Is Your PPC Agency Screwing You Over? Find Out In 5 Easy Steps.

PPC advertising is one of the best investments you can make for your business. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or Bing Ads can boost sales and drive ROI for your company if these marketing channels are managed properly.

You can use a performance-based PPC marketing channel to build brand awareness, improve online authority, and convert more customers while making the most of your budget with tips to optimize Google Ads on your own.

How Do I Know If I Should Outsource My PPC Marketing Campaigns?

If you’re outsourcing your PPC management, you might be unsure if you’re getting the most bang for your buck. Nothing is worse than not knowing where your marketing budget is going, or if you are leaving money on the table. You may be looking to work with an agency for PPC management if you:

• Don’t have an in-house marketing team.
• Your team doesn’t have the expertise or knowledge to run a successful PPC campaign.
• You have not had success with PPC marketing in the past.

Many of the clients we work with have been burned by “expert” PPC management companies in the past. While the outsource PPC agency sold data-driven strategies, in the end, they only delivered moderate results.

Even worse, some PPC marketing agencies are all show and lack the knowledge and dedication needed to provide great ad campaigns that help your business.

Am I a Victim Of PPC Fraud? How Do I Know If My Marketing Agency Is Doing Their Job?

If you don’t know anything about PPC, how can you know your agency is doing its job correctly?

You put your trust with a company when you choose to outsource your PPC management needs. We take this trust and to ensure you choose the most cost-effective solutions. We wanted to provide a few ways that you can tell if your digital marketing agency is working for you.

Here are five things to keep an eye out for to determine if your PPC agency is doing its job or if they are screwing you over and wasting your time (and money)

1. Is Your PPC Agency Transparent & Accessible?

When working with a full-service agency, you want to know precisely what they do. Your ads are always running- even when the PPC agency has clocked out for the day. Do you know what your advertising dollars are doing and what your team is doing to improve your performance?

You deserve to know how your ad campaigns are performing, and if your PPC marketing company tells you that they “are taking care of your PPC campaigns,” then you should be wary of their expertise since this answer isn’t enough to understand the value that they are delivering to you.

Your outsourced PPC agency should provide you with PPC reports on a regular basis that outlines how much you have spent, clicks, conversions, and other metrics. These reports help you understand your marketing investment and keep your marketing agency honest throughout the year.

Choosing a digital marketing agency is a big deal, and if an agency doesn’t communicate what they offer well, be suspicious. This is usually the first sign of an agency that is not well versed with AdWords, and you should not work with this type of agency.

While not every agency will lay out their entire process for you in the very beginning, they should be able to provide you insight if you ask. Transparency is an important part of PPC services, and you should be able to talk with your PPC agency whenever you have a question.

They should then let you know the steps they’re taking throughout the campaign and communicate efficiently with you. This ensures you know what is going on and can rest assured knowing work is being done.

Before you agree to work with an agency, get to know their process. See how it aligns with your own business goals and whether you believe the work being done will help you achieve your individual accomplishments. If the agency PPC campaign provider doesn’t appropriately communicate their offer, move on to a different one.

2. Does Your PPC Agency Show Work They Have Done Each Month?

When an agency is running a PPC campaign for you, you need to be in constant contact to know how things are going. If your PPC provider begins the campaign and is nowhere to be found, they might not be doing their job appropriately.

Each month, your PPC agency should be reconnecting to go over the work that has been done that month. There are many elements that go into a profitable digital strategy with PPC, and your ad agency should have a long list of completed tasks like:

