Pay per click (PPC) online marketing models allow small and medium businesses to compete with the mega brand who normally crush them with traditional marketing. In order to understand this better, let’s take a walk down memory lane. Think back to 3^rd grade elementary school. Life was easy back then and the two things you cared most deeply about were probably getting your bed time extended and maximizing your play time with friends. If you’re anything like me, recess was a huge part of your day. I remember I would devour my lunch and then race out to the playground to play tag, four-square, hide and seek, kickball, or tether ball. Then when the recess whistle blew, I would race back into class and finish the school day.

Now let’s think about a time where you witnessed someone being bullied. It was always a terrible thing to witness―a person overpowered and harassed by an individual who typically looked like he had hit puberty five years too early. Sometimes he would even have a gross little mustache with roughly ten hairs that had grown since he’d shaved four months earlier.

I can remember a specific time where I stood up for a friend of mine who was being bullied. The bully was an intimidating hulk who had been harassing my friend for the past couple of days. Although I was normally the playground peacemaker, I had become fed up with this behavior, and had decided someone needed to put him in his place. One day the bully, who will remain anonymous, was picking on my friend for what he was wearing. He was calling him names, overpowering him and getting physical. When I saw him push my friend, I suddenly charged at him with a two-handed shove. The bully flew backwards and landed in the bushes and the kids around me cheered. It was a great feeling to be the playground hero for that brief moment.

So how does this related to the PPC industry? Well, think about a small clothing boutique that is trying to get in the top search results. When someone types in a specific search query like “Raf Simmons” a small clothing boutique doesn’t stand a chance against competitors like Nordstrom, Barney’s New York, Neiman Marcus and so on. These big name retailers use their market dominance to bully the small fashion boutiques by shoving them down to the bottom of the search engine rankings and making sure that they have no voice.

This is where the playground hero comes into play. Google created this AWESOME online advertising program called, Google AdWords. This program allows you to reach people at the precise moment they’re searching for what you offer. It allows you to build awareness, compete with businesses of all sizes and ultimately land above their sites. Before Google AdWords, you would have to have impeccable search engine optimization skills to land at the top of a search result. Now with Google AdWords, small businesses have the chance to stand-up to competitors and say “No More!” They just have to tap on the shoulder of their buddy Google AdWords and then stand aside and let it do its job as the playground hero, or in this instance, the search engine hero.

PPC is evolving like crazy and is rapidly becoming a part of companies’ overall marketing budgets. Traditional media has become like a vintage bottle of wine. It looks good but it is also a really expensive luxury. With Google AdWords, however, the business controls the budget. They don’t have to fork over a million dollars for a commercial on MTV. The business simply sets a maximum cost-per-click bid (the maximum amount of money you would be willing to pay every time someone clicks on your ad) and then they have the freedom to increase or decrease the bid amount. By utilizing the handy Keyword Planner (see below), you can make sure that you are making smart business decisions.

In the above chart, you can see that the competition is medium, there is an average of 170 searches per month and the suggested bid is $1.53. This is super handy when you are trying to decide what keywords to use and how much you should bid. When you get the recipe perfect, the competitors won’t stand a chance. It’s not all about having a higher bid than your competitors. An advertiser must also make sure that they have an excellent Quality Score. This is a measurement of the quality of your ads, keywords and landing page. You can check your quality score in the Google AdWords campaign area.

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) is becoming a hot trend too. Google launched this nifty program back in 2013 and it has revolutionized the way we advertise to our target market. It allows businesses to reach customers in the search results page with a text ad based on:

• Having visited the advertiser’s site (received a cookie).
• Search keywords bid on.

The advertiser must add the Google SmartPixel to their website to take full advantage of RLSA features. Once the code is added to their website, the business is able to reach their customer more effectively and practice remarketing.

SearchEngineWatch.org created an article titled, Google AdWords RLS: 3 Ways to Take Full Advantage. In this article, an advertiser can learn how to maximize their full potential when using this awesome program. Here are some of the ways:

1. New Keyword Targeting: Think back to my Raf Simons example. It might be costly to maintain a high maximum cost-per-click bid. So it would be smart to target only individuals who have visited my site in the past looking for Raf Simons. RLSA allows you to do just that. I know it’s crazy, but it is creative at the same time.
2. Bidding or Even Displaying an Ad: The advertiser can also choose to not display an ad or reduce their bid if a certain customer is searching for a branded term to service their account. The opposite can also be true about a repeat customer that is consistently making purchases. It would be smart for the advertiser to raise the bid the likelihood of being spotted.
3. Targeted Ad Copy: An advertiser can welcome back a customer when using RLSA. The customer will think that it is totally cool or totally creepy. The advertiser can analyze the data to figure out if it ultimately worked.

