Google Adwords Management
Many business owners prefer to take their chances with Google Adwords themselves rather than hiring an Adwords management agency, but this not recommended. Google Adwords is a complicated application which allows for wonderful control over your Pay-Per-Click advertising, and it therefore requires management by someone who is an expert in this field specifically. Your campaign will not be very successful if the only person paying attention to it is someone who has a hundred other responsibilities. Your Adwords account needs regular attention by someone who knows how to make effective adjustments to all the dozens of options you have for changing your ads. So when you start your campaign on Google, there are several things an Adwords management firm would know to do in the setup process that you may not know anything about. Things such as, researching keywords to see which ones will be the most effective to associate with your ad, compiling a list of negative keywords that will prevent your ad from running on irrelevant search pages, and setting your various ad bids. Once the campaign is running, tests will need to be conducted on various ads you have running to see which work the best and also to see what small changes within the ads themselves can render more clicks. All of this is easily and efficiently handled by a good Adwords management agency.
So now that you hopefully realize how crucial your Adwords success is to finding a good Adwords management agency, you should start doing research to find the right one for your business. You will want to look for an agency that has experience with your particular kind of business, whether it’s a brick and mortar store or online sales. If you do have an actual store, you want to choose an Adwords management firm that is within your same geographical region, because they will have a more intimate understanding of your customer base and the general culture where you conduct your business.
You might be wondering about the fees for adequate Adwords management. It is a significant investment, usually around $1 for every $5 you actually spend in Adwords. However, if you find a good Adwords management company that you can trust to do a great job, they will make you more money than you would have ever made if you attempt to run your campaign without the expertise you need.
Google Adwords Management Fees
If you are considering hiring an agency to manage your Google Adwords account, you are probably wondering what would be considered a reasonable Adwords management fee. There is no simple answer to this question, because there are many different ways that an agency may bill you their fee. First, you should know that there are two different ways of billing: transparent and opaque. Transparent billing is preferable because it allows you to see exactly what is being spent on your Adwords management fee and you will keep your Google Adwords fee separate. With opaque billing, your agency will roll it all into one bundle and you may be left wondering just how much you are paying that agency for their services.
So, regarding transparent fees, there are a few ways that the agency may structure them. The first and most basic is the flat rate Adwords management fee. In this situation, you are billed monthly a set amount that is usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-40% of what you are spending with Google. So if your monthly budget for Google Adwords is $500, your Adwords management fee would likely be in the neighborhood of $200. The perk to this arrangement is that it makes projecting your advertising costs easier, but the downside is that it generally will not cover additional work you may require on your Adwords account.
You might decide you need more flexibility than what a flat rate Adwords management fee provides. If that is the case, consider setting up a percentage-based billing model with the agency you choose. In this scenario, which is very common, the agency will bill you based on a percentage of your overall budget, usually around 25% or so. The benefit of this kind of billing is that usually, the larger your budget is, the smaller the percentage will be for the Adwords management fee. So if you are a larger business planning on spending a considerable amount on your Adwords campaign, this is most likely your best option.
There are a couple of other ways that agencies bill their Adwords management fee, such as hourly (usually referred to as consulting), performance based (where the agency ties their fees directly to your campaign’s ROI), and CPA (cost-per-action) based, which is where the agency charges you a set amount per lead. Unless you have extenuating circumstances though, these options are not recommended for most businesses.
