Large Account Was Hosed By Agencies

Looking for some help to go back...

[300m]

Hi-

I have not posted in a while, but I was hoping that I could get some suggestions.

I am about to go back to a company “full time” and I managed their PPC accounts for a very long time. (talking many years). They decided to outsource my department and, well, it did not work out the way they were hoping and now are bringing me back as an Online Marketing VP, so now I am about to start back with them “full time” and have reviewed the PPC accounts.

They had 2 PPC agencies come in and basically destroy the account(s) in adwords. I am going to be unwinding this mess because my first task will be to get it back to the way it was, meaning stop the bleeding.

This is where my question comes in; does anyone know if Google can do internal roll backs for large accounts? This company I am going back to has a huge PPC account budget (a couple million dollars a year) and while I know how to unroll the damage done by these agencies, it would be much easier to have some kind of assistance from AdWords.

Things may have changed in the past several months I have been gone, but we did have a team of reps at Google assigned to our account, so I know their primary task is to guide us in to spending a lot of money, but I was hoping that someone knew of a way to do what I would call an AdWords “system restore”. I seriously doubt that anyone was saving backups and I suspect my computer has since been reformatted.

Any thoughts, comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

[lgn1]

Before you outsourced your PPC, did you make a backup of your adwords account, using Adwords Editor?

It's very important to do this, before you hand over the keys to someone else.

[LucidSW]

If the other agencies paused things instead of deleting or editing (which deletes), you could just pause their stuff and un-pause your old stuff. But I doubt this would be the case, they probably deleted original data as they went along.

Of course, not all they did is likely useless. There's an opportunity here to analyze what these agencies did. If they added keywords, take a look at the Search Query Report and you may find they are not that bad, maybe come up with new keywords of your own, including negatives. Check for any added negatives while you're at it. Some ads may not be that bad and may have improved on your own, or at least some new ideas that you could try yourself.

I think the Editor could be of use here in trying to restore order. Sounds like a huge account from the amount spent so it could take a while. I'm afraid there's no quick fix. If they created a new structure it would the best: simply pause theirs and unpause yours. If not, it's going group by group and manually checking what was done and reinstating what you want.

[StoutFiles]

Without a backup, you're SOL I believe. It's doubtful that Google has backups, but the only way to find out is to start calling/emailing.

[Planet13]

I have to ask one (rhetorical) question; and I am not being mean - I just don't understand it.

why would a company with a ppc budget of a couple million outsource?

If they have that kind of money, shouldn't they have known that they needed someone FULL TIME doing this?

There are probably factors I am not aware of... so again, I apologize if I sound snotty. I just don't understand what they were thinking.

[300m]

Planet13 - Good question, I am not going to answer that one, but its a good question. I can say that companies will always test new waters and try to save money where they can. Sometimes those things work, then there are times when they do not. I am not going to say one way or another what the intention was, but I am sure the desired result was to lower cost and increase revenue. Though I may have been the guy that had his team outsourced, I think its safe to say that things have a way of working out in the end.

[300m]

LucidSW- When I left I had full backups, but I suspect they reformatted my machine and put it back in to circulation.

[StoutFiles]

If they have that kind of money, shouldn't they have known that they needed someone FULL TIME doing this?

Bigwigs always assume things are easier than they are. They just see numbers and assume that it saves them money by outsourcing. I work for a large company that outsources plenty of crucial assignments because it immediately looks good on paper.

[Planet13]

I work for a large company that outsources plenty of crucial assignments because it immediately looks good on paper.

I can certainly understand that.

I guess that I give upper management and executives far too much credit than they deserve for knowing how their company works.

while there are some functions that can be outsources, there is so much knowledge loss that occurs when certain functions are outsourced that the amount of revenue lost far exceeds the amount of savings.

[buckworks]

My favorite CEO has a saying that applies here: "Don't be cheap in the wrong places!"