Successfully Scaling to a Global PPC Program in 9 Months without The Wheels Falling OffMarc Bitanga

Marc BitangaManager, Customer Acquisition

@marcbitanga

• SEM• SEO & Inbound Marketing• Digital Media

About Me

Top Brands Trust HootSuite

175+COUNTRIES

15

LANGUAGES

90+

SOCIAL NETWORKS & INTEGRATIONS74

7

OF FORTUNE 1000 COMPANIES

9+MILLION USERS

1200+

ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS

We’re Also Known for our “HootBus” at SXSW

The Backstory…It Started 9 Months Ago with $165 Million

Our Objective: GROW!

5 Continents28 Countries13 Languages6 DialectsA Team of 2 Who Only Speaks English.Go!

Our Challenge

To Go Global. Our PPC Program Needed To Be This.

But At The Time. We Were More Like This.

Banda Regular, Size 40 on top of a dark photo Month 1 Assessment: Solid Foundation With Some Work To Do

Month 1 - Our Team Looked Like This

One Digital Media SpecialistUS Agency

Landing Page Designer

Analysts

Customer Acquisition Team

Conversion Optimization Team

Analytics Team

2000+ AdWords ad groups (US)

Only 75 landing pages in UnBounce

Just a Few Landing Pages

Too Many Ad Groups. Not Enough Landing Pages.

Very Targeted Ad

Groups

Broadly Targeted Landing Pages

Used Display Ads For Click-through Conversions

100% Last Click Attribution

Missed Out On Growth Opportunities.

This Guy Got All the Credit

We Needed to Evolve

Revamped Our SEM Campaign Structure Branded

Non-Branded Tier 1

Non-Branded Tier 2

Non-Branded Tier 3

Competitor

Categorized Non-Branded into Campaign Tiers

• HootSuiteBranded

• Social Management Dashboard

Non-Brand Tier 1

(vanity KWs)

• Automate TweetNon-Brand Tier 2

(targeted KWs)

• B2B TwitterNon-Brand Tier 3

(moderately targeted KWs)

Revamped Our Campaigns

Before After

Added Critical People to Our Team

• A Number of Digital Media Specialists!• EMEA/LATAM Agency• AsiaPac Agency

• Conversion Project Manager• Landing Page Designer• Copywriter• Developer

• A Room Full of Analysts!

Customer Acquisition Team

Conversion Optimization Team

Analytics Team

Implemented Daily Dashboards Across Regions

Went From Ad-hoc To Scheduled Campaign Optimization

Added New Tools

Before

Added New Tools

After

Partnered With Agencies In EMEA, LatAm, & AsiaPac

• Agencies hard to source from North America

• Your $$$ spread over many languages isn’t profitable for agencies

• Us vs. Them mentality

Some Challenges Going Global

Remember Those Revamped Campaigns? We Replicated The Structure Globally.

Banda Regular, Size 40 on top of a dark photo Month 9 Assessment: Significantly Better

The Result After 9 Months?

How did we do?

Significant Growth In New Users. Our CAC Also Declined By 1%!

9-Months Ago

Today

- New Users

- CAC

Top 5 Tips to Help You Grow Your PPC Program

#1 – Empower Your PPC Team!

Your PPC Team

Red Tape

• Full-Stack Production & Analytics Team

• Fail Fast Mentality: Test, Test, Test

• Leadership Advocacy

What Works for Us

#2 – Use Modified Broad KWs + Hundreds Of Negatives KWs

Long Tail Traffic

• Regular Negative Keyword Culls Keep Bad Traffic At Bay

• Ensures We Don’t Miss A Major Segment Of Keywords

• Turn Winners into Exact Match

Long Tail Keywords for The WIN!

#3 - Improve Processes. Ensure Each Campaign Gets Some Attention

• Frequency of Keyword Culls

• Frequency of Ad Testing

• Frequency of Landing Page Tests

Create an Optimization Calendar

#4 - In The Short Term: Scale & Automate As Much As You Can

• Duplicate what works in one region to another

• Dynamic Keyword Insertion in Ads & Landing Pages

• Have a Portfolio of Landing Page Templates

Scale & Automate!

#5 - Don’t Underestimate Organization, Communication & Project Management

• Standardize Evaluation; Common Metrics & Campaign Structure Globally;

• Basecamp Project Portal

• Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly Reviews & Status Updates

Organization & Communication

That’s Our Story, Thank You!

Any Questions?Twitter: @marcbitanga