Jeremy Krantz was nominated anonymously in November of 2021.
How long have you been working in PPC?
I am now nearing 17 years of experience in PPC and started professionally in 2005 after graduating from college. My first taste of paid search came my junior year in 2004 in a digital marketing class I attended.
How did you get started in PPC?
My first taste of paid search came from a college class I attended in 2004 during my junior year where one of my professors (shoutout to Professor Kunz if you’re reading this!) enrolled our entire class into a Google-backed competition where we were divided into groups and given a budget – by Google – to spend on a business of our choosing. Our goal was to work with a local business and provide them with paid search marketing while simultaneously optimizing the accounts and measuring success using conversion tags. I immediately fell in love with paid search, the strategies and the data and haven’t looked back since. I knew then and there that I wanted to pursue this after graduating.
If you went to college, what did you study? If not college, do you have any other degrees or certifications?
I originally went to college to get a degree in computer sciences… until I realized there was a lot of math and coding involved – both of which I’m not very fond of, so I pivoted towards marketing since I had a bit of a background for it and felt like it was a more natural trajectory based on my interests. By the time junior year came around, I was very much looking forward to graduating as fast as possible and just hungry to get started on my career in the field.
What was your first job that involved PPC?
I was the in-house digital marketing person working in a startup of 7 people in the IT security space. I was responsible for all of the websites, their content, the paid search, the SEO and working with various tech partners to get things updated and adjusted as necessary. We later got acquired, not once, but twice, and went from being a team of seven to a team of thousands over at Symantec. It was a great experience, especially as a first job out of college trying to sink my teeth into the field.
What is your current position and how long have you been in it?
I’ve been at Radancy for just over two and a half years and lead a team of media traders on the company’s largest media account. We’re responsible for deploying and executing all performance media pertaining to a Fortune 50 client – all in an effort to facilitate the hiring of hundreds of thousands of people every year. The media channels include social, search, programmatic, and display and it’s always great to see that our work helps people get jobs and earn a paycheck.
What kinds of things do you currently handle or manage in PPC?
I supervise and manage a team responsible for all media (display, programmatic, search and social) for a Fortune 50 client – specifically for all media relating to their hiring efforts. My client hires hundreds of thousands of people on a somewhat seasonal basis and my team executes all of the advertising initiatives pertaining to that across 55+ individual search accounts.
Has your career path had any hiccups or nontraditional aspects that you’d like to share?
I’ve definitely been in some less-than-ideal situations including a rather traumatic one where I got let go less than two weeks before my first kid was born, and right after buying my house. This was just mere days after I had earned lots of praise at work and had gotten promoted so I was definitely blindsided. It was malicious and it took me a very long time to rebound from the damage this had done to not just my mental health but also my confidence and self-esteem.
Other than that particular incident I’ve been very fortunate and would say that in most cases, I’ve been on a pretty stable, steady path.
What are you most proud of in your PPC career?
What I’m most proud of is seeing the impact I’ve had on some of my current and former reports. There are people that came under my wing with little to no experience who’ve grown to have very successful careers in the industry – some even becoming thought leaders and speakers in the space.
It’s really great to see that happen and see them also spread their love and passion for the field. I will always try to share my passion for this specific advertising channel – which I firmly believe is a near perfect medium since it’s so intent-driven.
What, if anything, do you wish you could “do over” in your PPC career?
Aside from leaving toxic workplaces sooner than I did, there’s little I would honestly change about my path. I’ve been very fortunate to work on the breadth of accounts I’ve worked on – of all shapes and sizes, both in-house and on the agency side and in all kinds of verticals from high-ed to CPG and everything in between including IT security, logistics, and talent acquisition which is what I focus on now at Radancy.
If you could give advice to someone either considering or just starting out in PPC, what would that be?
Definitely do it. At no point in time has there ever been so much training content and so many resources available to help you learn and master paid search. From the lovely peeps over on #ppcchat to the many articles and Slack communities, there’s always people helping and sharing information. It’s a great community and I really do think that it is the best advertising medium there is.
Always be curious and don’t just blindly follow along or assume things until you have any and all data to support it. And definitely keep up as well – the landscape in SEM is ever-changing and there’s a good chance that by the time you’re done reading this, something will have changed somewhere.
Are you interested in speaking opportunities? If so, what topics are your jam?
Not particularly – I’m more of a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. Maybe I’ll reconsider this someday… That one podcast I was on a while back was fun though. I do try to participate on #ppcchat on occasion but my work schedule has made it very difficult as of late – but I’m hoping to make a reappearance soon and miss it dearly.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Paid Search Association, which I joined a short while back as a board member and director of partnerships. The PSA’s mission of spreading knowledge and best practices is something critical to this industry – and I’m very excited about the projects we’re working on and highly recommend that people check it out. We’re offering free memberships right now until September 2022. You can join here.
Where can people find you to connect (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)?
I’m pretty easy to reach on social media and can be found on Twitter at @JeremyKrantz and on LinkedIn. You can also follow me on Instagram if you’re into craft beer, dad jokes, memes, and food.