Melanie
Welcome to the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast for all decision makers and action takers. Take it away, Esther.
Esther
Good morning and welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today, we're joined once again by Meriem Nacer, founder of 4M Digital Consulting and highly commended digital marketer of the year. And the last time we spoke was April 2023 about PPC or Pay-Per-Click. So Meriem is back to give us all the updates and all the new things that are happening in the world of PPC. Welcome, Meriem.
Meriem
Hello. How are you both?
Esther
We're good. It was good to see you a couple of weeks ago in person, finally. So we have so much to catch up on about PPC. Let's just dive in. For those that maybe haven't gone back and listened to the previous episode, explain a little bit about PPC and why it's important.
Meriem
So PPC is advertising within a Google search. So if you Google something or if you go to Bing, because there's also that, and search for something, then usually you would get some paid ads. The reason it's called PPC is because it used to be pay per click. Now, depending on the type of ad, depends on what you pay for, mostly. But yes, that's what basically PPC is.
Melanie
Okay, can Pay Per Click also be or PPC? Could that be construed as meta ads as well? Because...
Meriem
Some people I do call it PPC that. I actually do cover paid social, so I do all anything where it consists to be spending clients money, I dabble in that because it's a lot nicer spending clients money than my own. It's more fun because it's like...
Melanie
Other people's money.
Meriem
Yeah, but it's also you want the results, whereas I spend my money on going food shopping and bills, whereas I get to spend their money on actually doing something more. So it's quite nice.
Esther
Yeah, and like you were saying, it's not just Pay-Per-Click anymore. It's pay-per-view, it's pay-per-lead, it's pay-per-awareness, reach, all these different things people are paying for. So what are you finding that most people are looking for? Are they looking for the clicks? Are they looking for the views? What are people paying you to put up on online in terms of ads?
Meriem
I would say it's a mixture, but it's also part of my job to educate. So a lot of people are like, It's all about the clicks, whereas educating them to move away from, Yeah, it's great getting somebody on your website, but is it the right person? What are they doing on your website? Should they be on your website? At the moment, that's the core conversations. It's not just at the moment, it has been for a long time. But educating them to say it's not about somebody on your website, it's them actually doing something more on your website and then learning about them and finding more people like them.
Melanie
When people approach you to do the ads, are they fully aware of how much budget needs to be spent and how... There's going to be a funnel in Pay-Per-Click just like everywhere else, isn't there? There's going to be awareness, consideration, and conversion. Are you educating them in that or the businesses you're working with, better informed?
Meriem
The people who know exactly what they want to do and exactly the keywords and things like that are not the best people to work with most of the time, to be honest. You've got some clients who come to you and they don't have a clue and you can take them on a journey and you want to protect them and really give them the best. Then you've got some people who come to you and they're like, I want these seven keywords. I expect to be in position one. It's like, Well, we don't do position anymore in PPC. That went a few years ago. I want this and this is this. I know it costs this much. You sit there and you're like, I'm really sorry, but that's not how this works anymore and it hasn't done for a long time. It's educating those people and those are the people who they just take a lot out of you and they just think you're stupid and they know exactly what they're doing. It's educating them and doing that. It's Those clients, there's certain people out there who are absolutely fantastic with those people. I'm quite upfront and honest, so I would just say it how it is. Sometimes they don't want to work with me because I'll say that, unfortunately, that's not how it works. He's like, well, I know it does. I'm like, Okay. I can look on your journey. Have a nice day thing. Being a freelancer, it means I can actually do that as well. But it's the clients who don't know what they're doing is the people who really need the support because they test things and they tend to waste a lot of money. They put a thousand pounds randomly one month into Google and they don't know what happened or where it went and they didn't have conversion tracking. Those are the people who need the help and those are the people which I like to help as well because everybody needs some help, but those are the people who really deserve it.
Esther
So you mentioned having things in place before starting the ads. Now, I know ads are a big, massive umbrella term, and I fully expect the answer to come back as it depends. But what should people have in place before they begin even contemplating setting up an ad or contemplating contacting you to help them set up an ad?
Meriem
So a website usually helps, but I know some businesses who don't have a website, they use their Google Business to drive leads. But I would say ultimately their website, a form, and some analytics program like Google Analytics, or there's others available on the market. But Google Analytics is free and everybody uses it or tends to use it. And have conversion tracking set up.
Melanie
I'm familiarising myself with more Google products at the moment. Not Google ads, I hasten to add. It's all you, okay? But I know that they tend to speak to each other a lot, like Google Search Console speaks a lot to Google Analytics and vice versa. Do you play any role in utilising any of these other tools yourself, or is it just like Keyword Planner and Google Ads itself that you work in?
