PPC generalist or specialist? How do experts assess their workload and capacity, and how do they see PPC services evolving over the next 1, 3, 5, or 10 years? These questions and more were discussed in this week’s PPCChat, hosted by Julie F. Bacchini.
Q1: Are you a PPC generalist or a specialist? If you’re a specialist, what is your specialty? Why have you chosen to be what you are (generalist or specialist)?
This is an interesting question to me… I am a specialist in the sense that I do not do ecommerce, only lead generation PPC. But I also have a wide-ranging background and help clients with lots of general things too. @NeptuneMoon
Even to say that you exclusively do paid digital advertising is fairly specialized if you consider the universe also includes SEO, AIO, CRO, etc. @robert_brady
I am a digital marketer. I am most well-versed in search, but have been managing campaigns across networks, a paid media expert. I also work on earned and owned media, driving organic traffic and building email campaigns respectively. Over the last 5 years I have started building and managing websites. They are all related imo but definitely more of a generalist with areas of focus. @Chriskostecki
I did websites back in the day, so I do advise on landing pages and I am big on positioning and competitive research. @NeptuneMoon
I work across verticals, and markets, though mostly focused on Lead Gen in North Amercia. @Chriskostecki
I’ve found that to truly help most of my clients that I need to be assisting in more than just the channel interfaces. I often have to help with conversion tracking/tagging, audience development, guiding creative/LP design, and even helping massage offers to be more attractive. And it’s a lot @robert_brady
Digital is bigger than one channel, it is hard to work within a vacuum. @Chriskostecki
I accidentally ended up specialising in lead generation with Google Ads. Google is normally the doorway into the client but I usually end up working on the complete lead to sale process as that’s where the money is. @Pete_Bowen
To service paid media, I see the trinity as account management, strategy, and execution. Creative and messaging can roll into strategy and tracking into execution. @Chriskostecki
I am a generalist as I work with many different segments from ecom to b2b. I find it fun to work on so many different kinds of projects personally, but I also see a benefit in being a specialist. I also work on just about any platform so whether it is Google, Microsoft, Spotify, Amazon, Social media, etc… I will work on it. @Ichasse
I also do pretty much any platform except Meta. I also enjoy account reviews more these days and consulting on strategy than month to month management @NeptuneMoon
When I hear people say they specialize in only one platform, it feels like those are the people who need to know more of the technical adjacent mechanics (tracking, CRO, etc). If someone is good at multiple platforms, they can get away with not being as involved in the technical add ons. @navahhopkins
@navahhopkins Agreed. I do all of the above. I love the technical stuff. @Pete_Bowen
I think one of the coolest things about PPC is that you can range from being very technical to being creative to being high level multi channel, etc. So much variety in opportunities and ways to work. @NeptuneMoon
I see myself as a marketer in general, so that is why I will help with pretty much anything. Before I became a digital marketer I was leading global marketing teams, so I sometimes end up helping with sales teams, landing pages, website dev projects, email campaigns, trigger programs, mailers, etc… It is much easier to just focus on digital marketing, but all aspects of marketing can be fun to work with honestly. @Ichasse
I am both – I am a generalist because I want to be able to recommend whatever my client needs, and I like to work across industries because I genuinely believe it makes me stronger with each different type of company and project that I do. But I am also really really good at Google PPC at this point – and am definitely more of a specialist in that than I am at say, Meta, even if I can do both. @revaminkoff
I am at the point now I am trying to hire to fill my gaps as well as take on some of my tasks. @Chriskostecki
I used to specialize in Google, but now a days I do literally everything Meta, Reddit, LinkedIn, Amazon, Microsoft Ads, etc.
SEO, CRO, AI, etc..
