Maybe you have run a few paid ads on the Internet without much success. Or perhaps you are now working with an agency with a well-established pay per click company reputation, but you aren’t seeing the results you expected. And here’s another scenario: You may never have considered a paid search campaign before, and believe now is a good time to jump in. All of these situations have two things in common: One; you aren’t satisfied with your level of online visibility. Two; you want that visibility to translate to more leads for your business. But how can you find the best AdWords management company who can help you reach your goals?
We have collected 5 things that CEOs must know when selecting a pay per click company. There isn’t a moment to lose. You want to establish your pay per click campaign the right way, so you can start getting those qualified leads rolling in for your business.
1) The agency must be AdWords certified. This is a key point that is non-negotiable. Any agency that is serious about selling pay per click services has to be Google AdWords certified. Don’t settle for anything less. Once you narrow down your list of prospective agencies, you can further refine it by how many years the staff has worked on campaigns similar to yours. Then review case studies (all agencies who are well-established in the search industry create case studies of their work) to help you discover the agency that can bring you the level of success you want.
2) Communication is the key to making your pay per click campaign a success. This is the most important tip we will share with you. Due to the nature of paid search, which involves many updates, tweaks and adjustments to keep the leads coming in, you need to work with an account manager who is easy to communicate with. Not only that, you need to keep them accountable so you know where your spend is going (how it translates into leads for your business). The best way to build accountability is to set up these two key communication loops:
- A regular, scheduled call to review reports and discuss upcoming activity. This call should include your internal marketing staff – and your staff should be prepared with questions.
- Direct, impromptu communication via email and phone directly between your staff and your vendor account manager when new products/services are launched, changes are made to the website or seasonal specials or events take place.
Ask your agency about best practices that they have deployed for their other clients, or that they know about from similar campaigns. This power question can help you stay on top of campaign activities:
‘Is this the best strategy right now that will return the most ROI for my investment?’
3) Transparency is key. All too often there is a lack of transparency in online campaigns. Account managers may say they have performed certain work and it may not be the case. The caveat here is to not be overly suspicious, but do some spot checking to ensure that the campaign is being managed. For example, AdWords has a change history section that you can check to ensure that updates have indeed been made to your account on a regular basis.
4) Learn to understand your pay per click reporting. While your agency will be mainly responsible for the performance of your ads, it’s important that you acquaint yourself with the AdWords dashboard and how to get around in AdWords. This will help you track progress and allow you to gain more from your weekly or monthly meetings with your account manager.
Here is a great tutorial to help you get the most from AdWords reports.
5) ‘What do you think we should be doing to increase our conversions?’ This is a question that every CEO will ask their agency, regardless of how successful the campaign is. Everyone is always working to increase conversions. Let your agency know that they can tap into the expertise of anyone on your team for landing page creation, copywriting, or other tasks to help make the campaign a success. Proactive CEOs don’t leave all of the work to the agency. You and your team can and should help the agency — it’s really one team effort to reach your marketing goals.
Ready to find out more about selecting a great agency? See our #1 best selling Amazon e-book for additional tips. It’s free to download.
-Grow Team