10 important interview questions to expect for a PPC Marketing job

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is not a new term when we talk about Digital Marketing. PPC is a form of Marketing in which marketers have to pay a certain amount of money as a fee every time one of their ads is clicked. PPC Marketing is basically buying visits to your website unlike other Marketing forms where you earn these visits from.

PPC Marketing will not only continue but will also grow in the coming period which will generate good job opportunities in PPC Marketing career. All you got to do is search for good opportunities and hook up an interview for yourself. Now if you have scheduled an interview for a PPC Marketing job, then which questions do you think are likely to be shot at you by the interviewer? No idea? Well, we have compiled a list of 10 most important and frequent questions and answers to them that will surely help you crack the interview and earn you your dream PPC job.

10 PPC Job Interview Questions

1. What is the difference between PPC Marketing and Internet Marketing?

Answer: Pay-Per-Click Marketing (PPC) specifically aims at search engines and social media channels to market your Business. It is in the form of paid search results where ads are aimed to display greater exposure for targeted keywords at minimum possible cost. Marketers usually go for PPC Marketing when they exclusively want their Ads to be seen at the top of search engine results page.

On the other hand, Online Marketing is a very wide concept wherein you have different range of channels like Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing, etc.

2. What do you understand by Quality Score in PPC Marketing?

Answer: Google rates the quality and relevance of both your keywords and PPC ads which are used to determine your cost per click (CPC). It is then multiplied by your maximum bid to determine your ad rank in the ad auction process. Quality score depends on various factors such as:

• Click through rate (CTR) – CTR is a metric that measures the number of clicks advertisers receive on their ads per their number of impressions

• keyword relevance to its ad group

• Quality and relevance of your landing page

• Relevance of your Ad text

• Account history.

Quality score is correlated to your PPC success. The better your Quality score is the more your Ads will be effective.

3. How to reduce costs of paid search campaigns?

Answer: Some of the ideas to reduce cost of paid search campaigns are:

• You can A/B test your ad copies and landing pages to find out the best converting ads and pages to get maximum ROI out of your campaigns.

• When using all types of keyword for your campaign, always try and bid highest on the exact match, followed by the phrase, then broad modified and finally broad match. It can help you in decreasing your cost by almost 20%-25%.

• If your business is on a global scale then find the geographies, in the location settings, where your campaign is not converting the visitors into customers as per your expectations and then you can either remove them completely from your campaign locations or put a minimum bid for those locations. Always be location specific when you are a little low on bids and budget.

• You can observe those days in a week, on which your campaigns are not converting and can possibly lower down your bids for those particular days as well.

4. How do you differentiate paid search programs of Google and Yahoo?

Answer: Differentiation between paid search programs of Google, MSN and Yahoo can be done with the advantages and disadvantages of the same.

Google AdWords

Advantage – Google AdWords offers the most robust paid search campaign program. It can help you to get majority of paid search traffic as Google tops the list of search engine platforms.

Disadvantage – Because of its advantage, large number of marketers use Google AdWords for PPC Marketing which makes its cost per click more expensive than MSN and Yahoo.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

Advantage – Yahoo offers a lower pay per click cost compared to Google AdWords and it has a pretty decent PPC interface.

Disadvantage – The reporting features of Yahoo! Search Marketing lacks effectiveness. This is where Google AdWords steps up.

Choosing the right paid search program should be based on the objective, target and budget of your business.

5. How can you describe building keyword list?

Answer: Keyword list building is a skillful task. It is the vital element in PPC Marketing as keyword is the factor which majorly decides the success of your PPC Marketing effort. Choosing right and perfect keywords can get you maximum traffic and conversions and choosing the irrelevant or wrong ones can burn down your Ad campaign to ashes. Systematic steps should be taken to build keywords. They can be:

• Identifying your audience

• Reviewing your existing offerings

• Looking and observing your competitors

• Checking web analytics results carefully

• Expanding keywords using various tools

e.g. Google AdWords keyword Planner or any Keyword expansion site.

6. What is geo –targeting? Describe a strategy on geo-targeting ads.

Answer: Geo-targeting is basically targeting your Ads to a certain or multiple location(s). There are various ways to target your campaign geographically on the basis of:

• City, state, country and region

• Designated market area (DMA)

• ZIP code

• Radius around a point.

You can mix and match it to a certain extent. Marketers can improve their ROI by being more creative in their targeting methodology.
IP filter can be a great and simple way to target your Ads geographically. E.g. if you want to advertise for “PPC China” keyword only to users who are located in China, then an IP targeting methodology will only display the ads if their location (IP address) is associated with China.

7. What is CPA bidding in AdWords?

Answer: Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding is a bidding method that enables you to tell AdWords the amount of money you are willing to pay for a conversion. It helps you in reaching to the customers who are likely to take action on your website. In short, it targets on maximizing conversions. There are 2 types of CPA bid types:

• Target CPA – It is an average amount you would be willing to pay for a conversion. The cost per conversion (CPC) should average to the Target CPA you set.

• Maximum CPA – It is a maximum amount you would be willing to pay for each conversion. Most of your bids will be below your maximum CPA when you use Conversion Optimizer.

8. What is Google MCC?

Answer: Google MCC (My Client Center) is a very useful tool for marketing experts and third parties. It helps you to handle multiple Adwords accounts easily from a single location.

Its advantages are:

• View relevant information of all linked accounts in one single dashboard

• Track performance, find accounts, manage budgets

• Manage all accounts very efficiently using the alerts-summary page, which displays all alerts for linked accounts

• Generate reports across multiple client accounts

• Manage separate billing for each client.

9. How can you improve conversion rates?

Answer: An important element in any PPC Marketing campaign is the conversion rate. It enables you to measure how many consumers you can turn into your customers, which in turn earns you more money. There are many factors which can improve your conversion rate in PPC advertising. Establishing trust with your visitors, solving visitor’s problems, making firm recommendations, identifying the landing page goals, leading visitors to the right landing page, inserting your keywords on the landing page, optimizing the landing page and analyzing and finally evaluating the performance of your landing Page are some steps you can take to improve your conversion rate.

10. What is Google Adwords remarketing?

Answer: AdWords remarketing is a targeted marketing strategy which allows marketers to reach the people who previously visited their website but did not take any action or did not experience conversion. It is another way to match the right people with right Ad.

According to Google ” Remarketing is a tool that can drive ROI for all types of advertisers, regardless of the focus of your campaigns (brand-oriented, performance-driven, etc.) or your ad formats…you can then remarket to those users who reach your site by showing them tailored ads on sites throughout the Google Display Network.”

E.g. if someone visits your website, Google puts a tracking code in their browser. When that same person visits any other website, Google display network makes your Ad appear to him on the website he is currently on. You yourself might have noticed this.

These were some of the questions with which you can prepare yourself for your PPC job interview and impress the interviewer with your knowledge. Reap its benefits.

Let us know in the below comment box if we have missed any question.