PPC specialist: who is it, its responsibilities and necessary skills

Today, every person is exposed to thousands of advertising messages both offline and online every day. Of course, we spend more time on the Internet, and this is the type of advertising that most people see more often. Sometimes you only need to think about a product or service or talk to someone about a certain product – and almost immediately an advertisement about it begins to appear. This is not magic or even persecution, but simply the quality work of a specialist. Such digital ads are created, configured and optimized by a PPC specialist – an expert in contextual advertising. In the article, we will analyze who a PPC specialist is, what his responsibilities are, what knowledge he should have and where to get it. And, of course, how much you can earn from it.

Who is a PPC specialist?

Contextual advertising is a paid advertisement that is shown to the target audience in the Google search engine with the label “advertisement”. A manager of contextual advertising is a specialist who sets up advertising campaigns, for which payment is accrued for clicks on advertisements made by potential customers.

The key task of a PPC specialist is to increase the effectiveness of advertising and optimize it so that the client receives as much traffic as possible to the site for the optimal price and can earn more. Among other hard skills, the following should be highlighted:

• formation of the AC strategy (advertising campaign);
• data collection and creation of reports in Google Analytics;
• work with Google Tag Manager;
• collection of semantics in Google Key Planner or in any case;
• formation of a relevant semantic core, clustering of key queries;
• analytics of the results of advertising campaigns;
• adjustment of the advertising budget to optimize costs.

In addition, it is important that the specialist has the following soft skills:

• the ability to analyze a large amount of input data and quickly implement the results in the work;
• the ability to quickly adapt to changes in the field and market;
• creativity, to be able to create the entire advertising creative from scratch without the help of third-party specialists, if necessary;
• stress resistance and the ability to work in a team with copywriters and creative designers.

Next, we will analyze in more detail the technical skills of a PPC specialist, which are necessary to obtain the best results from work.

What is included in the duties of a PPC expert

It does not matter whether a PPC specialist works for a company or provides services as a freelancer – there is a list of duties that a specialist should be able to perform.

Creating ads for advertising

This process is very voluminous and important. Its effectiveness depends a lot on the correctness of the created ads for campaigns. A PPC specialist, if he works without using the services of other specialists, independently writes selling texts for ads, selects relevant keywords for the texts and creates visual content (pictures, banners, video montage).

Setting up advertising campaigns

The specialist works with contextual advertising. Setting up such ads is a complex process that includes:

• selection of relevant keywords;
• choosing an advertising platform on which to place an ad;
• creation of creatives by a PPC specialist;
• publication of advertisements in the office;
• targeting settings to a certain target audience, which, most likely, will be interested in the product and perform the intended action;
• setting different display factors like hours or days.

For example, if you want to launch an advertisement for women’s winter boots, then the specialist should study in detail information about the boots themselves, their price, size, color (or color variations, if any), material, features of use (optimal temperature, weather conditions, care) and other nuances regarding this product.

It is important to note the ability of a PPC specialist to correctly distribute the advertising budget allocated by the customer between several campaigns, as well as redistribution of funds within one campaign so that the customer can earn more. And the last one is the specialist’s assignment of the rate – the cost of a click for displaying an ad or targeted action (conversion).

Tracking the results of running ads

Running ads is just the beginning of the process. Next, the specialist regularly monitors the results of the AC – its key performance indicators. Namely:

• CTR (clickability index);
• CPC (price per click);
• CPA (cost per conversion);
• conversion rates and other indicators.

If suddenly there are deviations from the indicators that were planned for a specific campaign, or any other problems with advertisements appear, the PPC specialist should make the necessary corrections in the office as soon as possible. For example, adjust the bid amount, delete or pause ineffective ads, change or delete keywords, and more.

Analysis of the effectiveness of advertising campaigns

The manager owns and regularly uses effective tools for in-depth analysis of advertising campaign results. In this way, he receives timely and reliable analysis and reports on the effectiveness of advertising channels, keywords, ads, and the selected audience.

