PPC Agency

Using a PPC agency vs a freelancer to manage your PPC campaigns–what is better? After all, Google and Microsoft Ads are always changing with new updates. Do you have time to keep up with the latest features and adapt quickly? You’re already investing in ads, and hiring someone else to manage it, whether it be an agency or freelancer, will require an additional expense. Some small business owners take a hands-on approach with a do-it-yourself (DIY) management style, and others hire an in-house PPC specialist. Each management option has its advantages and drawbacks, so you must evaluate your options carefully. After all, whatever you choose will be in charge of your hard-earned marketing budget. In this article, we’ll explore each option’s benefits and limitations to help you decide which approach is right for you. Option 1: DIY For many small business owners, a DIY option is the most appealing option – especially if you have a lower and limited budget. This allows you to fully control every aspect of your campaign, from set-up to ad copywriting and daily management. This means you will not have a management fee you would need to pay an agency or freelancer. However, managing PPC campaigns can be time-consuming to do it correctly and can often have a steep learning curve. You must stay up-to-date with the best practices, PPC platform updates, and the latest trends. Many business owners wear multiple hats, and managing PPC tends to be one of the lower priority items even though they need it to get new leads. When PPC campaigns are low priority, it’s common to see poor campaign performance, wasted ad budget, and a negative ROI. This option is only good if you are a small business owner committed to learning the ins-and-outs of PPC lead generation. Option 2: PPC Freelancing Specialist PPC freelancers are individuals who typically have experience in managing PPC and work independently to provide services to clients. They can work on an hourly basis or a retainer (monthly fee) basis. Great freelancers will have in-house or agency-level experience. You should find someone with at least five years of experience as they have had enough industry experience. Try to avoid freelancers who have no agency/corporate experience unless they have solid results in your niche. Freelancers are an excellent option because they can independently manage all aspects of your campaign. Tasks will include keyword research, campaign set-up, and monitoring. Many small business owners like freelancers because they have one dedicated person and point of contact managing everything for their PPC campaign. And typically, freelancer rates are not marked up vs agencies that need to account for tons of overhead and staff. Freelancers are not a good option if your company requires a large number of hours or you require work from multiple team members, or you’re spending $50K+ a month. You will likely need more resources for the best results. It’s still possible for freelancers to get great results at that ad spend level, but it depends on how many other clients they have on their roster.  A common problem with freelancers vs a PPC agency is that they tend to say “yes” to too many projects and become overwhelmed. Evaluating a freelancer’s workload and time commitment will be necessary if you choose to go this route. Option 3: PPC Agency Choosing a PPC agency vs a freelancer can be a smart investment as agencies bring a wealth of expertise and resources to the table. Expect to interact with a couple of team members depending on how the agency is structured, or you may have a team dedicated to you depending on your ad spend level. Some Fortune 500 companies have an agency that is 100% dedicated to their company. Other PPC agencies have multiple clients and multiple teams within that agency that are dedicated to each account.  One benefit of working with an agency is that you will have access to an experienced team in your specific business field (typically if it’s a good agency). However, agencies can be costly for small business owners. Some PPC agencies will only offer long-term contracts (6 months to 1 year or more) or require a minimum budget spend to make it worthwhile for their margins. If an agency has too many clients and not enough employees, your company will not receive enough attention, which can result in less hands-on activity and poor results. There is also the issue of a revolving door of team members if the agency is poorly run. Option 4: In-House PPC specialist Hiring in-house means having someone that is solely dedicated to your PPC campaigns within your company. They will be fully immersed in your business in a way agencies and freelancers cannot. You will get more control and visibility into your campaigns, enabling you to make adjustments quickly.  However, this is a costly option. You need to pay a full salary, benefits, and provide training. Hiring the right candidate can be challenging, especially if this is your first time ever running a campaign or hiring someone with PPC expertise. How will you know what questions to ask if you’re not an expert yourself? Employee turnover is something you also need to consider. If your trusted in-house PPC specialist leaves, you will need to restart the hiring process which disrupts the campaign performance. Hire an in-house specialist if you have been running your campaigns for years and need a more dedicated resource. You need to have a large enough budget to support it and know what you’re doing with PPC. Most small business owners don’t fall into this category which is why they typically go for options 1 to 3. What Option is Best For You? What works for your business may not work for another. Choosing a PPC agency vs a freelancer will take some evaluation. This includes looking at your current marketing efforts and business goals in order to find the best option. Think about your monthly ad spend, how much

