Here are twenty questions you should be asking your potential PPC agency before investing with them.
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How much does it cost to do PPC?
This is a loaded question. The budget is entirely in your control but a qualified agency will be able to provide you a suggested budget in order to reach the goals you are after. This goal can be anywhere from brand awareness metrics, phone calls, form submissions and products purchased just to name a few. -
How does PPC work?
PPC provides you an opportunity to be able to bid for placement on certain search engines. You can define the type of people who see your ad, the keywords you want to be found for and the location for the ads to appear. Ad placement is defined by these characteristics and then the budget used is taken into consideration for how often the ads are served. -
How many leads can I expect to get each month?
This depends on the goal of your campaign. If your goal is to get phone calls, form conversions or products purchased then you can create campaigns with those goals in mind. The amount of leads will vary depending on the budget, competition and optimization. For example if you have two similar ads with similar offers but one ad sends to a landing page built for conversions and the other ad doesn't then the outcome will be different.
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What are the contract terms to do PPC?
There are no contract terms with the actual provider of PPC (Facebook, Google, Bing etc.) but the agency you work with likely will have contract terms. Since every campaign is different and the goal is different just be sure to get clarification on how that works. -
What networks do you advertise on?
This depends on the goal as well as the client. For some clients it might make sense to advertise on Google, LinkedIn or maybe a combination of multiple networks. The agency you interview for the work should be asking you these type of questions to make the best decision for you. -
What software do you use to manage my account?
There is a ton of software that you can use to manage different ads that you may have running. Hubspot, WordStream, Adroll are just a few that you might hear but then there are also the main platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Business Manager and LinkedIn Campaign Manager just to name a few. If you hear something outside of these they might be just as good, but do your research to see the pros and cons. - What kind of reporting will I receive from you?
Every ad platform provides some form of reporting but they can be a bit hard to understand. We provide custom dashboards showing the data you care about in relation to your goals. We also provide summary reports explaining what was done that month and suggestions going forward, all in easy to understand text.
- How often will you change my ads?
This depends on the campaign as well. Sometimes an ad campaign can be running for months or years without needing to change the display creative or search text. However, that doesn't mean that changes aren't being done to optimize the campaign. We are in our accounts daily, managing the results and making adjustments to optimize for our PPC clients. We also recommend setting a benchmark of one, three or six months to see if the creative needs to be updated or if it is good to continue as is. - How do you determine if the ads are working or not?
Absolutely, this comes down to communication. If we have a clear understanding of your goals then we will be able to tell you about the campaigns success or not. What we might consider to be good results might not be good for you because of the goals you want to achieve. - Are you able to show me how many people contacted me through the ads?
Absolutely, when done properly you can tell when people contacted you through ads. Depending on how deep you want to get, we can know what keywords they used to find you, what page they took action and whether it was a phone call or a form submission. This is all done with the use of pixels.
A pixel is a piece of code you place on the backend of your website to track visitors to your site. ... Event codes are additional pieces of code you can add under the default pixel code to specific pages of your website that allow you to track certain actions on those pages. - Social Media Examiner
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How much traffic can I expect to get each month?
Traffic can depend on your goals as well. If your goal is to get a lot of traffic to your website then you should create ads with this goal in mind. From here the amount of traffic you'll get is dependent on your budget, competition and other parameters set in your campaign. Once your ads are running for a period of time you can start to get a better sense of how much traffic you'll receive each month. -
Are you able to make people see my ads after they visit my site once?
We are! It's pretty common that people will ask us about this and refer to it as creepy. This is called Remarketing. Remarketing is one of the most effective forms of pay-per-click ads because often times people won't take action immediately but the more they see something the more likely they are to take action. You can read all about Remarketing and how it works here. - How do you find the keywords people are searching for?
Great question! This is all done through research. We have some tools in house we use to get some great insights to make sure we are getting the best results possible for you; to name a few, Google Keyword Planner, Report Garden and SEO Moz. If you're told you don't need research done, I'd call this a red flag. What you think people are searching to find your business might not actually be correct or the best use of funds. - How much does it cost per click?
This will always vary. Every day the cost will be different depending on the competition. A click could cost you a penny but it could also cost you $50. The more competitive the more expensive. The agencies goal should be to get the cost down as much as possible with optimization and making smart decisions on what you're spending your money on. - What type of ads do you do? Search? Display?
Absolutely, we like to do a combination depending on the goal. If you're looking for brand awareness, display is a great option because of its cost. If you are looking for qualified leads, search is the way to go. - Can you make animated ads?
Yes we can! Most ad platforms allow for some form of animated ad whether that's in GIF, video or HTML. Keep in mind if you are looking to have HTML ads done with Google Ads your account can't be brand new and needs to have some age to it with a minimum spend in order to qualify for HTML ads. - Are you certified?
We have certified members on our team, yes! This ranges from HubSpot and Google to Facebook certifications. - What do you do each month to manage the account?
There is a lot to managing a PPC account. "Set and forget" is not an option. You have to consistently manage your spends, negative keywords, conversions, reporting and adjustment, and copy and display when needed, just to name a few. - What are the payment terms?
Every agency is different. We have a one time set up fee and then we have a management fee which is relative to the budget. We require a credit card from the client to be on the platform account as we don't pay this on the customers behalf. - Can you tell me what my competitors are doing with Google Ads?
We can! We will be able to have a good sense of what they are using in terms of ads and their shortfalls. We can also create competitor campaigns where we are targeting your specific customers to get ahead of them.