3rd party AdWords mgmt - is it worth it?

wondering if it's worth involving a 3rd party in AdWords campaign

[melody]

I'm looking into all the possibilities of promoting my website at the moment. A friend suggested a 3rd party agency to take care of it.

Like many, the agency promises the world and wants nothing less than it would cost when done directly with Google. But surely that figure depends on how well you do it...

Isn't it a conflict of interest for an agency to a) make sure you're paying as little as possible b) earning their commision (percent of what you're spending)?

Is it worth sacrificing the flexibility of doing it yourself etc.? Has anybody had any experience with 3rd party companies? The tools they promise are there on Google anyway, except auto-bid. But I've read on this board that you can get an auto-bid tool yourself - though maybe that's not such a good thing either.

So, I have a bit of a dillema here, trying to get my head around this. Opinions welcome!

[Shak]

I'll let 1 of our agency members put their view across.

There is a thread in supporters along these lines, and "I" have in the past promoted the use of agencies when done right.

Shak

no pitches, or sticky me stuff, please

[ganderla]

There was just a thread on this yesterday.

[webmasterworld.com ]

[webdiversity]

Conflict of interest.

Absolutely not.

It's about adding value, if you are jumping into a relationship that could exist happily with the supplier on their own then where is the value add?

If you have accounts across the board, you will have one account manager for each PPC provider. If you use a 3rd party company you have one relationship with them, and they have a relationship with the providers.

As an agency I'd like to think we get service that advertisers wouldn't get, and access to data that advertisers never get, and the benefit of a quicker time to market.

As an agency we know what works so campaigns get up and running quickly. Doing it yourself you go through the pain of working out how to structure the campaign, and CTR typically will be lower.

If an agency is promising you tools..... run for the hills.

[Robsp]

Yep,

I (as an "agency") have taken over quite a few campaigns from advertisers that got "stuck" with low CTR's and or low volumes. With most campaigns I managed to get CTR's up quite dramatically with volume increases of 5 to 10 times more.

I also have quite a few "no-cure-no-pay" customers were I share in the extra revenue, which works quite well.

So overall if you want to be on the fast track, hire someone who knows his stuff.