View Full Version : PPC management is like painting...
...and I'm not talking artistic.
Prompted by this thread http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?p=8311 and in an attempt to stop it going off topic.
Marcia asked:
"do you think there is really a deliberate hatred toward SEOs, or do you think it's possible that there's a natural antipathy between the SEO crowd and the PPC crowd?"
I don't think there is a natural antipathy, it just seems to have gone that way. There is certainly some conflict there, I think the root comes from SEO's and those who were formally known as SEO's but are now PPC guys, the newer batch of PPC providors don't seem to be affected.
I find it a very strange dynamic, both parties are to blame but I can only give my "SEO till I die" view, although in fairness we spend just about 6 figures a year PPC [$ not real money].
In a previous life I owned a scrap yard, maybe known as a junk yard in the US. We broke cars into little bits for the parts and the metal value. To be honest that tends to make you a little full of yourself, all day spent ripping things to pieces [including on occasion other people] tends to make you feel bigger than you are.
We also had a big warehouse to store the parts, which was the subject of a bad fire, as they usually are. The insurance company sent some painters to re-paint the warehouse and although in the end we all ended up as friends it was a rocky start.
There was certainly a natural antipathy between us ruffty tuffty scrap yard boys and the the painters. We saw painting as a girls job, after all my mother did the painting round our house and there is a popular UK saying that "if you can piss you can paint", we saw very little craft or skill in painting.
I see parallels in that with the SEO / PPC crowd. SEO's think we are the scrap yard boys, the PPC guys are just painters.
yellowwing
08-10-2004, 10:59 PM
PPC and SEO are both sustained by client investment. I have limited knowledge of PPC, with only 2 major campaigns under my belt.
As a true SEO warrior, I still think organic results are the way to go. As an SEO I believe we are pulling money out of linguistic skills, as opposed to my perception of PPC pulling money out of raw numbers.
What I do not fully comprehend is the sales staff being able to close sales on PPC more easily, as opposed to organic SEO.
Client perception may be a part of it. Selling SEO as "You might get as low as $.12 per customer," for organic as opposed to PPC, "It will cost you $1.12 per customer." That uncertainy of hard numbers, seems to turn off the client.
As SEOs, what do we need to provide to the sales staff on hard ROI?
seobook
08-10-2004, 11:32 PM
What I do not fully comprehend is the sales staff being able to close sales on PPC more easily, as opposed to organic SEO.
its the whole 3 days vs 3 months concept.
cline
08-10-2004, 11:34 PM
What I do not fully comprehend is the sales staff being able to close sales on PPC more easily, as opposed to organic SEO.
PPC is much easier to explain. It's about bidding, ad copy, and CTR. Clients can grasp that. In conparison, SEO is voodoo.
AussieWebmaster
08-11-2004, 12:14 AM
[QUOTE=yellowwing]What I do not fully comprehend is the sales staff being able to close sales on PPC more easily, as opposed to organic SEO.QUOTE]
PPC is much easier to explain. It's about bidding, ad copy, and CTR. Clients can grasp that. In conparison, SEO is voodoo.
Actually I think SEO is relatively simple, at least as far as the optimizing side goes (the writing is definitely the challenging element). Explaining it to others can be simple but then they think you are holding something back.
PPC is like poker... you have measurements to constantly keep an eye on.
littleman
08-11-2004, 05:56 PM
Truth is any monkey can do PPC management, it is the reason why so many people in pressed suits have entered the business. Most of the heads of marketing departments are monkeys as well, it is easier to sell monkey service to a monkey than to explain why there is potentially 1,000% higher return on investment for optimizing a site.
monkey told problem, monkey need quick fix, monkey hire PPC/SEM firm, monkey sees pretty graph, monkey's boss happy, monkey get new budget, keep job...
Chris Boggs
08-11-2004, 06:07 PM
My take on the whole thing is kind of like Aussie's, to a point. The explanation is easy to come-up with, but very hard to bang through into someone's head. For example: the constant whining that an industry "hot word" or nickname/shorthand should be included within optimization efforts even though we know that the term isn't searched (eg: "aerial production" in the world of helicopters). It takes a long time to convince someone a word is useless in an SEO sense, but only one month of data in the PPC sense.
Many of my clients when I was a consultant in San Diego were very interested in SEO, however abandonned any planned changes on their sites when the PPC leads started pouring in. They figured, "why mess with the site now that I'm getting calls?" As we know with the constant increase in PPC costs, particularly in certain industries, they will eventually be wishing they had optimized.