Meriem
So the main... I'd probably look at all of them, so I would use all of them just because organic The words tends to go through the search console which passes to analytics, but you can link that up to Google Ads, which means that you pass data between them. I do a lot of e-com clients, so you would connect your search console to the merchant center and you can pass data that way because you get free listings for products. So you want to pass that data through, too. So always link all your products together and then use the data, like all the data you can get from these, because it's really important in general just to understand your business better.
Melanie
And do you use some of the free or there's freemium tools as well, like Mars RF and Semrush? I always wonder, is it Ahrefs or RFs?
Meriem
Ahrefs, isn't it?
Melanie
Ahrefs. Okay. Because it's got an A-H. So do you use those as well?
Meriem
So yes, sometimes, but I do tend to use... This sounds really bad. I do tend to use the free Google tools more than any other. It's just the way I've been brought up, unfortunately, is the Google Keyword tool is as good. You can get some more data from the other systems, but the free versions of those versus the free versions of what Google provides give you a similar overview. If you get the paid versions of the other tools, though, they are pretty... You can get some really good stuff out of them. It's just my... Nobody I know has the paid version.
Melanie
Fair enough.
Esther
And how long would you recommend that people run ads for, first of all, to gain a bit of knowledge, like you were saying, to determine who the clients are and who's viewing the website and then try to get more people like that to view the website and click and buy from the website. How long of a process is all of that? Because I have heard of people asking for, oh, I'm running an event in a week. Can you advertise this on Google for me so that I get more sales of the tickets?
Meriem
See, if somebody said that to me, I'd say, Have you tried who's your target audience? Who do you want to attend the event? For example. It's like, ultimately, you should know your target audience for your website anyway, because when you set up that business, when you set up the services you provide, you have an idea of who you target. Then off the back of that, that's when somebody who has set up your Google Ads or your paid ads on any platform would then have a look and be like, Right, what would you search for this product? What would you search for this event? What are the keywords people are thinking about to be able to trigger that? Then off the back of that, that's when you'd build it. If it was for an event, I probably wouldn't even do search keywords. I would say, Let's do display and do something like a demand Gen campaign and Meta-ads and then target really relevant audiences because then you catch them, then them physically searching for something because you might actually just be getting people that are already attending an event and just searching for the event because they're like, oh, what time does it start? Or something like that.
Melanie
Actually, great segue there. You were mentioning time. Is there a certain amount of time that the business owner has to work with you in order for you to understand what they're looking for, the reams of paperwork they need to fill out or charts that they need to convey to you? Or can they just say, Look, let's do a discovery call. Bob's your uncle, you're on your way.
Meriem
I prefer a discovery call. If the potential client has an account already, I normally ask for Google Analytics Access just so I can have a look at it. Obviously, you know their website. Mainly just to go and have a look, have a little look who you think their audience is, have a look at what the data is telling you in Google Analytics. Then off the back of that, have a discovery call and have that conversation and get what they think and then correlate that back to the data. Because I've had conversations with clients who are like, oh, yeah, it's this we're targeting. I'm like, Did you know that most of your traffic is from people who are over 55? And they're like, What? I'm like, Are Are you sure that that's your target? The 24 or 20, 30-year-olds are your target audience? And they're like, Yeah, I'm like, Well, we need to figure out what's going on there. And that happens a lot is when they're like, This is my target audience, and it's like, Well, it hasn't been for the last two years.
Esther
Just when you mentioned Google Analytics there at night, since we last talked, GA4 has come in full force and marketers are having a love-hate relationship with it. How are you finding that difference between setting up events and setting up your goals and all the things that you can do through the analytics platform that Google offer to how it was before and the changes? Is it taking up more time, more effort, more energy, more brainpower, or has it been a seamless transition?
Meriem
It's not been seamless at all whatsoever. When we first started moving over to GA4, just looking for the Google, basic Google reports in GA took forever. Everybody in the BBC communities was like, Where do we find this? We're like, It's not there anymore. It's been a real learning curve because what we used to have, we don't have, or we do, but it's called something completely different and It doesn't look at all like we used to have it. But I would say in terms of tracking, tracking is about the same as it was before. And ultimately, it's just spending the time to be in there. What I've been doing for some of my smaller clients, because they like to see what they like to see and can't find it anymore, I just create a looker dashboard. So I'm like, these are the key things which I recommend that you look at, but we can add more in there. Just because this data is here, It doesn't mean that you don't use your Google Analytics, you still need to use it, but on a monthly basis, we'll review this on our calls and we'll go through that. And that's what I like to do, just to make sure that they're not missing stuff.
Melanie
So can you explain what a Looker dashboard is?
