Andrew Goodman, my personal hero, wrote an excellent article which really clarified the most important roles paid search marketing plays. It’s not a cure for all that ills us, but it does have a very important “closer” role to play in the sales cycle. Mr. Goodman get’s it 
Your Closer had better not mess up any of these things, or she isn’t earning her keep.
- Keyword coverage. Every keyword related to your brand, products, and best selling items should of course be in your account. Keyword expansion should also focus on obvious secondary terms, often called the keyword torso. This is not about the ”long tail sexiness” of leaving zero stones unturned – that’s impossible. Just cover the most you feasibly can.
- Finding the best ad copy for maximum ROI or CTR depending on objectives.
- Figuring out the right landing pages.
- Testing pages enough so that the site at least sees a growing trend of learning about user response and improving conversion rates.
- Figuring out issues of channel conflict; coaching resellers so that they have the fullest coverage they can muster.
- Not letting competitors unduly or illegally encroach on your trademark in ad copy.
- Investigating whether a lead or small ticket sale is the best primary objective for moving closer to sale of particularly high ticket items, to reduce the mystery inherent in ”long sales cycle” theories.
- For innovative new products, can a search campaign be built to tap into some niche related need that is close enough to create reasonably high intent? Can content targeting be used at the same time to drive multichannel awareness on related forums and niche content sites?