I feel like it’s impossible to really survive as a specialist especially when the industry already has their trusted specialist & go to person. We need to differentiate. @DiiPooler
My job title is “Paid Media Specialist” and my job description is to do paid media stuff, but my abilities go far beyond that… I don’t call myself a “specialist” I’m a proud jack of all (marketing) trades. websites, seo, graphic design, photo/video – who’s also pretty darn good at paid media @williamhboggs
When I worked for a 12-person agency, I used to do all things ppc plus basic landing pages and universal analytics. A few years and employers later, I specialize in Google. I don’t miss Meta at all, but given the job market, I do worry that I would struggle to find a new role without recent Meta experience if I had to leave my current agency. @rebeccawarne
Q2: How do you determine your capacity for work? Do you have a particular system or more of a gut feel?
I don’t say no, it is not advised. @Chriskostecki
I would say how much I can take on at any given time definitely varies based on life’s other demands. I have also been at this long enough that I do not say yes to projects and clients that do not very much feel right. Every time I have talked myself into a project that I had reservations about, my gut was right. Now we have all been in positions where we have to take that work, of course. It is nice when you can be more choosy. @NeptuneMoon
Lol – my gut is often wrong in that some of the clients I was worried about being too small to take have actually turned into our biggest and best clients, so… @revaminkoff
Feelings at the moment. I’ve been lucky enough to generally keep clients once I land them. My oldest client has been with me since 2010, and we only speak once a year. So for a long time I haven’t been that interested in new clients. I have recently started saying yes again because I’ve managed to promote a big client to a better-fit provider. @Pete_Bowen
But I look at how stressed everyone is, how much time is available, pricing, and interest in figuring out whether we can do more or not. @revaminkoff
I used to have some folks I would work with when capacity expanded beyond my capacity, kind of a spicket of talent that I would hire and oversee. These days I have filtered my work a little bit more to mostly work friends who I love working for since I am getting closer to that retirement age. When initially talking with a client I ask things like spend and see the different categories of products, go into their best selling categories in their backend systems etc. This will give me a decent view of how many campaigns and the cadence in the account. After doing this for over 25 years you get a pretty good feel for the effort required, so I just keep the hours where I want them to be in a given month. There are times where I have a hard time telling a friend no and then you get more work than you may have wanted, but knowing the nature of our business you know someone will fall off eventually anyway due to business changes, new hires, etc… when you are in our line of work. @Ichasse
I try to keep to 5-6 clients. Any more than that and my mental bandwidth gets burned up. I definitely rely on the gut feel approach and too often I say yes and get overcommitted @robert_brady
Attrition is real in this biz! @NeptuneMoon
Some attrition is good though. Lost my last client when they pulled it in-house. They hired a smart guy and I worked with him closely for about a year before they transitioned. @robert_brady
Yes, @Pete_Bowen I feel good when I have to tell a client we have grown them beyond what I can provide as far as time goes. I do not want all my eggs in one basket, so generally I stay away from HUGE clients that can make me panic about not having work if they can no longer work with me for one reason or another. I have passed off a few clients over the years because of this and it is a good feeling. @Ichasse
I like mixing up my work with direct clients and agency support. the agency support is good steady work, though that is often where the scope creeps. the clients are usually easier to manage, its just less efficient @Chriskostecki
I started time tracking earlier this year for each client and task to try to work out if I was genuinely over capacity or if I felt over capacity and actually was being slow. At the end of each month I pull the tracking vs the clients fees/hours and see where I’m over or under servicing. It helps me to go to clients now with a case to ask for more money if it turns out I am massively over-servicing or let them know I can’t take on everything they ask for. @Jenmussell
Attrition is just part of how things work in PPC. I plan for a certain amount on an annual basis @NeptuneMoon
@NeptuneMoon What is your planned annual attrition @robert_brady
Scope creep is also very real in PPC! @NeptuneMoon
@NeptuneMoon Cannot count how many times an agency or CMO has said, this should be an easy account for you to manage for only a few hours a week and it turned out to be much more, lol. @Ichasse
It depends on how many clients I have and the kind of work I am doing (management vs. shorter engagements) but I’d say 20% is a reasonable figure (so if you have 5 clients, then 1 will likely not be there the following year). And of course, paying attention to signs that a client is considering terminating. @NeptuneMoon
@Ichasse I can’t tell you the relief I’m feeling at not sitting in 10-person Zoom meetings discussing why their latest CRM change broke everything. The money was good, but in retrospect it had become very hard-won money. @Pete_Bowen
And a BIG key is to have a clearly defined scope and STICK TO IT. If a client keeps asking for more, they need to pay more. If you do extra and do not charge make sure they know you waived the extra fee this time. @NeptuneMoon
