Explanation, Details, and Steps

The metaphor of a master glass blower elucidates the microeconomics of PPC management. You need good tools, but without the skill and inspiration of the artisan, the tools will not produce excellence. Give the tools to somebody with little or no experience, and the tools are worthless. The artisan can work in a glorious firm, but without continuous, dedicated talent in each moment of work, the firm is little more than a pretty glass shell. If you cut too much labor time, you cut quality, which in PPC means spending more and getting less. 

Especially in this "great” recession, many PPC firms are offering a few hundred dollar set-up fees and a few hundred dollars per month (in labor or percentage of ad spend), in order to land business. But think of it: even $2000 a month at a suspiciously low $100 per hour is less than one hour per business day, to

• write brilliant ads with the discipline of haiku;
• assess and chose from among thousands of phrase combinations - each with options for exact, phrase, broad, and negative matching; marry each landing page text with each ad group;
• produce ad groupings that maximize Quality Score and minimize the risk that a low Quality Scores will spoil the ad group barrel;
• track which of several positions for each  ad produce the best combination of clicks and conversions;
• report clearly to superiors or clients the results, the plans for next month, and the precise ROI
• and continuously stay apprised of the new tactics.

All of this work must be done by a mind with exceptional linguistic and analytic aptitude. If the labor cost is too low, either the employee is cheap and thus likely not better than most of the competition, or else necessary time is being cut, and both cases mean you pay more per customer, often more than the customer yields. 

PPC is an eminently human endeavor, amplified by subservient software. Until you can have a long conversation with a voice on a phone and not know whether it's a person or a computer, artificial intelligence will never replace the core, vital cognition of the PPC artisan who uses the tools.

DISC's steps in your successful PPC campaign:

1. Assess your business logic. DISC inputs into powerful formulas your site's conversion rates, gross profit, value of leads, average yearly and lifetime value of new customers, seasonality, inventory and merchandising issues, competitor's practices, total costs (click costs, our labor, and your team's time), budgetary constraints, and your goals, to arrive at an soundly predicted and exactly measured PPC campaign.
2. Research various key phrase sources, like SEO word lists, past PPC reports, server statistics, intra-site search logs, and competitor practices, in order to arrive at a list of phrases worth bidding on.
3. Write winning ad copy.
4. Optimize landing pages and site usability to maximize conversion rates and thus ROAS (return on ad spend) and ROI.
5. Produce a PPC management plan that will roll out sequential monthly tests of new tactics and respond swiftly to monthly reports on your campaign's successes, problems, and opportunities.
6. Deliver monthly reports on your campaign's successes, problems, and opportunities. These reports have executive summaries for upper management and details which help DISC continue to optimize and which help you evaluate DISC and allocate future marketing funds.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engine advertising is the most popular form of paid placement in the search engines, but be sure to click Trusted Feeds and Local & IYP SEM in the left navigation menu to learn about other effective paid placement advertising.