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PPC Night: The Next Frontier in Marketing | Utah DMC Recap – September 2019

Every digital marketer knows and understands the importance of pay-per-click (PPC) marketing and its impact on businesses around the world. PPC is becoming increasingly more important, so much so that DMC’s September event was dedicated solely to PPC marketing. Here are some highlights from the expert presentations given by Duane Brown and Frederick Vallaeys.

Utah DMC Sept 2019-1

Our First Presenter: Duane Brown

Duane Brown Utah DMC 0919

Make More Money By Building Sexy AF PPC Landing Pages For Your Brand - Duane Brown

Digital nomad, Duane Brown, gave a very informational and detailed presentation on the art of creating the perfect landing page to maximize conversions.

Duane began his presentation by comparing a landing page to an island. Many think that a landing page is just that, an island dedicated to one thing that is separated from the rest of your site. This isn’t quite true. Your landing page, as Duane explains, is more like an island in a lake that’s just on the outskirts of town (i.e. your website) and still accessible to the public by boat or ferry. With this analogy, Duane highlights the importance of the landing page being unique, yet still connected to the rest of your brand.

Duane went on to say that when constructing your landing page, you need to first do your market research so that you fully understand who your customer is and what he/she really wants. He suggested using tools like Reddit or Quora to help with these efforts. 

Along with your market research, you need to understand your customers’ decision making process. With decision making, Duane explains, there are basically two types of processes.

  1. Decision is automatic, fast, unconscious, and rational
  2. Decision is effortful, slow, controlled 

Most people are rational thinkers, the ones that normally make their decisions based on the first criteria. Marketers need to use this logic when creating their landing pages. If your landing page is simple, easy to understand, painless, and effortless, you’re going to be able to increase your conversion rate. If your landing page is complex, effortful, and slow, well… good luck driving conversions.

Duane went on to talk about best practices for landing page design, layout, and copy. Something particularly useful that Duane pointed out was the importance of staying away from market jargon. He said that when he’s creating a landing page he asks himself, “Will my mom be able to understand this?” Using niche jargon can be tempting, and sometimes we don’t realize it. But Duane stresses that in order to maximize the landing page, you need to refrain from using jargon.

In summary: connect your landing page to your brand, think rationally, do your research, keep your landing page simple, and don’t use jargon in your copy.

Duane Brown Utah DMC Cartoon

Our First Presenter: Frederick Vallaeys

Frederick Vallaeys Utah DMC 0919

Automation Layering: What Close Variants Have Taught Us About PPC in an Automated World - Frederick Vallaeys

Frederick Vallaeys, Co-Founder of Optmyzr.com and one of the first 500 employees at Google, gave an interesting and thought-provoking presentation on the power of AI and how it is affecting PPC.

PPC is becoming more and more automated every day. So much, in fact, that many of the things that we do manually today will most likely be done by different forms of AI in the near future. Does this mean that we digital marketers need to be fearful of losing our jobs? Frederick says no, and here’s why.

In 2016, humans created a robot called AlphaGo which was designed to play, and win, the board game Go. When pitted against the world champion Go player, Lee Sedol, AlphaGo won 4-1. Just one year later, and with a few tweaks and changes, the AI powered AlphaGo won 100-0. So if an AI bot can crush the world champion Go player, why would AI not be able to out-work human digital marketers? The answer: there needs to be humans behind the AI, or in other words, automation layering.

Though AI is extremely useful, especially in PPC campaigns, there still needs to be a human’s touch to be completely successful. Frederick gave the example of the keyword “flower arrangements.” Semantically, and how Google may “think”, this keyword is more or less the same as “arranging flowers.” But are they the same? No! Someone looking for “flower arrangements” is most likely looking to buy an already put-together bouquet of beautiful flowers. But if Google sees “flower arrangements” and “arranging flowers” as being semantically the same, this person may be given the results of classes that teach you how to create flower arrangements. Hence, the need of having a human brain behind Google’s brain.

Frederick went on to say that you should use automation for regular, recurring tasks.

“The most repetitive, the most tedious, and the least nuanced tasks… if you can write down the steps, automate it.”

By automating these tasks, digital marketers are able to get tasks done quicker and more efficiently. Frederick says that we must “teach the machines” and then continuously monitor them to make sure all is running smoothly. 

For more information on digital marketing and AI, read Frederick’s book “Digital Marketing in an AI World.”

Frederick Vallaeys Utah DMC Cartoon

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Enjoy the deck!

Topics: Event Recaps