I have spent a lot of time building my quote/msa/sow process – I use better proposals and mostly happy with it @Chriskostecki
You can also set your projects up on a credits per month system that translates to hours on your backend. Client has x credits per month and can request whatever but you determine how many credits each request eats up. If you do this or hourly, let me also advise you to have language that they can’t use all the hours in the last week of the month… ask me how I know about that one! @NeptuneMoon
That is a good estimate. @NeptuneMoon We cannot predict things outside our purview. Some companies are overspending in areas of their company and I have had clients where we were literally printing money in digital ads, but because they bought too much real estate, had buildings in expensive areas, too many employees, etc… had to declare bankruptcy and then you lose a client.10-20% churn is probably a safe estimate per year. @Ichasse
I have some website clients on different tiers based on how many updates they have for that month, baseline 1 hour, then buy 4 to get 6, or buy 10 for 14 @Chriskostecki
@Ichasse Yes and that 20% is an average, so some years you will have less and some years more. But it is a decent threshold for planning generally. @NeptuneMoon
More gut feel but I’ve found I can start a day with about 6-8 tasks on my list. Between those and whatever I get asked to look into throughout the day, that keeps me pretty busy. Completely depends on business structure too. I used to work for an agency where I had to manage nearly 300 clients – but they were all in the same industry and just did paid search, so they practically ran on auto-pilot and whatever change worked well on one got rolled out to the rest. Now I only manage 30 but they (or their AMs) are needy so they keep me just as busy as 300 used to. @williamhboggs
Q3: When a client or brand wants a service in their project that is outside of your (or your agency or department’s) area(s) of expertise, how do you handle it? Decline the work or that part? Accept and contract it out? Something else?
Help them find someone, but be very clear that the person/agency belongs to them and I’m not the middle-man. (Hard won lesson.) @Pete_Bowen
In my younger years, I used to say yes to pretty much everything and then figure it out…Now I only take on what I actually am strong at / want to do. I refer work out on pieces I don’t do to industry friends. @NeptuneMoon
Decline and refer (with very clear expectations like @Pete_Bowen that it’s their choice and I’m just pointing them in the right direction) @robert_brady
I’ve done both. If it’s something I think we can do well / can do well enough to achieve their aims, I’ll say yes. If it’s something we shouldn’t be doing, I tend to try to connect them to someone who can help. @revaminkoff
I often try to make the connection and leave it be, but I have been the service conduit before and it is a different role, more project management. I have also hired agencies and resources, with the clients knowledge, to help me work through an issue. @Chriskostecki
I am 100% transparent in the areas I can fully support. Being in the industry for so many years we do build contacts with folks with expertise in other areas that we trust. I won’t recommend anyone I would not use for my own business because if you recommend someone it is your name that is on the line if they fail with that client. @Ichasse
Totally agree on being crystal clear on the referral piece being a complete handoff situation. @NeptuneMoon
I’m trying to be better about saying no, and sorry, I wish I knew someone but I don’t, to the things where that is the honest answer. sometimes we’ll manage/middle man the referral and take a cut. @revaminkoff
I think part of this also comes down to if you want to be managing others too. It is ok if you don’t and refer out. It is also ok if you want to bring on subcontractors and be the lead provider. I have done it both ways. I have also been the resource that gets pulled in for an agency that does not have PPC team or their team is maxed out. @NeptuneMoon
Instead of being a middle person in the transaction, this should really be the point where you ask yourself if you want to grow your freelance or small agency into something bigger and hire the expertise to support it. Otherwise from my own learnings (school of hard Knox, stupid tax or whatever you want to call it), I stay away from any middle management stuff. The money seems like it could be a nice addition, but the liability and headaches are not worth it (IMO). @Ichasse
Having strong contracts for subcontractors or referrals where you are taking a fee is also critical. Are you sensing a theme from me yet on the importance of detailed contracts????? @NeptuneMoon
Everyone should be carrying “errors and omissions” insurance and if you add layers you need to make sure that is also covered. This is the less sexy part of our work, but you have to protect yourself from liability. Any additions you make increase your risk and your insurance may not cover a third party you were being a middle person for. @Ichasse
YES on the E&O insurance. @NeptuneMoon
I had insurance before I had a client. @Chriskostecki
This is why I pass the work to someone I know and trust and the brand brings them on and not me. You still get a friend some work so you can feel good about that and you are getting support for a brand you are working for and feel good about that as well. @Ichasse
Depends on the ask. If it’s closely related to work I’m doing for them or if it could affect the work I’m doing, I’d contract it out (eg: you do paid media, they want SEO). If it’s different enough, I’d decline and refer it out. @williamhboggs
Q4: Looking to the future in PPC – do you think generalizing more or becoming more specialized is the smart play and why?
