Empowering Your Content Success Using PPC with Melissa Mackey @Mel66 #VCBuzz

In most cases, organic growth for a digital business is either not enough or not yet working. Increasing your reach by investing in paid traffic (via ads) is almost always a good idea.

How to smartly invest in a PPC marketing campaign to achieve your content performance? Let’s discuss!

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About Melissa

Melissa Mackey @Mel66 is a search engine marketing pro specializing in PPC. She is currently Search Supervisor at gyro, the largest independent B2B agency in the world.

Subscribe to Melissa’s blog, and check out her musings in her regular columns on PPC advertising for Web Marketing Today, and The SEM Post.

Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you become a digital marketer? Please share your career story!

Funny story. Back in 2002, I was doing traditional marketing in-house. Google AdWords was new, and we wanted to try it out.

I was assigned Google AdWords as a special project because I’d worked in the classified ads department at our local newspaper.

It went on from there. It’s been fun to watch the industry grow and evolve. Funny because we thought Google Ads were = classifieds. Kinda true!

So you are self-taught? How long did it take you to figure it out? #vcbuzz
— Anna Fox (@manifestcon) October 1, 2019

Definitely self-taught in the beginning. I started going to industry conferences and learned from the best, but it was all trial and error back then!

Q2 When it comes to content versus commercial landing pages, when (if ever) does it make sense to invest in paid reach?

Paid reach is an underrated tactic! For example, sending social traffic to content pages is a great way to build remarketing audiences.

We do this a lot in B2B where we want to be very sure of the audience we are targeting. Paid social allows us to hone in on attributes like job title and company size that we can’t get just from search.

Then we can retarget in search and other social channels with a conversion-focused landing page.

@Mel66 I have just started #Blogging again and promoted a post via Facebook, Got zero hits and spent about $15, Any tips or insights into this? #VCBuzz
— Phillip ??‍? (@PhilldotBlog) October 1, 2019

Tough to say without more info, but I would guess it’s a combination of targeting and how you promoted the post. I’ve never had luck just “boosting” posts in FB.

See if you can define your audience a little more tightly, and then set up an objective-based campaign through FB ads rather than boosting (if that’s what you did).

Q3 What are some best (and easiest) ways to invest in PPC while saving money?

My #1 recommendation is to hire a professional. 🙂 Seems counter intuitive, but will save you $$ in the long run by avoiding costly mistakes.

Other ways to save are to invest in tools that will help you spot problems in your accounts. Invest in training, too – a lot of training is free!

And ask questions, like in this chat! That’s how I learned in the early days.

Also be very careful of your targeting: keywords, geos, etc. Tighten it up!

Best way to do that? Should we use more narrow keywords/interest or demographics? #vcbuzz
— Jessy Troy (@jessytroy) October 1, 2019

Yes, along with geotargeting if applicable. That said, there is a balance between being targeted and shrinking your audience too small for scale. Takes practice! It can be tricky. Takes some trial and error. Remember, almost nothing in PPC is permanent – optimize away!

Would you recommend getting certified? #vcbuzz
— Hire Bloggers (@hireblogger) October 1, 2019

Start with the courses offered by the big engines: Google, Microsoft, Facebook. Follow Twitter chats like this one and #ppcchat, #fbadschat

Q4 How to achieve more results with PPC ads?

Simple: Track and test! Always track everything, even if your goal is reach or awareness. Chances are, you or your client will want to know if any sales or leads were generated.

And always test creative – it’s one of the best features of PPC! You can test headlines, descriptions, images (for social), landing pages… Small changes can make a big difference.

And as I said to @jessytroy – almost nothing in PPC is permanent and you can’t really break things. Test! Optimize! If you try something and it doesn’t work, pause and try something else!

Just always be sure to set daily budget limits and don’t set your bids at $100 🙂

The ability to test your headlines and creatives is also helpful for audience research, outside of PPC channel! #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) October 1, 2019

Yes! Use PPC to vet new language, headlines, calls to action. You’ll quickly learn what resonates and performs.

My best advice is to ALWAYS start VERY targeted: exact match and as many negative keywords as you can come up with in whatever form those are still available. Monitor new ad groups closely and keep tweaking so you don't overspend. #vcbuzz
— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) October 1, 2019

Q5 What are your favorite PPC tools?

I love @AdAlysis for ad copy test analysis and optimization recommendations – and they’re adding new features every day. Invaluable tool.

We use @Acquisio for bid and budget management and find it saves tons of time – and gets us better results. They have a great reporting suite too.

Google Ads scripts are great too, and there are lots of places to find free scripts. Free scripts are a great way to get DIY PPC success.

And of course the engine editors, Google Ads Editor and Microsoft Ads Editor, are invaluable and also free!

Google Analytics is another great free tool!

How do you use GA for PPC tracking? Is there any setup beyond associating the properties #vcbuzz
— Jessy Troy (@jessytroy) October 1, 2019

@jessytroy Use all the UTM parameters you can: source, medium, content, keyword – if applicable. Make sure you have goals and/or events set up so you can track the results of your campaign. #vcbuzz
— Melissa Mackey (@Mel66) October 1, 2019

And don’t underestimate the value of MS Excel skills. Not a day goes by that I’m not analyzing something in Excel.

I’m consistently amazed at the depth of functionality and data in GA. Do they actually know they’re giving this away FOR FREE!? #vcbuzz
— Chad M. Crabtree (@ChadMCrabtree) October 1, 2019

For keyword research: Answer the Public and UberSuggest are good alternatives to the Google keyword tool.