As far as the Poker analogy, this is true but isn't that what effective marketing is all about: research? Cline has got it right on the head as well as seobook.
dstew
08-11-2004, 06:49 PM
When I used to work for a company that farmed my services out, the sales guy always wanted to bring me along to meet clients :(
he would always refer to what I did as "some sort of black magic", or he wwould call me, "the guru". It's not just normal people that I have a hard time getting through to, it's sales people too. Maybe it's just me, but I can talk about virtually anything and people are interested. I start talking about search engines and their eyes glaze over. And I might be saying something as simple as, "You know, good content is where it all starts..." :confused: <GLAZE> :confused:
I think people just have a preconceived idea that it's much too difficult to learn, so they just stop listening.
Marcia
08-12-2004, 09:11 AM
>>preconceived idea that it's much too difficult to learn, so they just stop listening.
Then there's less they can mess up trying to optimize their sites from reading some of the goofy stuff that's out there. Besides, there are plenty of people actively lookng for SEO.
PPC is bookkeeping.
dstew
08-12-2004, 11:23 AM
>>Then there's less they can mess up trying to optimize their sites from reading some of the goofy stuff that's out there.
Boy that's the truth. I've seen some goofy things lately, but what concerns me is the spam I've received over the last several months. We've seen people in SE forums posting where they got burned by this or that company.
You're right about people always looking for SEO, but it almost takes an SEO not to get burned by these idiots selling SEO snake oil. :mad:
ScottM
08-12-2004, 06:32 PM
I see parallels in that with the SEO / PPC crowd. SEO's think we are the scrap yard boys, the PPC guys are just painters.
It's much easier to sell a PPC deal to a client. Most clients don't even understand organic listings even after you explain it to them. We've almost stopped even mentioning SEO. People just don't understand it.
We just tell them we'll find them qualified leads on the SE's with SEM.
I agree with NFFC. I worked at a steel factory for 20 years. When bankers showed up in the little suits I felt the same way.
Nothing against PPC, it's that...well..I'd rather have that money myself. I can sell SEM (even if it means that I actually do SEO). SEO is just too hard to sell.
grnidone
08-17-2004, 05:14 PM
Truth is any monkey can do PPC management...
Is there anything wrong with that, Littleman?
OptimizeOnline
08-17-2004, 06:44 PM
I see parallels in that with the SEO / PPC crowd. SEO's think we are the scrap yard boys, the PPC guys are just painters.
Oh, to me it's so much more than that. I see the SEM (SEO + PPC) guys as the architects!
>SEM (SEO + PPC) guys as the architects
Nah, SEO = Architects, PPC = painters ;)
AussieWebmaster
08-17-2004, 08:39 PM
Well I do both SEO and PPC management and they sure pay me a lot of bananas!
dstew
08-17-2004, 11:30 PM
Well I do both SEO and PPC management and they sure pay me a lot of bananas!
I prefer peaches and apples, but sometimes will settle for a banana or two...
Chris Boggs
08-18-2004, 10:30 AM
is that why Thorpe is so big, Aussie, you guys get paid bananas over there?
Marcia
08-18-2004, 12:32 PM
The way I look at the difference is that PPC is is like crunching numbers and being a bookkeeper, while SEO is investigative and inquiring, something like being an IRS auditor. Different skill-set - one deals with counting and the other deals with logic.
AussieWebmaster
08-18-2004, 09:30 PM
is that why Thorpe is so big, Aussie, you guys get paid bananas over there?
Yep... and we don't reach for the low lying fruit... the real tasty stuff is way up in the trees.
Though Thorpe's length cost him the race yesterday... he went for the stretch instead of another stroke.
Chris Boggs
08-19-2004, 09:43 AM
Marcia I don't know if I agree with you: going over a monthly PPC report and creating an analysis for a client is crunching numbers, but finding the logical next step within those numbers is a little more. The reports that are then produced for clients analyzing the data requires up-to-date industry knowledge as well as further investigation into the target market behavior. This takes an artistic touch too :)
AussieWebmaster
08-19-2004, 06:54 PM
Marcia I don't know if I agree with you: going over a monthly PPC report and creating an analysis for a client is crunching numbers, but finding the logical next step within those numbers is a little more. The reports that are then produced for clients analyzing the data requires up-to-date industry knowledge as well as further investigation into the target market behavior. This takes an artistic touch too :)
Come on I was getting used to being called a monkey....