I think as automation/AI keeps roaring through platforms, having broader more general skills will be desirable to clients and brands. @NeptuneMoon
I see a lot of noise being created to try and squeeze more value out of a particular network, while the overall value of the network is diminishing. I don’t think the networks are trustworthy partners in this relationship, and if we are going to serve our clients needs we cannot specialize in just one aspect at the expense of what might actually work. @Chriskostecki
Well, all digital ad platforms are mature media now, so what worked and how they worked 10-15 years ago simply is not how/what works now. @NeptuneMoon
What is happening now with meta stealing all the content from business accounts to feed their ai engine can happen at any time. chatgpt is less mature though updating quickly. Reddit and TikTok are lightyears from where they were a year-ish ago @Chriskostecki
I think you can specialize in the future as well still. Specializing can mean several things like if you do just digital marketing that is a specialty. If you only work with pet businesses, or legal, medical etc… those can also be specializations. At the end of the day it comes down to if you have enough money to put a roof over your head and food on the table. Specializing helps us be an inch wide and a mile deep vs. being a mile wide and an inch deep. Directors, VPs, and CMOs have to be a mile wide and we can be a mile deep which is the expertise those roles need to excel underneath them. I have always liked being behind the scenes with very successful folks in those roles. @Ichasse
I think generalizing has always been the smart play. It’s all one big marketing puzzle and understanding how the pieces fit together helps you find opportunities for improvement – eg: how SEO and CRO/Web Design affect Paid Search, how to improve tracking with some scripting knowledge, etc…@williamhboggs
I agree with some of the earlier comments that having generalist knowledge makes you more valuable and allows you to more easily find a new job as things evolve in the space. @revaminkoff
@Ichasse Trusted advisor status is always a good goal @NeptuneMoon
AI is going to take a lot of the mundane functions away from us more and more. Ideas and creativity are going to be our strength until they can take that as well, but by then who knows what the landscape will be. @Ichasse
@Ichasse Did you mean landscape or hellscape? @NeptuneMoon
I have no idea. Hoping wifey will win the lottery and stay with me when she’s rich. @Pete_Bowen
AI will take my mundane tasks from my cold dead hands. @Chriskostecki
You know every time I have been asked to go in front of a camera, do a podcast, etc.. I have always passed because my strength is working for the folks who excel at those interactions. Not saying I have never spoken at events or anything, but there are folks who can really engage a crowd and get folks going. I am pretty boring and data oriented which is a great role to help support those amazing folks who have that skillset. I never need to have my face in front of the crowd. I enjoy being behind the curtain doing the grunt work. @Ichasse
I think it’s both – I was just having this debate with myself a few weeks ago and I’m trying to remember the main points. I think the technical side of PPC as a specialization won’t be it as useful but I think PPCers ability to understand building acquisition systems, or finding demand or measuring intent will be the useful specialization, whereas having a broader generalization around disciplineslike brand strategy, creative direction (recommending video/image concepts based on what you’re seeing works vs doesnt), client comm skills/relationship building, even SEO. Having a broad understanding of all those systems and then specializing in knowing what signals to go after will be what separates the decent from the good, from the amazing. Sort of like an M or N diagram where there’s broad connecting bars in many areas but you only specialize deeper in a few areas. And in our case, that would be around demand and intent @timmhalloran
@Ichasse that is very relatable, though to survive I had to step into the spotlight. I would have rather found a good professional partner to support but they never materialized. @Chriskostecki
Q5: How do you see the nature of PPC services evolving over the next 1, 3, 5 or 10 years? How are you preparing for what you think is coming?
