Larry Kim will be speaking on “PPC” at SearchFest 2015 which will take place Friday, February 27, 2015 in Portland Oregon. For more information or to purchase tickets, please click here.
1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
By day, I’m the founder and CTO of WordStream, a Boston-based search marketing software and managed PPC advertising services firm. By night, I’m leading the AdWords Quality Score Rebellion and raising a future marketing prodigy, #PPCkid.
I eat mathematical formulas for breakfast and truly enjoy the analysis of Billions in ad spend, which makes me a hit at dinner parties. Software product management and product marketing are huge areas of focus for me and I love unearthing the strange and unconventional in the world of PPC to share with other marketers. I also type like a madman and write a lot.
2) If someone were to tell you that because their AdWords Ads were so successful that they’re going to run the same ads in paid social, what would you tell them?
I’d have to tell them not to do that.
Search and social ads are completely different animals and while each has its place, they’re not interchangeable.
Social ads on Facebook, Twitter and other networks can be used for direct response, but they’re far better utilized for softer content offers, engagement and lead nurturing. You can get super granular and even remarket via social advertising now, enabling you to appeal to various audience segments about whom you actually have a great deal of demographic information.
AdWords is more like the Yellow Pages, in that people probably know what they’re looking for but aren’t sure where to find it. This is where you can see big wins using targeted offers for varying levels of commercial intent.
Take advantage of the different strengths of different PPC marketing platforms to maximize your ROI.
3) I’ve seen Facebook threads where very smart people asked “Have you actually ever bought anything from a Facebook ad?” How would you respond to that?
Did anyone ever buy anything from a newspaper ad? There was no mechanism there to click through and complete a purchase, yet we knew those ads had influenced the sale at some point in the customer’s decision making process.
People are biased and influenced by social advertising, even if they don’t realize it’s happening. Very smart marketers understand that there are different touchpoints in the sales cycle and attributing a sale to the last-click undervalues each of your other marketing efforts.
Thankfully, technology is catching up with social ads and we’re seeing things like Facebook’s partnership with retail big data powerhouses Acxiom, Epsilon and others. Gradually, we’re able to attribute more influence to the correct sources, and social ads are definitely influence brand perception, loyalty, trust and even sales.
Todd Mintz knows PPC…knows Social Media…knows SEO…knows Blogging…knows Domaining…and knows them all real well. He runs growth marketing for )and is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon’s Search Engine Marketing Association, and he can be found here on Twitter and Facebook.