Chris Young
The “spend-money-to-make-money” model has become increasingly popular in recent years and for good reason.
The average ROI for Google advertisements is $2 for every $1 spent; when done the right way, PPC ads can turn into the proverbial money printer. However, properly run PPC campaigns don’t just happen by accident. There is, in fact, a correct way to manage them and this expertise is gained through years of experience with PPC platforms and different business models. This expertise is one of the reasons that many companies prefer to take the shortcut to success and hire a PPC agency instead of risking in house training that may take months and yield questionable results. The question then becomes, how does one go about choosing a PPC agency? What are the metrics you should consider? How do you make a solid hiring decision? Well… why not read on and find out?
There are two types of PPC agencies in the world: excellent agencies… and all the other ones. If you were interested in “all the other ones,” you’d probably be plodding your way through an article written by a company with a blaze orange logo. But here you are, and you want excellence.
There are (at least) 7 things that distinguish a good agency from an excellent agency;
An excellent PPC Agency should have a depth of experience in any number of the following: Your industry, your ideal campaign, your platform of choice. Expertise in any one of these areas is enough to put a PPC agency into a category of excellence and is therefore meritorious of consideration. If you can find a PPC agency that fulfills two or three of these categories, this would be regarded as a “hire sight-unseen” situation; we say this in jest. Do your due diligence but keep this agency at the top of your list.
Excellent PPC agencies know that proper reporting is worth its weight in gold. As the old adage goes, that which gets measured gets improved. Data helps excellent PPC agencies to understand a handful of different things: what’s working, what’s not working, and potential new marketing attack vectors to augment the effectiveness of current and future campaigns. Excellent PPC agencies will place a lot of weight on reporting and data analytics so that they can share their findings with you and your team. Frequently the findings from PPC reporting can spill over into other areas of marketing as well and reveal insights for messaging, targeting, and more.
It almost goes without saying, but every excellent PPC agency should have a laundry list of case studies that they can pull from. Beware of the agencies that assure success despite never having touched a budget above a few hundred dollars. In other words, find an agency where you can be a case study rather than a guinea pig.
As cookies become more and more restricted, they also become less and less useful. As a result, many PPC agencies are putting a greater emphasis on first party data as the solution. This isn’t to say that popular platforms like Google Ads 4 (GA4) or Meta advertising no longer work. It is to say, however, that they are now part of a multi-pronged approach rather than the whole kit and kaboodle. Excellent PPC agencies will have a means of at least offering first party data. Be More Digital, for its part, has an entire product offering called “household remarketing” that leverages voluntarily surrendered 1st party data and combines that with traditional and digital marketing techniques.
As odd as it may sound, SEO experience can be an excellent marker of success with PPC ads because of the similarity in selecting keywords. Some of the best PPC agencies are also strong contenders when it comes to executing SEO campaigns. In fact, having both paid advertising and organic capabilities can be an extremely effective strategy for many companies. This two-pronged approach allows companies to immediately fill the pipeline with paid leads while building the time-intensive organic side of digital marketing. Many astute observers have rightly recognized that PPC and SEO is a bit like renting versus owning–you have the “place” for as long as you’ll continue paying for it. However, SEO allows you to “own” the place with a certain degree of permanence. Take a look at our recent article to learn more about the synergy between SEO and PPC.
Breadth of experience is the counterbalance to the first point–depth of experience. While one should not be used in place of the other, the PPC agency you’re working with should have enough experience in other areas of marketing to be able to understand the totality of your marketing plan as well as how the PPC campaign will affect that plan. Having this breadth of experience with social media, SEO, visual assets, and more provides a unique and holistic view of your entire marketing funnel which will actually augment the likelihood of success in your PPC campaign.
If you’ve done everything right, identifying the right PPC agency will be the most difficult part of working with an excellent PPC agency. While there may be hiccups along the way, an excellent PPC agency will have the finesse of a Thai masseuse when it comes to customer experience. In other words, you should feel like you’re in good hands and your shoulders might even come down from your ears for a few seconds. There are, however, a few things to know to get the working relationship started on the right foot.
One of the first things to do after onboarding a new PPC agency is to establish communication expectations–what do you want to know, when do you want to know it, and how do you want the information to be presented. Some of the better PPC agencies will have already established their own best practices for communication which should be respected, barring a good reason for changing them. Whatever is decided on, the key is to create an environment of transparency and collaboration.
One of the most important things that you can do is share any and all data related to prior PPC campaigns. This can help create a shortcut so that lessons that have already been learned don’t have to be relearned. The main advantage of sharing data that already exists is efficiency. Basically, the more knowledge a PPC agency has to work with at the beginning, the less time it will likely take to reach a positive ROI status.
In the beginning stages, many companies have questions and want to understand what is going on. A good PPC agency will be ready with an excellent customer experience and willing to answer your questions so that you can understand what is going on. So, go ahead and send the email or the text message; be “annoying.” Your PPC agency will be happy to share all the information necessary to help make you comfortable with the status of the campaign.
With a good PPC agency, the “annoying” road will run both ways. Be prepared to have paradigms challenged (always with adequate justification) which will ultimately lead to breakthroughs in messaging and client acquisition. In fact, one of the reasons that many companies hire a PPC agency is to break paradigms and assumptions and find new markets and new pain points. In short, a spoon full of annoyance makes the revenue go up.
Finally, get ready to build a long term relationship with the PPC agency. The right agency will be able to help guide you through the thick and thin of season fluctuations, new government regulations, and even business cycles. In fact, when companies find the right PPC agency, it’s not uncommon for the relationship to last for years on end. In fact, many of Be More Digital’s current clients have been with us for several years, a fact we find as encouraging as it is endearing.
Making the decision between building in-house PPC expertise and hiring out to the right PPC agency can be a complex decision. However, many companies have come to the conclusion that hiring a PPC agency is faster, cheaper, and more effective than bringing on in house talent. If you’re researching the best PPC agencies for your company, Be More Digital would welcome the opportunity to discuss your needs. Our professionals have decades of experience in PPC, SEO, and more that we can bring to bear to make your marketing efforts successful. Get in touch with Be More Digital today for a comprehensive review and proposal or take a look at our numerous case studies to see a sampling of some of our success stories. Our customer experience team is standing by and is happy to answer any questions you may have.
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