Do you wish to know my least favorite phrase in all {of professional} life?
“Be strategic, not tactical.”
I heard this rather a lot through the early levels of my profession. On the face of it, it looks like a sufficiently easy and well-meaning piece of recommendation, from one senior worker to a different, less-senior colleague. However coming away from these conversations, I realised they at all times left me wanting a little bit extra.
Particularly, I’d discover myself asking:
- What’s the distinction between technique and techniques?
- Don’t we wish to be each strategic and tactical?
- Hold on a minute… do you even know the distinction between the 2?
In lots of circumstances, I think the (sincere) reply to that final query would have been a sheepish “no”.
And that’s as a result of the excellence between technique isn’t a simple idea to understand – and we shouldn’t faux that it’s.
This fuzziness turns into much more pronounced when utilized to my self-discipline – the realm of paid search. The time period paid search technique will get thrown round liberally, however when you had been to ask ten PPC professionals what it means, you’d get ten totally different solutions. (Belief me on this one; I’ve tried.)
So what I’ve been pondering is: does paid search technique even exist? And if it does, what is It?
Let’s discover.
Does Paid Search Technique Exist? The Case Towards
Some entrepreneurs—maybe the bulk—may argue that paid search technique is a contradiction in phrases.
Take Mark Ritson, an undisputed heavyweight within the advertising and marketing world. He teaches a “classical” mannequin of promoting technique, during which technique is the reply to a few foundational questions:
- Who’re we focusing on? Be aware that this isn’t “which audiences or key phrases are we focusing on in our media?”, however quite is the larger query of “which prospects is our enterprise aiming to serve?”
- How are we positioned? What are the associations and attributes that we wish to come to thoughts in our goal buyer, at any time when they consider our model?
- What are our goals? By positioning on this particular approach to this particular goal section, what will we wish to obtain? Which KPIs will we wish to shift, by how a lot, and in what timeframe?
In Mark’s world, the sum whole of technique is the reply to those three questions alone. It’s nothing extra, and nothing much less.
In keeping with this mannequin, as soon as these strategic questions have been answered, we’d then be ready to maneuver on to techniques, that are the levers we are able to pull to execute that technique out there. Techniques span the product that we develop, the value we cost for it, the place we select to promote it, and the promoting and media that we deploy to market it.
However paid search is only one of many channels throughout the media ecosystem, so by definition it’s a tactic solely – and any real strategic thought should have already been wrapped up by the point we get on to speaking about media channels. By this logic, it follows not solely that “paid search technique” can’t exist, however nor may different strategic sub-variants similar to “inventive technique”, or “website positioning technique”, or “content material technique”. Fairly convincing, when you ask me.
Does Paid Search Technique Exist? The Case For
That’s not the top of the controversy although – there are different views we are able to contemplate. One other vital voice within the dialog comes from Roger Martin, probably the most profitable & influential thinkers on the earth of company technique.
Martin defines technique as:
“A set of interconnected selections that hypothesize the way you’re going to win.”
That’s it. No three-question framework. No predefined path from technique to techniques. Simply an summary set of selections that, taken collectively, type a concept for achievement.
This definition of technique is a much wider one – and it’s that breadth that provides us some wiggle room to carve out a possible definition for “paid search technique”.
So what may Paid Search Technique be?
If we settle for Roger Martin’s definition, then we are able to transfer on to asking: what truly are the selections to be made within the paid search self-discipline, which we may class as strategic?
There are some candidates we are able to immediately rule out. For example: “Our technique is to continuously optimise our advert copy, and to check the newest options and betas”. While we technically do need to resolve to do these items, it’s so trivially easy that we needs to be doing them, that we are able to’t contemplate it to be a strategic query.
In any case, technique solely hypothesizes how we’re going to win; it could actually’t make any ensures, or be confirmed prematurely. A key side of any strategic resolution is that it needs to be a painful one to make; it should contain selective alternative about which path we’ll comply with, on the expense of all different choices. In the event you ask me, selecting to optimise your advert copy shouldn’t really feel notably painful.
I make the case that there are two selections in paid search that we are able to feasibly classify as being strategic.
1. KPI Setting: Selecting What to Optimize For
This may really feel easy, however it isn’t. There are many metrics {that a} enterprise may genuinely care about, however in paid search, you’ll be able to solely really optimise round one among them.
Think about, as an example, that you simply’re an omnichannel retailer. You may say:
- “We care about profitability in the beginning. Of all our distribution channels, promoting by way of our web site is most worthwhile, so we should always run campaigns that drive visitors on-line – and while we’re at it, we’ll feed profitability knowledge into our bid methods to optimise round.”
- Or, you may say: “We care most about our general market share. We subsequently have to assist each in-store and on-line journeys, so ought to run a mix of campaigns optimising to every of those two outcomes.”
- Or, you may say: “We have to enhance our lifetime worth and repeat-purchase charges. App consumers have the very best LTV, so we should always arrange options similar to web-to-app-connect, and syphon off a few of our funds for app set up campaigns.”
Every of those KPI selections gives us with very clear steering as to how we should always arrange our campaigns to ship upon these KPIs. However crucially, they’re mutually unique choices—you’ll be able to’t do all three directly.
Selecting which one issues most to you will not be tactical; it’s a strategic resolution about what success appears to be like like for you. And as soon as made, this alternative informs each downstream resolution in marketing campaign administration.
2. Finances Setting: Navigating the Diminishing Returns Curve
When you’ve chosen your KPI, a query that ought to at all times comply with intently is how a lot we should always spend in service of that KPI.
You can not – I repeat, can’t – make an knowledgeable alternative on this query with out fascinated about how the diminishing returns curve appears to be like to your account. While the precise parameters of the curve will differ for every account, the overall form appears to be like the identical for each single advertiser – one thing like this:
As spend will increase, so does income – however it does so at a diminishing charge. Due to this phenomenon, you at all times ultimately attain a stage past which spending extra leads to a discount in profitability for the channel.
I’d argue that the choice of “the place on the curve ought to we play” is essentially the most criminally-overlooked resolution amongst paid search entrepreneurs.
Many advertisers I converse to will start by saying issues like “we spend to interrupt even as a result of we wish to maximise progress” – however while you probe a little bit deeper, it turns into much less clear whether or not they’ve correctly thought of the total spectrum of income & revenue choices accessible to them. Most of the time, advertisers considerably stumble into this resolution on auto-pilot.
To be clear, this isn’t a simple resolution to make: it includes intentional alternative, to not point out getting access to some comparatively strong forecasting capabilities. However it’s a call that we should be obsessing over, and in my thoughts, it completely passes the Roger Martin litmus take a look at of “does this rely as technique”.
Closing Ideas
In the event you stroll away from this weblog and suppose, “Truly, I’m in Ritson’s camp – paid search technique doesn’t exist”, then that’s okay. As somebody who’s spent my total profession working within the channel, I’d fairly wish to suppose my job gives me the platform to have interaction in strategic thought each now and again – but when it doesn’t, then it received’t be the top of the world.
But when like me you suppose there’s a powerful case that the PPC supervisor can partake in additional vital strategic selections, then I’m in your aspect – it’s simply that paid search technique doesn’t appear to be what most weblog posts would have you ever imagine.
It’s not checklists. It’s not hacks. It’s not greatest practices. It’s about deciding what is definitely invaluable for what you are promoting, and making commercially-informed trade-offs between income and revenue. And I say we stand to achieve an terrible lot by spending extra of our time fascinated about these two issues.
Andy Goodwin is Head of Paid Search at Brainlabs. This text is predicated on a chat he gave at Hero Conf UK in April 2025.
