November 26, 2025 • 45 mins
How to Optimize Your PPC Campaigns for Maximum Impact
Every Pay-Per-Click campaign has symptoms. While some are mild, others can be critical. With the B2B marketing environment becoming more competitive and as budgets continue to shrink, ensuring your PPC campaigns are well thought out and “healthy” is imperative. So how can B2B marketing teams ensure they run high-performing PPC campaigns?
That’s why we’re talking to Serge Nguele (Founder, Your PPC Doctor), who shares proven strategies and expert insights on how to optimize your PPC campaigns for maximum impact. During our conversation, Serge emphasized the value of understanding PPC as a tool to test market assumptions and validate messaging. He also highlighted common pitfalls that B2B marketers should avoid such as launching campaigns without a clear strategy, relying on poor or incomplete tracking, and generic ad copy that doesn’t resonate. He advised that teams must fix their tracking, define what business success looks like, segment audiences with intention, and relentlessly test to discover what drives conversions. Serge stressed the importance of having a comprehensive, full-funnel approach to maximize the potential of PPC campaigns through Google and Microsoft ads. He also shared his “no excuses, no complaints, no self-pity” philosophy to illustrate the mindset required to drive stronger results and leverage the true potential of PPC.
https://youtu.be/oSmgdh2Jfgw
Topics discussed in episode:
[2:13] The importance of PPC in B2B marketing
[4:49] Some common misconceptions and pitfalls in PPC
[15:04] How B2B marketers can avoid major PPC pitfalls
[23:11] Practical steps to optimize PPC campaigns for predictable results
- Fix your tracking
- Define success in business terms
- Segment your audience in a smart way
- Differentiate messaging based on audience’s stage in the funnel
- Testing relentlessly
[29:22] How AI is reshaping PPC and what B2B marketers must prepare for
Companies and links mentioned:
TranscriptChristian Klepp 00:01
Every pay per click campaign has symptoms. Some are mild, while others are critical. With the marketing landscape becoming more competitive and budgets shrinking, ensuring your PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns are well thought out and healthy is imperative. So how can marketing teams ensure they optimize their PPC campaigns for maximum impact? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Serge Nguele, who will be answering this question. He’s the founder at your PPC doctor who specializes in implementing PPC solutions for companies. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. Okay, and here we go. Mr. Serge Nguele, welcome to the show.
Serge Nguele 00:49
Thank you for having me, Christian. How are you today?
Christian Klepp 00:52
I’m great, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because I’ll be honest with you, I was looking through the archive of all the past episodes, and I have to say nobody has been on the show that is going to talk about this topic, so this is the first time.
Serge Nguele 01:05
Oh, yeah, good to hear. We’ll try to bring some value to all the millions of you know listener out there.
Christian Klepp 01:13
Absolutely, absolutely. So let’s dive in, because I think this is going to be an interesting topic. And I don’t know about you, perhaps you run across this many times, but in my space and in my network, the moment people hear pay per click or PPC, they get a little bit like, I don’t know. Oh, I’m not sure. And this is part of the reason, a big part of the reason why I’ve asked somebody like yourself to come on the show. It’s to take the ickiness out of this topic and get them to understand why it’s important, right? So let’s dive into the first question. Okay, so Serge, you’re on a mission to listen. I love this one. Listen, diagnose and prescribe the right paperclip solutions for B2B companies. So for this conversation, let&
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Every pay per click campaign hassymptoms. Some are mild, while
others are critical. With themarketing landscape becoming
more competitive and budgetsshrinking, ensuring your PPC
(Pay-Per-Click) campaigns arewell thought out and healthy is
imperative. So how can marketingteams ensure they optimize their
PPC campaigns for maximumimpact? Welcome to this episode
(00:21):
of the B2B Marketers in aMission podcast, and I'm your
host, Christian Klepp. Today,I'll be talking to Serge Nguele,
who will be answering thisquestion. He's the founder at
your PPC doctor who specializesin implementing PPC solutions
for companies. Tune in to findout more about what this B2B
marketers mission is. Okay, andhere we go. Mr. Serge Nguele,
(00:47):
welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me,Christian. How are you today?
I'm great, and I'm reallylooking forward to this
conversation, because I'll behonest with you, I was looking
through the archive of all thepast episodes, and I have to say
nobody has been on the show thatis going to talk about this
topic, so this is the firsttime.
Oh, yeah, good to hear. We'lltry to bring some value to all
(01:11):
the millions of you knowlistener out there.
Absolutely, absolutely. So let'sdive in, because I think this is
going to be an interestingtopic. And I don't know about
you, perhaps you run across thismany times, but in my space and
in my network, the moment peoplehear pay per click or PPC, they
get a little bit like, I don'tknow. Oh, I'm not sure. And this
(01:34):
is part of the reason, a bigpart of the reason why I've
asked somebody like yourself tocome on the show. It's to take
the ickiness out of this topicand get them to understand why
it's important, right? So let'sdive into the first question.
Okay, so Serge, you're on amission to listen. I love this
(01:55):
one. Listen, diagnose andprescribe the right paperclip
solutions for B2B companies. Sofor this conversation, let's
focus on the topic of how tooptimize your PPC campaigns for
maximum impact. So I'm going tokick off this conversation with
the following question, what isit about PPC that you wish more
(02:15):
people understood?
Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Thanks,Christian for your question, and
to quickly touch on what you'vesaid about PPC. That's the story
of my life. You know, whenpeople are asking, what do you
do? And I will say, Pay PerClick, I will start explaining,
you know, and they will justnod, and I will be like, not
(02:36):
quite sure they got it, but youknow, the quick way would be
just to tell them, whenever yousearch for anything online, you
go on Google or whichever searchengine. And we'll touch on it,
there is not only Google, youknow, when we when it comes to
PPC, you type your keyword, andyou will see a lot of links
coming and the one with a littlead, which means advertising
(03:00):
that's pay per click. Ah, theywould say, Yeah, that's fine.
But to come to your questionwhen it's come to PPC, really,
what I wish most marketers areunderstanding is that PPC, which
stands for pay per click, andit's pay per click, because
whenever you type a keyword andyou click on the link coming
(03:24):
there is someone paying theadvertiser, not usually the
user. That's why it's pay perclick. And what is good to I
wish many people you knowunderstood about it is that PPC
it's about buying time to testyour market assumptions.
Because, yeah, all of us, allthe businesses, it's really
(03:46):
happening, not when you have theclick, but it's after the click.
What's happening there. So whendone right? PPC is the fastest,
one of the fastest way I know ofto validate the messaging, your
offer, your positioning, and Iwish more marketers understood
that PPC is in a silo. It's afeedback engine, really, and
(04:12):
when you use it to inform yourmarket, product fit your sales
messaging, or even your customerexperiences. It really goes
beyond clicks, and that's whereyou get the magic out of PPC.
Yeah, that's a really good wayof putting it. Serge, and thanks
(04:33):
for sharing that. We're going totouch on this, I think even more
later on. But like just youknow, from a very top level
perspective. Why do you think alot of people feel, even
marketers, feel that PPC is awaste of marketing investment?
Yes, with this one, if I'mtaking from advertiser, let's
say you Christian, you are, youknow, a business person, the
(04:57):
way. Well. Yeah, when it'scoming to PPC, it's fair to talk
more about Google, because,yeah, Google is having 90% of
the market. So we will sayGoogle, but Google is not the
world. PPC has rules here a bitlater. So let's say what Google
has done over the year is toreally make it easy for pretty
(05:21):
much anyone on the planet to bein a position to choose a few
keyword enter the credit card,and in a matter of minutes, they
would have another runningshowing up to people. So that's
the easy part, but that's notdoing PPC, and what is happening
(05:44):
out of it, soon enough, theywill realize, Okay, we are
having a lot of clicks, but notwhat we are expecting, which
means sales, or whatever is thatis making their bottom line. And
a lot of client I would beseeing advertiser. It will be
after that phase where theyfound them themselves, you know,
(06:07):
out of pocket of 100, if not1000s, of click. And they will
all, all of them. They will comelike, PPC doesn't work. And I
would say, yeah, it's normal forit not to work, if you because
it's a job, you know, I'm nothere to defend, you know, my
(06:28):
job, but, yeah, it's taking timeto be a PPC expert. So really,
for me, starting from thebeginning, where people are
doing what they are not meant todo is not like me. You know,
tomorrow I won't be going outthere and say I'm a podcast
(06:48):
host. You know, that will be aninsult on, you know, all the
learning you went through, youknow, to be where you are. So
for me, that's really the keyproblem. So basically, it's,
yeah, it's a West because a lotof unqualified people, and I'm
saying this, you know,respectfully, are just, you
(07:12):
know, wasting budget,essentially.
