Interview with Mannix Pabalan

This is part of a study that aims to create a practical guide for PPC educators and learners as well as an academic article based on inputs of PPC professionals all over the world. Caveat: these notes are based on my understanding of our conversation. All mistakes are mine. — Kahlil Corazo

Professional Background
Mannix Pabalan is one of the most experienced PPC experts in the Philippines. He has been in the industry since 2000 and was the one responsible for the biggest PPC campaigns in the Philippine market: the launches of AyosDito and Rocket Internet’s Zalora and Lazada. He now runs his own digital marketing agency, Hashtag Digital.

Mannix has managed around 200 PPC accounts, the biggest of which had a monthly ad spend of PhP8M / $200k. He has personally trained 15 people in PPC, and has reached hundreds of online marketing professionals through his frequent speaking engagements.

What are the core skills needed by PPC professionals?
Mannix considers two things to be essential in PPC:

• Passion for marketing — Mannix considers PPC to be more technical than traditional marketing. Yet, at its heart, it is marketing. PPC professionals must have a knack for marketing and a passion to learn marketing.
• “Gusto” for statistics — You must be proficient and ideally enjoy data analysis. “If you don’t have this, you don’t have a place in this world.” Excel knowhow is a must.

Mannix does not believe that there are “non-core” skills. He mentioned that specific skills like structuring campaigns, design, coming up with negative keywords, etc, area all part of the tapestry (tahi-tahi sila lahat).

Training
Mannix trains new PPC professionals by letting them make their mistakes. He listens to ideas. Even if he thinks the idea won’t work, he asks the trainee to try it out. The trainees learn whether or not the idea works, but especially when the idea does not work. He however makes sure that these mistakes happen within a controlled environment (eg, within a small budget). Training is not planned but happens with real work. He considers PPC to be a very different professions compared to traditional marketing. “If there’s one thing you need to study well, it’s analytics.”

Resources
He considers Brad Geddes’ Advanced Google AdWords to be the best baseline guide to AdWords. However, learning really happens with experience. Being part of online groups also help.

Random notes from our conversation

• “Mindf*ck.” — this is how a colleague of Mannix describes the mental challenge of PPC.
• It’s wrong to have a separate graphic design group. The PPC guys should be the ones to design their own display ads.
• How often do you optimize? Google says at least every two weeks. But for huge accounts it could be as often as every two hours.
• You need to learn how to create tools, especially when you manage large campaigns. You need to learn how to use Excel Macros (eg, for creating the reports you need based on raw data from AdWords). Other tools: campaign builders, URL checkers (especially for huge eCommerce sites), analysis templates and automation. Einstein said “the development of the world is fueled by laziness.”
• Each channel has its own characteristics (eg, Facebook vs GDN)

Originally published at www.corazo.org.