Unfortunately, I think AI is going to keep invading. Unless/until that bubble actually bursts. So, leaning in to the things we do that AI cannot is a big one. @NeptuneMoon
I don’t worry so much about AI “taking” my job as I worry about Ad Platforms dropping the need for 3rd party management altogether. If Meta or Google just said “we’re now fully automated” we’d all be screwed – AI or not. And frankly I don’t see what’s stopping them. We got asked to train a client’s AI to do our job for us… Uh, no. @williamhboggs
And those things that AI can’t do or is bad at include: @NeptuneMoon
- Understanding the business of the advertiser and its nuaces
- Competitive positioning – status and opportunities
- Standing out from homogenized AI generated ads
- Analyzing data beyond just data points
I don’t even want to say my prediction for 10 years, because I think many professions may not even exist anymore. I am comfortable for the next 5 years saying our roles are going to be creative and helping brands know where their customers/users are engaging. We are marketers at the core and it is our role to help find opportunities for the brands we represent.@Ichasse
As we continue to lose targeting and messaging controls to the networks it will become less effective, at a certain point the dollars will move elsewhere. Marketing is universal, networks are temporary. @Chriskostecki
I’m stockpiling food and ammo and being polite to AI. But seriously, I feel like the impending apocalypse is a few more years out than the hype would suggest. People change slowly and I’m hoping that enough clients will stick to their old ways so that I can still keep doing enjoyable work. @Pete_Bowen
@williamhboggs I hope you said, good luck and moved on or you asked for an obscene amount of money to do that training. @Ichasse
@Ichasse We respectfully declined lol @williamhboggs
I think of someone like my pool guy, Scott, who used to run a basic LSA campaign himself and was talked into paying for monthly service from a 2-person ppc team that specializes in home services. They’ve charged my guy an insane amount of money for almost $0 ROAS. There will always be someone like Scott who just wants to clean pools and doesn’t want to spend a million dollars to “scale” his small business. I will always be happy to freelance for a client like that if I can continue to find them. @rebeccawarne
I would probably ask for what essentially would have been 2 years of income for the client to help train their agent. @Ichasse
@rebeccawarne I like Scotts @Pete_Bowen
Me too. I hope he and others like him can stay in business despite private equity snatching up every small business they can get their hands on @rebeccawarne
There is a special place in hell for private equity firms…. @Ichasse
@rebeccawarne going local/regionalized as opposed to national/global is a solid plan, a lot more smaller economies to swim in instead of always trying to scale to the largest markets @Chriskostecki
@rebeccawarne Don’t get me started on private equity ruining so many industries and things @NeptuneMoon
I like Scotts with a crew. “private equity ruins everything” @Chriskostecki
3 years something like this: https://lnkd.in/p/gz44ChYT 5 years probably 80% of PPC/SEO jobs are rolled up into a hybrid agentic marketing services department, and the remaining 20% of us (I imagine many of us in this Slack channel) will be specialized deep enough to have a piece of demand carved out where people come to us to solve more complex ppc/paid social problems @timmhalloran
PPCChat Participants
- Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon
- Tim Halloran @timmhalloran
- Peter Bowen @Pete_Bowen
- Reva Minkoff @revaminkoff
- Robert Brady @robert_brady
- Navah Hopkins @navahhopkins
- Chris Kostecki @Chriskostecki
- Lawrence Chasse @Ichasse
- Dii Pooler @DiiPooler
- Boggs @williamhboggs
- Rebecca Warne @rebeccawarne
- Jennifer Mussell @Jenmussell
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