PPC Advertising 5 Design Bottlenecks How to Prevent Them

If you're like most PPC advertisers, you'd rather not touch Adobe Photoshop with a ten-foot pole. There is a good chance that slaving away in Google AdWords or figuring out multi-touch attribution models sounds like more fun. But graphic design? No way. In my younger PPC days when search campaigns were my only concern, I was the same way. I never expected that designing a marketing graphic would be an appropriate use of my time. That's why we hire graphic designers, right? Related: 4 ways to increase conversions with visual content But PPC is much more than standard text ads showing up on a search engine results page. There are paid-social ads on Facebook and LinkedIn, display campaigns, native, remarketing, landing page creative, etc. The list goes on. But here's the kicker: they all require graphic design assets. And when your graphic designer is too busy to get the job done, you're on your own. I know. That's a scary thought. You might be thinking about how your next ad campaign should have launched yesterday... but first you need to hack your way through Photoshop? There is a better way. Here are 5 design bottlenecks that eat up a PPC manager's time and how they can be avoided. 1. Getting a designer to make after-the-fact tweaks Whether you outsource your graphic design or have in-house help, accessing a designer's busy schedule is a struggle. But imagine that your designer just delivered a long-awaited piece of creative for a new Facebook ad campaign. You upload the content and launch the campaign. A week later however, ad fatigue sets in. Engagement and ROI are dropping fast. Since you've seen this before, you know what needs to be done—a simple tweak to the copy contained within the image. But when you ask the designer to make the change, you are asked to wait three weeks! Solution: This sort of design bottleneck should not happen, but it does. You can prevent this by asking your designer to provide you with templates. With a templatized Facebook ad, you can use a simple graphic design software like Lucidpress to make the necessary tweaks. This will protect the integrity of the creative, while providing you with flexibility and independence. It is crucial for PPC advertisers to make tweaks frequently and quickly—whether it's for your next A/B test or a fatigued paid-social ad. Making these tweaks should take minutes, not weeks. 2. Seeking approval at creative review for edits to a landing page Nothing is more frustrating than sitting through a creative review while crossing your fingers that the creative director approves the concept for new hero images on your landing pages. Even worse, you may have to wait a week for the next meeting to roll around. Either way, your campaign's launch date is probably getting pushed back. Solution: First, work with your team to establish brand guidelines and a library of pre-approved images and copy. Sticking to these may grant you permission to skip creative review altogether. If that fails and you must still attend creative review, try petitioning your management team to hold the review process after the change has been A/B tested. If you're not A/B testing every step of the PPC process, start now. Hard data will give you a strong voice at creative review. Lastly, plan ahead for projects that will require creative approval. 3. Endlessly searching for images to use on display campaigns What should you do when your display campaign needs a refreshed set of images, but you're not satisfied with Google's display ad-builder? You may find yourself struggling to navigate the design team's cluttered Dropbox folder. Or even worse, you might resort to copying & pasting from Google Images. Solution: Recommend a Digital Asset Management software to your marketing team. There are several affordable options out there for DAM software. The goal is to quickly store, organize, retrieve and deploy your digital assets from a central location. 4. Your designer never has time for your projects and you don't know Photoshop. This is the obvious one. And yet so many PPC marketers do nothing about it. Solution: There are cloud-based design tools for almost every situation, no matter your design experience. Need to make heavy edits to a photo? Try Pixlr. For infographics, check out Visme. Want to add pretty text to your marketing graphics? Lucidpress was built to do just that, and much more. In recent years, graphic design has been democratized. For anything less than a complicated design project, you shouldn't need a degree or expensive software. [Click to tweet ] 5. Cracking down on an affiliate or channel partner using rogue content Have you ever had a VP or director ask why they stumbled onto one of your display ads and saw misspelled words or blurry images? I have. First, you panic. Then you search for the source and discover that it was actually one of your affiliates! Now you must spend valuable time working with the partner to correct the mistake. Solution: This calls for a combination of some solutions listed above. Start with templatizing your partners' ad campaigns. Then, provide them with the brand style guide and access to the appropriate folders in your Digital Asset Management tool. Lastly, use these tools to empower your partners. Rather than just giving them constraints, teach them the principles that your marketing approach is founded upon. (Use your brand guidelines to accomplish this in a time-effective manner.) Because you hired these affiliates to provide additional volume to your marketing, consider crafting them into thought partners. Have them A/B test the newer, riskier ideas that you don't have time for. In short, be proactive instead of reactive. To conclude, design bottlenecks eat up the time that should belong to you and your designers. With the right tools and strategies, you can avoid these bottlenecks. Your designers will love you, and you can focus on making more money. See how Lucidpress can streamline your creative process & keep your visuals consistent across all channels.