Paid-per-click is not a marketing fad; it is here to stay. Search engine marketing will become more and more prominent as businesses rethink their marketing budgets. With technical advancements like RLSA, you are able to learn more about your customer and in return increase your ROI. It is an awesome time to be a marketer and I am glad to say that I fully support the search engine heroes like Google AdWords and their counterpart on Bing Ads. Tools like these are leveling the playing field and the winner in this case isn’t necessarily a mega brand, it’s the marketer who figures out how to configure their PPC platform most effectively.

Spring quarter is coming to an end *sheds a single tear that is infused with joy and disappointment*. I will graduating in June with a degree in business administration with a concentration in marketing. These past four years have been a journey consisting of the typical peaks and valleys; with some slogging through mud in between them. I have confirmed that college is a great experience in that it really allowed me to figure out who I am and what career path I want to take. When I first entered into Western Washington University, I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to go into business, and when family members, colleagues, and others would ask what I was pursuing, I would say something along the lines of, ” I know that I want to go into business but am unsure of what part of business to concentrate on.”

Then it dawned on me. I am MADE for marketing and I have been doing it since I was in 6th grade. For example, my brother and I were pretty bummed out that our middle school stopped selling candy, so we decided that we would take the opportunity to do what any marketer would do; fulfill the needs of customers. We purchased Skittles in bulk from the local Cash-n-Carry, and then we sold them for a dollar each. I remember getting a rush after each sale (it could have possibly been a sugar rush) although unfortunately we consumed most of our profits so it failed to become the candy empire I had envisioned.

Later on in high school, I started selling high-end clothing and Air Jordan’s through my website www.somefire.com, with the business model of buy-low and sell-high. This was very profitable until people realized that there was little barriers to entry. Soon I was surrounded by competitors from my school, so I decided to use my entrepreneurial spirit to go down a different lane. During my sophomore year of college, I created my own clothing brand called SomeFire, and stepped away from the (now saturated) luxury used clothing market that I had used to love. This custom clothing design experience strengthened my marketer’s mindset. So far I have designed (with the help of my good friend Bobby Davis) three different collections which range from t-shirts, long-sleeve t-shirts, tank-tops, and hoodies. I will be releasing my next collection within the next month.

In January, I participated in the Student Marketing Associations XMC Case Competition with two other colleagues of mine. We met on a rainy Saturday morning at 8AM, we were given an Ivy business case and were asked to build a presentation, recommend what the business should do, and present it after 4 hours. We competed against 11 other teams, and placed first through an emphasis that I can only characterize as ‘unbounded creativity’ . Creativity is usually hindered when under-pressure, but we were able to work as a team to come up with a creative and realistic set of ideas to compete with an elite set of teams who we know would be going ‘by the book’ with their recommendations.

These past five months have been an excellent learning experience. I had the honor of taking a digital marketing class that expanded my digital marketing skills, and this single class has morphed me into a full-stack smarketer (smart-marketer). Within the last three months, I have become certified in Google Analytics, Hubspot Inbound Marketing, Hootsuite Social Media Management, and Google AdWords.

To obtain these certifications I needed to demonstrate to have an in depth knowledge on the topics. I have spent countless hours these past three months studying, blogging, reading, and learning about topics such as:

• Google Analytics
• Mobile Marketing
• Programmatic & Native Ad’s
• Coding
• Search Engine Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Email Marketing
• Creating GREAT Landing Pages
• Growing Your Online Community
• Social Media
• Content Marketing
• A/B Testing
• Inbound Marketing
• Marketing Analytics

These past two quarters, hands-down, has been my best learning experience thus far in college. The list that you have just read (which include direct links to each topic that I blogged about) shows topics that we were assigned. With these topics, I was asked to not just read an article, but to know like it the back of my hand.

What I can do for you as your digital marketer? Well, a TON really. I am seeking a career in consulting, marketing, or as a marketing consultant and whichever of these directions I end up going, will bring digital marketing knowledge with me. I have gained a relatively vast base of knowledge when it comes to social media, content marketing, analytics, search engine marketing, and other digital marketing disciplines. I will also be participating in a project management crash course after this quarter which eventually will lead to a certification as a project management professional. I am an entrepreneur that loves solving problems, and coming up with great ideas. I have excellent communication skills, and I love working in teams. While being a full-time student at Western Washington University, I also engaged in internships and part-time work at companies such as Nordstrom, Hertz, and Bellingham Marine Industries. I am also currently enrolled in a project management crash course. I am learning the fundamentals of project management and plan to obtain my CAPM. As your marketing consultant I will use the knowledge and skills that I have acquired over the past ten years to drive a positive impact for your company.

When I was in high school I boarded a plan to Australia with my family. I will be honest, the plane ride over to New Zealand and then connecting to Australia was exhausting. A solid 12 hours on a plane will make you get a little stir crazy. I didn’t have an episode and neither did anyone else on the plane. Last thing you would want is a Conrad Hughes Hilton III incident. Although, it would probably made the flight a little more interesting.

