First Experience Managing a PPC Campaign - Week 3

This week was far more exciting because I was given a small campaign to work on. It was called 'Monthly Saver Pay Per Click' testing.

PPC Testing  
Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is defined as paid for advertising, and is usually used to drive increased traffic in a short amount of time to a new or unknown website or page.

An Example of Pay Per Click Advertisements (PPC)

The task involved writing an Executional Brief to communicate some background information about the Monthly Saver product, and how the advertising testing was going to be rolled out. In a nutshell, I had to instruct copy writers to develop copy to test the effectiveness of the following messages:

• (A) the benefit,
• (B) the offer
• (C) a combination of offer and benefit.

Three ads were to be placed online and the most effective message would be used for the live campaign. I than had to create a cost estimate of the work - which is a bill/quote to show the client how much time and work each part of the process will cost and I than, created a timing plan. To help the client gauge how long each stage of the project would take and when it will be completed.

Working on the PPC Testing, was really interesting because it was my first experience of handling a small campaign. One thing I found personally surprising was that last year, I attended a Top Student Summer School at the Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM), where I met some Graduate Account Executives from other London advertising agencies who shared their experiences of the being Account Executive. I vividly remember them saying that “after working in their agencies for a year; they were looking forward to starting to write creative briefs”.

Creative Vs Executional Brief  

At the time, this stuck in my mind. Because, after hearing so much information about the digital marketing world at the IDM from various figure heads, departments and agencies, I thought phew at least that’s not going to be something I will have to worry about in my first year - if I ever get a job in advertising. So, when I was asked to write an 'Executional Brief' for the PPC Test. I was a little surprised; as I didn't really have a clue what and Executional brief was, and past experience suggested it was difficult. However, actually doing it without having time to really think about it was really good – because it showed me that by the end of the year I was likely to learn lots quickly.

Shadowing within the Agency

The rest of the week was spent shadowing my ‘buddy’ the Senior Account Manager (SAM) and Account Director (AD) in various meetings with Project Managers, Creatives, Art Directors and Clients to develop a working understanding of the Barclays iInvest Campaign. An integrated marketing campaign that involves off-line e.g. (Posters and Press ads) etc and on-line advertising e.g. (Banner Ads, Landing Pages and Email Advertisements).

So, far shadowing on the iInvest campaign has been really enjoyable as it involves lots of different campaign elements. And, as such I’m witnessing and learning how to manage various elements of the production process and the general issues that occur when account handing for financial services clients. One thing I am discovering first-hand is that financial services clients are less creative and more business orientated, because they are accountable to various stakeholders who view advertising as a ‘means to an end’, therefore, they are more focused on their core business e.g. the bottom-line. So you can’t be to wacky with the creative ideas that you present, usually it pays to present ‘safe’ options first and always have a ‘wacky’ option in you back pocket – just in case.

Date: 21 February 2011