Farmers would more than likely make poor PPC Managers; hunters would make great ones. Now I have nothing against tillers of the soil. Some of my ancestors were farmers. It’s just that I think farmers would not succeed at managing pay per click campaigns for very long.
Why? Because farmers operate from a long-term mentality. An apple farmer plants a seedling and doesn’t expect any fruit for the first 3-4 years — and even then the fruit is normally not edible until the apple tree is 8-10 years old!
Now that might work for an apple farmer, but can you imagine “investing” money in a pay per click campaign with that mentality? Break even in 3-4 years — profits in 10. No way.
But hunters on the other hand would make GREAT PPC campaign managers – especially African safari hunters. Why? It’s either kill or be killed. If you miss your mark your competitor (in this case the lion) has you for lunch. Sounds a lot more like pay per click to me than the apple tree example.
In the pay per click game, you have to think like a hunter. When a hunter goes on a hunting trip, he has to target what he wants to hunt. Why? Because an African lion can’t be brought down with a squirrel gun. The hunter has to know what he is going after and have the appropriate weapons and ammunition for his prey.
By the same token, in order for PPC campaign managers to be successful, they must target their market with precision, intelligence, and speed. In pay per click you don’t have time to mess around. If the keywords that you are targeting are wrong and don’t convert, then you have to make swift decisions on whether to keep throwing money at them or to toss them aside and focus on better, more targeted and higher-converting keywords.
And unlike the farmer who normally has time on his side…PPC managers don’t have that luxury. Sometimes you have only a few weeks or several months to get things “right” so that you can afford to stay in the game.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of players don’t operate like hunters. They treat their search marketing campaign like it is an apple orchard and they have all the time in the world. They plant small seeds, and make small minute changes that are days apart, while their competitors run about with a gun in their hand and hunt big prey, knowing that if they miss, they can quickly re-load and hunt again later that day or even tomorrow. Guess who wins?
