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If you're a startup, don't use an agency. Trust me. Hire someone internally to manage your PPC campaigns, it will be cheaper and they will do a better job. You

by il 16y ago

If you're a startup, don't use an agency. Trust me. Hire someone internally to manage your PPC campaigns, it will be cheaper and they will do a better job. You know your customers better than anyone. You know what their interests and demographics are, what they're searching for, where they go online. Use this information to inform your campaigns, and hire someone to worry about the technical details like optimization and quality score. The entire agency model is geared towards brand advertisers who spend obscene amounts of money on "branding" without tracking performance or looking at results. The problem here is a profound misalignment of incentives. An agency gets paid a percent of spend, so it's in their best interest to spend as much of your money as possible testing without thinking about conversions or results.

shakyj 16y ago
I agree that some agencies are like that but if you look for a good agency that will sit down with you and find all that information out and analyze the results you will get further. Also don't go for an agency that gets payed a percent of spend or per thousand clicks. You will usually get more conversions off an agency that charges a flat management fee per day.
callmeed 16y ago
So, how would you go about finding someone internally to do this? (where, what experience?) Could someone part-time do it?
daveambrose 16y ago
This is the OP here. Let me say first that this is all great advice. I used to work at an advertising agency, and I don't necessarily agree with your statement of a "profound misalignment of incentives" considering that my colleagues at the agency and others under the parent company umbrella did look for performance in their campaigns so it did have a positive result on what they were looking for. Some more color into our situation: - we've successfully put in place the core metrics for PPC and set up conversion tracking - we're utilizing the Analytics API to track custom goals, in our case, things like email signups or purchases - we've tested different landing pages, choosing one that had 300x better conversion rate but I feel there's still more room to improve - we've run Facebook Ads, AdWords and Display on Google's Content Network and search has been the most effective at getting what we need (emails) From my POV: I've done it myself and can continue to teach myself, but there are too many moving parts (from what I can see) for me to successfully lower our CPA and manage on a day to day basis while running the company effectively and efficiently

by il 16y ago

shakyj 16y ago

I agree that some agencies are like that but if you look for a good agency that will sit down with you and find all that information out and analyze the results you will get further. Also don't go for an agency that gets payed a percent of spend or per thousand clicks. You will usually get more conversions off an agency that charges a flat management fee per day.

callmeed 16y ago

So, how would you go about finding someone internally to do this? (where, what experience?) Could someone part-time do it?

daveambrose 16y ago

This is the OP here. Let me say first that this is all great advice. I used to work at an advertising agency, and I don't necessarily agree with your statement of a "profound misalignment of incentives" considering that my colleagues at the agency and others under the parent company umbrella did look for performance in their campaigns so it did have a positive result on what they were looking for. Some more color into our situation: - we've successfully put in place the core metrics for PPC and set up conversion tracking - we're utilizing the Analytics API to track custom goals, in our case, things like email signups or purchases - we've tested different landing pages, choosing one that had 300x better conversion rate but I feel there's still more room to improve - we've run Facebook Ads, AdWords and Display on Google's Content Network and search has been the most effective at getting what we need (emails) From my POV: I've done it myself and can continue to teach myself, but there are too many moving parts (from what I can see) for me to successfully lower our CPA and manage on a day to day basis while running the company effectively and efficiently