What to look for in a PPC manager
I’ve met many PPC practitioners over the years. Technical knowledge is a given, but the ones who really make a difference to an account share three skills: adaptability, problem solving and creativity. Here’s what each looks like in practice, and what to ask before you hire someone to run your paid media.
Adaptability
Reacts to platform and market changes rather than following a template.
Problem solving
Spots issues quickly and fixes them before budget is wasted.
Creativity
Finds angles competitors miss, instead of fighting over the same clicks.
Adaptability
Technology changes constantly. New campaign types appear, tracking rules change and markets shift, so you have to think on your feet. What worked in the past may well underperform today, and what works on one account can fail on another.
A good PPC manager reacts to whatever comes up and adjusts campaigns accordingly, rather than blindly following a standard template or process.
Problem solving
When campaigns are going well, much of the work is monitoring: letting automation do the heavy lifting and making sure everything keeps ticking over.
When performance drops or something breaks, you need to think fast and find a fix you can act on straight away. In PPC, every click costs money, so an issue left sitting for a few days can burn through a lot of budget. The ability to diagnose problems quickly is essential.
A good PPC manager fixes the urgent issue in front of them, but also spots the underlying problems in your account and gives you guidance to improve performance over time.
Creativity
It’s easy to build a neat campaign that follows Google’s standard guidelines. The harder part is standing out, so your ads convert better than your competitors’. That takes fresh thinking in both the ad content and how campaigns are set up: finding opportunities others have missed, rather than fighting over the same expensive clicks, which usually means higher costs and lower returns.
Together, these three skills are the foundation of a good PPC manager, someone who can look after your campaigns and adjust, adapt and scale them as your business grows. You’d expect any agency’s managers to have the technical know-how. Finding one who also has these skills, and can explain what they’re doing clearly, is what separates an adequate manager from one who makes a real difference to your account.
Questions to ask before you hire
Before you hire anyone to run your paid media, these questions will tell you a lot about how they work.
Who will actually run my account day to day?
How do you charge: a fixed fee or a percentage of ad spend?
Is there a minimum contract?
Will the ad accounts stay in my business’s name?
How will you report on results, and how often?
What would you change first in my account?
Looking for a PPC manager?
I run every account myself, on a fixed monthly fee with no long-term contract. Book a free call and I’ll tell you honestly what I’d change first.