Yeah, so what I'm hearing yousay is, like part of it is
certainly a lack of expertise.The other one is also, perhaps
even a lack of strategy, andwe're going to talk about that
later on in the conversation,but that is a great segue to the
next question about key pitfallsthat you think B2B marketers
(07:33):
should avoid when it comes toPPC. So what are those key
pitfalls, and what should theybe doing instead?
Yes, and this will becomplementing my answer,
because, yeah, I focus it onadvertiser directly. But let's
say when PPC experts are doingare running campaigns for their
(07:53):
clients. So this is to thisquestion to as mainly PPC has
said, it's one of the quickestway to really generate clicks
out there. That's fine, but thatjust the beginning, but even
before getting there. So it'sthe strategy beforehand,
because, yeah, it's quite easyto set the keyword, generate
(08:16):
click and realize the website isnot ready. The offer is not what
it was supposed to be, and it'sbringing us, you know, to really
plan before even startingcreating your first campaign.
That means the strategy. What isyour product? Are you
(08:36):
understanding your market?What's your positioning your
competition. What are youbringing to the market? So
that's the strategy. Once youclear with it, it will make it
easy for you to say, Okay, I'munderstanding the market. This
is my offer. This is what I'mbringing, different, you know,
(08:58):
in the market space. And nowthis is the strategy, the
approach I'm going to use toreach out to those people. Where
are those people? Even, youknow, searching for the product
or service I'm going to promoteonline. Because, yeah, when we
say PPC, it's a full funnel.
If we take Google, for example,people will be having multiple
(09:20):
touch point to see your product.Yeah, I've been talking more
about keywords, but there is alot more than that. And if I ask
you, how are you searchingonline? You are not only typing
keyword, but you are selfadvertising because you've given
(09:41):
some information about who youare, and search engine and
marketing platform are havingthose information about you,
your age, your job, how much youearn, all of those inside are
what would be part of thestrategy, how you approach
market.
(10:01):
Now, once that is done properly,and let's say the companies,
company is already running it'show are you measuring success?
And there it will be all thevanity metrics. So okay, it's
good to have impression clicks,but what about the bottom line?
(10:22):
Because, yeah, if you areinvesting, who says investment?
Expect a return out of thatinvestment? So if you measure
only how many people areclicking on your website, that's
you are missing the point. Soquestion would be, how many are
converting whatever is that youknow you define as a conversion.
(10:44):
Now, another part would be howyou set your campaign. I said,
how easy Google could, you know,make it to create a PPC
campaign, they have also a lotof automatic function that have.
(11:05):
This is not the point. I'm nothere, you know, to do a very
cheap Google bashing. But, Imean, yeah, this platform are
having, well, I will say polite,just insane, you know, feature
making it just kind of waste ofbudget, you know, where you'll
(11:27):
have the keyword targeting the,you know, network you shouldn't
be, you know, advertising on tosell it. So do setting and also
aligning to the sales objective.So those are, you know, a few
ways. So I said quite a lot. Tobring it more into structure, I
(11:50):
would say, first of all, it'sstrategy before even, you know,
thinking of creating thecampaign. You have your
strategy, and then once yourcompany are there, I said, but
yeah, I would keep on repeatingit, the clicking, just the
beginning of it. So what are youmeasuring? So having, you know,
real matrix, not vanity metricslike click, CTR (Click-Through
(12:13):
Rate) and then setting yourcampaigns. A lot of advertisers
are on set and forget, you know,not doing anything. And guess
what? It wouldn't work, youknow, because you have to
optimize continuously and thenalign with business goals.
(12:33):
Absolutely, absolutely no. I'vebeen writing furiously as you're
talking, but like what I'mhearing you say, and I think
it's absolutely right but peopletend to forget that PPC, and in
fact, a lot of these otherinitiatives, they're all part of
an ecosystem, right? And it'sall you all. You have to think
about it like, Okay, so where isthis going to go? Because the,
(12:55):
as you rightfully said, theclick is just the beginning.
When they click, where are theygoing? Where are they going to
land? Is it going to be alanding page? Is it going to be
an ad? And after they've scannedthe content on that said page or
that ad, what do you want themto do? So what's the call to
action? Where are you going tofunnel them from there after
that? What's the follow through?So it almost seems to me like
(13:17):
this has to all be mapped out.It doesn't just stop with PPC,
right?
Yes, and even there quickly,before you asked your other
question, yeah, sorry tointerrupt. I will say it's all
tied to the strategy, because,yeah, could be a lot of things.
You know, you can use PPCbecause you want to test
something on your website. Youcan use PPC because you want to
(13:42):
complement what you are doingwith your organic traffic
strategy. Most recently, I had,I was referred a prospective
client, and they came to mesaying, we are doing well on our
organic search. Now we want tobring PPC to complement all of
that and expand. So, yeah, youknow, all of those things are
(14:07):
part of the strategy. So, and itwill be different if you are
coming because you want to testsomething on your landing page
that's been, for example, yourmain metrics. To go back to what
I've said, clicks. Your clickswouldn't be a vanity matrix,
because you really want peopleyou know to come there and you
know, validate whatever you wanton the landing page. Whereas, if
(14:32):
you are there to generate leads,probably you want, you know,
content yourself only withclicks. You will want people you
know to fill your lead form. Youknow.
Absolutely, absolutely so salesyou've tried. You've touched on
this already, but like, let'sexpand on it further. So what do
you think are the main causes ofunderperforming paid search
(14:55):
campaigns? So from yourexperience, what do you think
the real underlying problemsare, and I suppose one of them
is a lack of strategy.Certainly.
Yeah, it's starting from there.Christian, yeah, you said it a
lack of strategy. But okay, letus assume you are there, you
know, you are getting clicks. Sothere one of the main cause of
(15:19):
on the performing campaign, Iwould say it's that whenever I
audit account, a lot of them arejust flying kind of blind. That
means the tracking is even, youknow, wrong. This is something I
should start with it, you know.But he has a good case to, you
know, talk about it. It's, yeah,when you have the campaign, so
(15:40):
you need to make sure you trackevery single click. Otherwise,
how would you even know what isperforming? So this is the main
cause of underperformingcampaigns. For me, it's weight
tracking and measurement, andthat's mean, if you can't trust
your data, you can't optimizeand at this point, because,
yeah, you have business peoplelistening to this an important
(16:06):
part, an important one, youknow, a lot of people are not
advertising. It's also theinvalid traffic. You have a lot
of, you know, especially nowwith AI and all boats, you know,
we have are there. And thisthere is a staggering, you know,
number of invalid traffic so,and this is, you know, a proper
(16:32):
study, so in certain verticalmore than 20% of click received
are all invalid. So that's mean,if you factor that to properly
understand that mean whateveryou are receiving, 20% of those
clicks are wrong. So that's meanyou're working with wrong data.
(16:57):
That's mean everything thatwould follow after that are
just, you know, assumption basedon 20% of you know wrong
information. So this is animportant one.
And I would say, has advertiser,and this is something, for
example, yeah, I don't want tooversell, but what we do in
(17:20):
which your PPC doctor. Those arethings I'm putting in place to
really be working with, invalue, traffic, you know,
company. There are a few outthere, but yeah, I'm working
with lunio, for example, whichis our partner. So those I would
recommend, not necessarily, youknow, but you find whoever you
(17:41):
want to work with, but this isreally important to make sure
you are receiving, you know, theright information, so weak
tracking and measurement andthen ignoring the funnel in the
process. So you know when, againas I was saying, depending on
(18:04):
what you want to achieve, youwill have different goals, and
you will be optimizing yourcampaign differently regarding
what you want to achieve. So alot of campaign are only
targeting bottom up funnelintent, but you know, and they
will be missing all the otherfunnels. So yeah, to develop
(18:25):
quickly about the funnel. Soyeah, roughly, we would have the
awareness and then, so that'smean people are just discovering
they want something. So theywant to know what their options
are out there into that phase,and then they would have the
consideration where, okay, thenthey are quite definite about
(18:50):
what they want. Now they arestarting making, you know, their
decision. And then it will bethe conversion phase, where they
are in a position to decide andbuy, essentially.
