The Truth About Your PPC Management Company

7 Tips to Help You Make Sure Your Internet Marketing Company is Working For You

So you’ve jumped on the AdWords bandwagon and hired a management company to build an advertising campaign for you on Google. Now all you’ve got to do is wait for the calls to start rolling in, right? Not exactly. With thousands of Google Partners nationwide, it’s hard to know who you can trust to bring in those conversions and build your brand.

When choosing a well-established management company or evaluating the legitimacy of the one you have already, ask yourself if they are doing all seven of the following things to ensure that your money is working for you.

1. Know What You Pay For

Ok, this one seems obvious, but in the world of SEM (Search Engine Marketing), buzzwords are ubiquitous and the lingo is a confusing mix of traditional ad-speak and three-letter acronyms resembling the jumble on a teenager’s Twitter feed. Let’s break it down.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a long-term strategy that optimizes your website to improve its organic search rankings. PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, is an ad platform that allows you to write ads for your business that are linked to specific keywords people type into search engines. Educate yourself enough to know exactly which strategies your internet marketing company is using to promote your website. If you have no idea, read this article from Search Engine Journal about the basics of online marketing and then contact your vendor.

2. Transparency Is Key

You may know how much you are paying the company to manage your campaign, but are you aware how much of that money is going to Google to promote your ads and how much is going to the company as a management fee? Are you getting reports that disclose how many clicks you are getting or how much those clicks cost? Do you know which ads perform better than others? You should!

Some management companies have been known to pocket more than 50% of their clients’ monthly costs; a service cut that’s grossly inflated. On the flip side, if a company claims to charge no management fee, you should be leery of them for two reasons. First, because if you’re not paying them, they’re probably not doing what they say they are. And second, because they could be taking a good chunk out anyway.

Check out this example of our Small Business PPC Management pricing. For our smaller accounts, it is a flat monthly rate but we disclose exactly how much goes to ad spend.

3. You Get What You Pay For

In order to see success with AdWords and PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, you need to ensure that your ad is going to get in front of enough people for it to be worth the money you’re spending. How many clicks per day is your ad getting before your budget runs out?

AdWords works by dividing your monthly advertising budget into a daily budget. Every time someone clicks on your ad, your budget is depleted until it runs out, in which case your ad will disappear until the following day. Since all people wanting to target a specific keyword must bid against each other, the market determines the cost-per-click (CPC) of each keyword. What this means is that some industries pay more for their clicks than others. Thus, advertisers in those industries must have higher budgets in order to see success.

4. Conversion Tracking is Essential

AdWords also works to brand your company by having your name show up when they search for your industry. But a good campaign is designed to get you more sales and inquiries, and with this type of converting campaign you should be able to look at how much money you’re spending on AdWords and how much business you’re getting as a result. Your management company should give you stats that enable you to figure this out by telling you how many conversions they’re getting you. Ask them how they’re tracking them!

5. Managing Means Making Adjustments

AdWords does not run itself! A company who is getting paid to manage your campaign should be doing just that – managing it. That is to say they should know what is working and what isn’t, making adjustments accordingly.

Watch out for companies who claim to be managing your campaign but aren’t putting the time into doing a good job. Each campaign is different, and each advertiser has different goals–therefore, each campaign deserves unique attention.

If your agency has given you AdWords login access you can check this by clicking on the “View Change History” link on the right side of the dashboards to see how often they are logging in and making changes.

6. A Good Company Listens

You know more about your industry than your advertisers do, and you know your target market better, too. Make sure your PPC management company knows what your advertising goals are and accepts your input about how the campaign is structured. The goal of AdWords is to drive in quality traffic to your website, and what this means is the company needs to know, and needs to listen to, what a qualified buyer is for you.

7. Communication is Key

Communication: the Internet allows us to achieve this exchange everyday with people who live across the country and across the goal. But having more long-distance business agreements doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice communication. You should still be able to have a relationship with your vendor that is meaningful and mutually beneficial. They should return your phone calls and be there for you as a resource even when your advertising is successful, and especially when it’s not!

If you have doubts about how your campaign is performing or just want to check in and look for missed opportunities, check out Logical Position’s free AdWords audits page for contact details.