Click Here & Buy ZATO Owner, Kirk Williams' newest book on Google Ads - Ponderings of a PPCer: Revised & Expanded.
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Kirk is the owner of ZATO, his Paid Search & Social PPC micro-agency of experts, and has been working in Digital Marketing since 2009. His personal motto (perhaps unhealthily so), is "let's overthink this some more." He even wrote a book recently on philosophical PPC musings that you can check out here: Ponderings of a PPC Professional.
He has been named one of the Top 25 Most Influential PPCers in the world by PPC Hero 6 years in a row (2016-2021), has written articles for many industry publications (including Shopify, Moz, PPC Hero, Search Engine Land, and Microsoft), and is a frequent guest on digital marketing podcasts and webinars.
Kirk currently resides in Billings, MT with his wife, six children, books, Trek Bikes, Taylor guitar, and little sleep.
Kirk is an avid "discusser of marketing things" on Twitter, as well as an avid conference speaker, having traveled around the world to talk about Paid Search (especially Shopping Ads). Kirk has booked speaking engagements in London, Dublin, Sydney, Milan, NYC, Dallas, OKC, Milwaukee, and more and has been recognized through reviews as one of the Top 10 conference presentations on more than one occasion.
You can connect with Kirk on Twitter or Linkedin.
In 2023, Kirk had the privilege of speaking at the TEDx Billings on one of his many passions, Stop the Scale: Redefining Business Success.
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Eric is a ZATO Paid Search Specialist. A marketer at heart, he’s passionate about developing big picture marketing ideas but also loves getting his hands dirty while sifting through click and conversion data, testing ad copy and digging into analytics to find hidden insights.
Eric’s career in digital marketing has spanned over a decade and he has been working specifically in PPC since 2009. Eric received a bachelor's in Business Marketing from Montana State University and has since spent time in-house as the digital marketing manager at an award-winning international adventure travel company and most recently was the digital marketing director at a local web design and marketing agency. He has a broad range of industry experience including extensive time spent doing SEO, Social Media Marketing and Email Marketing. He is certified in Google AdWords and Google Analytics.
Eric spends most of his time outside of work with his wife and 3 kids. They have called Billings home since 2006 and enjoy spending time with friends, family and neighbors.
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Sarah started her career in digital marketing by working as a contractor at Google for 6 years before joining ZATO.
During that time, she worked with thousands of Google Ads accounts, gathering specific insight into industry benchmarks, trends and data. Because of her time representing Google, she excels at implementing Google Ads best practices in ZATO clients to maximize machine learning applied intelligently through a human framework.
Sarah is also passionate about educating others regarding Paid Search products, and actually taught the existing ZATO team about a specific product on her first day ever working at ZATO!
Sarah lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with her husband, two sons and dog. She enjoys spending time with her family, beautifying her house, and visiting new places.
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Diana moved to the United States in 2004 from Russia, while pursuing a career in sales. In 2013, she became a contractor representing Google to agencies where she worked closely with a variety of companies and agencies, helping them achieve their goals, providing strategic advice, assisting with troubleshooting, and educating them about the Google Ads platform.
Diana has an insatiable curiosity regarding Google Ads algorithms, and does all she can to figure out "why" things are the way they are in her client accounts, not simply "what" is happening.
Diana lives in Chandler, Arizona with her husband, two kids, two dogs, and a cat. She loves nature and enjoys hiking, gardening, biking with her dogs, and horseback riding.
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Chris is tasked with growing and developing the Google Ads for Small Budget program at ZATO. He's passionate about marketing, with 10+ years of sales and management experience and has succeeded in those fields by streamlining operations and making his team and procedures as efficient and productive as possible.
While employed at a local non-profit organization, Chris stumbled across PPC and was instantly enthralled by the possibilities of the digital marketing world. His extensive background and relentless optimism made him a great fit to build ZATO's Small Budget program.
Outside of work, Chris spends his time with his wife, daughter, and their 2 dogs. He has called Billings home since 1988 and he enjoys seeing and playing concerts (that's right... he's in more than one band), spending time with friends, and hiking around the Montana mountains.
