Month by month we would like to gradually introduce you to the full Sayu team.  Since the launch of our newsletter in December 2007, we have introduced you to many of our account managers.  In our penultimate feature on our account managers, we would like to introduce you to Alan. In this interview, Alan shares with us his experience of the adwords system, and gives us some handy tips for anyone considering PPC for their business.

15 questions, for your 15 minutes of fame

1.  What five words best describe you?
Hard working, reliable, friendly, helpful, hairy

2.  How long have you been working for Sayu?
Almost 3 months

3.  What attracted you to the role of becoming an account manager at Sayu?
Prior to working for Sayu I worked for YooNoo (and latterly eXpansys) as a sales guy selling GPS and other consumer electronics.  I was based in the same office as the Sayu guys and you could hear the Google AdWords stuff going on in the background.  I always found what they did really interesting and intriguing, as I've always been a bit of an anorak for stats and that kind of thing.  Fortunately for me, Kevin announced he was leaving and the management team of Sayu, who knew my strengths, offered me the position of Account Manager.  I like a challenge, so I suppose it was that and the inner anorak that attracted me.

4.  What training was involved in becoming a Google Adwords Professional?
A LOT of reading! The Google AdWords Learning Centre was a huge source of information for me.  I worked through all the sections doing the quizzes, which proved invaluable when I took and passed the AdWords Professional exam 3 weeks after starting the job.  Also working through dummy accounts and actually doing the work; creating adgroups, compiling keyword lists, creating accounts from scratch, that kind of thing also went a long way to helping me get to where I am.

5.  What are the key responsibilities of a PPC account manager?
To have a good relationship with the client and keep in contact on a regular basis.  You have to understand what they want to achieve from their campaign and help to point them in the right direction so they can achieve their goals, whether that be to make more profit from their account or drive more traffic to their web site.

6.  What kinds of problems have you been faced with so far?
There are bigger things like implementing conversion tracking on a web site where there are only links to external web sites, Trademark issues within Keywords and Text Ads (although these have eased with Google's new Trademark Policy and being able to search on Trademarked terms) and that kind of thing.  Always varied, never dull.

7.  When you first start working on an account, what mistakes do you find are often made by businesses when they set up a PPC account?
I often find accounts with one campaign, which has one adgroup, with about 20 broad term keywords in it, and showing only 1 text ad.

8.  Briefly, what do you do to optimize an account?
The main thing is expanding the top performing keywords out into more specific adgroups.  We also create new keyword lists with filler terms to try and get the long tail keywords.  We add [exact] and negative keywords and create new text ads.

9.  What affect do these techniques have on a PPC account?
AdGroups need to be split up into more specific groups.  It means the keywords in each group can be more specific, which in turn means that the text ads can be more specific.  Specific text ads results in targeted clicks, meaning you are more likely to get a conversion. It also helps to improve your quality score and helps your CTR (Click Through Rate).

10.  And the results?
In turn these techniques can help to lower your CPC (Cost Per Click) and drive more profitable traffic to your site; giving you a more profitable advertising campaign.

11.  This month, Google Adwords is expected to incorporate landing page load time into the quality score.  How do you expect this to affect your clients?
Most of my clients won't be affected.  I do have one client who has a lot of pictures on his landing page and so a fairly long load time.  I have advised reducing the size of the pictures to make it a bit quicker, but so far Google haven't had a problem with it. 

12.  What is the most rewarding aspect of your job?
Seeing your hard work pay off for a client

13. So far, what do you enjoy most about this industry?
Variety.  No two days are the same; you couldn't get bored with it.  There is always something new to explore or utilize.  The industry is changing daily and it keeps you on your toes.
 
14. What are the benefits of working for a small/ medium sized business?
It's more relaxed and more personal.  You know everyone, so you all pull together to make a success of it and because you know everyone so well, your work colleagues are also friends.

15. What advice can you give to anyone considering PPC for their business?
Give us a call. :-) Failing that, break the web site down in to categories (these will be your campaigns) and then those into sub-categories (AdGroups).  Try to make each sub-category as specific as possible so that you can target your ads better.  Make sure your ads are eye-catching, but also specific and that the Ad Headline contains the keyword.  Keyword Insertion is a good way to do this.