How to Choose a PPC Agency

Pay per Click agencies are springing up all over the place, you can’t move without falling over one of them. They’re quoting all sorts of jargon at you, keyword matching, negative keywords, landing pages, destination urls, Google this and Yahoo! that, how on earth are you meant to choose?

Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit biased, but however you want to decide, here are a few things you should take into account:

What do they promise?

Do they promise to lower your cost per click whilst increasing your traffic? Do they promise they’re the cheapest? That’s all well and good, but that’s not necessarily going to boost your business. Look for a company that will work with you to focus on getting a positive return on investment from your budget and is willing to discuss their strategy with you.

What else do they do?

Do they offer website design or search engine optimisation? Both work hand in hand with pay per click. Search Engine Optimisation experience usually means they understand the way the search engines work. You might already have had your website designed, you might have someone else who designs your site, and that’s great. But if they’re running your pay per click, they need to understand how a website works and how to optimise it to get you a better return. They don’t have to do the work for you, but it helps if they understand it and can make recommendations.

On the other hand, do they do call centre, fulfilment, creative, database management and more? In my experience, traditional full service marketing agencies do not have the specialised knowledge and experience needed to concentrate on pay per click. If they have a separate pay per click department, that’s great but just check their experience.

How big is the company?

This is a personal choice. The one man band down the road operating from his back room will probably be much cheaper versus the huge corporation in the city. However, what’s his experience? If he’s self-taught, is he any better than you could be after reading a couple of books? Will the huge corporation give your account the attention it needs? How many clients and what size clients does the agency have? More interestingly, do they have any success stories to tell?

How many similar clients do they have?

Watch out for the agencies that say they ’specialise’ in accounts in your industry. If a company has five clients in your industry, of a similar size and similar offering, who’s going to get the optimum position? At most, a company should have no more than three clients in your industry and if each approaches the market in a different way or has a different target audience, all the better.

On-Going Management

Does the company get a little vague when asked what they’ll be doing for your account on a monthly basis? Make sure they have a structured optimisation method in place. Bear in mind, they can’t tweak the account every day, data needs to build up before decisions can be made but double check you aren’t paying your monthly management fee for just a once-a-month report.

Qualifications

Does the company or the manager of your account have any qualifications? Google offers a Qualified Company status, which means the company has at least two qualified members of staff who have passed a Google exam and have maintained a minimum client spend over the last 90 days. It also means they have a direct line of communication with the search engine should they need it, so any issues can be resolved quickly.

Hopefully, this has given you some insight into what to look for when choosing a Pay per Click agency to look after your account.

Lianne,
PPC Account Manager