The holidays are here, which means that it’s officially baking season! If you’re like me, baking Christmas cookies is an annual tradition that simply can’t be skipped – their delicious sugary flavors and iconic appearance are just a holiday staple. But as I was baking recently I began to wonder, “Can cookies teach us anything?” Okay, so maybe that should have been a sign to stop eating them at that point, but fueled by powdered sugar and chocolate, I started to see parallels between cookies and PPC. Indulge me here…
Chemistry
Baking requires perfect chemistry! Many components have to work together perfectly to create the right finished product. If you’ve ever tried to tinker with a cookie recipe on the fly, you know what I’m talking about! For this reason, baking is the one area of cooking where I actually follow recipes.
Your PPC is exactly the same! Without having all of the right ingredients, your PPC strategy is doomed to flop like a cookie that doesn’t rise. Keywords, ad text, account settings, and overall strategy have to be solid in order to be properly executed and allow you to attain your marketing goals. Missing the mark with any one of these components can cause your account to underperform and your ad budget to go to waste.
Careful Craftsmanship
I’m not always the most patient of people, which means that baking is often difficult for me because you really can’t rush through it (well, except for the part where you’re supposed to let cookies cool off but you can start popping them in your mouth straight out of the oven if you’re brave enough). The time that you take to measure everything precisely and follow each step fastidiously really pays off in the end. Cookies that aren’t properly mixed, formed or baked according to the directions will often taste funny or end up raw or burnt. Visually you can tell the difference between a cookie that was made with careful attention to detail and a cookie hat was haphazardly thrown together.
In much the same way, the craftsmanship that you put into your PPC will pay off. Well-crafted keywords and ads allow for more effective targeting and a better long-term result. Alternatively, PPC efforts that seem sloppy and uncoordinated have a lower ROI and can actually damage brand perception. For this reason, you should always take the time needed to do PPC right. There are a lot of corners that you can cut along the way, but resisting the temptation to do so won’t go unnoticed with your final product.
Targeting
It seems weird to say that cookies are targeted, but they really are. When you decide to bring cookies to an event, you inevitably try to decide which varieties will be best received. For instance, if you’re bringing cookies to your child’s school you might opt for m&m chocolate chip cookies, whereas you might bring oatmeal butterscotch to church, or snickerdoodles to work. Deciding which recipe to select from your cupboard is the culmination of your assessment of your audience’s tastes (literally), food allergy restrictions, past feedback, etc.
One of the biggest benefits of PPC is its incredible targeting capabilities. Advertisers study their audience’s preferences and behaviors to create ads that they think will perform best – choosing keywords, writing compelling ads, enhancing ads with extras, and setting custom preferences. They then test their PPC efforts and make adjustments moving forward to improve performance.
Immediacy
Cookies don’t last long – they go stale after just a short time and, depending on the crowd, they may not even have a chance for that to occur! Set a plate of cookies down in front of kids or coworkers and they’ll disappear faster than if Santa had stopped by!
PPC is just as immediate, which makes it a great tool during the holidays. You can write ads and have them up in a flash. You can also pull them down as soon as a promotion ends or your holiday ad budget is exhausted. The real-time nature of PPC is why it’s a popular go-to strategy during the busiest times of the year.
Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Consulting for small businesses, Copywriting and Local Online Marketing. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and enjoys cooking, watching sports and spending time outdoors. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about marketing theory and SEM trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!
Baking requires perfect chemistry! Many components have to work together perfectly to create the right finished product. If you’ve ever tried to tinker with a cookie recipe on the fly, you know what I’m talking about! For this reason, baking is the one area of cooking where I actually follow recipes.
Your PPC is exactly the same! Without having all of the right ingredients, your PPC strategy is doomed to flop like a cookie that doesn’t rise. Keywords, ad text, account settings, and overall strategy have to be solid in order to be properly executed and allow you to attain your marketing goals. Missing the mark with any one of these components can cause your account to underperform and your ad budget to go to waste.
Careful Craftsmanship
I’m not always the most patient of people, which means that baking is often difficult for me because you really can’t rush through it (well, except for the part where you’re supposed to let cookies cool off but you can start popping them in your mouth straight out of the oven if you’re brave enough). The time that you take to measure everything precisely and follow each step fastidiously really pays off in the end. Cookies that aren’t properly mixed, formed or baked according to the directions will often taste funny or end up raw or burnt. Visually you can tell the difference between a cookie that was made with careful attention to detail and a cookie hat was haphazardly thrown together.
In much the same way, the craftsmanship that you put into your PPC will pay off. Well-crafted keywords and ads allow for more effective targeting and a better long-term result. Alternatively, PPC efforts that seem sloppy and uncoordinated have a lower ROI and can actually damage brand perception. For this reason, you should always take the time needed to do PPC right. There are a lot of corners that you can cut along the way, but resisting the temptation to do so won’t go unnoticed with your final product.
Targeting
It seems weird to say that cookies are targeted, but they really are. When you decide to bring cookies to an event, you inevitably try to decide which varieties will be best received. For instance, if you’re bringing cookies to your child’s school you might opt for m&m chocolate chip cookies, whereas you might bring oatmeal butterscotch to church, or snickerdoodles to work. Deciding which recipe to select from your cupboard is the culmination of your assessment of your audience’s tastes (literally), food allergy restrictions, past feedback, etc.
One of the biggest benefits of PPC is its incredible targeting capabilities. Advertisers study their audience’s preferences and behaviors to create ads that they think will perform best – choosing keywords, writing compelling ads, enhancing ads with extras, and setting custom preferences. They then test their PPC efforts and make adjustments moving forward to improve performance.
Immediacy
Cookies don’t last long – they go stale after just a short time and, depending on the crowd, they may not even have a chance for that to occur! Set a plate of cookies down in front of kids or coworkers and they’ll disappear faster than if Santa had stopped by!
PPC is just as immediate, which makes it a great tool during the holidays. You can write ads and have them up in a flash. You can also pull them down as soon as a promotion ends or your holiday ad budget is exhausted. The real-time nature of PPC is why it’s a popular go-to strategy during the busiest times of the year.
Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Consulting for small businesses, Copywriting and Local Online Marketing. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and enjoys cooking, watching sports and spending time outdoors. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about marketing theory and SEM trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!
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