A grand part of pay per click management focuses on data analysis. Weekly and monthly reports which list figures and percentages relating to individual pay per click campaigns over a period of weeks, months, or even years, are reasonable expectations.

The pay per click manager has to answer to this data too. If figures don't look good, the pay per click advertising client will want to know why and rightly so. However, it is perhaps fair to say that we tend to spend too long analyzing data or, better said, analyzing what has been happening in the past.

Pay per click management is most effective when it looks to the future, which is why it is important that all pay per click management companies start to use data analysis as a way of generating future strategies for their pay per click advertising clients instead of lamenting about losses in the past.

Data analysis is needed. Numbers must be shared. Pay per click advertisers like to be kept informed and it is their right to be as informed as possible at all times, but pay per click managers also have a duty. He or she has a duty to their client to steer them in the right direction and that direction has been, and always will be, forwards.

The more we crunch, cut and paste figures into spreadsheets and send charts and other graphics via email, the less time and attention we have to pay to future strategies. Pay per click management is more effective when the pay per click manager uses the data to digest what has been happening and set targets for the future optimization of the campaigns that he or she is managing.

If the pay per click manager can keep everyone looking forwards towards new beginnings, the online marketing experience will not only be more successful but also much more fulfilling for all concerned in general.

Data refers to the past, strategy makes our future bright. Pay per click management teams need to be made to feel empowered in order to match creativity with conversion goals. The pay per click manager must boldly take his or her advertising client where no other pay per click advertiser has yet thought of going to. Creativity and strategy are the important factors to online advertising success, not data analysis.

Therefore, analyze the data that you gather, but then use that data to compile some creative online advertising ideas which you can then send to your client in order to keep things moving forwards.

An online marketing strategy is so much more than "did my potential client buy or not?" In 2012, the pay per click advertiser needs to consider how they engage with their potential customer, what kind of reputation they are building for themselves online, who their competitors are and how well those competitors are doing too.

The only way to get ahead in 2012 is via creativity and strategic planning. So... no more data analysis... get a pen and some paper and take notes....

Setting Goals
Revenue goals should be the last thing on your list. If you manage to achieve other online marketing goals, the revenue goal will eventually be met and perhaps even earlier that you had anticipated.

Goals should be clear and completion of those goals should be easy to measure. For example:

1. Execute one new branding campaign every three months
2. Run a rewards advertisement for new clients every month
3. Post to social network forums every morning to help support pay per click efforts

Convert Reports Into Strategic Plans
If your data reveals that traffic is down, avoid simply sending this data in a report and instead use this data as a way of looking forward to a positive future... a positive future that will include a list of ways in which to better drive traffic. For example:

1. A/B campaign testing using different kinds of advertisement text at different times in the day
2. Shorter headlines with call-to-action verbs
3. Campaigns across both the paid search network and display network at the same time

When a pay per click manager sends a report which says "traffic is down by 10% since last month" or "Internet users who spend more than 6 minutes on the site are the users who tend to buy the most products," the information that they are sharing with their pay per click advertising client is pretty redundant.

If traffic is down, we need strategies to increase it. If there is a group of Internet users who spends lots of time on the site and buys lots of products, we need to find out who they are, how they arrive to the site and why it is that they spend. We need consumer research and a strategic plan for how to approach this research.

Analyze data, by all means, and draw conclusions from that data, but then use those conclusions to drive your pay per click management team through a period of creative strategic planning. This is how real successes via online marketing are achieved and this is exactly what the pay per click advertising client is looking for.

So... no more spreadsheets! Get creative!

David Chapman, Director of Marketing at Webrageous, is a pay per click management expert.

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