Hiring a PPC management service for your business will result in a lower cost per result and a higher ROI, but only if you choose the right PPC agency.
PPC stands for pay per click, and PPC advertising gives businesses an average ROI of 5 times their ad spend.
The reason PPC advertising tends to generate high returns for business owners is because PPC advertising targets high-intent consumers.
PPC advertising is sometimes referred to as Google Ads because most companies run PPC ads on Google since it is the largest search engine.
With Google Ads, you tell Google what keywords or search queries you want your ad to appear on, and then you pay every time you get a click on that ad.
Therefore, PPC ads are shown to a highly interested audience who are searching for the exact product or service you are offering and that is why they tend to yield high results.
What Is A PPC Agency?
A PPC agency creates and manages your PPC strategy and ad campaigns.
These are the top services a PPC agency usually offers:
- Competitor & Industry Research
- Target Market Research
- Keyword Research
- Strategy Development
- Visual Ad Creation
- Ad Copywriting
- Ad Account Setup
- Bid & Budget Management
- Regular Reports & Performance Analysis
How to Find the Best PPC Management Agencies
These are the top 9 things you need to do and factors you need to look for when looking for the best PPC management agency.
1. Establish Your Goals
The first thing to do when hiring a PPC agency is to decide what your own goals are. Is it to get more leads to your website? More traffic to your website? More online sales? Is it a combination of these?
You need to know exactly what you hope to achieve by running PPC ads so you can measure success appropriately.
For example, if you get a lot of traffic to your website from a PPC agency, but what you really want is online sales, that agency isn’t really meeting your goals.
You need to know what your goals are so your PPC agency can know what your goals are and create the right ad campaigns to achieve them.
Once you’ve set your goals, you can start measuring them appropriately.
For example, if you want online sales, you can start measuring not just the number of sales, but your ROAS (return on ad spend), your conversion value, cost per conversion and more.
The same goes for any goal. If you want leads, you can measure the number of leads, the cost per lead, the quality of the lead etc.
It’s also important to remember that in establishing these goals, you will usually create short and long term goals that go hand in hand.
Your PPC agency can help you in establishing these, but here are some examples:
- Your immediate goal may be direct website sales, but a long term goal may be to tap into new markets or locations and sell to a bigger audience.
- Your short term goal may be to drive down your cost per lead, but your long term goal may be to become a well-recognized authority figure in your industry.
Make sure you identify both your short term and long term goals for yourself so that you can successfully communicate them to your PPC agency and work towards them together.
2. Look For Reputable PPC Agencies
When you start looking for a PPC management agency, one of the first things you can do to narrow your search is to look for reputable agencies.
A reputable agency is one that has a good reputation, so you should look for positive reviews.
Specifically, you want to look for 5-star reviews on third-party sites.
Don’t just look at reviews listed on the agency’s website.
Check Google reviews, Yelp reviews, and reviews on directory sites like Clutch or Fit Small Business to find agencies with lots of good reviews.
Most reputable agencies will have one or two bad reviews, but the majority will be positive.
If you find an agency with only 5-star reviews, it’s likely they don’t have many reviews (and therefore don’t have much experience).
Or it could be that some of the reviews are fake (submitted by friends and family).
So you want to look for agencies with lots of reviews, most of which are positive.
This will help you narrow down your search from the start.
3. Evaluate Their Expertise
The next thing you want to evaluate is the agency’s expertise. Not all PPC agencies are created equal, so you want to look for agencies that have extensive knowledge of their field.
Look for PPC agencies that are reputable in their field with educational blogs, insightful social media posts, and perhaps a YouTube channel that shares their expertise.
If they are true PPC experts, you can also find their platform certifications to confirm that they are proficient in operating platforms like Google Ads.
One thing you can ask an agency when evaluating their expertise is whether they do their work in-house or outsource it.
You would be surprised to know how many PPC agencies actually outsource PPC work to another digital marketing agency, in which case you simply pay a middleman or celebrity spokesperson to manage your account.
So do some research on their website and online content to determine if they are real PPC experts.
4. Evaluate Their Experience and Credibility
Once you’ve evaluated their expertise, it’s time to evaluate their experience and credibility.
Just because they have educational blogs or know how to physically click the buttons necessary to set up a PPC campaign, that does not mean they have experience in successfully driving ROI for businesses from PPC campaigns.