Meriem
A Looker dashboard is basically a data dashboard where you can import data from whatever source you want to pull it in. You can pull such console in there, you can pull Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta, and all your platforms. Then you can have little tables and little boxes with the actual number you achieved, and you have a date, so it compares it. You can say last month's data versus the year before or the year prior. It's very pretty. The reason I use Looker is because it's free. It's a Google free tool.
Esther
We like free on this podcast. We like to offer as many free tips and tricks and tools as we can. So speaking of tips and tricks and tools and freebies, have you anything coming up, Meriem? Anything that people can learn more about you, register to, I don't know, go on a course with you? What do you offer on the website that you didn't have when we last chatted?
Melanie
Because you didn't have a website.
Esther
Because she didn't need any, but she didn't need to do Pay-Per-Click for herself. This is why.
Meriem
I I created a website off the back of having this session because I realised that actually sharing my LinkedIn page just wasn't enough. I created my website. I am going to be changing it again soon. I also now do consultation calls because I feel like not everybody can afford ongoing management. I feel like not. I said this, I swear I said this in the last one as well. But not everybody needs ongoing handholding, they just need check-ins. So one of the things I want to do more of, which I said I was going to do, but it's now October, and I set it up last month, is consultation calls where you can book for a 30-minute troubleshooting session or an hour session where we can talk through things which you have on your mind and we can do that. And they're boxed off and it has to be an hour, which I need to learn how to make sure it's an hour. But basically helping people and doing that. So that's something which I've just started doing. It's not on my website yet because I am writing the page this month. But if you reach out on LinkedIn, it's something which I've been offering already.
Esther
Brilliant.
Melanie
So it's the PPC clinic that you're offering, basically?
Meriem
Yeah, basically. In my head, I want to call it Don't Panic PPC because.
Melanie
No, I like it.
Meriem
Yeah.
Esther
Brilliant. Brilliant. And other questions, Melanie, or will we need to bring Meriem back next year again as well?
Melanie
Well, we're definitely going to be bringing you back, Meriem, because it's an area that's actually not as well spoken about online. You don't see that many detailed YouTube videos or tutorials, but mainly because it changes so much. Our listeners found your talk from last year, the most compelling of the year. There is definitely a strong interest in what you have to offer. Is there anything else that you get frequently asked, Meriem, that you feel our listeners need to know about in either to prepare for themselves or to prepare to contact you?
Meriem
I would say that if you're thinking about doing Google Ads, read about it before you set up an account and start spending your money. That's definitely number one. Number two, there are so many communities out there who will answer your questions if you're stuck. Honestly, we're on Reddit, we're on Slacks, we're on everywhere. We have a massive PPC community. We just don't shout about it that much. We're always here to help. The third thing I'm definitely going to say, the other day I saw on Reddit, somebody write that Google Ads is killing small accounts and nobody should run a Google Ads if you're a small business. And I say 100%, that's not true, because you can do it. It's just we need to be a little bit more clever and a little bit safer because the way Google is changing, it's the stuff which they've built now versus back when everybody was doing it and it was a bit easier, is that it's more AI-driven and there's a lot more demand for it. So unless you're controlling it and know how to use it, you end up, instead of targeting one person, you target 50,000. And it's really easy to do that. So either book in a session with somebody or just ask questions in the communities, ask questions on LinkedIn. There's thousands of PPC people on LinkedIn, even people I've never heard of who know everything, and they're supposedly the number one PPC person in the world. I've read many blinds on people recently. Everybody knows some stuff, so just ask.
Melanie
Cool.
Esther
Brilliant.
Melanie
So can I finish this time?
Esther
Yes, you can finish this time. I'll let you do that.
Melanie
Thank you. Well, thank you So much, Meriem, for coming back. We probably will have you back again another time. If you've got any questions for Meriem, you can find her on LinkedIn and now on her website, 4M Digital. Obviously, if you've got any questions that you'd like to direct to us, or if you've got any suggestions on the type of areas that you'd like us to cover, do let us know. Don't forget, we've got an Etsy store that you've got downloads that you can access and merch. So, Meriem, we expect you wearing our merch the next time we see you. Keep bringing you back.
Esther
No pressure.
Meriem
I'll go to the Etsy store now and have a look what you've got.
Melanie
Good woman. Well, that's it from us this week, but we'll be back next week with another podcast. Have a great week and keep listening. Bye for now.
Esther
Bye-bye.
Melanie
The first time I've said, Keep listening. I wonder if anybody actually bothers to listen this time.
Esther
To the very end. To the bloopers and the random questions.
Melanie
Yeah. I mean, I should go in a full-on rant one day and see if I can end up in the local news or something. I could be in the international news. We've got international audience. How do you pick it up? Washington Post, the Irish Daily Mail, could it be some German paper somewhere, some weird journalists rants on at the end of the podcast? No.
Esther
I wouldn't hold my breath.
