What is Pay Per Click Advertising?
When you use a search engine, and type in a product you are looking to buy or research, your search engine of choice (be it Google, Yahoo!, MSN or Ask) will typically show a list of 10 pages they believe will be of use to you. There may also be sponsored listings, websites that have paid to be placed alongside the results - it is these that a Pay Per Click Account Manager will create and manage for their employers.
Although they vary between each search engine, a PPC ad will typically consist of a snappy title to grab the attention, followed by a couple of explanatory lines and a URL - all of which have a fixed character count. Interested consumers will then click on the advert and be taken to the website - the company are then charged for each click.
What does a Pay Per Click job involve?
The Pay Per Click process typically begins with picking the words for which you want to appear for. This is professionally done using keyword research tools to find out how many people are searching for industry terms.From there, the keywords are then sculpted into enticing adverts within the word count to make sure that people click the ad when it appears to them, driving traffic to the website.
From then on, you have to monitor the adverts success, the average spend of each one and tailor them into income-generating machines.
How do you get into it?
Quite a lot of entry level Pay Per Click jobs require no previous experience, and offer their own in-house training. There are a number of online marketing forums and weblogs where you can research the rapidly changing industry and learn the basic theories of what kind of adverts work well. If you can drop this kind of knowledge in at an interview, then you're sitting pretty.
The other option is that some online marketing companies offer internships to interested parties, and some PPC practice will almost certainly be on the agenda. If you can point to some hands on experience with PPC accounts (which anyone can open, so you could explore the interface yourself outside of work) then you'll be in a very strong position to get a job in Pay Per Click.
What skills do you need to succeed?
The thing about Pay Per Click jobs is that you need a good set of skills for each part of the process. Number 1, you need to be organized - you will be dealing with hundreds and thousands of keywords on spreadsheets and you need to keep an eye on them. Secondly you need to have a close attention to detail, and especially with numbers - you will be dealing with budget allocations, and you need to figure out which keyphrases present the best return on investment. Finally you need to be good with words, and have a marketing brain. You need to juggle the words and phrases to fit good marketing copy into a tiny space - Google's AdWords tool, for example, only lets you have 35 characters for the title and 70 for the description. If you're good at Scrabble, you'll probably be good in PPC marketing.
How much does it pay?
Entry level PPC jobs range from around £15,000 to £20,000, but with some experience in campaign management, it's not unheard of for Pay Per Click Experts to earn upwards of £35,000 for their unique skills.