So when you set your campaign,you have to, you know, be
considerate of all those phases,because they are someone who is
(19:11):
in their awareness phase, theywill just be there to consider
their options. They won't bebuying. And you need to factor
that so that your campaign, yourstrategy that's tied back to
strategy that's mean, okay, youwill plan your campaign to spend
(19:32):
a certain amount, or invest acertain amount to reach people
in their awareness phase, andthen another amount to bring
them to consider, and anotherone in consideration. And when
you tie that to the wallecosystem, we said, PPC is just
a fraction of you know your theworld, the world marketing
(19:53):
ecosystem. So that's mean, okay,awareness. How are you going to
you? Know, once they click andyou have that information, are
you following up with an email,you know, to just keep them
alive and making sure when, whenthey are in a position to
convert if they see your ad,take that decision, you know.
(20:14):
And then the third one, it'sgeneric ad copies all we've said
so people, when they areconsidering they won't be in the
same, you know, set of mind,like when they are just there to
discover, or when they want tobuy. So you need also, you know,
with your messaging, todifferentiate all those phases
(20:38):
people in the awareness you wantthem to to know you are there.
They might even be coming, youknow, online already having
their assumption some, some oftheir preferred planned. You
know, so if you come into thatmoment, your message should be
to tell them we are here. Wecould be an option for you when
(21:00):
they are there to consider yourmessage. Need to be different
and so on, when they are readyto, you know, to convert. And
even there could be, you know,remarketing as well, you know,
because they, if they alreadyknow about you, you won't come
again with the same message. Youneed to try something different.
It could be, if you have adiscount, or whatever, you know,
(21:23):
could bring value. So a lot tosay, Yeah, but here to to
summarize, I know, yeah, I saidquite a lot. But to summarize,
you know, the main thing wouldbe, really the tracking and
measurement you need to track.If you don't track your flying
blind, then consider the funnel.So at which stage people are
(21:43):
which micro moment? Are theythere because they want to know?
Are they there because they wantto buy? Are they, you know, all
those the funnel, and the thirdone would be having a
differentiated ad copy to matchall of that.
Fantastic, fantastic. You didsay a lot, but I think it was
very important, because I whatyou're, what you were explaining
(22:05):
was you were expanding on, notjust again, it's, I think for
me, it's also beyond the PPC,because it's understanding the
buyer's journey. First of all,who the buyers are, and what
stage of the journey that you'reat. I think you mentioned at
least three times, from what Ifrom what I can remember, are
they... No, no. And I think it'simportant, because are they in
(22:27):
the Discover stage where theyhaven't, you know, they're just
looking around for us to seewhat the options are, or are
they at the stage where they'realready bought in and they're
and they're ready to buy twocompletely different
motivations, differentmessaging, different copy, is
required, right? And if peopleare using this, I would just
call it like the one size fitsall approach, right? That's a
(22:49):
recipe for failure, right?
Exactly, exactly.
Okay, fantastic. Moving on tothe next question. So break it
down for us here. How can youknow based on everything that
you've said, How can marketersoptimize their PPC campaign. So
what are the steps? What are thekey components that need to be
in that process to make thissuccessful?
(23:11):
So at this point, yeah, we'llassume they had their
strategies, right? So yeah, thefirst one would be, fix your
tracking to make sure you aretracking the right things, and
that's been making sure your GFO(General Marketing Automation),
which used to be GoogleAnalytics, is there to or if
(23:31):
you're using Adobe, but GFO isthe most common one, making sure
your CRM (Customer RelationshipManagement) integration is also
right. I didn't touch on it, butoffline data are also important
to really get the best out ofyour of your optimization,
because, yeah, that's mean, youare taking information from real
(23:56):
your real customer, your realbuyer, and when you feed the
system with those information,offline information, it helping
you get the best out of what youare currently doing.
Then the second step would bedefining success in business
terms. I mentioned earlier,vanity metrics. But yes, really,
(24:21):
what is that? What does successmeans to you as a business
person you know not only clicksyou know, so that's mean making
sure you have your return onyour ad spend right, and even
tied it to the profit, becausetheir return on ad spend would
(24:43):
not even be considering, youknow, all the other aspects. So
really, are you profitable orno? And once you consider all of
that, it will help you properlyoptimize the campaign and make
them work.
Then the third step would besegment your audience smartly.
This is touching on what we'vesaid that's been differentiator,
(25:06):
who are decision maker, who areinfluencer, who are researcher,
that they won't be having thesame impact, and if we identify
them properly, that will alsohelp you allocate the budget
accordingly and have moreefficiency on that part. I will
(25:26):
take an example, one of ourclients. When analyzing their
channels, we found that on meta,they were having the highest
cost per acquisition. However,when looking at the lifetime
(25:47):
value of those clients, thosewere the most relevant. So
that's mean it wasn't a problemto allocate more budget there,
because we knew that's wherethey are making more money if
you don't have that you knowsegmentation, you might just be
saying, Okay, we have a cost peracquisition, which is one of the
(26:11):
metrics. You could say cost peracquisition is too high there,
but without having the offlineinformation about the lifetime
value, you will be missing thepoint. You could cut out, you
know, that channel where,really, you know, it's where you
are getting the most value, andthen it will be the
(26:32):
differentiation on themessaging.
So build a creative, creativeand message that speaks directly
to the pinpoint so. And this is,again, you know, understanding
your audience, really, if youknow, if you understand them,
that means you will talk theirlanguage. And then the fifth one
(26:56):
I would add, there would betest, test and test
relentlessly. Again. Youcounting probably this is the
10th time I would say the click.Click is just the beginning. So
that's been once you have theclick, what can I do from that
point? You know, understandingyour client, testing a few
(27:18):
different, you know, differentaspect of your messaging, on
your landing pages. That how youknow, really, and that's why,
coming back to where we started,yeah, a lot of advertiser, when
they will be coming, they wouldnot have the time to do all of
this, because it's a full timejob, you know, to be testing
different aspects, you know, fora few weeks to have to validate
(27:41):
one hypothesis. If you are abusiness person, your job would
not certainly be, you know,doing that, and that's why it's
a recipe for failure. When youknow business people start
trying to do what is not theirjob. And even here, you could
see, even has a marketer, thereare a lot of steps, you know, to
(28:04):
be taken. And all of us, youknow, digital marketer, we are
not necessarily taking those.
Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, soI've written this down. Let me
just quickly recap for theaudience, yeah. So the first one
you said is fix your tracking,so GFO for Google Analytics,
with the CRM integration thatshould also be right, defining
success in business terms. Ithink that's an extremely
(28:26):
important one. Like, why are wedoing this right? Like, what's
the objective here? Right?
Yeah.
Segmenting your audiencesmartly, back to what you were
saying earlier. Like, at whatstage are they at? Right? How
many, how many different groups,especially in B2B, right? How
many different groups are wetargeting? Differentiation in
terms of messaging. I thinkthat's another big miss with a
(28:49):
lot of these campaigns, right?That the messaging is just too
generic, or perhaps they're justusing whatever ChatGPT gave
them. And Testing, testing,which leads me to another
question, Serge, because I'mpretty sure it's impacted your
area of expertise as well. Andwe are in 2025, at the time of
(29:09):
this recording. But AI, how hasAI impacted PPC, and where do
you see this going? Like, howcan AI help or hurt? PPC.
Yeah, that's a good one, youknow. And I didn't have it this
issue added. I was like, okay,Christian is, you know, just
(29:31):
uncommon. Not asking anythingabout AI. I was surprised. No
this. So there we go, yeah, AIis, you know, it's a part of our
lives, all of us, and now it'sstarting from the beginning. So,
why so? So the question I'masking myself is, you know, why
do I, why do I even need AI, youknow, for because, yeah, guess
(29:55):
what, if it's just, you know, tobe following the trend, it will
be just noise, more thananything. However, coming to
PPC, AI has been in PPC for along while, even, you know, long
before ChatGPT. We have more andmore, you know, smart bidding,
(30:19):
all those AI influence, but Iremember when I started PPC 16
years back, not making me lookyounger. But yeah, don't worry.
I'm 25.
For those that are listening,you know, they're only listening
to the audio version. I mean,Serge is a young looking guy.
