Since then we have expanded and also opened up a few new business areas. Our campaigns are in several languages and cover serveral cities and services.
I am partner in the company, so my time is spread among many things. I now feel that it's out of control. I just use broad match because I cannot be bothered to optimize it.
I'm wondering about outsourced campaign management but I don't want to spend a king's ransome.
At what monthly spend does it become economic to outsource your Adwords and do the subcontractors really perform better than you can yourself? They of course understand your business less well than you do yourself, but they also have some tricks of the trade which can help.
And of those who outsource, who goes for a local (expensive) company, and who uses a more economical emerging market option? Any experience in the difference in quality? And perhaps any experience with campaign managers lining their own pockets through clickfraud with outsourced campaigns?
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I didn't see many posts there from satisfied customers. Do no bosses read the Adwords forum?
I didn't see many posts there from satisfied customers. Do no bosses read the Adwords forum?
I suspect that the data set is a little skewed to those who have time to read forums and micro manage campaigns themselves. Bosses outsource because they don't have time to learn every trade.
Still, how do they find an SEM company if they don't look here? How would they even know what to call the service?
1) They see dozens/hundreds of different client campaigns, so they actually have a basis for *determining* what good performance is. Many, many times I've had prospects say they think/know they're doing a great job, but the majority of them get far better results when they outsource than they were getting beforehand.
2) SEM outsourcing firms invest in technology, repeatable processes and personnel that are solely focused on the task of optimizing paid search campaigns. The typical advertiser, by contrast, can't make the same investments, and since the space is so new and good SEM-knowledgeable people so hard to find, humans that advertisers hire are continually hopping jobs to take advantage of their extremely scarce skills.
3) Outsourcing firms (if they make good use of technology) can scale ppc campaigns much better than the advertiser themselves in most cases. Case in point, a disproportionate number of Google and Overture's top 500 spenders are advertisers whose spends are being managed by third parties. There was a report out about this recently (can't remember where I saw it, honest), and the net net was that outsourced campaigns have
-More keywords (a good thing)
-Less broad matching (a good thing)
-Better optimization to ROI metrics (a critical thing)
I'll offer that the ideal situation *is* for an advertiser to own ppc management themselves (as most of the comparison shopping engines do, for example), but my guess is that far less than even 10% of ppc advertisers could pull it off and succeed as measured against competitors who leverage third parties.
Just one man's opinion, and as I stated earlier, I'm biased because of where I work.
We are able to compare campaigns as we are managing well over 50 in many differnt markets and geo's. Half of our customers are new to PPC but the other 50% already has a campaign. We typically bring revenue and ROI up with hunderds of percents by getting our experience to work for them.
An issue that has not been mentioned but which I think is key is that we can offer a fresh and external perspective, not only to the campaign but also to the business proposition. We advice changes to propositions all the time, sometimes with stunning effects.
My 2 (biased) cts
I just use broad match because I cannot be bothered to optimize it.
There's one clue that you could use some help.
At what monthly spend does it become economic to outsource your Adwords
If Adwords is worth doing at all, it's worth doing well. If it's not worth anybody's time to figure out how to target it right, it's not worth doing.
do the subcontractors really perform better than you can yourself?
Shockingly so based on DIY campaigns I've taken over. (Of course, it may have been the poor performance and that knawing sense that the account owner didn't know what they were doing that caused the client to bring in a consultant.)
They of course understand your business less well than you do yourself,
You'd be very, very surprised. A lot of us do more than just manage PPC. I spend a large amount of time doing general marketing consulting, and I am sometimes shocked at how poorly some of my clients understand their own businesses.
any experience with campaign managers lining their own pockets through clickfraud with outsourced campaigns?
You should never agree to a contract based on your total spend.
I am sometimes shocked at how poorly some of my clients understand their own businesses.
PPC has quantified how a lot of business is done for many small to mid sized businesses.
It's been a while since I've been able to ask these questions and have someone answer all the ones that pertain to their business:
What's your average sale price?
What's your average profit margin?
What's your average visitor worth?
Do you know your profit margin per item?
Do you know your ROI for your other advertising?
Do you measure profit margins on sale vs non sale periods?
How much is a contact worth to you?
How much is a newsletter sign up to you?
How do you measure conversions?
How do you measure an ad campaigns success?
Do you have a target CPA?
Do you know your ROI?
Do you even know what ROI & CPA mean?
I am just wondering what the time costs. Adwords is an insignificant part of my overall cost structure. I guess I spend about 5000 dollars a month. Sometimes 8000 when our natural serps are bad. But let's base it on 3000$ a month. A campaign manager might value his time at anything from 10$ to 150$ per hour depending on where he lives.
At 150$ an hour he could only spend one or 2 hours a month on my campaign for a 10% fee. That isn't much.
Setup is about the targeting -- which was what I was referring to when I said that if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. If it's not worth the effort to target the campaign properly, there isn't enough traffic out there to be worth going after.
Maintenance is largely about bid management. Many accounts require 2 hours or less of bid management a month. It all depends on the rate of change in your target sectors and the value of a sale. Many, of course, require far more than that.
That 20 hours I spent trying to do one programming chore, costs me more in lost revenue than paying someone todo it, because I could have been optimizing my time at what I do well for those 20 hours instead.