Among the data analyzed by the specialist is user experience, i.e. how visitors to the site behave when they get to it from advertisements – which pages and how long they view, where they go, what other actions they take, whether they reach the target action on the resource, etc. The resulting data gives the PPC specialist a better understanding of the target audience and the ability to optimize advertising campaigns for better performance.

Optimization of advertisements

The specialist highlights and modifies those elements of the AC that are the best and the worst in order to optimize them later.

Timely response of a PPC specialist to unwanted changes in the AC guarantees an improvement in the return on investment in advertising. In this way, the advertising customer can get more real customers and earn more, spending less on promotion.

Client reporting and forecasting

Once in a selected period, the manager provides the client with a detailed report on the work performed and the results obtained. The report is usually in the form of a pivot table, which includes performance indicators such as traffic, conversions, goals achieved, costs and other analytical data.

PPC-specialist also provides the client with forecasts of the effectiveness of campaigns that he plans to create and launch in the future. Forecasting is based on trend analysis and helps to choose platforms for promotion, correctly allocate the advertising budget and create relevant creatives.

Search for new ideas

Like any professional in their field, a PPC specialist must constantly learn, develop their skills, improve their abilities and be aware of trends in the field. In order to show the client, the best possible results, the manager should study new tools for promotion that appear on the market, conduct testing of various formats of advertisements, and follow the change of algorithms.

A PPC specialist must boldly try new strategies and methods, use innovative solutions and technologies in the work process.

Graduation of a PPC specialist on the labor market

The position he can occupy as an employee depends on the level of skills and abilities of a specialist. There are 5 of them:

In fact, sometimes Trainee and Junior specialists are separated, considering Trainee to be a novice intern with approximately 4 months of work experience, and Junior to be a full-time employee who works for 4-12 months.

Middle PPC specialist who successfully passed the exam with the defense of his project, has 1-1.5 years of active work experience in the field, performs a wider list of works, such as preparing media plans, project management, etc.

The next career step is Senior. His approximate experience of active work in the position is 1.5-2.5 years.

Team Lead PPC has more than 2.5 years of experience and independently prepares project cases, works with clients and helps Trainee, Junior, Middle, Senior specialists start their journey.

The last and most responsible level is the Head of PPC Department, when the specialist has achieved such mastery to perfectly understand all stages of PPC advertising, be able to manage a team and possess many other skills.

What should a PPC specialist know?

Each advertising manager has a certain list of hard skills that determine the level of a specialist. Let’s analyze them.

Junior (Trainee) manager of PPC

We will not separate these two levels and note that a beginner in the profession must have a large theoretical knowledge base and a desire to gain relevant experience every day. Junior can easily develop his first commercial cases under the supervision of a mentor. But for a successful start in the career of a PPC specialist, the Trainee needs to acquire certain skills in advance:

1. Be able to work in advertising offices of various platforms (Google Ads, FB Ads Manager) and know the principles of work (Google Analytics, etc.).
2. Have at least minimal practical experience in working and editing posted advertisements.
3. Be familiar with basic tools for analytics, receiving reports for a specified period and in real time (Google Data Studio, Ahrefs, SimilarWeb, SEMrush, Serpstat, etc.).
4. Possess at least an intermediate level of English for effective familiarization and study of various professional documentation and orientation in thematic texts of foreign publications.
5. Have knowledge of the basics of marketing and understand marketing terms.
6. Quickly adapt to changes, follow trends in contextual advertising and skillfully use them at work.

Optionally, depending on the specifics of the future workplace, the Trainee PPC (or Junior) must confidently master graphic editors to create visuals for advertising creatives. But this skill is more the exception than the rule, because the advertising manager, as a rule, only writes the technical terms of reference for the creation of the design.

Middle PPC manager

In addition to all Trainee skills, a middle specialist in contextual advertising has a specialized certificate, for example, Google Ads Search Certification, Google Tag Manager Fundamentals or others. His experience in creating and working with ads in advertising offices is much greater, and in the portfolio, there are at least several successful cases that the Middle PPC specialist helped the Senior PPC close.

