Interview with Karina Tama

Let me introduce our next wonderful woman, Karina Tama! Karina is the CEO and Founder of Senior Care Clicks, please welcome her and listen to her PPC career story 🌹

 

 

Share the story of how you first got into PPC?

I moved to NY after I finished my Bachelors in International Business. I wanted to dedicate myself to digital marketing. Then, I thought I needed to get some classes in SEO, PPC, Email, etc. Furthermore, I hired a one to one tutor online to teach me PPC advertisement. I loved the classes and I wanted to learn more so I decided to hire a second tutor because I wanted to learn from another person’s perspective. It was exciting but a bit different from my previous teacher/tutor. I felt that I had to do more so I decided to prepare for the Google Certification. I did it and received the Certification. I felt so powerful, and therefore, I decided to look for a job where I can put into practice all my learnings. I started to work for a Jewelry store running their diamond luxury jewelry ads. I was fascinated… This is how my PPC journey started…

What was the proudest moment of your PPC career?

I was hired for a person that had been doing his own Google ads campaigns and had mastered how to do it right. One day, this client called me because his goal was to get more leads, calls and to lower his cost per conversion. I accepted as I thought it would be easy, but to my surprise, he had been doing a great job so far. His campaigns didn’t have much room for improvement. I thought about it, and after working a lot of hours and paying attention to all the details, I was able to optimize it. I brought it to a super sweet spot. My client was paying Max CPC $50 and I brought the CPC down to $31,50. Also, he was getting more calls. He was super happy with my work, and as a result, he gave more projects to my agency.

Do you struggle with maintaining a healthy work-life balance?

It happens sometimes more in cases where I am working on a huge campaign and the client is expecting fast results. I can get overwhelmed and stressed out over this, and as a result, I end up being obsessed and working a lot of hours. This happened to me when I was running Google ads for a home care agency in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020. People were looking for the service more than ever before. I had tons of search queries to check daily and optimizations to do to take advantage of the high service demand. I remember that I was working a lot more than usual to keep up with the campaign’s engagement.

Have you ever experienced any problems or challenges as a PPC because you’re a woman?

No, not really! I have experienced getting paid less than a male colleague but not any problem or challenge in PPC because of my gender.

Have you ever had any advantages or benefits as a PPC because you’re a woman?

No., not at all.

Are there any differences in how you’re treated as a female by clients?

I don’t recall that I had been treated differently because of my gender, To be honest, I had been treated differently because of my accent., I really find it annoying and unfair because having an accent doesn’t mean that I am not prepared for the job. But this is the society that we live in and there is not much I can do about it. Anyway, I can choose who I work for so the ones that are affected by anything about me are not a good fit for me either.

Has a client ever underestimated you because you’re a woman?

Yes, I won’t say underestimate me but pay me lower than a man yes.
But what can I do… I think changes are needed because gender bias is a fact.

If you could wave a magic wand and change something in the PPC world, what would it be?

I will change the Display placements. I am not a fan of Google judgment for placement, I will also discontinue Google Smart Campaigns because of the lack of data to rely on, for the bad placements, and for the lack of control. I don’t like to give up control of my campaigns. Google Smart Campaigns are the worst Google product.

What about being a PPC do you enjoy the most?

Results, I love to see that my campaigns are improving ROI for my clients. I don’t focus on vanity metrics. I focus on real results. I have open communication with my clients and I go the extra mile to make sure they are opening the daily leads reports ( contact form, calls, etc). I also ask for feedback so I can understand the output of the campaigns and I can optimize the campaigns accordingly.

I love to optimize and analyze my campaigns until the point that they are working great.