Austin Sellers is a skilled digital marketing specialist with a focus on PPC advertising and Google Ads management. A Purdue University graduate, Austin began his career as a digital marketing coordinator for a regional bank before transitioning to freelance PPC management.
Over four years, he handled hundreds of Google Ads accounts across various industries, developing a keen understanding of sector-specific digital advertising strategies. He's got a knack for turning complex data into winning strategies that make ads not just seen, but clicked.
Based in Bourbon, Indiana, Austin spends his free time hanging with family & friends, playing golf and basketball, and working on home improvement projects.
We aren’t a full-service digital marketing agency so we won’t be your go-to for SEO or email. When you hire us, you're hiring specialists.
Our singular focus gives us the bandwidth to dive deeper into your accounts. When you hire ZATO, you're hiring paid search people. Period.
We invest ourselves into your business and vertical as a natural extension of your team.
With regular calls, fast written responses, and strategic guidance we see ourselves as more than simple button-pushers, but your strategic key to long-term growth in the Paid Search channels. We're here to help.
Our normal client longevity is measured in years, not in months because our clients stay with us as we stick with them. We won’t sacrifice older accounts just because something new and shiny comes along.
We have clients who have been with us for many years and we are careful to never ignore them when we add on a new client.
This also means we ensure we have the bandwidth to take on a new client so we can also invest the time needed in a new account to make it successful, right from the beginning. Then, we settle in for long-term growth.
With our Full Service solution, you aren't one of 50 accounts managed by a stressed and overworked employee. In fact, we have more than one account still around that we have managed for a decade. That's right A DECADE of partnership.
We keep the ratio of clients to Account Managers low. This is crucial for us to form the deep strategic partnerships that we value with our clients.
After all, we can't meet your needs, if we can't remember what they are.
In addition to regular campaign optimization, we have a daily account analysis system called “The Daily Glance” to review top line metrics and trends.
This means we notice changes and anomalies quicker and can investigate and make changes with greater accuracy.
Endless Testing: PPC is a relatively stable advertising channel, but that doesn't mean it doesn't require constant tweaking to ensure it runs as efficiently as possible. This is especially true with Google changes over time. At ZATO, we pride ourselves in constant testing within an account.
We don't want to trust the campaign we set up in another account, we want to actually see the data to determine whether that setup is the best for your account. Google best practices don't always work, so we are going to toss our opinions out the window, start a setup as best we can based on a decade of individual experience in each of our ZATO Account Managers, and then test endlessly to maximize your account efficiency and potential.
We have clients who have been with us for more than 10 years that still get ongoing testing from us. With Google changes, there is no end to testing opportunity, so we keep at it!
At ZATO, we work off of month-to-month contracts, so there are no long-term commitments to an agency you just met.
Not only this, but if you decide to leave at any point, you get to keep your Ads accounts and data because we believe you own it.
Read more here: Why Do ZATO Clients Stick With Us?
If you partner with ZATO, you won’t be one of 150 accounts managed by an intern, in our Full Service Account program (separate from our SMB Program), you are one of 7-10 accounts managed by your ZATO contact, and our ZATO account managers have over a decade of experience within PPC, each. That's right, no being handed off to an intern at ZATO.
We purposefully give ourselves space to manage your account well.
Oh, and we have a lot of PPC experience between all of us here with over 50 years of experience between our 6 employees, so we know our Google Ads stuff.
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ZATO doesn't have our own quarterly growth goals to hit. We just don't measure success by how quickly we make ZATO "big". We are more concerned with providing our clients with an agency they can trust to do great and consistent work on their accounts.
This actually means we're a bit of a boring partner. Maybe boring is the wrong word here, 🤔 think stable and dependable. We're not going to promise to grow your brand by XYZ 1000% scale in 26 days, because we think Google Ads is more about smart, efficient optimization changes over time (for established accounts, new accounts investing immediate spend can see significant growth of course!).
This also means we're not afraid to communicate the limitations of PPC, or even point out concerns with how our partner choices may harm their Google Ads program. We'd rather get to the truth than promise impossible growth.
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