Okay, with that out of the way, I'm hoping you can offer some advice.
A tech-savvy-but-busy friend of mine is the CEO and programmer of a popular small-to-mid-sized software applications firm. He's currently using AdWords and spending about $300 a month, but isn't pleased with the results and doesn't have time to tinker... and he was intrigued when I mentioned my success with the service.
He would like to hire me to manage -- either one-time, or ongoing -- his AdWords campaigns, but has no idea what reasonable rates are, nor what a reasonable compensation structure would be (percentage of revenue increase from AdWords customers, a fixed one-time fee, an hourly rate, etc.)
Unfortunately, while I know a lot about AdWords and have fine hands-on experience with the service, I'm just as clueless as my friend about what and how I should charge him.
I'm hoping that some of you who either offer AdWords management/consulting services OR those of you who have procured such services can offer me some guidance on these issues.
Thanks much!
My main concern is in charging my friend a fair price... not gouging him, while still respecting my own worth.
Personally, I think I'm worth [pretty-high-$x] per hour, but I also know that my friend can probably only afford [medium-$x] per hour. I guess I'm looking for a ballpark from folks for both info and reassurance.
It's also possible that there may be no 'right answer' here, and I can certainly respect that (and also understand that folks may be understandably reticent to quote specific figures in public!) So even if I just get "Most folks in this sector charge [in this manner]," that'd be a great help :)
Forget about if he has time to tinker, if he doesn't have the expertise, then all the tinkering will only cost him more money.
My advice at that sort of level and without a track record of managing multiple accounts, you should either offer to do the work on a revenue share basis, or work out some sort of "mates rates" deal with a glowing testimonial at the end of it. To charge him the going rate you'd be looking at probably more than he is currently spending on traffic.
It's not what you charge, it's what you deliver, if your not proposing to do this full time, then don't let money get in the way of a friendship.
If you are that good then what you charge will be academic.
I would advise to either make a revenue sharing deal or sell him a monthy subscription type deal with a 3-6 month trial period.
Your buddy is spending $300 a month probably because he is not able to get more clicks out of Google. If Google is giving a good ROI, does your friend have a problem with spending $3000 per month?
Never shoo away a client (or a friend) because of their existing spending per month. Take a look at the Google account and make a rough estimate about the kind of traffic you can get.
A few billing ideas -
- Since you are already familiar with Google AdWords, you should have a rough idea about the amount of time you will spend per month on the campaigns. For a friend, quote half of what you would normally charge per hour ;)
- Are the conversions being tracked? If yes, charge a small monthly fee PLUS $X per conversion. That is, have a performance based billing structure.
- A percentage of monthly spend.
I'd agree with vibgyor79 about charging them hourly, and giving them a discount. You both need to have an understanding that if their business takes off and that you need to spend more time maintaining their account, you might have to charge him more. You can only work so many hours a week where you can't charge your normal rate as you need to pay the bills as well.
Secondly, if you're just a PPC company and not a full web dev company, you're not going to show them all the tracking ways and upgrade their website as it's not your job.
Third, its the ppc company's job to get targeted traffic to the website, it's their job to convert that traffic. If they don't convert due to their website having issues, you can suggest changes, but again, that's a full web dev company's issue.
Fourth, if I was buying ppc services, their invested time doesn't change by how much I make, it's based on how much work it takes to get me targeted traffic - and with the other pricing options around - I'd look elsewhere.
If you were a full web dev company, then I can see working with profit %s for larger websites. For small stores and whatnot, it's just not cost effective to spend the time it takes to fully develop (and it's cost prohibitive for a lot of small stores) all the tools necessary which need to be implemented.
It's really a matter of budgets as someone who spends $5k a month isn't going to get the same tools as someone who spends $20k/month.
Now, a PPC company can hire independent contractors and do all of the above, and many of them do spend general consulting time with various clients. But it depends on the level of service both parties are looking for and offer.
I have decided to assist my friend on a flat-fee (project) basis, and indeed, well under what I'd normally value my time at.
In return, I expect that he'll serve as an energetic evangelist for me for when I apply for other (unrelated) jobs, lauding my work ethic, my attention to detail, my tech savvy, etc. And should my first-attempts at optimizing someone else's AdWords campaigns go awry, he won't have broken his company's bank account :D
Thanks again for your help; I'll try to remember to report back here when the project is done in a week or two to let you know how it went.