I remember sitting next to my brother and watching 4+ movies which was awesome at first but then you start to feel like a blob of laziness and get caught in this awkward limbo stage of wanting to get up and move around or falling asleep. But of course the blankets are awkwardly too small and the pillows being flat and lumpy after the first hour of being in the air. So in short, it was damn near impossible to fall asleep on the plane.

But once we landed in Sydney, it was all uphill. We rented a Winnebago and traveled up the coast to the Great Barrier Reef. There were some awesome places that we stopped like Bayern Bay and Nimbin. Caught some waves in Bayern Bay and watched hippies smoke pot in Nimbin. Also had arguably one of the best Phad Thai’s ever at this hole in the wall Thai restaurant.

Our ending destination was the Great Barrier Reef. This was definitely one of the coolest parts of the trip. The only terrible thing about the Great Barrier Reef was the boat ride. I have never thrown-up that much over a time-span of an hour. 40 people were crammed on this large vessel and I swear 30 of those people were hanging off the back of the boat in the first 20 minutes of the boat ride. By the end of the boat ride the captain was hovering over me pouring ice cold water and laughing hysterically while I was dry-heaving.

When we made it to the Great Barrier Reef, my stomach started to come back to its normal self and I grabbed the snorkel gear. The Great Barrier Reef was beautiful. The colorful fish would gracefully swim through the coral and frantically swim in the opposite direction of me when I would get near them. Luckily there was no jelly fish present and I didn’t have to frantically get them it out of my swim trunks like in Honduras. That is another story for another time.

ScienceDaily wrote a cool article on the Great Barrier Reef and how they are going to fix the damage that has been done. This article obviously caught my eye because of my connection and past experiences with the Great Barrier Reef.

“Leading coral reef scientists say Australia could restore the Great Barrier Reef to its former glory through better policies that focus on science, protection and conservation.”

The Great Barrier Reef is home to millions of different specimens. If we are able to have policies but in place on fishing, pollution, dredging, and coastal development, this would allow for over 60,000 jobs. These jobs would be centered around enforcing these policies.

Being a coral reef scientist would be a pretty sweet gig tbh. Hanging out in some of the most beautiful places in the world, scuba diving with the fish and sporting a nice bronzed tan 24/7. If I wasn’t graduating this quarter, I would consider switching majors. OH WELL.

It’s officially May which means that I will be graduating in a little over a month. That is an awesome thing to type out and share with the world. As you may know, I have set goals for myself and have being following them throughout this past quarter. Except, Meatless-Mondays is still a hard one for me to follow because I simply forget and then remember right after a carnivorous meal. Then I feel an awkward mixture of satisfaction and disappointment which kind of sucks. The feeling of guilt has to be one of the worst feelings to experience. You know that you messed up and it’s too late to fix the situation.

If you are unaware of my ecological footprint goals, they are:

1. Participate in meatless-Mondays.
2. Take James Bond showers.
3. Bike to the gym at least 5 times a week.

All of my goals have been going well except meatless-Mondays. I plan to set alarms for 8am each Monday. I will be honest, this will be an annoying thing to see right after you wake up but it will be engraved in my brain. My showers are becoming more and more James Bond as the quarter progresses. I am currently 60% James Bond and 40% Cody Hulsey. This is pretty damn good accomplishment that I am proud of because flipping that shower knob to the far right (ice cold) is tough. I find myself doing a mental countdown from 10, the closer  I get to 0, I find myself either starting the countdown over, or quickly flipping the knob to the right. It always takes a second for the coldness to fully transfer over but once the liquid icicles hit you, you become a race horse. You are frantically trying to get the rest of your conditioner or shampoo out and I find myself doing an awkward bouncing motion. Anyways, hopefully that wasn’t too much of a visual description of me showering. I have been doing well when it comes to biking to the gym. It really is the perfect pre-workout. You get a nice sweat going, blood flow through the legs and it’s pretty fun to speed through campus.

Ambitious is a word that I would like to have associated with my personal brand. With that said, I am going to add an additional ecological footprint goal. *DUN DUN DUN DUN* I eat a lot of food and still I find myself hungry. I am in need of an easy, portable, non-refrigerated food item that I can consume in between classes.  A fellow classmate of mine that goes by the name of Chris Childs, decided that he is going to consume a ton of PB&J sandwiches throughout the week because they have a low footprint. So, hat-tip to Mr. Childs for giving me inspiration and the idea of munching on PB&J sandwiches throughout the week. The dude is so influential!!!

But I want to make this qualitative and measurable, so I am going to make sure that I consume at least 5 per week. This will make sure that I am getting my extra protein and not getting “h-angry” throughout the day.

My UPDATED ecological footprint goals:

1. Participate in meatless-Mondays.
2. Take James Bond showers.
3. Bike to the gym at least 5 times a week.
4. Consume at least 5 PB&J’s per week.

I am a self-driven, ambitious, and hard-working individual who will make sure that I am able to fulfill these goals. BOO YAH!!!