Must-Have Skills for a B2B SaaS PPC Specialist
Last updated: May 30th, 2024
Implementing an effective and well-rounded PPC strategy requires a strategic thinker who can craft campaigns that resonate with your audience and encourage them to convert into loyal customers.
Hiring a B2B SaaS PPC specialist will give you the expertise to develop high-converting ad campaigns, but where to start with the recruitment process? What kind of skills should be the top priority, and do you even need to hire in-house or will a PPC consultant be just as effective?
Let’s delve into the specifics to ensure that your next hire is able to drive your marketing strategy toward tangible success.
The Importance of Engaging a B2B SaaS PPC Specialist
PPC advertising gives businesses a cost-effective way to advertise while easily controlling budget spend. PPC campaigns also generate a ton of valuable customer data that can be incredibly beneficial to a growing SaaS business.
A PPC specialist is responsible for designing and managing PPC campaigns. They need to skillfully craft ad copy to target the right audience and encourage action. In addition, they will need to monitor ad campaigns, optimize them when necessary, and report results to management.
When you hire a PPC expert, you’re bringing in a versatile professional who plays a crucial role in your marketing team, especially when it comes to driving conversions and revenue growth. But, what kind of skills should you be looking for in a PPC expert?
Essential Skills to Look for When You Hire a PPC Expert
Let’s go through the specific hard and soft skills that a B2B SaaS PPC expert should have to be a valuable addition to your team.
Hard Skills
PPC Tools and Platforms
Your candidate needs to have a solid foundation in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets and be proficient in more specialized ad platforms like Google Ads or LinkedIn Ads. These tools are the bread and butter of organizing and implementing PPC campaigns. It’s even better if the candidate has experience with more advanced software like Semrush or Optmyzr.
Data Analysis
A great PPC specialist will be skilled at collecting, understanding, and evaluating KPI metrics. They should also be able to translate these metrics into actionable strategies to improve ad performance.
Keyword Research
Your PPC specialist needs to be competent at conducting keyword research so that ad campaigns match the desired search intent and attract the right target audience. Since target keywords have a big impact on your advertising budget and overall ROAS, they must also be skilled at testing and adapting to remain competitive.
Copywriting
A great PPC specialist knows how to write compelling B2B ad copy that encourages users to take action. This includes carefully integrating target keywords, using persuasive language, and crafting attention-grabbing titles.
Landing Page Design and Optimization
According to the landing page builder Unbounce, including a dedicated landing page in your PPC campaign can result in 65% higher conversion rates. Therefore, your PPC specialist must be familiar with landing page builders and understand best practice design principles.
Soft Skills
Strategic Thinking
To craft effective ad campaigns, B2B SaaS PPC specialists should know how to think strategically and in the long term. They need to have the vision to see how their ad campaigns contribute to and align with the overall business growth goals.
Adaptability and Problem Solving
A great PPC specialist should be quick-thinking, adaptable, and capable of finding solutions quickly. When an ad campaign is underperforming, they need to assess the facts and trial viable solutions until success is achieved.
Communication
Another skill to prioritize is strong written and verbal communication. A PPC specialist needs to be able to communicate effectively within the team and present campaign outcomes to different departments, executive management, and at times, external stakeholders.
Project Management
In the fast-paced domain of marketing, time management is key. The candidate must be able to juggle competing deadlines and manage their own time effectively without supervision to achieve results.
Growth Mindset
A growth mindset is crucial to both personal and professional learning and development. In digital marketing, where the competition is fierce and the tasks are dynamic, a growth mindset will enable your next hire to experiment and find new opportunities as well as be more resilient to setbacks.
Focusing on these essential skills when selecting candidates will increase your chances of finding the right PPC specialist for your business. For additional guidance, consider using our framework to enhance your hiring process even further.
Use the Talent-Trajectory Fit Model to Get the Best Candidate
At Powered by Search, we have many years of experience working with B2B SaaS companies and understand their staffing challenges. Just one bad hiring decision can have big implications on business performance down the track.
That’s how we established our talent-trajectory fit. This model takes into account your business growth goals and how the candidate will directly contribute to those goals. But to get this right, you first need to set your business goals and the resources and actions you need to take to achieve them.
After that, it’s simply a process of outlining the responsibilities the PPC specialist will take on and developing criteria to shortlist initial applicants. This approach allows you to focus on understanding the motivations and demonstrable skills of each applicant, ensuring a better hiring decision.
Should You Hire In-House or Externally?
When deciding whether to hire an in-house PPC specialist or external expert for this role, you need to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of each option. Let’s review them.
Hiring In-House
An in-house specialist will grow with your company, building valuable connections and professional relationships along the way that benefit the company. Moreover, the expertise they gain can be shared with the team, helping to upskill other employees.
There are, however, some downsides to hiring in-house that might make this option less favorable for some.
Hiring in-house involves a notoriously time-consuming recruitment process, which can delay your strategic growth plans while searching for the right applicant for the job. In addition, it’s a common misconception that it’s far cheaper to hire in-house than to hire externally. In reality, long-term costs associated with onboarding, training, benefits, and bonuses can make this option more expensive.
Hiring a PPC Specialist Externally
Hiring a PPC Specialist externally eliminates the need for benefits, training costs, and other overheads. You can also hire an industry expert with a high degree of specialized knowledge that would take forever to find if you were hiring for the role in-house.
Another important benefit is a faster onboarding process, which means your new hire can quickly start developing effective PPC campaigns, while your company saves both time and money.
How Does a Marketing Agency Differ from a Consultant?
You can choose between a marketing agency or an individual consultant. Broadly put, a PPC consultant will likely be highly specialized in one particular field, whereas a marketing agency gives you more flexibility.
A marketing agency gives you the expertise of the entire PPC team rather than one individual consultant. An agency can also support your business over the long term and grow alongside it.
To make the right decision, consider whether you need a combination of strategy, planning, and implementation, or just one of the three. If you need the full package, an agency is the better choice. If you only require focused expertise in one area, a consultant might be sufficient.
Wrapping Up
At the end of the day, whether you want to hire a PPC expert in-house or outsource, you still need to find the right candidate. The skills to prioritize and the talent-trajectory fit model we’ve outlined in this article will help you find the best person for the job and scale fast.
Scaling is a necessity for business survival. You can assess your business’s overall scalability right now by using our SaaS scalability score self-assessment. This self-assessment will highlight how well the business currently attracts, engages, and converts leads, leaving you room to build these insights into your growth strategy.
What you should do now
Whenever you’re ready…here are 4 ways we can help you grow your B2B software or technology business:
- Claim your Free Marketing Plan. If you’d like to work with us to turn your website into your best demo and trial acquisition platform, claim your FREE Marketing Plan. One of our growth experts will understand your current demand generation situation, and then suggest practical digital marketing strategies to hit your pipeline targets with certainty and predictability.
- If you’d like to learn the exact demand strategies we use for free, go to our blog or visit our resources section, where you can download guides, calculators, and templates we use for our most successful clients.
- If you’d like to work with other experts on our team or learn why we have off the charts team member satisfaction score, then see our Careers page.
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