Paid search is great! I know my opinion is slightly biased because after all, that’s what I do for a living! But I truly think it’s great.
Why? Because it is a proven solution to generate targeted traffic for your website that can be converted into revenue dollars. What’s even better, is that you have full transparency and control over your advertising spend. In other words, you know what you pay for, and what you get in return. Let me share with you a little story of mine.
Paid search can be challenging
That is true. I have myself experienced a few situations where suspending paid search activity was the best option. It takes a lot of guts for a campaign manager to tell that to its client, but don’t forget that you have to work in your client’s best interest at all times, even if that means giving such a recommendation. You may lose some revenue as a marketer, but the client will understand and will respect you for saving them money.
Having said that, these situations are rare and are usually the result of very unique (niche) products, target audiences for which online may not be suitable, or simply unfavourable market conditions.
In most cases, paid search will be an extraordinary advertising channel.
Relationship and perseverance are key
Whilst working for a different agency, I was once handed over an account for which we had little hope: results were bad and the relationship with the client was even worse. The client could have ended the contract at any time or I could have made the recommendation to stop PPC altogether… but I didn’t.
Instead, I worked hard on trying to turn the account around. I came up with a six month strategy, a clear action plan and implementation time frame which gave a client a little bit of hope.
Sadly, this strategy failed to deliver the results (it really was a challenging account!). But the client realised how hard I tried, testing new optimisations, adjusting the strategy and monitoring/measuring results. I became very proactive on this account, treated his dollars as if they were mine, and ended up building a great relationship with the client. Even though results still weren’t there, at least I had gained part of his trust and empathy.
Your efforts will pay off
Twelve months down the road and countless hours restructuring and optimising the account, I finally managed to deliver good results, which turned into great results, which then turned into outstanding results. The client reached his internal targets and probably obtained a bonus (couldn’t thank me enough!). This led to another 12 months engagement, to which they added two new business units for us to manage. That client later became the agency’s largest account.
Moral of the story
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- Do not give up persevering,
- Be pro-active,
- Relationships are more important than you think,
- Think “what would you do if it was my money?”
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What about you? Do you have a similar story to share? Please tell us about it in the comment section below!