7 Steps You Can Take To Become a PPC Consultant
Do you wish to become a PPC consultant? How about starting it on a freelance basis? Through the years, I met several people who wish to take up freelance projects as a means of side income but they are not sure how to proceed. In this blog, I have explained the required certifications along with the necessary steps to be followed to become a PPC consultant in India. Â
Freelancing is a buzzing career choice these days. Everyone wishes to do freelancing either on a full-time basis or as a side income. Since we all are blessed to be born in this technological world, it is easy to fetch a career as a freelancer. But wait, is it really so? You may find it easy to call yourself a freelancer but it might be tough to sustain and succeed in such jobs. Particularly in the field of internet marketing such as PPC consultancy, you will find stringent competition prevailing. There are plenty of PPC Marketing Consultants in different parts of India including Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, etc. Hence just having a certificate to step into this stream as a freelancer isn’t enough.
What is PPC all about?
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) marketing is a kind of digital marketing where payment is based on the number of ad clicks. It is one of the fastest ways to bring traffic to a website. The money invested in PPC campaigns is worth paying as it can easily turn leads into conversions and generate sales. That’s where the role of a PPC consultant comes into play.
Required Technical Skills to Become a PPC ConsultantÂ
To fetch your career as a PPC marketing consultant, you need to possess some technical skills.
1) Google Ads Certified
Being the marketing king in the search engine, Google has become a major advertising platform for most businesses. These days, people are so addicted to the internet that even for minor things, they start searching on Google. Thus, it would be foolish for any business to miss out on such an opportunity.
Google offers authorized certifications for Ads professionals. It includes Google Ads, display ads, video ads, mobile ads, search ads, and shopping ad certifications. You will get thorough study material for every single certification through Google. The qualifying criteria for all the certifications are 80%.
2) Google Analytics Certified
A PPC Consultant should have a deep understanding of platforms such as Google Analytics to keep track and proper measurement of his or her campaigns.
Just like AdWords certification, Google also offers Analytics certification in two levels; one for the beginners and the other is the advanced level. For these certifications, you can study through video and transcript materials available online. Here the qualifying criteria are also 80%.
3) HTML, JavaScript, and Google Tag Manager
A PPC Consultant must at least possess the basic knowledge of web development. For creating goals on analytics and social media platform, he or she needs to be a pro in tracking a user’s activities on the website. Google Tag Manager is the key that can be used to track website needs.
Google provides GTM certification along with available study material.
4) Expert in Social Media Advertising
PPC consultants should know how to deal with the various ad platforms of different popular social media. For instance, Facebook has an individual ad platform like the Ad Manager. Hence, it is essential for every PPC consultant to be well versed with the creative formats, different targeting options, policies, and much more on social media.
5) For the Love of Analytics – Data & Numbers
A PPC consultant should be a good player of numbers since he or she will have to deal with data day in and day out. Therefore, having knowledge of data analysis or statistics will be of great help.
6) Content Writing
Although not a must-have skill knowing content writing will be advantageous for a PPC consultant. It will not only help him or her to review the content written by others but also help to complete the content in case of unavailability of freelance writers.
7) Understand the Basics of Business
No matter how skilled one is in digital marketing, the basic understanding of the clients’ business is always essential for a PPC consultant when it comes to delivering great results.
How to get your First PPC Consultancy Client?Â
Getting your first client through freelancing can be challenging since there are several things to take into count such as gaining the client’s trust in your abilities, convincing them on the budget, and get the deal fixed. Here’re some tips that can be considered whiling pitching your first client.
- Develop a strong social presence for yourself. Assure the clients that when you can self-brand yourself so excellently, you can definitely brand their business.
- Not on LinkedIn? You are missing out on some potential contacts. Yes, LinkedIn is the place where you can get in touch with your prospective clients. So, just start building a reliable relationship with people and expose your talents over there.
- Start by launching your personal blog before launching your consultancy website. Enrich your blog by writing interesting content about PPC. Once people start reading your blog posts, you will automatically develop a strong relationship with your readers. This will in turn help you find your prospective clients.
- When it comes to digital marketing, experiments are always embraced. So the best way to test your skills practically would be experiments. Try practicing with some projects free of cost. For example, start working on PPC for your own website or for a friend or an NGO. Explore your expertise through experiments.
Once you have found your first few clients, it’s time to enlarge your client base. So try to create attractive profiles on the following freelancing platforms:
- Upwork
- Toptal
- Elance
- Freelancer
- Truelancer
- Peopleperhour
- Guru
- iFreelance
And much more. The ultimate aim is to pick the right projects and pitch properly with the best pricing. Once you build faith, try for bigger projects with the same client.
If you are interested to learn, experiment, and explore the various verticals of digital marketing, we will help you gain a clear insight on the same through our LIVE instructional classes, paid internships, and a lot more. Till then keep following our blogs to get a preliminary understanding of the subjects. Do share with us your views in the comments.