1. Account Audit. You should conduct a regular PPC audit of your account, and this is especially important if you have not had a professional look over your account recently. An audit will help you find ways to improve performance and builds a foundation that you can work from to grow your digital strategy.
2. Optimize Ad Groups. Your PPC account is divided into campaigns and ad groups, and your PPC agency should show how they optimized each ad group to drive engagement and conversions.
3. Fine-Tuning Keywords. Your PPC campaigns rely on keywords to show ads. Keywords are used by your customers based on their intent and needs, and your PPC agency should work with you to understand the needs of your customers and the goals of your business.
4. Landing Page Optimization. It’s the job of your landing pages to make sales, and your PPC agency should provide recommendations to help you improve the performance of your landing pages. While this is a few steps away from the technical aspects of PPC, your agency should give a holistic perspective.
5. Account Optimizations. Not everything revolves around keywords in PPC, and your PPC agency should provide insight into how they are optimizing your accounts to reach the right people at the right time. This includes geo-targeting, remarketing, and fine-tuning other advanced settings to get the most out of each marketing dollar.
6. Analytics & Report Review. You should expect your PPC agency to look over different metrics with you outside of the PPC platform. Having a holistic view of your digital marketing efforts is key to a strong PPC strategy. You should have information about things like Click-Throughs, Cost-Per-Click, and other metrics accessible through your analytics and reporting tools.

A good advertising partner will go beyond just the data and pixels of your PPC campaign and provide insight into how your PPC is impacting your business. You should expect your PPC agency to give you a breakdown of your expenses, where your investment went, and what work was accomplished at that time.

Your agency PPC managers should set up monthly calls to go over this information to review the health of your campaigns. If they don’t automatically offer, ask. You’re the client, and you should make an effort to stay in touch.

3. Does Your PPC Provider Give Monthly Reports?

A monthly report isn’t quite the same as a monthly scope of work. Where a monthly scope of work tells you where work was done, a monthly report should give you an idea of how well that work is helping you achieve your goals. It also lets you know if the work you’re doing is correct, ensuring your campaign is strong.

A PPC monitoring report should give you numbers, advice, and campaign direction. For example, the monthly report you’re given from the agency PPC should break down how your funds were used, what campaigns were completed, and the results of those campaigns. It should then relate back to your pre-determined goals and help you understand if you’re on the right track.

These monthly reports should be more than just a verbal check-in. A written report allows you to go back and check in on the work that was done each month and make assumptions based on that work. If a particular month performs better than another, you can look at what you did differently to make better future decisions.

4. Does Your PPC Provider Have a Strategy for Mobile?

Mobile users are growing and growing. As more customers turn to cell phones and tablets to browse the web, you need to be sure you’re properly targeting them. This means your agency PPC needs to have a strategy for conducting mobile campaigns.

Ignoring mobile devices when creating a PPC campaign could cost you serious business. If the agency you’re working with treats mobile as secondary, they might not be doing the work that you need from them. That’s why you should always double-check that the PPC monitoring agency has a strong mobile strategy.

Your marketing agency should have unique campaigns just for mobile. Mobile campaigns should have their own set of keywords, negative keywords, and device bidding strategy. We often create individual landing pages to accommodate mobile users in PPC campaigns.

This approach takes more time, but it is just one way that we provide extra value for our customers. You should expect the same level of attention from your marketing agency!

Let them know how big of a priority mobile is to you and your business. Request that they create mobile-centric campaigns, including using shorter text and mobile-friendly calls-to-action, and look for these differences in the campaigns they provide you with.

5. Does Your PPC Agency Provide Recommendations?

The agency you work with should provide more than just a bunch of PPC campaigns. They should also be a consultant by providing ideas about how you can improve conversion optimization, landing page optimization, and ROI.

You’re not a PPC expert, so they should step in to let you know how you can improve campaigns to get better results.

When outsourcing your PPC work, consider who you’re hiring. While you can work with an agency that does the work you request of them, this will only get you so far. Instead, look for a PPC agency that can help direct you where you want to go.

Yet, you should also look at how the advice they give you relates to your goals. The agency should be able to make the connection between PPC monitoring efforts and what you’d like to do to let you know what changes you should make to get there. If they try to fit you into a one size fits all approach, they might not be doing the work you need.

Get The Most Value From Your PPC Agency

Any time you work with someone, you want to be sure they’re doing the job you hired them for.

When it comes to the agency conducting your PPC campaigns, looking at these five areas can help you ensure you’re working with a team of experts capable of doing the job the right way!