B2B in PPC 2022, Managing Expectations in This New Age of PPC, PPC Live UK and More

Hello and Happy Juneteenth to my US subscribers. Thank you again for joining me for the 5th edition of this newsletter. Packed with the very interesting two topics we covered in the last two PPChat Roundup podcast episodes. I'll also share the latest on PPC Live UK - the only event that will cost you just £8 to hear 3 expert speakers talk at an evening event on July 28th in East London. I'll finish off by mentioning another area that I am passionately working on. Enjoy!

---

#PPCChat Roundup Podcast🎙

It has been two weeks, so that means we have two episodes to catch you up with. We started off by talking about B2B in PPC it wasn't quite Google Marketing Live chat - but it did evolve from that chat because with all the updates Google came out with, there seemed to be no mention of how any of these updates will help B2B brands. There were lots of success stories of Retail and E-commerce brands for sure but not a peep about B2B and the PPCChat community was not happy. So we talked about what is working, which platforms we use, and what we would wish for in regards to solutions if we had Google would listen to us. Here are a few of my favorite snippets from the chat where it was shared things people aren't happy about:

Melissa L Mackey @beyondthepaid

A6: Give us more control over where our ads serve. Show us more of our search queries. Don't force us into automation - it's great in some cases but DOES NOT WORK in many. Fix your audience matching or give us more ways to match people. Work with the DMPs. #ppcchat

Robert Brady @robert_brady

A5: Google's offline conversion import (OCI) only takes conversion value updates for 60 days. I know lots of B2B that has a sale cycle longer than 60 days. Other platforms have similar issue. Machine learning isn't built right now to handle long sales cycles. #ppcchat

Steve Hammer @armondhammer

A5: The complete lack of attention it gets from every company not named linkedin. #ppcchat

Following our B2B rant session, we talked about Managing Expectations in this New Age of PPC. With there being so much to manage with there being updates nearly every day/week/month - it is hard to keep up. Where we were confident of being on top of the updates and knew enough to fully train our clients years ago, now it's clear that we are in the learning phase at the same time as our clients. Unsurprisingly we all agreed that it is very important now more than ever to set expectations, we also shared the formats we share expectations, how it has changed over time and what we wished clients would know about Paid Search. I wrote an article to this effect because no matter what changes, I think if clients are aware of this - the conversations with them will be a lot less frustrating. Again - some of my favorite snippets:

Sophie Logan @marketingsoph

A5. That there’s no magic button that we’re just ‘not pressing’. Search is becoming more & more complex & achieving results (for the average business) isn’t easy. We’re always working to get them the best results but sometimes it’s easier said than done. #PPCChat

Shaun Elley @selley2134

A5: Today's PPC is much different than even ppc 2 years ago. We as advertisers have less data & less levers to pull. Also the amount of time it takes to stay up on all the changes. #PPCChat

Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon

A5: Search advertising has crossed into being a mature platform. It is no longer the place where David regularly beats out Goliath. It's set up for Goliaths, so Davids have to work a lot harder now & spend more. Automation has upended EVERYTHING as you've known it. #PPCChat

So yes lots of opinions shared about the current state of PPC in the B2B world and how things are changing on a regular basis.

So please go check those episodes out - there are lots to learn from them and if you have listened to more than 30 seconds of it, why don’t you take 5 seconds of your time to leave a rating/review?

PPC Live UK🗣

In just over a month - PPC Live UK will be opening its doors for the first time to the PPC community in the UK who want to hear about the latest in using third-party data to inform your Paid Search activity, what the pillars of PPC are and how not to approach automation. It's exciting times and I am sure it will be one for the books.

We are looking for sponsors. We already have Marin Software and Silvertip Digital sponsoring us but we are in need of a few more to help sponsor a camera person to record the session so we can make it available online after the event and also sponsor some drinks for our speakers and audience as well. If you are interested or know of a company that would be interested please do let me know.

Women in PPC📣

I am very passionate about empowering women and part of that is also highlighting the very unfair bias towards more white men being on stage. It truly frustrates me. I recently came across another conference being run in the US where 4 out of 23 of the lineup were women, down from 8 out of 25 being women last year. I don't know about you but, I find that unacceptable. Thankfully there was a lot of support for this.

Anu Adegbola aka TheMarketingAnu on LinkedIn: #LinkInComments #TheMarketingAnu — www.linkedin.com

The problem persists. In a conference speaker line-up in this day and age does it actually make sense that the proportion that makes up white males is ...

I am also convinced that we as women need to and can do something about this. We can be more vocal, stand up for what we believe in, be our biggest cheerleader, and go after those senior roles that for some reason we have convinced ourselves we aren't suitable for. I have created a Women in PPC slack group and I would love for you to join us in empowering each other to get further ahead in this male-dominated industry. We also have a LinkedIn Group and Twitter community for you to join.

Conclusion

So there you have it. That is what I have been working on over the past two weeks. I have learned a lot and grown a tonne. If you have any feedback please send it to minsdwanppc@gmail.com with “Newsletter Feedback” in the subject line. I really do want to ensure you are getting news that you enjoy. And if you really did like it, please tell your colleagues, family, friends, and pets too. 😉

If you don’t feel you are benefitting from this newsletter as well, click the unsubscribe link below. No hard feelings - I promise.

Feel free to connect with me on Twitter or on LinkedIn

Hope to speak to you in a couple of weeks.

Anu Adegbola aka TheMarketingAnu.