Middle PPC runs standard projects, effectively optimizes campaigns and manages advertising budgets without outside help.

Senior PPC

This level already says a lot. The Senior PPC specialist has years of active experience in the position and a lot of work on himself. A senior is already a real specialist who can teach others, but this is not part of his direct duties. The advertising manager adjusts the advertising campaigns depending on the created promotion strategy from scratch and plans the next steps to improve the results.

In some companies, the Senior PPC is also the head of a team of lower-level PPC specialists.

Team Lead PPC

A team leader is a PPC specialist who, in addition to practical knowledge of setting up ads, has knowledge of personnel management. Team Lead PPC necessarily has strategic thinking and knowledge of effective use of time management, knows how to prioritize tasks.

A PPC specialist of this high level manages a team of PPC managers, and sometimes even a department. Again, depending on company policies and regulations, these functions may be performed by the Head of PPC Department.

Team Lead PPC monitors the timely and competent execution of all processes, which helps to obtain the best result for the customer. Also trains and helps new PPC advertising specialists adapt to the company.

Head of PPC Department

He is a PPC specialist whose responsibilities include managing teams, training, various processes in the company, working with the product and conflict situations.

Among the hard and soft skills Head of PPC Department:

• training of Team Lead PPC managers and control of their work;
• working with existing teams of specialists, hiring new employees and creating new teams;
• introduction of new solutions into the work process, even unpopular ones, if they can bring a good result;
• resolving conflicts both within the team and with clients;
• analytics and launch of new products on the market;
• automation of processes to accelerate results.

You can often find in job vacancies a list of the necessary skills of a PPC specialist, which cannot be attributed to only one level of specialist. Therefore, the division of duties is quite conditional. The more a manager knows and is able to do, the better position and earning opportunity he gets.

How much does a PPC specialist earn?

Of course, working as a PPC manager requires not only interest in the position, but also financial motivation. As an example, we took the salary of PPC specialists offered by companies on the portal work.ua in October 2024.

Also, consider how much PPC specialists of different levels can earn.

It is important to understand that these numbers are very approximate, and how much you can actually earn depends on the size of the company, the amount of work required, the principles of payment in each specific company, and more. A PPC specialist can receive only the rate or additionally a percentage for overtime hours or work performed. For example, many companies give employees bonuses for successfully closing important projects for the company.

Where to learn to become a PPC specialist?

There is no single way to become a sought-after specialist in setting up contextual advertising. But the most important thing that a specialist should have is the desire to constantly improve his skills, to look for ways to learn new things and to practice a lot. And you can get the knowledge you need primarily in a few steps:

1. Read official Google instructions from setting up advertising campaigns.
2. Pass Analytics Academy free online courses and Skillshop from Google, where you can learn the specifics of working with web analytics tools and advertising campaigns.
3. Register in Google Ads and Meta Business Manager and study the interface, learn the features of working in the services. They will come in handy here Google Ads Guide and guidelines for setting up Meta ads.
4. In your free time, read thematic Telegram channels, blogs, forums, accounts of popular PPC specialists in social networks who are successfully working in the market. There you can find the latest updates and features of the PPC direction.
5. Watch YouTube videos on demand “PPC specialist” and similar.

These are all free learning methods. Of course, they should be used, but as auxiliary ones. You can get a profession the fastest with the help of specialized courses. The financial costs of training will pay off quickly enough if the specialist will actively apply his knowledge and improve practical skills.

To summarize

The profession of PPC-specialist continues to be highly paid and in demand in the market of Ukraine and abroad. Working as such a specialist, you will have new challenges and interesting tasks every day. But it should be noted that the position is not easy and requires full dedication, so the decision to study and start a career in the field of contextual advertising should be considered.

Vitalyi Kotov

Head of PPC department

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Olha Tyshchenko

Editor

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