His latest brainwave was to move products round on his site then go edit the ad urls then apologise in *case* he'd done something stupid, later.
Now in my short tenure there, one month, I have reduced his customer acquisition cost from $800 per customer to $8 per customer, his bid prices are down by a third, his position is up by a third and he sells more per day now than he did in the entire six months before I started. These trends show no signs of stopping anytime soon. In short, he has a business where he used to have a financial sink-hole.
You would think he'd be grateful.
I don't really feel like giving him a course in the Importance of CTR, or Your Conversions Are Up Because I Pulled Your Stupid Campaign. I really don't want to be teaching mod rewrite 101 and I don't want to be arrested for strangling him, although frankly I'm willing to take that chance.
I thought I was there because he needed someone to do Adwords. Thats what Adwords Account Managers do (the clue is in the name). If he wants someone to tell him its OK to screw up repeatedly, he needs to hire a shrink.
Am I being unreasonable? I'm good at Adwords, but I'm not good at diplomacy. Hes one meddle away from getting fired, and my own reaction to this worries me. Art is 'the capacity to take infinite pains' and I've been taking them - hence the results.
Unfortunately I have the artistic temperament to go with it.
Might jump up and down and yell a bit though :/
So I'm not being entirely unreasonable then? I did wonder. I have other clients, but I communicate with them via a third party who hired me. A third party well used to what I'm like who knows if they want me, there will not be Any Interference. (This was established the once after an almighty row and its been that way ever since).
That raising the price and adding a penny sounds just like what I might advise under the circumstances. I like it. If I did that every time he meddled he might learn to not meddle.
In the meantime if I really do lose it, I will fire him then. I'm really quite averse to being responsible for other people's mistakes.
Has happened to me too, more than once. I hope you find a nice way of telling him he should always ask you to make any changes he likes to see. Remind him why he hired you and how well you have done - perhaps it's better to do a little education even if you don't like that.
Show him disapproved ads (if he caused those), higher costs, lower number of visitors, messed up tracking codes, etc, and convince him YOU should pull the strings to prevent this. Communication is key.
Good luck!
It is true I don't need his business. But I get the feeling that he is a nice guy, just a bit of a klutz. I wouldn't drown a puppy because it messed on the carpet.
Alex, you are too nice. How do you value your work if not with a bill?
Best bet IMHO is:
1) Never give clients access to their acounts unless they want to do it themselves and hire you as a consultant to give them advice that they implement. Show them proposals, keywords, creative, agree on a budget & provide reporting that explains what is happening but try really hard to avoid enabling them to go in to their accounts.
2) If they already have access or insist on accessing their accounts, schedule a weekly billable meeting or phone call during which all questions, changes and issues are addressed. Try to cover everything all at once instead of sporadic & random changes throughout the week in order to save time, stay focused and keep from driving yourself crazy.
