Trying to grow your business through a successful online marketing strategy? Getting a PPC agency onboard is exactly what you need. An agency with experience, and the right skills, will be capable of crafting a strategy specific to your business. The problem is, how do you find the right agency?
Finding the right agency is a delicate process and one that you won’t want to rush. Rushing increases the risk that you end up hiring an unqualified, untrustworthy, or overpriced agency that doesn’t have your best interests at heart. Naturally you’ll want to get started as soon as possible, but trust us when we say this is something you should take your time with. In this blog post, we’ll be walking you through how to choose the best PPC advertising agency.
What Does a PPC Agency Do?
A PPC Agency (Pay Per Click agency) works in a lot of different ways. When working with your business, the work they do will depend on what your goals are. For the most part, they run paid ads on various platforms – Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Instagram Ads, and basically any ad platform.
Different businesses have different goals in mind and the odds are you won’t be using all of these platforms – eCommerce businesses, for example, would prioritize running a Google Shopping campaign.
Other factors, such as your budget, will contribute to the decision of which platform they’ll use for your business. Running a campaign with a smaller budget is more doable on Facebook Ads, whereas Google Ads is friendlier with bigger budgets.
In short, a PPC agency runs paid ads on your behalf so that you don’t have to stress about the technicalities. They’ll handle your targeting, creating audiences, designing creatives, and every aspect of your online ad campaigns.
What Can an Agency Do for YOU?
With that in mind, we can be more specific about what an agency would do for you:
- Understand your business and what exactly you do
- Consider your budget and which platforms you could get the best results from
- Research your audience and produce a buyer persona
- Design a campaign around that buyer persona (including creatives)
- Start running a campaign, utilizing A/B testing to discover which ads can get you the most sales
- Continuously optimize your campaigns for the best results and budget use
While this might still seem like a broad list, that’s as specific as we can get because every business is different. Some businesses aren’t trying to get sales, they want to get more email subscribers.
But that still gives you a better idea of what to expect if you haven’t run online ads before and haven’t dealt with a PPC agency.
In short, a PPC agency runs paid ads on your behalf so that you don’t have to stress about the technicalities. They’ll handle your targeting, creating audiences, designing creatives, and every aspect of your online ad campaigns.
What Makes a PPC Agency Good?
If you want to choose the right PPC agency you first need to know what makes a good agency.
There are obvious things like having a solid portfolio and being able to adapt their team’s skills to any industry. That’s not enough though – there are a lot of other qualities to look for in a PPC agency.
They're research-driven
A huge factor in whether or not your digital marketing campaigns will succeed is the quality of the research. If an agency doesn’t do thorough research into what keywords to target and which audience to show your ads to, your campaign will be nowhere near as successful as if the research was done properly.
An agency who do really thorough and in-depth keyword research, competitor research, and audience research, knows what it’s doing. These are the foundation of a campaign and it’s crucial that they get done right.
They're honest with you
A lot of agencies are going to do anything to get you as a client. They’ll tell you that they reach every goal you set, on any budget you say, and within any timeframe you want. Spoiler: they can’t.
Marketing is unpredictable. Most clients who haven’t done any marketing before have unrealistic expectations. You can’t run a great campaign if you don’t want to invest.
There’s no way around any of those things and if you’re in discussions with an agency that:
- Guarantee they’ll get you results (and maybe even set a deadline)
- Promise to do everything you want on a tight deadline
- Say they can get you ideal results on an ad budget of less than $1000
…then they’re lying to you.
Honest PPC agencies will instantly tell you that there aren’t any guarantees in marketing and if you want results, a bigger budget is needed.
They're on top of communications
You’re going to be handing thousands of dollars to an agency that you’ve really only just met. It’s not unrealistic to expect grade-A communication.
That doesn’t mean they have to drop everything they’re doing and reply to your emails or phone calls within minutes. That would be unrealistic. They’ve got other clients to manage and they’re just as important as you are to the agency. If you want 100% attention then hiring an in-house team is your only option.
But if an agency takes days to get back to you, doesn’t keep you in the loop, and just aren’t communicating well, then they’re not the agency for you.
They're problem solvers
“We couldn’t do this because…” should be a phrase you rarely hear.
“We couldn’t do that, so we did this instead” is what you want to hear.
