Hiring the right PPC management company is a difficult decision for any business.
A PPC management company is a powerful tool that can be used to build and can be used to destroy. With enough knowledge, enough experience, and enough market information, a PPC management company can:
- Drive sales
- Scale-up your business
- Grow your customer base
- Increase subscriptions
- Educate people on your brand
- Dramatically increase web traffic
It can also spin its wheels, make excuses, opt for stats over results, and churn up your marketing budget like softwood through a chipper. Thus, it stands to reason that you hire a PPC management company with a proven track record.
This means doing your research about the company before you hire it.
Here are 7 reasons to hire a Google ads company for PPC management.
1. PPC Management Has Changed
Marketing execs and PPC experts may scoff at the first (and best) reason to hire a Google ads company for PPC management, but here it is: Google Ads has become too confusing.
Even if you are accustomed to the old Google AdWords system, the current platform will grind you into the ground. Using what you know, or what you can figure out, you can probably set up a simple text ad and have it posted on the search engine and so forth. You may even be able to tackle a few amateur elements such as limiting the bid amount and so forth.
Anything more complex than that is going to take some serious learning.
For example, you want to promote your YouTube video. You do not have a video ad to display but you still want something to show on YouTube. You are out of luck because it is extremely difficult. The same is true if you want to set up ads that run at certain times and only compete with low-priced keywords.
Some may argue that the current Google Ads system is the simplest and most flowing that the Google affiliate system has ever been. They would be right. The problem is that nothing is intuitive.
Except for a few categories and name choices early in the process, everything else needs to be learned. It is very difficult to guess or second guess what each function does. Even if you use the basic settings, you do not feel in control of your ads until you have learned the many, many functions and features that the platform has to offer.
People who already know and understand Google Ads may figure this to be a weak reason to outsource PPC. They may suggest that you learn the system yourself. But, if you have been sat at the other side of the table, have faced the Google Ads platform with no prior knowledge, and tried to add an advertisement, it is like trying to ask an armless man to climb a mountain.
2. Leverage a PPC Strategist’s Experience in Your Industry
Another strong reason to outsource PPC management is also the weakest reason.
It is a strong reason to outsource if the strategist is a genuine expert in your industry because there are some tricks of the trade that will save your company thousands over the course of five years. It is a weak reason if you hire somebody who claims to have plenty of experience in your industry and plenty of experience with PPC and yet has little experience or little skill. The cost to your budget and your brand can be terrifying.
The reason why the cost can be terrifying is that a PPC strategist can fake it. They can make claims to you, and then offer analytic stats that back up their claims of success.
Take the example of a company that offers loss-leaders in the shape of free merchandise. A genuine PPC professional would make great strides to target customers who would take advantage of the free merchandise who then convert into long-term customers who bought subsequent products or the next level up of a subscription. An inexperienced PPC strategist (or a hack) would simply promote the free merchandise to any man, woman, or child, and do it for the cheapest click cost possible, then celebrate the high CTR (Click Through Rate) and low click cost.
That is why leveraging a PPC strategist’s experience can be a fantastic idea or a terrible idea.
3. Which to Choose, Which to Choose
Harking back to the point made earlier, choosing the type of advertisement (a type of campaign) you require is very difficult. Google provides an indication for each ad format. For example, it may say that a certain format is suitable for websites, videos, etc. Picking the right ad type for your product or service is very difficult.
Let’s say that you want your YouTube video to appear first on the suggestions panel on the right, so you pick an ad type that is suitable for videos, but then you discover you have to create a video ad. You pick another type of ad and discover it only promotes your video link because it is a written-text ad.
Obviously, you can learn how it all works and what each ad type does. Then you are still stuck with figuring out which type to choose and which will offer the best return on your investment. In short, it is going to take months of learning and testing before you are building consistently good ads that get conversions.
Instead, you can hire a PPC company that will run all the relevant tests, pick the right ad types, and even create the ad copy for you.
While this is happening, if you wish, you can take your time and learn all about Google Ads. Then one day in the future, when your campaigns are turning consistent profits, you will be able to slowly retake control. Alternatively, if the PPC management company does a good enough job, you can allow them to continue managing your PPC campaign so long as it continues to generate a consistent profit.
