It’s that time of year again! The time to release our newest edition of the Top 25 and honor some of the hardest workers in our tight-knit PPC community.

There is a complex formula that goes into calculating what makes someone truly influential in our industry. You can read more about the methodology on how we arrived at the rankings below the infographic. The scores took into account only what someone has done within the last year to truly stay up-to-date as an influential expert.

And as we have done for the last several years, we also included the Top Rising Stars in PPC. We asked our readers to submit the names of PPCers just starting to burst onto the scene and destined to become an influencer. If you’ve gone to any digital conferences this year, you will probably see some familiar faces!

 

The Official 2019 Top 25 Most Influential PPC Experts

The Results

Like last year, we gave readers complete freedom to write in who they thought were influential experts (and rising stars!). We saw all the usual suspects, but were also introduced to some new folks on the scene, both in the US and throughout the world.

We also want to point out that if an expert didn’t get voted in, they weren’t included in the process for rankings. So if you think you should be considered for this list, make sure you’re telling your co-workers and friends to vote you in!

The Methodology

All metrics are normalized into a standard scale so that they can be compared and tallied using the same rubric. Some of the measurements we list below sound a little like apples and oranges, but we used a weighting and normalization scheme specifically to ensure that no single thing created a bias for any particular PPC expert.

The metrics we measured can be roughly defined as belonging to five categories:

  • Conferences
    Speaking engagements
  • Twitter Engagement Score
    Influence measurement using tools like Sparkscore’s tool
  • Online Influence
    Podcasts, webinars, videos, online events
  • News Mentions
    Mentions in blogs, interviews, news articles, etc
  • Vote Totals
    The votes, nominations and enthusiasm of you, the PPC community!

All metrics were based on what the individual has done within the past year (May 2018 – April 2019). We feel this truly measures the impact of an influencer, by making sure all efforts were up-to-date and we weren’t accounting for activities that had taken place more than two years ago.

There is plenty of room for debate (we have certainly learned that much), but we always do our very best to ensure that the scores are objective and that they rely on actual data, not opinion. The list is crafted from a 1:1 comparison of the numbers in our formula, and nothing more.

The Reaction

As always, we want to hear from you!

Love the list? Tell your friends! Hate the list? Tell your friends! But most importantly: Tell us.

Tweet @PPCHero with your thoughts, feelings and emotions. We want to hear it all!

Past Top 25 Lists:

The Top 25 PPC Experts of 2018
The Top 25 PPC Experts of 2017
The Top 25 PPC Experts of 2016
The Top 25 PPC Experts of 2015
The Top 25 PPC Experts of 2014
The Top 25 CRO Experts of 2014
The Top 25 PPC Experts of 2013
The Top 25 PPC Experts of 2012
Do PPC Experts Even Exist?
Should Every PPC Expert Know CRO?