Marketing is never a straightforward endeavor – there will be surprises along the way. Problems will appear out of nowhere and the best marketers know how to counter those problems.
5 Tips to Choose a PPC Agency
So, what should you actually be looking for when you’re searching for a Pay Per Click agency? With these 5 tips, the process will be less stressful, and you won’t fall into any common traps.
1. Look at Their Portfolio/Case Studies
The absolute first thing to look at is the agency’s portfolio. Look into the results they got for their clients and how they got those results. Did they use any specific strategies? How much did they spend to get those results? Which platforms do they prioritize? Which industries have they served?
These are all important questions, especially the last one. If an agency hasn’t worked with your industry before then although they won’t be going in blind, more testing will be required. This alone isn’t a reason to disregard an agency, though. All it means is that things will be a little slower to begin with.
2. Check Out Their Client List
If you want to go a step further then take a look at their client list. Reviews are a good indicator of how clients felt about the service they received, but video testimonials are superior to any other review. Video testimonials are harder to fake, are more authentic, and if someone is willing to record a video on behalf of an agency, this is a definitive indicator that they were happy with the work that they received.
You could even reach out to some clients. Getting in touch with them to ask some questions about the agency’s process and whether or not they’d recommend them will get you some insight into what the client actually thinks, as opposed to what they wrote in a review that the agency asked for.
3. Ask the Right Questions
When you start talking to a PPC agency and inquiring about hiring them, make sure you ask them questions. Here are some pointers on what to ask them about:
- “What are some good goals to have?”. Even if you have some in mind, it’s good to get an idea of what they think is achievable. This also gives you an idea of how confident they would be managing your campaign.
- “What is your pricing model”. You don’t want to be caught off-guard when you receive the bill. Don’t hesitate to ask about how much they charge and what their fees include. After all, it’s your money!
- “What is your long-term strategy?”. Hiring a PPC agency shouldn’t be short-term. It takes time to see results and asking about what a long-term strategy for your business looks like to the agency will give you a clearer picture of what to expect.
What’s important is that you don’t feel uneasy asking questions. Remember, they’re going to be working for you; you’re paying them. Ask any questions you have and make sure there are no misunderstandings about the services they’re providing you with.
4. Understand How Much You Will Be Spending
A really common mistake that small businesses make is misunderstanding how much they’ll be investing into paid ads. When you pay a PPC agency there are typically two charges: the agency’s fee and your ad budget.
Some people assume that how much they pay the agency is the sole charge, but this is false. Your ad budget is separate and needs to be high enough that the agency can work effectively. You might be able to pay the agency’s $2,500 monthly bill, but can you also afford the $4,000 ad budget?
5. Don’t Ignore the Red Flags
It’s easy to look past an agency’s red flags when everything else looks perfect, but don’t fall into this trap. Maybe their numbers don’t add up or they put a lot of work into gloating about being a Google Partner (which, by the way, is almost meaningless).
If for any reason you feel like something’s not right, you’re probably right. The most common red flag is when an agency promises results. From a business perspective this guarantee seems promising – you want a guarantee that you’ll receive a certain level of service. But when it comes to marketing, it’s impossible to guarantee anything. Campaigns are constantly shifting and it’s impossible to guarantee that a campaign will yield great results. If any agency continues to promise you any sort of results, avoid them.
Benefits of a PPC Advertising Agency
For those of you who still aren’t completely sold on hiring a PPC agency, here are some key benefits that they’ll bring to your business.
- You get to focus on the bigger picture. After handing over your marketing efforts to the experts, you can focus on the more pressing aspects of the business (like customer satisfaction).
- Your money is spent more efficiently. If you run an ad campaign with little experience, money is going to be wasted. With an experienced agency, wasteful spending is kept to a minimum.
- You get direct access to experts. Rather than hiring an in-house marketing team, you get access to an expert marketing team without the same hefty costs.
Conclusion
Choosing a PPC advertising agency will take you weeks of research. Finding out about the work that each agency has done, how well their campaigns performed, and how much they’re going to charge you, takes time. But look no further because (in our biased opinion) KonvertLab checks all the right boxes.
Our widespread experience across all popular ad platforms puts us in a great position to help you and your business. Take a look at our portfolio and after our results have convinced you, book a call and let’s discuss how our services can drive more customers your way.