(30:39):
There you go. Yeah, yeah. Iwould say PPC used to be manual,
you know, where you could freelyinfluence but AI now and
automation are part of thequestion to answer in a very
simple, you know, term to yourquestion about AI, it's, yeah,
(31:01):
AI is there. It's a tool likeany other tools, and it's what
you do with that tool thatreally matters. And also it what
I'm what I'm trying to avoid it,you know, being, yeah, being
lazy, as you mentioned, youknow, when talking about the ad
(31:23):
copy differentiation and peoplejust getting what they are, you
know, receiving from ChatGPT,yeah, the question is, using it
as a tool, which means it couldbe doing a lot of stuff, you
know, calculation, pullingtogether information, all those
(31:44):
things that are boring, youknow, let's use the word, you
know, I can say otherwise. So AIwould be doing that and freeing
us, you know, space to bestrategizing, doing all you
know, the steps we mentioned,understanding our market, the
competition, segmenting,differentiating, you know, our
(32:07):
messages, putting together thestrategy. Because, yeah, AI
won't be able to do that, atleast not properly.
So yeah, that's for me. Youknow, how, how I'm, yeah, you
know, positioning, you know,ourselves with AI, but yeah, we
are using it definitely, youknow, to make our life easier,
(32:28):
not the other one, not toreplace us. And actually, this,
this one, yeah, I was at theconference last week in
Manchester, and that was, youknow, the very topic, and also a
personal experience. It was mybirthday last week, and so when
there we had Ed Sheeran, youknow, the singer, you probably
(32:52):
know, we had his impersonator,you know, who came at the event.
Now, at a personal level, I'mjust one of those guys who can
walk past any celebrity, youknow, art. So I went for my
selfie, and I was pretty muchconvinced, you know, that it was
the real one, because I went,had a chat, told him it was my
(33:16):
birthday. Oh, so he sung me, youknow, a happy birthday, which I
was pleased to publish. Like,okay, I had the real Ed Sheeran,
you know, singing me happybirthday. But it turned out, you
know, it was a fake one. Socoming back to AI, one of the I
had an academic who wasdiscussing on that topic, and he
(33:40):
said one of the main competencywe need in the future with AI
would be for expert to really beexpert to drive AI and, you
know, tell it when it's wrong orright. And that was a, you know,
perfect example, you know, withthat HR experience.
(34:01):
Absolutely, absolutely andbelated Happy Birthday, by the
way. And so I did see the post,and I looked closely at the
picture, and I'm like, Yeah,that's not the real guy.
You were, right? And the thingis, I didn't have a lot of
people, you know, coming to sayit looks like for a lot of
people, you know, I wasn'tscummed, you know, on my own.
(34:26):
Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, sowe get to the next question,
which I call the soapboxquestion, what is the status quo
in your area of expertise? So,PPC, that you passionately
disagree with and why?
Okay, yeah, one of those wealready touched on it. For me,
it's PPC, it's set it and forgetit. And a lot of campaigns
(34:53):
auditing just that way, so youcould see people, they just, you
know, created the campaign. Andthey are expecting the system,
you know, to turn it magically,you know, positively. So, yeah,
that's, I disagree. So you know,when I mentioned that the step
(35:17):
to go, the very last one was,you know, to test, test and
test. So, yeah, this is wherethe real magic is happening. You
know, within PPC, when wetesting. So if we set and
forget, we won't be able toreally see what works. And at
this point, I would also, youknow, blink, the
(35:39):
diversification, you know,Google is 90% of the PPC
ecosystem. That's fine. However,it's not the world, the entire
ecosystem. And on this one, wehave just the second search
engine, you know, in the world,Microsoft Art, which is getting
ignored, sorry. And so withthat, I would just use metaphor
(36:04):
to say, if PPC, it's a brain,and our brain is having two
hemisphere, Google will be theleft one, and then Microsoft
will be the, you know, the rightone. And I'm seeing a lot of PPC
or advertiser just running onone hemisphere. So if you have
(36:27):
one hemisphere, you will neverknow, you might even be
successful on Google, but itwill never be complete. You
know, once you have afunctioning PPC brand where you
have Google's running, and thenMicrosoft, who is coming, and
the way is working, because it'stwo different search engine
would be coming incrementally towhat you are achieving on
(36:48):
Google. So that's really where,you know you have the magic of,
you know, the full potential ofyour PPC.
Absolutely, absolutely. And youknow it was, it goes back to
what you were saying earlier onthe conversation. It's a set it
and forget it. It's also a verydangerous mindset, and it could
(37:08):
lead to, it could lead also to atremendous waste of money if you
don't know what you're doing.
Yeah, exactly. Which is sometime for when business owner are
managing the Google ad thatjust, that's just naturally
happens, because, yeah, it's nottheir job, you know, they are
focused on, you know, runningtheir business, doing what they
(37:31):
are good at. So they will belike, Okay, we have some PPC
running, and that just, youknow, was for everyone.
Absolutely, absolutely, okay.Here comes the bonus question,
which I kind of like, I hintedat it already previously. But
you know, the rumor, the rumoron LinkedIn, is that you're a
runner, and I've seen some, I'veseen some videos of you running,
(37:56):
and you've clearly, like,participated in some marathons
and the like. So my question toyou, Serge, is like, what is it?
What is it about running thatyou've learned that you've
applied in your professionallife?
Oh, yeah, that's a profound one.Okay, so yeah? Well, I would say
(38:17):
yeah, the rumor on LinkedIn isright, yeah, running is an
important part of my life, andeven exercising, it's an
important part of my life. I'mcoming from a football
background, and most gradually,I went into running, and past
six years, I've been more of arunner participating to that, I
(38:37):
participated to three marathons,so Paris, Eden trail and London
this year, and most recentlycompleted a half marathon the
Royal Park one in London. Sowith with running, long distance
running, remind me just the waylife is. So life is a marathon.
(38:57):
So it's not a, you know, it'snot a sprint, and which is
running it. You know, if, whenyou get that mindset, a
marathon, a marathon doesn'tmean you are going the distance
that's in you, that means youneed to really well, I will
(39:18):
bring it back a bit to the PPC.So we need to strategize if you
are to cover 42 kilometers whileit is becoming serious. So you
need to make sure you reallymanage, you know, time your
effort, you have a properstrategy, because you can just,
you know, wake up and say, Okay,I will cover 42k you will be,
(39:41):
you know, really going intotrouble. So strategizing and
then planning and that will beinfluencing, you know, even your
worth living, because, yeah, howyou rest, how you recover, how
you eat, and so, yeah.
And then it's also pushing youto the limit. That's mean your
(40:05):
mindset, which is actually themost important you know when
doing this, because to run amarathon, it will be, yeah, a
bit about you need to turn thatfor sure, but it will be about
going beyond the physicalbattle, and at that point it
(40:28):
will be more what you have inyour mindset. Or no, do you
believe you can do it? Or no,you know, are you fighting to
keep on going when your body issaying, Okay, I can't take it
anymore. So and all of thosethings, when you bring them back
to to normal life is just, youknow, on a daily basis, your
(40:50):
business person, you know, wehave up and down. You will have
no client, you know, sometime.So how are you behaving? You
know, with when all those thingsare happening. And in between
the running, I also developed myproper tools, one of them being
what I call my three nosephilosophies, which I'm happy to
(41:13):
share with our listeners here,could be helping. It's working
for me. And yeah, I'm sure ifyou guys are testing it, it will
be working. So the first, no,it's no excuses. That's been
whatever you set yourself to do.You just go for it. You don't
find excuses. So it's a respectyou give to yourself. The
(41:36):
second, no, it's no complaint.Life is, you know, life is
throwing us a lot of stuff. Notonly is, you know, chocolate, if
I can say but yeah, you have toface it. When is there? If you
complain, it won't changeanything. So that's mean not
(41:57):
complaining set you to findingthe solution. And the third one
is no self pity. You can stillsay, Okay, I was born in
wherever it is, this or that,that won't change anything. The
question it's, are you willingto consider that however,
(42:17):
whatever your condition is notwhat defines you, it's what you
do you know next that will bethe important step. So yeah, my
train of philosophy, Sophiewould be the bonus for our
listener,
No excuses, no complaints and noself pity. So not only is sales
(42:37):
a PPC expert, but he's also aphilosopher, no, but it's
awesome. Awesome. I love it.But, Serge, this has been such a
great conversation. Thank you somuch for coming on and for
sharing your expertise and yourexperience and your running
advice with the listeners, andquick introduction to yourself
and how people out there can getin touch with you. And I did
(42:59):
notice, you know, there were acouple of hints in the
conversation. There were a lotof, like, medical terms floating
around. What's the story there?