4. Testing and Interpretation Should Be Done by Professionals
That is not to say that you shouldn’t run your own PPC tests and examine the results. However, if you do, then you need to keep the process as simple as possible. Misinterpretation is rife in the Google Ads world because even semi-professionals are unaware of all the factors that influence results. If you are running your own tests, keep it simple by measuring your success only in conversions and nothing else.
Hiring a professional management team allows for deeper, in-depth, and sophisticated tests. This is because a professional team knows how to interpret data and results. It also enables the team to try out and test the many different types of ad formats/methods that Google has to offer. They can then use all gathered information to figure out which ads, formats, delivery times, and delivery methods work the best.
A good management team will also run tests to figure out the methods, ads, and formats, etc. that offer the best ROI, rather than just determining which are the cheapest methods and formats, etc.
5. Setting Up Goals and Conversions
Let’s say that you have set up a simple Google ad and you are feeling proud of yourself. You start to get to grips with a few of the other functions and things are going well. You see a section that offers new keywords and search suggestions, and you snap them up.
Plus, you are happy with the click costs and your daily budget. Things are going fine, but there are prompts at the top of the screen that suggests you set up goals and conversion tracking. You are told that doing this will increase the success of your campaign by X-percent, so you click it to give it a go.
What you are faced with is possibly the most confusing and especially unintuitive panel that Google has ever offered, (and that is saying something if you are old enough to remember what the Google Analytic GUI used to look like). Setting up goals and conversions is like trying to carve a butter sculpture using a soldering iron.
Setting up goals and conversions should be outsourced. In fact, the second most commonly posted Google-related job on Freelancer.com is for help setting up goals and conversions with Google Ads (the most popular Google-related job posted is SEO related). Even people who are trying to get to grips with Google Ads on their own are still reaching out to freelancers for help setting up goals and conversions. This is why you should outsource your Google Ads management to a team that knows what it is doing.
6. Scaling Up Your Campaign
Recall the scenario set up in point number five (above). You have set up your Google ad, you are getting clicks, and so forth. You are happy, but you decide you want to scale up your campaign because you want more than 50 clicks per day.
Your first instinct is to increase your daily budget by 50%. Over the next two weeks, however, you see that your cost-per-click seems to have risen. So, you reset your daily budget limits. This time, you raise the limit on your bid amounts. Over the next week, you notice your clicks become sporadic and some days you exhaust your daily budget before noon. What is going on?
The fact is there is no easy way to scale up your campaign. Crude methods such as adjusting daily budget limits or click bid amounts will simply damage the ROI you get from each click. Foolish people will add more generalized keywords with the hopes of scaling up their campaigns but this results in costly clicks that do not convert.
Scaling up your PPC campaign so that you draw in more targeted customers, aka customers who convert, is very difficult. It takes a sophisticated and well-orchestrated plan. That is why you need an experienced PPC management team to do it for you. This is especially true if you wish to scale up globally.
7. Effective and Targeted Copy Is Difficult to Master
What is PPC management without discussing the actual advert copy? It is difficult to write/create effective copy because it must contain several elements. A poor quality copywriter or a hack PPC manager may only address two or three of the elements below. A professional company that deals with Google Ads will address every element listed below (and probably more depending upon the nature of your business):
- Whom the copy will engage
- How the copy will be interpreted
- How strong of a reaction will the copy elicit in the viewer
- What question will the copy prompt in the viewer
- Does the copy ally with the goals of the landing page
- What are direct competitors writing and producing
- Does the copy scare away unsuitable clickers
- Is the copy detailed enough so that people know exactly what they are clicking
Even if you are new to PPC campaign management, it should be obvious why some of these elements are very important. For example, having a vague or mysterious ad may be effective in some cases, but it is terrible when building a PPC ad because you do not want people clicking on it just to find out what it is all about. What you want are people clicking your advertisements because they are warm leads/ hot targets for your products/services.
Conclusion – Get Results as You Learn
Ask the PPC management company for access to the Google Ads account being used. Learn from it as the PPC company manages your ads. Learn the system through online courses and grow to understand what the PPC management company is doing.
If they are shy about giving up details of your campaign, then treat that company with caution. This is your brand and your money they are playing with. They have no right to deny you access to the campaign they are running.
In short, maybe one of the best long-term reasons for hiring a Google Ads company for your PPC management is so you can learn from professionals while still enjoying a good ROI on your marketing campaign.
Want to learn more about branding, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and Pay Per Click marketing? If so, you should check out the other posts on our blog. Each is written by experts who are gurus in their own fields. Check it out here!