Thinking of hiring a PPC agency, but you’re not quite sure where to start?  It can be intimidating and stressful, especially if it’s your first time looking for an agency.  And …you may have been told that it’s “normal” to go through multiple agencies to find the perfect one. But before you start believing that, there are a few things you need to know about hiring a PPC agency and RED flags you need to be on the lookout for. After all, you are about to invest your time, money, and trust into a company that should be able to deliver results! The last thing you want is to be left discouraged based on an awful experience. While there isn’t one golden question you can ask to determine if an agency is legitimate and a good fit for you, there are some red flags you need to look out for: 1. You Are Not Introduced to The Person Working On Your Campaign Typically the person who will be doing the campaign work and implementation (the person responsible for getting results)  is called an Account Manager or Campaign Manager, depending on the agency. These individuals are tasked with all the “behind-the-scenes”  work, such as ad copywriting, campaign setup, and ongoing management of your account. It’s very common for agencies to have a Sales Representative who is tasked with business development and may overpromise results to close the deal for commission. This results in the Account Manager already being set up for failure as the client expectations are different from what is feasible with PPC.  Proceed with caution if you are only interfacing with a sales representative of an agency throughout the entire discovery process. Ideally, the person directly managing your Google Ads campaign account should be part of the sales process.  Once you get an introduction to the person managing your account, do a quick Google search for their LinkedIn profile and see how many years of experience they have. If they don’t have a LinkedIn profile, that’s a red flag. It’s also a red flag if they are fresh out of college grad or someone with 1-2 years of experience. There’s a high chance they may be learning on your dime (aka ad budget).  Do you really want to be someone’s guinea pig? It’s possible that this person may be learning under a more experienced team member. If that’s the case, it’s acceptable as long as there’s strong oversight from a senior team member with 4-5+ years of experience. 2. The Agency Doesn’t Understand Your Business Would you trust a cardiologist to perform surgery on your heart if they’ve never done the procedure before? Absolutely not. And that’s the case with hiring an agency! It’s a major PLUS to find an agency that knows your industry, audience, and what it takes to get stellar results. But, it’s unlikely that agencies will know every single industry. That’s why it’s important for agencies to take their time to do research during the discovery phase. If an agency is quick to throw out a price quote without understanding your needs or challenges, run the opposite direction because they’re just viewing you as a number and not really looking for a long-term relationship. Another question to answer during the discovery phase is: Is this PPC agency taking time to understand your business goals, competition, and industry if they don’t have experience working with others in the same field? You should look for a PPC agency that wants to get to know you and already has a good understanding of your business (and if not, they should be showing genuine interest in learning about your business and willingness to do research). Look for an agency with an in-depth interview process or discovery phase. Ideally, they will take time to understand your ideal customer, business model, and goals. From there, they should provide a custom proposal with a strategy, forecasts, and fees! 3. The Agency’s Size Doesn’t Match Your Business Bigger isn’t always better. Big-name agencies may not be the right fit if you are a small business. Fortune 500 companies need all hands on deck to run extensive advertising campaigns. In this scenario, they will typically have large teams and nearly an entire agency dedicated to running their ad campaigns.  Also, large agencies typically charge hefty retainer fees to cover overhead and team-building activities like “Happy Hour Fridays” or a night out on a private yacht. This means your fee may not directly go to resources impacting your campaign results.  You need to find an agency with an experienced team to give your account the attention it needs. Consider asking about each Account Manager’s workload and how many total clients the agency has. Account Managers ideally should not be managing more than ten small accounts at a time to get results. An overextended team means your account will not get the attention it needs, and things will slip through the cracks.  *Pro tip: Find an agency comparable in size to your business. 4. Lack of Communication While you might not know about an agency’s lack of communication until AFTER you hire them, check on the communication rhythm during the discovery phase.  Are they getting back to you in a reasonable time frame? If not, that’s a bad sign. Communication is critical to a successful client and agency relationship. You should never be left in the dark about your ad campaign performance. The agency and Account Managers should be comfortable sharing the campaign setup process, optimization strategies, changes to your account, results, and more. Remember, they should be reaching out to you! You shouldn’t be hounding your agency for answers.  It’s important to ask up front how often you can expect to hear from your Account Manager and how quickly they respond to emails. Good response times are less than 48 hours during business days but the sooner, the better. Plus, you should be expecting to hear from your Account Manager AT LEAST once a

