Wijnand MeijerCo-founder & CEOTrue Clicks NL

A framework to prioritize all PPC activities

wijnand@trueclicks.com | linkedin.com/in/wijnandmeijer

Setting priorities as a team and as a specialist

The team

Mon

itor

ing

(dai

ly)

Urgent issues

Errors

Disapprovals

Anomalies

Expected budget deviation

Query mining

Activity

Aud

itin

g (w

eekl

y) Essentials

Cost-saving opportunities

Growth opportunities

Account hygiene issues

The specialist

3

The Team: Introducing Andrew Miller’s accountability triangle

The Team: Assess your own triangle

The Specialist: Introducing our Prioritization Framework

The Specialist: Free tools and scripts to make sure you don’t miss anything

2

1

4

Today’s topics

But first, some definitions

Some definitionsAccountability: This belongs to the ONE person who has the “ability to count” – who is tracking the progress and giving voice (screaming loudly) when issues arise within a defined task, team, function or division. It doesn’t mean he or she makes all the decisions (or even any decisions) – which is why people often talk about leaderless teams. However, someone must still be accountable.

The rule: If more than one person is accountable, then no one is accountable and that’s when things fall through the cracks.

Responsibility: This falls to anyone with the “ability to respond” proactively to support the team. It includes all the people who touch a particular process or issue.

Authority: This belongs to the person or team with the final decision-making power.

One-page tools to assess current accountability

• Function Accountability Chart (FACe)

• Process Accountability Chart (PACe)

scalingup.com

The Team:

The PPC accountability triangle

The PPC AnalystAccount managerPPC ConsultantPPC Specialist

Introducing the 3 key players

Source: Andrew Miller - Improve Your PPC Team's Accountability

• Manages the day-to-day PPC campaign optimization.

• Provides regular reporting and tracks progress towards campaign objectives.

The PPC Team ManagerPPC Team LeadDirector of Paid (Search)Head of PPC / Paid

Introducing the 3 key players

• Coaches and supervises a team of PPC Analysts to accomplish client objectives.

• Responsible for overall performance but usually not involved in daily campaign management.

The ClientCMOMarketing DirectorE-commerce Director“The advertiser”

Introducing the 3 key players

• Provides the overall business objectives and pays the bills.

• Usually has authority to hire and fire agencies or in-house teams.

Accountability flows in all directions

Analysts are responsible for results

Managers are responsible for process

Clients are responsible for feedback

The Team:

Assess your own triangle

The complete accountability triangle

• A total of 19 ‘deliverables’ flowing in all directions.

• Are you tracking how each player is performing on these deliverables?

• Do you have a plan or system for each player to improve their results, team and feedback?

• Improving on these 19 deliverables will inevitably lead to both higher client as well as employee satisfaction.

First step:

Take Andrew Miller’s self-assessment (per client team if you’re an agency) on: go.trueclicks.com/team

Honest self-assessment

The Team:

How can the manager and the advertiser improve?

Improve the team

• Provide training and coaching.

• Write clear job descriptions and review performance accordingly.

• Have an open-door policy.

• Align process with company objectives.

• Don’t direct people, train them to self-direct.

Helpful tools

HR Project Management

Improve feedback

• Set realistic, measurable goals.

• Provide timely approvals and feedback.

• Understand that digital marketing can’t solve every business problem.

• Show appreciation for your PPC team’s effort.

Helpful tools

+ Project Management

The Specialist: Introducing our

Prioritization Framework

The TrueClicks Framework™

Monitoring (daily)

Urgent issues

Account down

Broken / out of stock

landing pages

Conversion tracking down

Errors

Conflicts

Accidental mistakes

Empty elements

Active Standard Text

Ads

Disapprovals

Disapproved ads

Disapproved extensions

Disapproved keywords

Disapproved feed items

Anomalies

In cost, conversions,

etc.