The story so, yeah. Quick Introabout me, yeah, I'm search your
PPC doctor. I'm called the PPCdoctor in the industry, I do
quite a lot of public speakingin the digital marketing space.
(43:20):
I'm George award at the searchaward in the UK, globally and at
international level. I have 16years experience in PPC, and I
run my agency called your PPCdoctor, if people want to be in
(43:42):
touch with me, they can type myname online. I'm quite active on
LinkedIn, so Serge Nguele, youwill find me, yeah, wearing, you
know, something with this PPCdoctor. This is the branding.
And to your question, why yourPPC doctor? So there is a real
story there. I'm a former Medstudent. So I studied medicine
(44:04):
to become a proper doctor, butfor some reason, I will spell
spare the details. I pivotedinto marketing and specialize
into digital and PPC. So when Iwas creating my agency, the name
was natural, your PPC doctor,which is also a real way of
(44:27):
doing stuff. I don't call theclient. I still call, you know,
my patients, and I'm having thedoctor mindset within your PPC,
where we really listen and thenwe listen, then we diagnose,
prescribe, and from theprescription, we follow up with
(44:49):
care. So yeah, that's the doctormindset at your PPC Doctor.
Fantastic, fantastic. The onlything you don't do is tell
people to breathe in, breatheout and cough for me, please.
Not yet.
Not yet, fantastic, fantastic.So once again, thank you so much
for your time. Take care, staysafe and talk to you soon.
Okay, yes. Thanks Christian,thanks for having me.
(45:12):
Thanks. Okay. Bye, for now.
Yeah. Bye.
Every pay per click campaign hassymptoms. Some are mild, while
others are critical. With themarketing landscape becoming
more competitive and budgetsshrinking, ensuring your PPC
(Pay-Per-Click) campaigns arewell thought out and healthy is
imperative. So how can marketingteams ensure they optimize their
PPC campaigns for maximumimpact? Welcome to this episode
(00:21):
of the B2B Marketers in aMission podcast, and I'm your
host, Christian Klepp. Today,I'll be talking to Serge Nguele,
who will be answering thisquestion. He's the founder at
your PPC doctor who specializesin implementing PPC solutions
for companies. Tune in to findout more about what this B2B
marketers mission is. Okay, andhere we go. Mr. Serge Nguele,
(00:47):
welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me,Christian. How are you today?
I'm great, and I'm reallylooking forward to this
conversation, because I'll behonest with you, I was looking
through the archive of all thepast episodes, and I have to say
nobody has been on the show thatis going to talk about this
topic, so this is the firsttime.
Oh, yeah, good to hear. We'lltry to bring some value to all
(01:11):
the millions of you knowlistener out there.
Absolutely, absolutely. So let'sdive in, because I think this is
going to be an interestingtopic. And I don't know about
you, perhaps you run across thismany times, but in my space and
in my network, the moment peoplehear pay per click or PPC, they
get a little bit like, I don'tknow. Oh, I'm not sure. And this
(01:34):
is part of the reason, a bigpart of the reason why I've
asked somebody like yourself tocome on the show. It's to take
the ickiness out of this topicand get them to understand why
it's important, right? So let'sdive into the first question.
Okay, so Serge, you're on amission to listen. I love this
(01:55):
one. Listen, diagnose andprescribe the right paperclip
solutions for B2B companies. Sofor this conversation, let's
focus on the topic of how tooptimize your PPC campaigns for
maximum impact. So I'm going tokick off this conversation with
the following question, what isit about PPC that you wish more
(02:15):
people understood?
Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Thanks,Christian for your question, and
to quickly touch on what you'vesaid about PPC. That's the story
of my life. You know, whenpeople are asking, what do you
do? And I will say, Pay PerClick, I will start explaining,
you know, and they will justnod, and I will be like, not
(02:36):
quite sure they got it, but youknow, the quick way would be
just to tell them, whenever yousearch for anything online, you
go on Google or whichever searchengine. And we'll touch on it,
there is not only Google, youknow, when we when it comes to
PPC, you type your keyword, andyou will see a lot of links
coming and the one with a littlead, which means advertising
(03:00):
that's pay per click. Ah, theywould say, Yeah, that's fine.
But to come to your questionwhen it's come to PPC, really,
what I wish most marketers areunderstanding is that PPC, which
stands for pay per click, andit's pay per click, because
whenever you type a keyword andyou click on the link coming
(03:24):
there is someone paying theadvertiser, not usually the
user. That's why it's pay perclick. And what is good to I
wish many people you knowunderstood about it is that PPC
it's about buying time to testyour market assumptions.
Because, yeah, all of us, allthe businesses, it's really
(03:46):
happening, not when you have theclick, but it's after the click.
What's happening there. So whendone right? PPC is the fastest,
one of the fastest way I know ofto validate the messaging, your
offer, your positioning, and Iwish more marketers understood
that PPC is in a silo. It's afeedback engine, really, and
(04:12):
when you use it to inform yourmarket, product fit your sales
messaging, or even your customerexperiences. It really goes
beyond clicks, and that's whereyou get the magic out of PPC.
Yeah, that's a really good wayof putting it. Serge, and thanks
(04:33):
for sharing that. We're going totouch on this, I think even more
later on. But like just youknow, from a very top level
perspective. Why do you think alot of people feel, even
marketers, feel that PPC is awaste of marketing investment?
Yes, with this one, if I'mtaking from advertiser, let's
say you Christian, you are, youknow, a business person, the
(04:57):
way. Well. Yeah, when it'scoming to PPC, it's fair to talk
more about Google, because,yeah, Google is having 90% of
the market. So we will sayGoogle, but Google is not the
world. PPC has rules here a bitlater. So let's say what Google
has done over the year is toreally make it easy for pretty
(05:21):
much anyone on the planet to bein a position to choose a few
keyword enter the credit card,and in a matter of minutes, they
would have another runningshowing up to people. So that's
the easy part, but that's notdoing PPC, and what is happening
(05:44):
out of it, soon enough, theywill realize, Okay, we are
having a lot of clicks, but notwhat we are expecting, which
means sales, or whatever is thatis making their bottom line. And
a lot of client I would beseeing advertiser. It will be
after that phase where theyfound them themselves, you know,
(06:07):
out of pocket of 100, if not1000s, of click. And they will
all, all of them. They will comelike, PPC doesn't work. And I
would say, yeah, it's normal forit not to work, if you because
it's a job, you know, I'm nothere to defend, you know, my
(06:28):
job, but, yeah, it's taking timeto be a PPC expert. So really,
for me, starting from thebeginning, where people are
doing what they are not meant todo is not like me. You know,
tomorrow I won't be going outthere and say I'm a podcast
(06:48):
host. You know, that will be aninsult on, you know, all the
learning you went through, youknow, to be where you are. So
for me, that's really the keyproblem. So basically, it's,
yeah, it's a West because a lotof unqualified people, and I'm
saying this, you know,respectfully, are just, you
(07:12):
know, wasting budget,essentially.
Yeah, so what I'm hearing yousay is, like part of it is
certainly a lack of expertise.The other one is also, perhaps
even a lack of strategy, andwe're going to talk about that
later on in the conversation,but that is a great segue to the
next question about key pitfallsthat you think B2B marketers
(07:33):
should avoid when it comes toPPC. So what are those key
pitfalls, and what should theybe doing instead?
Yes, and this will becomplementing my answer,
because, yeah, I focus it onadvertiser directly. But let's
say when PPC experts are doingare running campaigns for their
(07:53):
clients. So this is to thisquestion to as mainly PPC has
said, it's one of the quickestway to really generate clicks
out there. That's fine, but thatjust the beginning, but even
before getting there. So it'sthe strategy beforehand,
because, yeah, it's quite easyto set the keyword, generate
(08:16):
click and realize the website isnot ready. The offer is not what
it was supposed to be, and it'sbringing us, you know, to really
plan before even startingcreating your first campaign.
That means the strategy. What isyour product? Are you
(08:36):
understanding your market?What's your positioning your
competition. What are youbringing to the market? So
that's the strategy. Once youclear with it, it will make it
easy for you to say, Okay, I'munderstanding the market. This
is my offer. This is what I'mbringing, different, you know,
(08:58):
in the market space. And nowthis is the strategy, the
approach I'm going to use toreach out to those people. Where
are those people? Even, youknow, searching for the product
or service I'm going to promoteonline. Because, yeah, when we
say PPC, it's a full funnel.
