Best PPC Adword Specialists: 7 Steps to Make Sure You Hire the Right One
PPC advertising helps create brand authority, generate quality leads, and boost sales but only when you hire a Google Adwords expert. When it comes to pay-per-click advertising, Google Ads is a clear winner. Google owns over 71% of the search market share. The statistic alone answers why Google Ads PPC campaigns work. According to Google Economic Impact Report, businesses that use Google Ads earn an average $2 in revenues for every $1 spent.
As such, it becomes more important than ever to hire an Adwords expert who can help generate maximum ROI for your ad investment. However, the biggest challenge here is choosing the right Adwords agency. Do they have the expertise to deliver impressive results for your business? What are the proven PPC strategies they use to get quality leads? Can they help lower CPC? How cost-effective are they? These are some questions that bother advertisers when they consider hiring a PPC management company.
In this blog, we will share seven vital steps that will help you make a well-informed decision in choosing the right Google Adwords agency.
If a preliminary discussion with the agency does not fulfill the below-mentioned points, then you should continue searching for a better option.
1. Google Adwords PPC Expertise Level
PPC Adwords account management process is complex. At the same time, the competition for the top ad position on Google SERPs is cut-throat. Hence, hiring just any Adwords consultant can cost you badly. Best PPC specialists have relevant domain expertise and knowledge to implement only proven practices to deliver outstanding results.
Before you hire a PPC agency, here are some things you should look for:
- Are they well-established as a Google Adwords PPC company or are relatively new?
- What is their service offering? Every Adwords expert offers basic PPC management services, so look for something out-of-the-box? That’s what makes the agency forward-thinking
- Are they Google Ads certified or have won accolades in their domain? PPC agencies will love to showcase their service excellence with awards and recognitions
- Do they have knowledge of the latest Google Ads updates and recent trends?
- Evaluate their case studies or portfolio to understand how they have helped increase ROI for businesses
- Search their presence on social media; check customer reviews and ratings
Only an experienced PPC Adword consultant can deliver high-quality results for your pay-per-click campaigns.
2. Scope of Google Adwords PPC Services
The next vital step is evaluating what the PPC agency specializes in. If you are paying to hire a professional, you would want services that are beyond basics. Watch out for those extra unique that makes them stand out in the competition.
Adwords optimization typically includes the following as standard services:
- Competition analysis
- Comprehensive keyword research
- Choosing the right PPC channels to target
- Ad creative and landing page optimization
- PPC monitoring and reporting
Some “extra” services you should look for are:
- Dedicated Google Ads account manager
- Split testing ad creatives and landing pages for better optimization
- Ad scheduling
- Smart bidding
- User experience and User Intent
The choice of PPC service package will depend on your advertising goal, i.e. why you want to hire an expert to manage your Google Adwords campaigns.
3. Knowledge of Latest Trends and Developments
Google is continuously updating its features for PPC advertising on Search and Display. A good Adwords optimization expert is one who has comprehensive knowledge about the latest changes and development and uses them to strategize a result-driven PPC campaign. If the “specialist” speaks nothing more than just normal paid search campaigns, you should move on.
The latest additions to Google Ads arsenal are:
- AdWords Remarketing for Search
- Mobile PPC
- Product Listing Ads
- Enhanced Campaigns
- Ad Extensions
- AdWords Scripts
- AdWords Shared Library
As Google continues to add new features for advertisers, your PPC expert should update themselves likewise and head-start to a great strategy that works.
Remember, Google AdWords has a lot more than just search campaigns. If you do not change your advertising strategy likewise, you will potentially lose out on significant revenues.
4. Expertise in Keyword Research and Selection
A successful PPC campaign runs on effective keyword selection. Choosing the most relevant keywords is important to target the right audience set, generating more clicks. However, popularly-used keywords are highly competitive and costly to bid on. Therefore, using long-tail and highly targeted keywords can pay off well. The objective is to match the “search intent” of your potential customers.
Here, the role of your PPC specialist is most important. If they do not select the right keywords, it can affect your ad rankings on Google. Remember, the top three ad spots on Google get an average of 41.1% of the clicks. Anything below that may get your ad unnoticed by your potential customers. Therefore, it is crucial that your Google Adwords expert does in-depth keyword research and integrate the most relevant ones to your ad to make it stand out.
At the same time, they should also know how to integrate negative keywords to prevent your ad from appearing for irrelevant search queries. Having exact match keywords is not possible. Despite using the techniques of broad match and phrase match, your ad may still appear for inappropriate search queries. For instance keyword like “Adwords specialists” can make the PPC ad appear for search queries such as:
- Beginners e-guide for Adwords specialists
- Free Adwords specialists
- Tools for Adwords specialists
So, even if you want to advertise for paid service, the ad will get displayed even for irrelevant search terms such as free, e-guide, tools, etc. Therefore, evaluate whether the PPC expert has a thorough knowledge of negative keywords.
5. Do they Provide the Kind of PPC Services You Need?
This is another important factor you should consider when hiring an Adwords optimization company in India. Not all PPC campaigns are right for your advertising goals. For instance, if your target audience is mostly on Google Search, it would be a waste of money if you hire a specialist who excels in Facebook PPC advertising. Again, advertising heavily on Google Display Network may not reap maximum yields if your target is Google Search.
As such, it is crucial that the PPC expert understands your business, target audience, and advertising goals. Only then he can devise strategies that are most relevant and drives business results. Pick one that has expertise in your niche. They can understand your marketing objectives better and likewise, choose platforms that are ideal to achieve the goals.
6. Ask Questions
There are a few important questions that you must ask before hiring an Adwords agency. Of course, getting answers to these questions won’t make them the best choice. But at least you can get an idea of their professionalism and integrity. Not sure what to ask? Here are some tips for you:
- What should be your PPC advertising objectives: You know what you’re advertising goals are, but just test their expertise in this domain by asking.
- What you get exactly for your money: When you are spending money to hire a specialist, you would want it clear for how many hours they will work and what results you can expect by what time. If not precisely, but they should provide a fair idea of what results they can deliver and by when.
- What is their pricing model: It is important to know how much you should pay to hire an Adwords expert. Ask what pricing model they use and why. Typically, monthly-retainer, project-based, and hourly pricing models are the most popular.
- Account ownership and privacy: This is a vital question you should ask the agency – who holds ownership of the Google Adwords account. Ideally, you should have own your own account and not the agency because you are paying for it. Additionally, they should also provide clear guidelines about their privacy policies, i.e. what they will do with your sensitive business information.
- Analytics and Reporting: Not only they should use powerful analytics tools to track how your PPC strategy is performing, but they should provide comprehensive reporting to ensure the campaign is hitting the target.
7. How Cost-Effective Google Adwords PPC Management is?
Managing your budget is an integral aspect of any pay-per-click campaign. Therefore, it is crucial to analyze how cost-effective hiring a specialist can be for your business. Compare pricing strategies of two or more agencies and make an informed decision.
Typically, Google Adwords agencies have two types of cost strategies:
- Fixed price plan: Here, you get better control over your ad spends but benefits are limited. It is most suitable for small businesses or those who have a smaller budgets and specific needs.
- Monthly engagement fee + separate ad spend: In this pricing model, you pay for your PPC ads directly as well as a monthly fee for services hired. This way, you can keep track of how much you are spending on campaign management and ad rates.
Conclusion
Taking a definitive approach towards hiring Google Ads experts can help you find the right one for your PPC campaigns. The above-mentioned steps will help you consider important qualities that make a specialist stand out from the clutter.