Expected budget

deviation

Compared to (monthly)

target budget

Query mining

N-gram analysis

Mismatches

Promote queries to keywords

Activity

Number of recent human

changes

Quality of recent

changes

Auditing (weekly)

Essentials

Tracking

Landing pages

Quality score

Basic ad testing and extensions

Granular ad groups

Cost-saving opportunities

Applying negative &

exclusion lists

Underperforming segments

Underperforming targeting

options

Growth opportunities

Impression & click share

Unused extensions

Top of page visibility

Audiences

Unused targeting options

Responsive Ads

Account hygiene issues

Duplicate keywords &

ads

Consistent naming

convention

Non-serving keywords

Monitoring for issuesSo you can fix them right away

• When: at least daily

• How: With scripts and/or tools, not humanly possible (or humane if it was possible) to do this daily for all ads, keywords, etc.

• Output: alerts by email (+ Slack/SMS) when issues arise + a daily updated dashboard with clear pass/fail status

Urgent issues Disapprovals Errors

Query mining

The categories

Monitoring for changes

Anomalies Account activity Budget deviation

So you can correct course if needed

• When: at least weekly for medium/low volume accounts, daily for high volume accounts

• How: built-in comparison tools, daily/weekly updated dashboards (e.g. Data Studio), scripts and/or tools

• Output: quantifying the (lack of) change and explaining it. Human touch: next steps to make it better (if needed).

Auditing

Essentials Cost-savingopportunities

Growth opportunities Account hygiene issues

So you can find waste and opportunities

Human audit:

• When: at least quarterly

• How: checklists, scorecards, templates

Output: scores & specific recommendations.

Bonus output: expected impact of implementing the recommendation, expressed as: savings in time, savings in money, expected increase in clicks, conversions or revenue.

Automated audit:

• When: as often as it can provide new insights (e.g. weekly for dynamic accounts)

• How: built-in recommendations, scripts, tools

The Specialist: Free scripts and tools to

speed up your work

Monitoring for issues 1/2Which free tools and scripts can keep on eye on these things and alert you?

For a complete list of free and paid solutions see my PPC StackScapes overview

Urgent issues

Large scale link checker

Scan your landing pages (e.g. “out of stock”)

Check if account is offline

Errors

Negative keyword conflicts

ETA transitionhelperSpell check your text ads

"Screw up" checks

Monitor offensive videos (YouTube) to exclude video placements

Recommendations àRepairs

Costly errors checker

Monitoring for issues 2/2Which free tools and scripts can keep on eye on these things and alert you?

Query MiningDisapprovals

Delete all disapproved ads

Email notification preferencesDo this at the highest MCC level and select your accounts

Recommendations àRepairs

Disapproved ad alert

Monitor close variants

Find n-grams

Same query in different ad groups

Google Merchant Center disapprovals

Make exact match exact again

Adjective analysis

Monitoring for changesWhich free tools and scripts can keep on eye on these things and alert you?

Budget Deviation

Set recurring monthly budgets

Activity: no free automation available based on the change history, except automated rules

Anomalies

Account anomaly checker

Custom alerts

Insights from Intelligence

Explanations (beta) Campaign groups performance targets (Clicks à Spend)

AuditingWhich free tools and scripts can generate an actionable analysis?

Essentials Cost-savingopportunities

Growth opportunities

Account hygiene

Recommendations

Recommendations

Recommendations

Recommendations

Keyword cleanup

Label duplicate ads

Keyword labeler

Campaign-level Audiences Transition

Master negative listAccount auditor

Underperforming GDN placements

Quality Score trackerEvaluate Quality Score factors in bulkLabel and pause losing ads

Increase bids on cheap conversions

Next Steps

The PPC Analyst

• Discuss assessment results with your manager.

• Take advantage of available (free) solutions to quickly spot issues and opportunities.

• Perform quarterly audits on each other’s accounts (not your own).

Next steps

The Team Manager

• Fill in the self-assessment with your team.

• Set up processes and tools to improve the weak and average areas.

• Perform another assessment in 3 months to compare results.

The Advertiser

• Discuss relevant parts of assessment results with the team manager.

• If needed: make goals clearer, more realistic and better measurable.

• If needed: improve speed and quality of feedback and approvals.