If we take Google, for example,people will be having multiple
(09:20):
touch point to see your product.Yeah, I've been talking more
about keywords, but there is alot more than that. And if I ask
you, how are you searchingonline? You are not only typing
keyword, but you are selfadvertising because you've given
(09:41):
some information about who youare, and search engine and
marketing platform are havingthose information about you,
your age, your job, how much youearn, all of those inside are
what would be part of thestrategy, how you approach
market.
(10:01):
Now, once that is done properly,and let's say the companies,
company is already running it'show are you measuring success?
And there it will be all thevanity metrics. So okay, it's
good to have impression clicks,but what about the bottom line?
(10:22):
Because, yeah, if you areinvesting, who says investment?
Expect a return out of thatinvestment? So if you measure
only how many people areclicking on your website, that's
you are missing the point. Soquestion would be, how many are
converting whatever is that youknow you define as a conversion.
(10:44):
Now, another part would be howyou set your campaign. I said,
how easy Google could, you know,make it to create a PPC
campaign, they have also a lotof automatic function that have.
(11:05):
This is not the point. I'm nothere, you know, to do a very
cheap Google bashing. But, Imean, yeah, this platform are
having, well, I will say polite,just insane, you know, feature
making it just kind of waste ofbudget, you know, where you'll
(11:27):
have the keyword targeting the,you know, network you shouldn't
be, you know, advertising on tosell it. So do setting and also
aligning to the sales objective.So those are, you know, a few
ways. So I said quite a lot. Tobring it more into structure, I
(11:50):
would say, first of all, it'sstrategy before even, you know,
thinking of creating thecampaign. You have your
strategy, and then once yourcompany are there, I said, but
yeah, I would keep on repeatingit, the clicking, just the
beginning of it. So what are youmeasuring? So having, you know,
real matrix, not vanity metricslike click, CTR (Click-Through
(12:13):
Rate) and then setting yourcampaigns. A lot of advertisers
are on set and forget, you know,not doing anything. And guess
what? It wouldn't work, youknow, because you have to
optimize continuously and thenalign with business goals.
(12:33):
Absolutely, absolutely no. I'vebeen writing furiously as you're
talking, but like what I'mhearing you say, and I think
it's absolutely right but peopletend to forget that PPC, and in
fact, a lot of these otherinitiatives, they're all part of
an ecosystem, right? And it'sall you all. You have to think
about it like, Okay, so where isthis going to go? Because the,
(12:55):
as you rightfully said, theclick is just the beginning.
When they click, where are theygoing? Where are they going to
land? Is it going to be alanding page? Is it going to be
an ad? And after they've scannedthe content on that said page or
that ad, what do you want themto do? So what's the call to
action? Where are you going tofunnel them from there after
that? What's the follow through?So it almost seems to me like
(13:17):
this has to all be mapped out.It doesn't just stop with PPC,
right?
Yes, and even there quickly,before you asked your other
question, yeah, sorry tointerrupt. I will say it's all
tied to the strategy, because,yeah, could be a lot of things.
You know, you can use PPCbecause you want to test
something on your website. Youcan use PPC because you want to
(13:42):
complement what you are doingwith your organic traffic
strategy. Most recently, I had,I was referred a prospective
client, and they came to mesaying, we are doing well on our
organic search. Now we want tobring PPC to complement all of
that and expand. So, yeah, youknow, all of those things are
(14:07):
part of the strategy. So, and itwill be different if you are
coming because you want to testsomething on your landing page
that's been, for example, yourmain metrics. To go back to what
I've said, clicks. Your clickswouldn't be a vanity matrix,
because you really want peopleyou know to come there and you
know, validate whatever you wanton the landing page. Whereas, if
(14:32):
you are there to generate leads,probably you want, you know,
content yourself only withclicks. You will want people you
know to fill your lead form. Youknow.
Absolutely, absolutely so salesyou've tried. You've touched on
this already, but like, let'sexpand on it further. So what do
you think are the main causes ofunderperforming paid search
(14:55):
campaigns? So from yourexperience, what do you think
the real underlying problemsare, and I suppose one of them
is a lack of strategy.Certainly.
Yeah, it's starting from there.Christian, yeah, you said it a
lack of strategy. But okay, letus assume you are there, you
know, you are getting clicks. Sothere one of the main cause of
(15:19):
on the performing campaign, Iwould say it's that whenever I
audit account, a lot of them arejust flying kind of blind. That
means the tracking is even, youknow, wrong. This is something I
should start with it, you know.But he has a good case to, you
know, talk about it. It's, yeah,when you have the campaign, so
(15:40):
you need to make sure you trackevery single click. Otherwise,
how would you even know what isperforming? So this is the main
cause of underperformingcampaigns. For me, it's weight
tracking and measurement, andthat's mean, if you can't trust
your data, you can't optimizeand at this point, because,
yeah, you have business peoplelistening to this an important
(16:06):
part, an important one, youknow, a lot of people are not
advertising. It's also theinvalid traffic. You have a lot
of, you know, especially nowwith AI and all boats, you know,
we have are there. And thisthere is a staggering, you know,
number of invalid traffic so,and this is, you know, a proper
(16:32):
study, so in certain verticalmore than 20% of click received
are all invalid. So that's mean,if you factor that to properly
understand that mean whateveryou are receiving, 20% of those
clicks are wrong. So that's meanyou're working with wrong data.
(16:57):
That's mean everything thatwould follow after that are
just, you know, assumption basedon 20% of you know wrong
information. So this is animportant one.
And I would say, has advertiser,and this is something, for
example, yeah, I don't want tooversell, but what we do in
(17:20):
which your PPC doctor. Those arethings I'm putting in place to
really be working with, invalue, traffic, you know,
company. There are a few outthere, but yeah, I'm working
with lunio, for example, whichis our partner. So those I would
recommend, not necessarily, youknow, but you find whoever you
(17:41):
want to work with, but this isreally important to make sure
you are receiving, you know, theright information, so weak
tracking and measurement andthen ignoring the funnel in the
process. So you know when, againas I was saying, depending on
(18:04):
what you want to achieve, youwill have different goals, and
you will be optimizing yourcampaign differently regarding
what you want to achieve. So alot of campaign are only
targeting bottom up funnelintent, but you know, and they
will be missing all the otherfunnels. So yeah, to develop
(18:25):
quickly about the funnel. Soyeah, roughly, we would have the
awareness and then, so that'smean people are just discovering
they want something. So theywant to know what their options
are out there into that phase,and then they would have the
consideration where, okay, thenthey are quite definite about
(18:50):
what they want. Now they arestarting making, you know, their
decision. And then it will bethe conversion phase, where they
are in a position to decide andbuy, essentially.
So when you set your campaign,you have to, you know, be
considerate of all those phases,because they are someone who is
(19:11):
in their awareness phase, theywill just be there to consider
their options. They won't bebuying. And you need to factor
that so that your campaign, yourstrategy that's tied back to
strategy that's mean, okay, youwill plan your campaign to spend
(19:32):
a certain amount, or invest acertain amount to reach people
in their awareness phase, andthen another amount to bring
them to consider, and anotherone in consideration. And when
you tie that to the wallecosystem, we said, PPC is just
a fraction of you know your theworld, the world marketing
(19:53):
ecosystem. So that's mean, okay,awareness. How are you going to
you? Know, once they click andyou have that information, are
you following up with an email,you know, to just keep them
alive and making sure when, whenthey are in a position to
convert if they see your ad,take that decision, you know.
(20:14):
And then the third one, it'sgeneric ad copies all we've said
so people, when they areconsidering they won't be in the
same, you know, set of mind,like when they are just there to
discover, or when they want tobuy. So you need also, you know,
with your messaging, todifferentiate all those phases
(20:38):
people in the awareness you wantthem to to know you are there.
They might even be coming, youknow, online already having
their assumption some, some oftheir preferred planned. You
know, so if you come into thatmoment, your message should be
to tell them we are here. Wecould be an option for you when
(21:00):
they are there to consider yourmessage. Need to be different
and so on, when they are readyto, you know, to convert. And
even there could be, you know,remarketing as well, you know,
because they, if they alreadyknow about you, you won't come
again with the same message. Youneed to try something different.
