Today I am delighted to present an interview with Bethany Bey, PPC Hero Blog Manager at Hanapin Marketing.
Laura: To start with, tell us a little about yourself and your background.
Bethany: I have lived in Indiana my whole life. I attended Indiana University (go Hoosiers!) from 2004-2008 and got my degree in Marketing and Management. I also got a minor in Gender Studies that I have yet to use in the real world. I then got my MBA from Valparaiso University in 2010.
Laura: Why did you decide to join the PPC industry?
Bethany: I didn’t know anything about PPC before starting work at Hanapin. I had applied for an internship here while in grad school (which I didn’t get but no hard feelings…) so had done a little research into what PPC was. When applications for full-time positions opened again I applied and got it! Now I’ve fallen in love with PPC. It also helps that I’ve been in love with Excel for years.
Laura: Has becoming a paid search professional changed the way you view online advertisements? In what ways?
Bethany: When I would search on Google I always avoided clicking on ads. The word “advertisement” had a negative connotation in my mind. I thought if I clicked on any of these ads I would certainly be spammed. I assumed no one ever clicked on these ads, but it turns out I was wrong. Very wrong.
Now I know how much thought goes into what ads to show to which people and what landing page to direct them to. Now, I trust the PPC ads to direct me to the web page I’m looking for more than organic listings. Although I still feel a little bad when I click and don’t convert, knowing some PPC account manager somewhere out there is seeing their conversion rate decrease.
Laura: Which, if any, best practices do you always follow when managing PPC accounts?
Bethany: Keep it organized! I create small ad groups, which highly targeted ads and clearly label all my campaigns. Having an organized account allows me to analyze performance and make decisions quickly.
Laura: Are there any features that you would love to see AdWords and/or adCenter come out with in the future?
Bethany: AdCenter, please please please create a desktop editor that works on a Mac. I’d also like to see Remarketing come to adCenter since it works so well for our AdWords accounts. In general, I’m just waiting for adCenter to catch up to where AdWords is.
In AdWords, I’m excited for ads to become even more interactive. They’re made great strides with ad extensions and I can only imagine what the future will hold. I’m also interested to see what happens with ads as television and the Internet become even more integrated.
Laura: What is the story behind PPC Hero? How did the super hero character come into play?
Bethany: PPC Hero began on March 12, 2007 (Happy 5th Anniversary!). The team noticed that there were a ton of SEM blogs about SEO, but only a few that focused on PPC. PPC Hero was created to teach people how to become great PPC managers and help our readers defeat all the PPC villains they may come across while working in their accounts.
Laura: What is your greatest challenge as the PPC Hero blog manager?
Bethany: I would say the greatest challenge is to make sure we are giving our readers the type of content they want and communicating it in a clear way. We are often the first to test out new PPC features and it’s up to us to share our experiences with our readers. We love getting feedback from our readers about what they are interested in hearing about. That’s why we installed a feature on the blog asking what we should write about next. These submissions help keep us in tune with the needs of our readers.
Laura: Thank you for your time, Bethany!
Bethany will be presenting about solving frustrations and opportunities of a PPC Manager during the PPC Plus: Additional Strategies panel at Hero Conf on April 16-17, 2012 in Indianapolis, IN. Hero Conf’s early bird deadline has been extended until March 23, so there’s still time to register with the discounted pricing! For more information, check out our awesome speakers list, our justify your trip document, or the agenda.
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Bethany began working at Hanapin Marketing after graduating with her MBA in August 2010. She has worked with clients both small and large to decrease cost per lead and drive sales and revenue. Bethany works with one of Hanapin’s longest tenure clients who spends a combined $100,000 in PPC monthly. She also manages Hanapin’s industry award winning blog, PPC Hero, increasing traffic by 78% since taking over this role. Bethany has written several of the most popular articles on PPC Hero, and has been a guest blog author on WordStream, Portent Interactive, BoostCTR, and Trada. Follow on Twitter @Bethany_Bey.
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