I talk (a lot) about how to optimise Google Ads campaigns…
What levers to pull – and when – in order to maximise your results in the most cost-effective way.
But there are some seriously influential factors governing how well your account runs (and how well you run it) that have nothing to do with the numbers and levers in the interface.
They’re factors that specialist blogs like this don’t often go into. (It’s not exactly ‘in our lane…’)
But they are crucial to the success of your accounts, so let’s take a long step back and look at the bigger picture…
Two years ago I wrote a post called the invisible metric – about your attention being an important, finite resource to manage as a part of PPC optimisation.
There are other hidden metrics that also have a real bearing on our performance and in turn, the performance of our accounts:
e.g.
- Our energy levels ( drill down to sleep / diet / exercise / health)
- Our motivation levels
- The efficiency of our habits and systems…
But – to avoid veering too far off the PPC path – let’s focus on one that’s a little more directly linked to our work… our stock – or standing – with our clients.
Think of the varied relationships we have with our clients… and how the dynamics of those relationships affect the type, direction, quality (and frankly, satisfaction) of the work we do for them – and you’ll see that it’s an issue worth considering.
Our stock with clients can be raised through:
- good results
- proactive communication
- friendliness
- compliance with requests
- honesty
(and no, the balance between the last two isn’t always simple…)
It can be traded for:
- forgiveness for mistakes
- tolerance of performance dips
- perhaps greater flexibility with issues such as taking time off for a holiday (which can be a thorny one for freelancers)
It can result in:
- trust
- not being over-questioned… and importantly:
- increased account life expectancy
I have at times kept a literal score of [fee ÷ time requirement] for various accounts that I manage, to make sure I identify any serious inefficiencies.
Stock with clients is another metric to consider in a similar way.
Where you think this hidden metric is low, step up your efforts in visible ways.
And when you have clients who are ‘never happy’ despite your efforts, that’s obviously a black mark, and represents a stress point that you may well be better off without.
So try literally marking where you think you are on a scale of 1-10 in terms of your standing with your clients, and use the scores as a serious factor when deciding how to spend that other hidden metric… your attention.