It could be, if you have adiscount, or whatever, you know,
(21:23):
could bring value. So a lot tosay, Yeah, but here to to
summarize, I know, yeah, I saidquite a lot. But to summarize,
you know, the main thing wouldbe, really the tracking and
measurement you need to track.If you don't track your flying
blind, then consider the funnel.So at which stage people are
(21:43):
which micro moment? Are theythere because they want to know?
Are they there because they wantto buy? Are they, you know, all
those the funnel, and the thirdone would be having a
differentiated ad copy to matchall of that.
Fantastic, fantastic. You didsay a lot, but I think it was
very important, because I whatyou're, what you were explaining
(22:05):
was you were expanding on, notjust again, it's, I think for
me, it's also beyond the PPC,because it's understanding the
buyer's journey. First of all,who the buyers are, and what
stage of the journey that you'reat. I think you mentioned at
least three times, from what Ifrom what I can remember, are
they... No, no. And I think it'simportant, because are they in
(22:27):
the Discover stage where theyhaven't, you know, they're just
looking around for us to seewhat the options are, or are
they at the stage where they'realready bought in and they're
and they're ready to buy twocompletely different
motivations, differentmessaging, different copy, is
required, right? And if peopleare using this, I would just
call it like the one size fitsall approach, right? That's a
(22:49):
recipe for failure, right?
Exactly, exactly.
Okay, fantastic. Moving on tothe next question. So break it
down for us here. How can youknow based on everything that
you've said, How can marketersoptimize their PPC campaign. So
what are the steps? What are thekey components that need to be
in that process to make thissuccessful?
(23:11):
So at this point, yeah, we'llassume they had their
strategies, right? So yeah, thefirst one would be, fix your
tracking to make sure you aretracking the right things, and
that's been making sure your GFO(General Marketing Automation),
which used to be GoogleAnalytics, is there to or if
(23:31):
you're using Adobe, but GFO isthe most common one, making sure
your CRM (Customer RelationshipManagement) integration is also
right. I didn't touch on it, butoffline data are also important
to really get the best out ofyour of your optimization,
because, yeah, that's mean, youare taking information from real
(23:56):
your real customer, your realbuyer, and when you feed the
system with those information,offline information, it helping
you get the best out of what youare currently doing.
Then the second step would bedefining success in business
terms. I mentioned earlier,vanity metrics. But yes, really,
(24:21):
what is that? What does successmeans to you as a business
person you know not only clicksyou know, so that's mean making
sure you have your return onyour ad spend right, and even
tied it to the profit, becausetheir return on ad spend would
(24:43):
not even be considering, youknow, all the other aspects. So
really, are you profitable orno? And once you consider all of
that, it will help you properlyoptimize the campaign and make
them work.
Then the third step would besegment your audience smartly.
This is touching on what we'vesaid that's been differentiator,
(25:06):
who are decision maker, who areinfluencer, who are researcher,
that they won't be having thesame impact, and if we identify
them properly, that will alsohelp you allocate the budget
accordingly and have moreefficiency on that part. I will
(25:26):
take an example, one of ourclients. When analyzing their
channels, we found that on meta,they were having the highest
cost per acquisition. However,when looking at the lifetime
(25:47):
value of those clients, thosewere the most relevant. So
that's mean it wasn't a problemto allocate more budget there,
because we knew that's wherethey are making more money if
you don't have that you knowsegmentation, you might just be
saying, Okay, we have a cost peracquisition, which is one of the
(26:11):
metrics. You could say cost peracquisition is too high there,
but without having the offlineinformation about the lifetime
value, you will be missing thepoint. You could cut out, you
know, that channel where,really, you know, it's where you
are getting the most value, andthen it will be the
(26:32):
differentiation on themessaging.
So build a creative, creativeand message that speaks directly
to the pinpoint so. And this is,again, you know, understanding
your audience, really, if youknow, if you understand them,
that means you will talk theirlanguage. And then the fifth one
(26:56):
I would add, there would betest, test and test
relentlessly. Again. Youcounting probably this is the
10th time I would say the click.Click is just the beginning. So
that's been once you have theclick, what can I do from that
point? You know, understandingyour client, testing a few
(27:18):
different, you know, differentaspect of your messaging, on
your landing pages. That how youknow, really, and that's why,
coming back to where we started,yeah, a lot of advertiser, when
they will be coming, they wouldnot have the time to do all of
this, because it's a full timejob, you know, to be testing
different aspects, you know, fora few weeks to have to validate
(27:41):
one hypothesis. If you are abusiness person, your job would
not certainly be, you know,doing that, and that's why it's
a recipe for failure. When youknow business people start
trying to do what is not theirjob. And even here, you could
see, even has a marketer, thereare a lot of steps, you know, to
(28:04):
be taken. And all of us, youknow, digital marketer, we are
not necessarily taking those.
Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, soI've written this down. Let me
just quickly recap for theaudience, yeah. So the first one
you said is fix your tracking,so GFO for Google Analytics,
with the CRM integration thatshould also be right, defining
success in business terms. Ithink that's an extremely
(28:26):
important one. Like, why are wedoing this right? Like, what's
the objective here? Right?
Yeah.
Segmenting your audiencesmartly, back to what you were
saying earlier. Like, at whatstage are they at? Right? How
many, how many different groups,especially in B2B, right? How
many different groups are wetargeting? Differentiation in
terms of messaging. I thinkthat's another big miss with a
(28:49):
lot of these campaigns, right?That the messaging is just too
generic, or perhaps they're justusing whatever ChatGPT gave
them. And Testing, testing,which leads me to another
question, Serge, because I'mpretty sure it's impacted your
area of expertise as well. Andwe are in 2025, at the time of
(29:09):
this recording. But AI, how hasAI impacted PPC, and where do
you see this going? Like, howcan AI help or hurt? PPC.
Yeah, that's a good one, youknow. And I didn't have it this
issue added. I was like, okay,Christian is, you know, just
(29:31):
uncommon. Not asking anythingabout AI. I was surprised. No
this. So there we go, yeah, AIis, you know, it's a part of our
lives, all of us, and now it'sstarting from the beginning. So,
why so? So the question I'masking myself is, you know, why
do I, why do I even need AI, youknow, for because, yeah, guess
(29:55):
what, if it's just, you know, tobe following the trend, it will
be just noise, more thananything. However, coming to
PPC, AI has been in PPC for along while, even, you know, long
before ChatGPT. We have more andmore, you know, smart bidding,
(30:19):
all those AI influence, but Iremember when I started PPC 16
years back, not making me lookyounger. But yeah, don't worry.
I'm 25.
For those that are listening,you know, they're only listening
to the audio version. I mean,Serge is a young looking guy.
(30:39):
There you go. Yeah, yeah. Iwould say PPC used to be manual,
you know, where you could freelyinfluence but AI now and
automation are part of thequestion to answer in a very
simple, you know, term to yourquestion about AI, it's, yeah,
(31:01):
AI is there. It's a tool likeany other tools, and it's what
you do with that tool thatreally matters. And also it what
I'm what I'm trying to avoid it,you know, being, yeah, being
lazy, as you mentioned, youknow, when talking about the ad
(31:23):
copy differentiation and peoplejust getting what they are, you
know, receiving from ChatGPT,yeah, the question is, using it
as a tool, which means it couldbe doing a lot of stuff, you
know, calculation, pullingtogether information, all those
(31:44):
things that are boring, youknow, let's use the word, you
know, I can say otherwise. So AIwould be doing that and freeing
us, you know, space to bestrategizing, doing all you
know, the steps we mentioned,understanding our market, the
competition, segmenting,differentiating, you know, our
(32:07):
messages, putting together thestrategy. Because, yeah, AI
won't be able to do that, atleast not properly.
So yeah, that's for me. Youknow, how, how I'm, yeah, you
know, positioning, you know,ourselves with AI, but yeah, we
are using it definitely, youknow, to make our life easier,
(32:28):
not the other one, not toreplace us. And actually, this,
this one, yeah, I was at theconference last week in
Manchester, and that was, youknow, the very topic, and also a
personal experience. It was mybirthday last week, and so when
there we had Ed Sheeran, youknow, the singer, you probably
(32:52):
know, we had his impersonator,you know, who came at the event.
