Paid, search and PR (playbook)

skills/paid-search-pr/SKILL.mdView on GitHub

This applies to the channels that cost money or need a third party. It produces accounts run on one conversion definition, a weekly read of spend against demo requests, and earned media on a tested cadence.

Before you start

This skill works on its own. If the person has their own marketing brain (or any folder of context files about their company), read the files listed under reads in the header first and cite them for every fact. If they do not have one, do not look for one: ask for the two or three facts this play needs and go on. Never invent a fact; a blank is a question for the person.

Tools: this play speaks in verbs (check the CRM, pull the call, schedule the post). TOOLS.md at the root of this repo lists the tools recommended for each verb. The company’s own 1-context/stack.md wins when it exists. No tool is required; a spreadsheet and a mail client cover most of it.

The play

1. Read the context (see Before you start). Confirm the one conversion definition every paid channel reports against. Platform conversions are not comparable until aligned.
2. Paid search: google-ads on a weekly audit cadence (search terms, negatives, competitor groups, landing page, quality score, budget shifts). Keep brand search covered at all times.
3. Paid social: linkedin-ads with audiences built from the TAM and the gates, founder thought-leader ads where the founder posts, frequency read on a 90-day band.
4. ad-copy for both, by persona and offer, proof through permission-check.
5. paid-weekly-report every week: spend, demo requests, cost per demo by channel, with two lines of what changes next week. If an agency runs the accounts, the report still comes from the company’s own data.
6. Search and AI answers: seo-audit and aeo-review on a monthly cadence; blog and page fixes go to the content calendar.
7. Earned media: pr-brief to the PR partner at the start of each block, press-release for launches, trade-press-placement against publication deadlines, awards-submission when a fit appears. Review PR at 30 and 90 days against the traffic and placement promise.
8. When a channel fails, separate operator error from channel failure before cutting it. A channel that worked for years and fell off in a quarter is usually an execution or competition change.

KPIs

• Demo requests and cost per demo request by channel on the one conversion definition.
• Brand search impression share.
• Press placements, referral traffic from earned media, AI-answer visibility on the tracked prompts.

What good looks like

• The best operator notices when a paid channel is being blamed for an operator problem, and when an agency has stopped doing the weekly work. The accounts tell the story in the search term report and the change history.
• The mediocre version compares platform-reported conversions across channels and reallocates budget on numbers that mean different things.
• Good output is one weekly table every stakeholder trusts, accounts with a visible change log, and a PR partner measured against what they promised.

Rules

• MUST report every paid channel on the conversion definition in 3-strategy/funnel.md.
• MUST keep brand search live even when scaling back.
• NEVER ship an ad with a claim or customer name that did not pass permission-check.
• NEVER judge a top-of-funnel format on cost per demo alone; judge it on its funnel job.