It’s disappointing to see clients end up in the wrong hands with the wrong marketing partner. Even more, it’s beyond frustrating to hear from business owners and marketing leaders who: Were stuck in long-term contracts when they were completely unhappy Worked with providers who lacked accountability Were overpromised on results but couldn’t deliver Had vendors who lacked transparency Worked with agencies that didn’t communicate or couldn’t communicate clearly Lost access to all their data because they did not retain access of their account The truth is, there’s no universal handbook that teaches you how to hire the right marketing expert. Just like dating and finding a soulmate, it’s important to know your values and explore your options. You have a right to take your time on your search. The challenge that a lot of companies face is that they don’t know the right questions to ask to qualify or know if a marketing vendor is going to be the right fit. Because I’ve seen so many clients end up in the wrong hands, I’ve put together 9 critical questions to ask potential marketing vendors before you hire them: 1)Do you outsource? Outsourcing has a very bad connotation for the right reasons. Be wary if the agency or freelancer you’re vetting stumbles or does not answer this question clearly with confidence. I’ve worked for agencies that outsourced to offshore teams and what I can say is that these teams are good at understanding the technical “textbook” best practices and doing basic manual set up but lack the skills to support strategy. If you have a tight budget, it may be OK to hire an agency that has a US-based and offshore hybrid model but be wary about the quality of work not being there. Even agencies that outsource domestically to freelancers – you may want to be careful because the degrees of separation can be a barrier to marketing growth and success unless done correctly. Companies that outsource domestically just hand off work to freelancers with little context and it becomes a game of telephone in order to get what you actually need. It’s recommended to work directly with the team who is EXECUTING the work for you. 2) Who will be managing my account? More likely than not, the person selling you the marketing service is either the owner of a marketing agency or a dedicated sales person. It’s unlikely that these individuals have the knowledge to execute on the work itself and in turn, hand off your account to a campaign manager. Get the name of the person who will be responsible for managing your account and look them up on LinkedIn. Is their profile up to date? How many years of experience do they have? If they’re not on the call with you and have not been introduced from the start, there’s a reason for it – likely because they’re junior (0-3 years’ experience) and don’t know enough about client interfacing to be on the call with the person who is selling the services. Eeek! 3) Will I be able to maintain full control of my account should we end the relationship? You have every right to maintain access of your account should the relationship go awry. If you get pushback about this from the start, you do not want to be working with that potential marketing partner. Imagine what other things they would be hiding from you to make a quick buck? 4) How much communication should I expect from your team? Depending on your needs, you need to establish expectations upfront and see how the marketing vendor responds. Depending on the size of your account, they may have some type of communication schedule: daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. 5) Will I get reporting? If so, how often? When working with marketers, reporting is a sign of accountability. Check the cadence for how often you will get reports – but beyond reports will you be getting real insights and recommendations to improve? What is the typical cadence for reporting based on your account size? Ask what metrics they will report on and ask for a sample report. If they hesitate, that’s a red flag. If the report does not show conversions or lead numbers, that’s another red flag they’ll be hiding data from you. 6) How much do you charge? If they are able to answer this question without trying to understand your business or your customers first, this is a big red flag. This is where a lot of clients go wrong – they look at price first before the value. Of course, price will be part of the equation in making a decision but you need to understand what you’re getting first. Just like if you were experiencing back pain and you go to the doctor, they will ask qualifying questions to diagnose the issue instead of assuming your condition and billing your insurance the same day. Good marketers seek to SERVE and UNDERSTAND you. Anyone else who claims to be a marketer that doesn’t do this is a sales person with a quota. 7) What strategy do you recommend in order to achieve (improved) results? Regardless of whether this is your first time running a lead generation campaign or not, it is important for you to test how the marketing vendor thinks. Can they strategize? Are they using fluffy language to sound smart so they can impress you? A strong marketing partner should be able to clearly articulate a strategy in a simple way to get you from where you are to where you want to be (and if they can’t – at least reset your expectations). You don’t want to work with a partner who confuses you with “marketing talk” and “technical language” – you want to work with someone who can simplify language and communicate exactly how they solve complex problems. If they cannot demonstrate it or lose you along the way, it’s a bad sign. Remember: You confuse, you lose.