PPC Expert Sean V. Work

Benefits of hiring Sean V. Work for PPC

Let's go over some benefits!

• 20 years of experience and counting!
• Conversion rate optimization expert.
• I know how to make landing pages (CSS/HTML/PHP) - I'm very hands-on.
• I use a hypothesis / experiment framework for all my campaigns (I have a science background).

It seems like there are a lot of PPC platform jockeys out there. They know how to navigate around the different ad platforms, they utilize "the recommendations" and they have a typical PPC methodology. My approach is that of an advertiser who wants to be in control of their advertising. I'm not interested in what Google or Facebook recommends. I'm more interested in developing a few campaign hypotheses and then running experiments to see if we can achieve a desired trajectory. Over the years, I've developed a process of paid ad experimentation that builds brands, creates exits and delivers ROI.

My PPC Story

I started using Google AdWords in 2003. I owned and operated an online skateboard shop and when AdWords launched, I thought it might be a good idea to try it out to boost some sales. But, boy was I green! I remember the first few weeks being extremely disappointed with the low return on investment - but it was really all my fault. I knew nothing about advertising or building a business. My engineering brain was focused on input / output. If I put some money in, I should get money out - it's that simple right? Wrong! The game is much trickier than that, and it takes research, planning and sometimes months to get ROI.

Back to the story...

After my first attempt at Google AdWords, I actually spent more time honing my SEO skills. But a few years later I met an amazing PPC mentor Jacob Shin. He taught me the ins and outs of PPC and I became much more knowledgeable and proficient at PPC. Thank you, Jacob! This is when I started hitting home runs with PPC. You can read about these success stories below. But first, I want to talk about my time at Crazy Egg..

VP of Inbound Marketing at Crazy Egg, Inc.

I got a job at Crazy Egg (which is a conversion rate optimization tool). You install the Crazy Egg code snippet on your website and it provides a visual analytics experience of what's going on - on your website. The main feature is a heat map that shows what parts of a particular web page people are spending time examining. It might be a specific paragraph or a video mid-way down the page. This information allows you to form hypotheses of what changes to your web pages may increase conversions.

Crazy Egg Heat Map: Notice the hot areas where site visitors tend to focus.

But why is this important?

Knowing the ins and outs of a conversion rate optimization tool such as Crazy Egg really opens your eyes as to what you can optimize, how much traffic you need, and what's a waste of time. I'd say a lot of people who "do PPC" for a living don't have conversion rate optimization chops (most of them don't know how to code up a web page!). Knowing how to make a web page convert is a HUGE piece of the PPC puzzle. Running the marketing at Crazy Egg definitely bumped up this particular skill for me.

Since my days at Crazy Egg, I've taken on clients where I've run their PPC and helped them grow their businesses. Again, check out the success stories below to learn more.

Things I'll Need From You

"You're going to work your magic right?" Well, there are a few things I may need from you to make your PPC campaigns successful. Let's go over them real quick.

I'll need to learn everything about your business or company.

In order to do my job right, I need to know A LOT about your business. I need to know why people buy from you or decide to do business with you. I would like to see a marketing plan. I may ask how your product works. I may ask super detailed questions about the services you provide. PPC isn't about slapping together some ads, picking keywords and setting bids. No no no...it gets really deep. Sometimes my job is to really reverse engineer your entire business so that YOU understand it better than when we first met.

I may want to talk to your existing customers.

Your existing customers are a wealth of super-critical business information. Asking you or your team about how your business works is only one side of the story. The brutally honest side can only be told from your customers. And sometimes that's where the gems are. Again, my job is to learn everything I can so I can assemble the perfect PPC campaigns that build your business.

I'll want to know your customer lifetime value.

Knowing how much a customer is worth to you over the lifetime that they are a customer is an extremely important guiding metric for me. That determines how much we're willing to spend to acquire a customer.

I may recommend an analytics company or specialist to come in and lace some things up.

I know two of the top analytics people on the planet. Not people who code analytics tools, but people who install and configure analytics for a variety of businesses. I'm pretty darn technical, but at some point my brain can only handle so much and I really don't like spending too much time and energy troubleshooting conversion tracking tools and website analytics. I feel these introductions are an invaluable addition to the service I provide, so I like to recommend these people.

Success Stories

Here are some success stories I'd like to share:

Wetpaint.com

Wetpaint.com was a cool website where you could start your own free wiki site. I still think the concept is a great idea. I helped Wetpaint.com get acquired. I'm not really sure what happened to the site after the purchase (there are a lot of strange Silicon Valley purchases I don't quite understand!). The acquisition was in the tens of millions if I remember correctly.

• Kept cost per click down below $2/click
• Drove sign-up / user growth
• Eventually led to acquisition of the property (~ $40M)

Rise Vision

Rise Vision was an interesting case study in that PPC didn't appear to be a huge driver for immediate product sign-ups, however, the long-term advertising campaigns resulted in company growth and the eventual acquisition of the company. This is one of my favorite stories of how search advertising is an important factor when it comes to building a brand and hammering in messaging to your target audience.

• Increased brand awareness in the EdTech space
• Developed a unique high-impression / low-cost campaign
• Brand acquired in 2022

Auptix

I'm really proud of this work because this company has turned into something amazing (now called Flock Freight). They've revolutionized trucking and shipping, made it more efficient and have removed tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. I helped them with their initial customer acquisition when they were just coming out of stealth mode. This work was pivotal to getting their next rounds of funding which led them to where they are today.

• Helped build their initial customer base
• Rare instance where PPC success occurred right out of the gate
• Turned into Flock Freight and is still growing 10 years later!

Alfa Auto Glass

And this might be my favorite success story. It's one thing to help tech start-ups, but it's an amazing feeling when you can help a local small business. I've generated millions in sales for Alpha Auto Glass since 2018. If you're reading this and you have a local service business, you should call me. Oftentimes, local service-based businesses do really well with PPC.

• Client since 2018
• Generated millions in sales
• Developed "secret sauce" recipe for small local businesses

Am I Expensive?

I'd say I've undervalued my services most of my life. So that's good news for you! I mean I've fricken moved mountains for companies and never really shared in any of the spoils. For small local businesses, I try to keep my costs around $1,000/month. I think that's pretty fair. For large companies, it really depends on what we're trying to do. But it never exceeds $5,000/month.

How to Get Started with Sean Work

I used to use Calendly to schedule chats to discuss working together. But this year the flake ratio is pretty high and it's wasting my time. People are canceling meetings at the last minute - super unprofessional behavior these days. So, if you want to start a conversation with me, just call or text me and we'll go from there.