Advertising (of any form) is the same way. Most agencies have a multitude of tools at their disposal to streamline work. They understand how the PPCs/Ad Networks work and can quickly spot and head off trouble areas, as well as take advantage of areas doing well.
How about training programs? That would be something really interesting.
Maintenance is largely about bid management.
I do not agree there Cline. For our clients maintenance is continuous optimizing of which bidding is a (small) part.
We test ads, bid, keyword and landing page combinations which takes a lot more than 2 hours per month (but also delivers a lot more when done right). Adding relevant keywords on a continuous basis is also a part of our service. Campaigns of our clients continue to grow because of these activities.
Anyone else care to comment?
We test ads, bid, keyword and landing page combinations which takes a lot more than 2 hours per month (but also delivers a lot more when done right). Adding relevant keywords on a continuous basis is also a part of our service.
The complexity of a business has a large impact on how much time a PPC account takes to manage. For example, the time needed to manage a PPC account for a local wedding photographer is trivial in comparision to the time needed for a large ecommerce site. Spending two hours a month spent maintaining a local wedding photographer's PPC listings would be a waste of time.
My personal experience is that it is far more time consuming to adjust bids on thousands of keywords than it is to generate and test new creative.
Keyword targeting, if done thoroughly and correctly at the inception of a campaign, takes relatively little time thereafter, at least in comparison to bid management.
IMO landing page testing is outside the scope of maintaining a PPC account. This is in the realm of optimizing the usability and salesability of a site, not in the realm of PPC management. It is, of course, potentially highly time consuming, with high potential rewards.
The below is a rough estimate, if someone is bidding on 50k keywords, it may cost more below for the basics than if they're bidding on 10k keywords. Again, if they have 10 products vs 5000, budgets can range dramatically.
If someone is paying you $300/month to manage their accounts. Odds are, they'll get: some creative testing, keyword bid updates, keyword conversion tracking (often the free Google/Overture tools), and a little bit of consulting in 'This should improve your conversion rate'. You'll get a little bit of ongoing keyword research. At this level, your basic advantage is you've started a relationship with someone who understands the industry, and a 10 minute conversation about what they consider general things, can dramatically increase how well your website does.
If someone is paying $1000 a month to have their account managed, they'll get all of the above, plus split testing on landing pages, ad testing by both CTR & conversions. Conversion testing by keywords & adgroups, etc. They'll make extensive use of your site logs to improve your keyword and negative keyword list. Ongoing keyword research, and promotional testing. This is where you start to see 100+ keyword negative lists.
At $2000/month. In addition to all the above, they'll get site stats analysis of keywords, negative keywords, time spent on site by keyword/adgroup, and some visitor path analysis. They'll also get cross testing of keywords in AdWords vs Overture and cross test those PPC conversion rates/profit lines to optimize budgets (You'll get some of this at the other levels - but now it gets very indepth). The firm might write out some of the landing pages, but if you have a lot of landing pages & products, they may not write them all out. They should also do some 'promotional' testing. They should be able to shower you in stats that a good experienced webmaster/marketer should be able to get some grasp if they are good at analyzing stats.
If someone is paying $5000 a month to have their accounts managed. They'll get all of the above, plus the firm will write the landing pages to test out the conversions (If you're testing out 100 products with 300 landing pages, there may be additional costs, if you're testing out 30 landing pages with 10 products, this will probably be included). They'll do a lot of split testing, and not just with the main keywords, but by the majority of individual products & services. In depth visitor path analysis, usability analysis, and promotional testing. At any time, they should be able to bury you in so many stats you don't even know where to start analyzing them.
General Recap:
As you get into higher management budgets ($1000-$2000+), you're crossing over from PPC management to usability/conversion testing. Often, you want a firm that can help you expand into media buys, help with shopping cart abandonment rates, test out new ideas, keeps an eye out for new trends, and will often be your SEO as well.
In the higher budget ranges (and this starts around $1500-$2500/month - but can be much higher), it's best to use the same firm for SEO & PPC management. The PPC guy can test out keywords, conversion rates, keyword popularity, etc. Those stats can be shared with the SEO guys so they know what keywords to really go after when they optimize your site. At this level, you've basically turned over your marketing to a firm who is going to coordinate your efforts in PPC, SEO, and keep you aprised of buying links, media buys, IYPs, and other marketing efforts.
When choosing a firm, don't just look at the quick cheap dollar. Look at where you want your site togo. What are your long range plans for your business? Do you want a firm that is just your PPC mangement (and in many cases, this is all that is needed), or do you want someone who can grow you into IYPs, media buys, usability & conversion testing, and SEO?
PPC has characteristics of monopoly and monopsony. If there are many bidders, there's a virtual monopoly on the ad space. Bidding and competition are intense. If there are few bidders, it's a virtual monopsony on the ad space. Advertisers get great ROI because the prices don't get bid up. As the whole PPC sector has become more competitive, it's less monopsony and more monopoly, and increasling tough to make a profit.
Sounds like a nice tiered services package. Mind if I use your logic and "pricing" in drawing up my PPC contracts?
D
In the PPC management world I live in, what I'm able to charge my clients is [roughly] one part administrative value (which is what you detail) and two parts ROAS value, as determined by lift against a mutually agreed upon baseline. My clients don't care if I provide all the administrative value in the world, or none, as long as Return on Advertising Spend is significantly better than other alternatives & for an ever-growing spend.
