants on these concepts to see who has real experience driving results, not PPC theory. Back up any expertise claims by requesting examples of past client success and campaign reporting.

Conclusion

Taking the time to find the ideal PPC expert provides immense long-term value for your business. An experienced PPC professional can optimize your campaigns to increase clicks, conversions, and revenue.

They stay on top of the latest PPC trends and strategies to get the most from your ad spend. The investment made in the hiring and vetting process pays off exponentially through higher ROI. With the right PPC expert guiding your campaigns, you can gain an edge over competitors in your space.

This extensive vetting process takes more work upfront. But it ensures you find the right PPC expert to drive the most ROI from your campaigns. Partnering with Uplers for any remote developer, designer or marketer position can simplify the hiring process. Our team of pre-vetted PPC specialists have already passed rigorous technical assessments.