Online Marketing Services

By Sylvia Rosen

PPC management provide an online company with the benefits of setting up their initial pay per click advertising campaign and continuing to manage the account each month to measure traffic and conversions. For an online business owner who isn't experienced in pay per click advertising, using a third-party management service can ease your internet marketing load and bring more traffic to your website.

But as is the case in many branches of Internet marketing, there are a number of PPC services that promise big results with no delivery. To save yourself the headache and wasted money, steer clear of these warning signs when choosing a PPC management service for your business.

4 Warning Signs of Ineffective PPC Management Services:

1. The PPC Service Seems One-Size-Fits-All
   When you're looking into a PPC service, are they listening to your business needs, understanding your niche, and coming up with a comprehensive, individualized plan to target key word groups specific to your company? Can they tell you how exactly they're managing your account?
   
   Agencies often (effectively) use something called Broad Match keywords, where large search engines like Google and Bing can pull the keywords from your ad and use it to direct when your ad shows up in search results. This is the default for these engines and is a good general strategy to include in your plan.
   
   For instance, if your company advertises "yeast for artisanal beers," Google might match your ad to searches containing "brewer's yeast," "beers," "artisanal beers," and "brew your own beer." These could all be good fits and can be included in a solid overall strategy.
   
   However, Google results will also probably match your ads for searches containing "beer goggles," "beer belly," and "yeast infection," which are not at all related to your product and unlikely to generate sales. You may wind up wasting PPC bid money on clicks from people who are not looking for your product and are going to negatively affect your conversion. Look out if an agency has general strategies for marketing through PPC, because you may become trapped paying them to simply let Google do all the work.


2. A PPC Service That Isn't Forthcoming
   A skilled PPC management service will provide ultimate transparency in all tactics that they use on behalf of your website. A PPC management service should be willing to send you regular reports, daily data, and traffic analysis so that you clearly understand how your business's advertising campaign operates.
   
   Additionally, these reports should show you specifically what changes, adjustments, and improvements they've made to your account over the past month. How have they adapted to your previous conversion to improve your conversion for this month? What are they planning to do going forward?
   
   If you can't get these clear answers from your PPC management agency, you need to walk the other direction.


3. A PPC Service Requires a Long Term Contract
   When you set up AdWords for your business, it requires your credit card and e-mail address in order to activate the account. This means that if you burn the bridges with a PPC management service at any time, you will continue to own the account and all of the information in it. If an agency insists on setting up an AdWords account in their own name, it should state in your contract that the account will be transferred to your e-mail address if the service is terminated.


4. The Agency Has a Revolving Door of Account Managers
   Although account managers may leave or get let go, take it as a big warning sign if a PPC service constantly appoints a new account manager to your campaign. This could reflect poorly on the quality and skill of the agency, meaning that it may be time to pack your bags and move on down the road. Additionally, it means that a new account manager needs to learn all the details of your business from scratch and this is a sign key information is going to get left behind.

When chosen with care, a PPC management service has the opportunity to skyrocket the visibility of your website to increase both traffic and conversions. By avoiding the warning signs listed above, you can make sure that your advertising dollar is well spent by implementing an effective pay per click marketing strategy.