Now, at a personal level, I'mjust one of those guys who can
walk past any celebrity, youknow, art. So I went for my
selfie, and I was pretty muchconvinced, you know, that it was
the real one, because I went,had a chat, told him it was my
(33:16):
birthday. Oh, so he sung me, youknow, a happy birthday, which I
was pleased to publish. Like,okay, I had the real Ed Sheeran,
you know, singing me happybirthday. But it turned out, you
know, it was a fake one. Socoming back to AI, one of the I
had an academic who wasdiscussing on that topic, and he
(33:40):
said one of the main competencywe need in the future with AI
would be for expert to really beexpert to drive AI and, you
know, tell it when it's wrong orright. And that was a, you know,
perfect example, you know, withthat HR experience.
(34:01):
Absolutely, absolutely andbelated Happy Birthday, by the
way. And so I did see the post,and I looked closely at the
picture, and I'm like, Yeah,that's not the real guy.
You were, right? And the thingis, I didn't have a lot of
people, you know, coming to sayit looks like for a lot of
people, you know, I wasn'tscummed, you know, on my own.
(34:26):
Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, sowe get to the next question,
which I call the soapboxquestion, what is the status quo
in your area of expertise? So,PPC, that you passionately
disagree with and why?
Okay, yeah, one of those wealready touched on it. For me,
it's PPC, it's set it and forgetit. And a lot of campaigns
(34:53):
auditing just that way, so youcould see people, they just, you
know, created the campaign. Andthey are expecting the system,
you know, to turn it magically,you know, positively. So, yeah,
that's, I disagree. So you know,when I mentioned that the step
(35:17):
to go, the very last one was,you know, to test, test and
test. So, yeah, this is wherethe real magic is happening. You
know, within PPC, when wetesting. So if we set and
forget, we won't be able toreally see what works. And at
this point, I would also, youknow, blink, the
(35:39):
diversification, you know,Google is 90% of the PPC
ecosystem. That's fine. However,it's not the world, the entire
ecosystem. And on this one, wehave just the second search
engine, you know, in the world,Microsoft Art, which is getting
ignored, sorry. And so withthat, I would just use metaphor
(36:04):
to say, if PPC, it's a brain,and our brain is having two
hemisphere, Google will be theleft one, and then Microsoft
will be the, you know, the rightone. And I'm seeing a lot of PPC
or advertiser just running onone hemisphere. So if you have
(36:27):
one hemisphere, you will neverknow, you might even be
successful on Google, but itwill never be complete. You
know, once you have afunctioning PPC brand where you
have Google's running, and thenMicrosoft, who is coming, and
the way is working, because it'stwo different search engine
would be coming incrementally towhat you are achieving on
(36:48):
Google. So that's really where,you know you have the magic of,
you know, the full potential ofyour PPC.
Absolutely, absolutely. And youknow it was, it goes back to
what you were saying earlier onthe conversation. It's a set it
and forget it. It's also a verydangerous mindset, and it could
(37:08):
lead to, it could lead also to atremendous waste of money if you
don't know what you're doing.
Yeah, exactly. Which is sometime for when business owner are
managing the Google ad thatjust, that's just naturally
happens, because, yeah, it's nottheir job, you know, they are
focused on, you know, runningtheir business, doing what they
(37:31):
are good at. So they will belike, Okay, we have some PPC
running, and that just, youknow, was for everyone.
Absolutely, absolutely, okay.Here comes the bonus question,
which I kind of like, I hintedat it already previously. But
you know, the rumor, the rumoron LinkedIn, is that you're a
runner, and I've seen some, I'veseen some videos of you running,
(37:56):
and you've clearly, like,participated in some marathons
and the like. So my question toyou, Serge, is like, what is it?
What is it about running thatyou've learned that you've
applied in your professionallife?
Oh, yeah, that's a profound one.Okay, so yeah? Well, I would say
(38:17):
yeah, the rumor on LinkedIn isright, yeah, running is an
important part of my life, andeven exercising, it's an
important part of my life. I'mcoming from a football
background, and most gradually,I went into running, and past
six years, I've been more of arunner participating to that, I
(38:37):
participated to three marathons,so Paris, Eden trail and London
this year, and most recentlycompleted a half marathon the
Royal Park one in London. Sowith with running, long distance
running, remind me just the waylife is. So life is a marathon.
(38:57):
So it's not a, you know, it'snot a sprint, and which is
running it. You know, if, whenyou get that mindset, a
marathon, a marathon doesn'tmean you are going the distance
that's in you, that means youneed to really well, I will
(39:18):
bring it back a bit to the PPC.So we need to strategize if you
are to cover 42 kilometers whileit is becoming serious. So you
need to make sure you reallymanage, you know, time your
effort, you have a properstrategy, because you can just,
you know, wake up and say, Okay,I will cover 42k you will be,
(39:41):
you know, really going intotrouble. So strategizing and
then planning and that will beinfluencing, you know, even your
worth living, because, yeah, howyou rest, how you recover, how
you eat, and so, yeah.
And then it's also pushing youto the limit. That's mean your
(40:05):
mindset, which is actually themost important you know when
doing this, because to run amarathon, it will be, yeah, a
bit about you need to turn thatfor sure, but it will be about
going beyond the physicalbattle, and at that point it
(40:28):
will be more what you have inyour mindset. Or no, do you
believe you can do it? Or no,you know, are you fighting to
keep on going when your body issaying, Okay, I can't take it
anymore. So and all of thosethings, when you bring them back
to to normal life is just, youknow, on a daily basis, your
(40:50):
business person, you know, wehave up and down. You will have
no client, you know, sometime.So how are you behaving? You
know, with when all those thingsare happening. And in between
the running, I also developed myproper tools, one of them being
what I call my three nosephilosophies, which I'm happy to
(41:13):
share with our listeners here,could be helping. It's working
for me. And yeah, I'm sure ifyou guys are testing it, it will
be working. So the first, no,it's no excuses. That's been
whatever you set yourself to do.You just go for it. You don't
find excuses. So it's a respectyou give to yourself. The
(41:36):
second, no, it's no complaint.Life is, you know, life is
throwing us a lot of stuff. Notonly is, you know, chocolate, if
I can say but yeah, you have toface it. When is there? If you
complain, it won't changeanything. So that's mean not
(41:57):
complaining set you to findingthe solution. And the third one
is no self pity. You can stillsay, Okay, I was born in
wherever it is, this or that,that won't change anything. The
question it's, are you willingto consider that however,
(42:17):
whatever your condition is notwhat defines you, it's what you
do you know next that will bethe important step. So yeah, my
train of philosophy, Sophiewould be the bonus for our
listener,
No excuses, no complaints and noself pity. So not only is sales
(42:37):
a PPC expert, but he's also aphilosopher, no, but it's
awesome. Awesome. I love it.But, Serge, this has been such a
great conversation. Thank you somuch for coming on and for
sharing your expertise and yourexperience and your running
advice with the listeners, andquick introduction to yourself
and how people out there can getin touch with you. And I did
(42:59):
notice, you know, there were acouple of hints in the
conversation. There were a lotof, like, medical terms floating
around. What's the story there?
The story so, yeah. Quick Introabout me, yeah, I'm search your
PPC doctor. I'm called the PPCdoctor in the industry, I do
quite a lot of public speakingin the digital marketing space.
(43:20):
I'm George award at the searchaward in the UK, globally and at
international level. I have 16years experience in PPC, and I
run my agency called your PPCdoctor, if people want to be in
(43:42):
touch with me, they can type myname online. I'm quite active on
LinkedIn, so Serge Nguele, youwill find me, yeah, wearing, you
know, something with this PPCdoctor. This is the branding.
And to your question, why yourPPC doctor? So there is a real
story there. I'm a former Medstudent. So I studied medicine
(44:04):
to become a proper doctor, butfor some reason, I will spell
spare the details. I pivotedinto marketing and specialize
into digital and PPC. So when Iwas creating my agency, the name
was natural, your PPC doctor,which is also a real way of
(44:27):
doing stuff. I don't call theclient. I still call, you know,
my patients, and I'm having thedoctor mindset within your PPC,
where we really listen and thenwe listen, then we diagnose,
prescribe, and from theprescription, we follow up with
(44:49):
care. So yeah, that's the doctormindset at your PPC Doctor.
Fantastic, fantastic. The onlything you don't do is tell
people to breathe in, breatheout and cough for me, please.
Not yet.
Not yet, fantastic, fantastic.So once again, thank you so much
for your time. Take care, staysafe and talk to you soon.
Okay, yes. Thanks Christian,thanks for having me.
(45:12):
Thanks. Okay. Bye, for now.
Yeah. Bye.
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