First, this is going to be a quick post on a recent epiphany I’ve had…

In PPC, as in a lot of business areas, I find that there is a cyclical nature to understanding and implementing best practices. In many cases this natural curve is fought with managers attempting to keep everyone as close to the best practices line as possible.

In other cases people are constantly pushed to “think outside the box” or in this case “think away from the line.” The problem with this is that you’re always out in the ether creating clever ideas but drifting your PPC account further and further away of what typically works hoping to find something that doesn’t usually work but just might!

This diagram displays what I am talking about.

PPC Best Practices Spiral

The longer the time in PPC, the longer it takes the account manager to swing back around to best practices. It also means the more clever and innovative the ideas become.

PPC Best Practices Spiral Performance

I’ve found the best solution to this is to insure that you always have two sets of eyes on an account. One set that is from a grandpa in PPC such as myself and then to have someone new, preferably really new, who only knows best practices and is so scared of the PPC bandit running away with their results that they can’t fathom creativity within an AdWords account yet.