10 top skills of a PPC specialist

The internet has become the most effective means to create advertisement campaigns. This is why digital marketing is one of the fastest-growing industries worldwide, making it a great time to hire an excellent PPC specialist.

Indeed, PPC is the backbone of online advertising. PPC (pay-per-click) is an online advertising model that helps drive traffic to your website. With PPC advertising, you pay a fee each time a user clicks on your ad.

Businesses typically generate more revenue from PPC since its conversion rate can be up to 50% higher than organic traffic.

With such numbers, businesses will inevitably spend more on digital advertising, with worldwide spending estimated to reach $876bn by 2026. 

Given the benefits PPC can offer your company, you should consider hiring a skilled PPC specialist who can change the dynamics of your marketing strategy.

Read on to discover the top skills of a PPC expert and how much value PPC can provide for your business.

What is a PPC specialist?

A PPC specialist is a marketing professional who runs and oversees PPC campaigns. They use their expert knowledge to create designs, optimize landing pages, and execute digital advertising campaigns that meet organizational goals. 

Usually, a PPC specialist is an entry-level digital marketer who increases your website’s visibility using the pay-per-click marketing channel. PPC specialists can be self-employed freelancers or work as part of an in-house marketing team.

What does a PPC specialist do?

It’s essential to understand the role PPC specialists play in your company so that you can determine their value-add based on specific metrics.

Some of the responsibilities of PPC specialists include:

1. Researching keywords

Knowing how people search for products or services is critical for a PPC specialist. Keeping up with trends and constantly researching and testing keywords will improve customer reach.

PPC specialists conduct research to ensure that these keywords are relevant. They must keep up with trends to know which keywords are competitive and profitable for your business.

2. Optimizing landing pages

PPC specialists make sure to optimize your landing pages properly. Without their input, you might be paying for clicks that will not result in conversions. 

3. Recognizing conversion rate opportunities

PPC specialists identify conversion rate optimization opportunities that will improve the performance of a campaign. 

They find ways to get more traffic to your website that will convert. Their focus isn’t on simply driving as much traffic as possible but rather directing your target market to your website so that they take action. 

4. Monitoring trends

PPC experts understand SEO trends and keep up with Google’s algorithm so that they can improve customer interaction and keep your business up to date with the latest trends. 

A simple algorithm update can suddenly make months of work worthless. Hence, PPC experts are meticulous in monitoring trends. 

5. Tracking performance

PPC managers harness data to optimize performance and improve the company’s return on investment. They record the performance of previous ad campaigns and use this data to improve the strategies they implement.

10 must-have skills of a PPC specialist

Merely having a degree in marketing does not make someone an excellent PPC specialist.

Before hiring a person to handle your ad campaigns, ensure they have the following skills. Otherwise, you risk wasting money on counterproductive advertisements.

1. Great communication skills

Like any good marketer, a PPC specialist must be proficient in communication.

A lack of good written and verbal communication skills can cause teamwork to become dysfunctional, which could lead to a decrease in your company’s return on investment.

2. The ability to sell a story

PPC specialists must be able to tell stories with your business ads that’ll be memorable for prospective clients. They must know how to apply strategies that will catch the attention of your market and sell your ideas faster.

3. Knowledge of e-commerce

Digital marketing and e-commerce are synonymous, so you must know how to optimize PPC campaigns through e-commerce. Knowing which platforms are most effective and being able to track performance are fundamental skills of a PPC specialist.

4. Outstanding analytical skills

PPC data involves a lot of graphs, stats, and numbers. Therefore, PPC specialists should be able to get into the nitty-gritty of available data, separate it, analyze it, and draw essential facts from it. A great PPC manager also needs to have strong mathematical skills.

5. Creativity

PPC campaigns depend largely on the creativity of the PPC strategists. Your ads must be creative and engaging to drive more traffic to the website by piquing customers’ interest and making them more likely to click.

6. Excellent time-management and organizational skills

A PPC job requires excellent time-management and organizational skills. These experts usually have a long to-do list and have to analyze the statistics of ad campaigns, which can be time consuming.

7. Mastery of ad copywriting

PPC specialists must understand how ad text works to create compelling campaigns that will achieve your marketing goals. They need to use relevant keywords that are persuasive and result in conversions. 

8. Technical skills

PPC managers should be adept at tracking codes, managing tags, retargeting codes, and other technical skills needed for effective PPC management. Experience in HTML and JavaScript is also invaluable.

9. Design ability

It’s always an advantage for PPC experts to have some design skills since some tasks might require them to do some graphic design work. Specialists with these skills stand out and can provide additional value for your company.

10. Readiness to learn

PPC specialists need to be able to adjust to the growing demands of the world. Old campaign formats may be irrelevant, and new campaign formats may require PPC specialists to upgrade their skills. This means that they have to be passionate about their work and willing to learn new skills.

Why is PPC advertising important?

PPC is vital for online organizations because it enables them to measure the effectiveness of their marketing channels.

Some benefits of PPC advertising include the following:

1. Saves costs

With PPC, you pay only for ads that customers click on. You can then adjust your campaigns to optimize your ads and get the most out of your marketing budget.

2. Enables retargeting

In digital advertising, retargeting means remarketing to customers who visited your website but have not followed through with buying your products or services. PPC enables you to remarket your product strategically.

Consequently, it persuades customers to proceed to do business with your company.

3. Generates instant traffic

In the PPC marketing structure, as soon as customers click on your ad, they are immediately sent to your website. How you harness the traffic is totally up to you and your team of Google ads experts. 

4. Provides multifunctional data

PPC advertising provides valuable data that you can use for various purposes. This data helps you track potential customers’ interests and develop innovative ideas, services, and products to entice your target audience.

Benefits of the PPC Advertising test to recruiters

The PPC Advertising test examines a candidate’s skill in managing PPC channels. With this test, you can easily assess applicants’ abilities and make the best hire.

Use the PPC advertising test to hire:

• PPC Specialists

• PPC Account Managers

• Digital Marketing Managers

• Digital Marketing Analysts

• Paid Advertising Specialists

• Any other role requiring a strong grasp of PPC advertising

Below are four benefits of including PPC testing in your recruitment process:

• Bias-free hiring: PPC tests give every candidate an equal opportunity in the recruitment process. You can eliminate bias by assessing candidates based on their performance on the same test.

• The ability to evaluate multiple skills: Pre-employment PPC testing helps you assess applicants’ technical and soft skills, as well as their personality traits and culture add. This gives you a comprehensive understanding of candidates that helps you determine if they are the right fit for the job.

• Objective results: The PPC advertising test ensures you hire the best by providing you with objective, numerical results, making it easier to compare candidates’ skills.

• Simple to use: TestGorilla’s PPC Advertising test is easy to use. No matter how many applicants you receive, you can administer the pre-assessment test to all candidates with a single click. 

Areas covered in the PPC Advertising test

• PPC channels and paid marketing management

• Social media and eCommerce shopping platform advertising

• Search and display advertising

The success of your business largely depends on the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. As such, you should consider hiring an expert-level marketing team to enable you to reach your goals quickly. 

Incorporating assessment tests in your recruitment process is an excellent approach because it saves you time and money and is entirely stress-free.

If you want to hire a top PPC specialist for your team, sign up with TestGorilla for a free account.