You’ll want to read through their PPC case studies, testimonials and more to see real results they’ve driven for other clients.
You want to confirm that they have experience putting their knowledge into practice and that they have a track record of driving the results you’re looking for.
You can also ask for industry-specific experience to ensure they are capable of driving results for your particular niche.
5. Confirm Exactly What You’re Getting
Before you hire a PPC agency, you need to be clear about the services you are getting. You want to make sure that the services they provide are the ones you need to achieve your goals.
Here are some of the top PPC services you want to make sure you get:
- Customized Strategy: You don’t want a cookie-cutter strategy like every other business. You want a PPC strategy that is tailored to your needs and goals.
- Target Audience Segmentation: Ads will always fail if they are not created and/or delivered to the right audience. A good PPC agency will conduct research on your target market and segment your ads accordingly based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and other relevant factors.
This allows your business to serve personalized ads to each audience segment. Keyword research and match type selection: As mentioned above, most PPC ads are served to people based on the keywords they are searching for.
Therefore, the right PPC agency will conduct thorough keyword research.
You want your ad to appear when someone is searching for the exact product or service you offer.
In addition to choosing keywords, your PPC agency will also need to manage your match type selection.
There are three different keyword match types to choose from on Google: exact match, phrase match, and broad match.
A good PPC agency will choose the right match type for your business and your specific audience.
- Creating Ads: A good PPC agency will create all of your ads from scratch, including the ad copy and visuals. Ad copy should be personalized to each audience and keyword you are targeting for maximum ROI.
- Create a Landing Page: If you don’t already have a high-converting landing page, your PPC agency should be able to create one for you. The landing page should be consistent with the ad and keywords you’re targeting, and allow for automated lead form submissions in your CRM.
- Continuous Optimization: The best PPC agency won’t set up your ad campaigns and just leave them alone.
Instead, it will continuously monitor and optimize them so they consistently generate high ROI for your business.
6. Look In The Right Location
Not all PPC agencies service nationwide or in your specific area, so you’ll want to make sure that the PPC agencies you’re looking at service the right location.
Check to see if they service nationwide or if they offer PPC campaigns to businesses in your geographic location and/or the location your target market resides in.
7. Choose A PPC Agency With Transparent & Consistent Communication Styles
One thing that can make or break the success of a PPC agency relationship is their communication style. If they don’t communicate transparently and/or consistently with their clients, they may not be the right PPC agency for you.
Even if you prefer a more passive approach, you still want to receive regular updates and reports from your PPC agency so that you always know what’s going on with your campaigns and how they’re performing.
Inconsistent or vague communication is often a sign of incompetence on the agency’s part. You don’t want to pay a PPC agency that doesn’t communicate well because they’re trying to hide the fact that they’re not delivering good results for you.
So be clear in advance how often the agent will contact you and how willing they are to contact you as a customer.
8. Pick An ROI-Focused PPC Management Agency
Ultimately, you’re hiring professional PPC management services because you want to increase ROI, so make sure you pick an ROI-focused PPC management agency.
You would be surprised at how many PPC agencies drive low-quality website traffic to your site without tracking sales, leads or ROI and call the increased website traffic a win.
You should be able to tell whether an agency is ROI-focused or not when you look at their case studies and the results they’ve generated for other businesses, but it doesn’t hurt to clarify in your initial introductory calls as well.
9. Look For The Right Pricing To Fit Your Budget
When it comes to PPC management pricing, PPC management costs can range between $500 to $10,000 a month or more depending on the scope of work.
You’ll want to find the right PPC pricing model that fits your needs and budget.
Conclusion
When choosing the best PPC management agency, focus on their experience, specialization, and understanding of your industry to maximize your return on investment.
The right agency will offer tailored strategies, transparent reporting, and proactive management to help you achieve your business goals. Remember, a good PPC partner doesn’t just aim to get you clicks but is invested in converting those clicks into meaningful results, whether that’s sales, leads, or brand awareness.
Take the time to vet each agency, communicate your expectations clearly, and select a team you trust to effectively manage and grow your paid advertising efforts.
With the right PPC management agency, you’ll be well-positioned to drive impactful, sustainable growth through your paid campaigns.
