Whether you own a local business or are in charge of a company with international prospects, there is no more important time than the present to invest in online marketing strategies.
With over 4 billion users of the Internet in 2019, the World Wide Web is the perfect venue to communicate with past, present, and future customers. While two popular strategies for online marketing are search engine optimisation and the pay-per-click method, how you use these two strategies and how you shape your company’s unique approach into the digital world can make or break your business.
When it comes to essential key components to managing a successful online marketing campaign, the most important is Adwords management, especially for those who run pay-per-click campaigns.
In this article we cover the topic of Adwords management, its importance, how to choose an Adwords management company, and for those on the more adventurous side, how to start your own Adwords management company!
Importance of Adwords Management
When trying to bump your website listing in search results or creating more ways for internet users to access your business, pay-per-click or PPC is one of the methods you can use to increase your website’s traffic. When you go on Google, you may often notice on the top of the search results are a row of links to different pictured products, or a few website listings that are noted as sponsored advertisements.
The pay-per-click method places your website listing at the top of a search engine’s search results regardless of its actual organic traffic. The only catch is that for every click a search engine user makes on those links, the hosting business must pay a certain amount.
The amount per click is dependent on what keywords are being used. Since prices also depend on the popularity of the keyword and how often the keyword is clicked, one keyword can have a largely different cost compared to another keyword. Furthermore, depending on the market, competing business will bid on the same keyword. In some cases, valuable keywords can have a price tag of up to $1,000 a click!
With juggling keywords, your website listing, and determining the costs, the results require just as much time and effort as other organic online marketing strategies such as search engine optimisation.
This is where an Adwords management company can step in for you. While the basic role of an Adwords management company is to essentially tailor the PPC strategy of your business, the primary goal is to help your business grow in general.
In the next section, we go over specific roles that an Adwords management company should be able to cover for your business.
Roles of an Adwords Management Company
Analysing Your Niche
Specific keywords bring in specific customers—rather than playing a guessing game as to which keywords work best for bringing in traffic to your business’s website, the Adwords management company does the work for you by discovering and targeting the keywords that bring in more more leads for your business.
Scoping the Competition
Keywords are important components to directing traffic to your website link and ultimately directing customers to your business’s products and services. One of the most time-consuming parts of managing an effective PPC strategy is keeping an eye out for the competition and tracking what competing businesses are doing for their PPC strategies.
With an Adwords management company, the company will watch your competitors for you while you focus on your business’s other pressing needs.
Widening the Network
Besides Google Ads, there are a multitude of venues that incorporate PPC strategies such as Bing Ads or affiliate networks. However, if you are a small business owner or are just starting, it can be intimidating if not seemingly impossible to manage PPC strategies for more than two search engines at a time.
Investing in an Adwords management company is a wise idea in that the Adwords management company can help you with managing a larger scale online marketing campaign without the hassle and the tied hands.
Finding the Perfect Adwords Management Company
After reading more about what an Adwords management company can do for your business, are you interested in hiring one? If so, how do you choose the one that’s right for your business? Consider these five questions when approaching an Adwords management company:
1. Is the company certified?
Is the Adwords management company Adwords-certified or is it part of the Google Partners program? While seeing both of these qualifications shouldn’t mean an immediate sign-on with the company, they are useful in determining between amateurs and companies that have in-field knowledge of online marketing.
2. Does the company do more than skin deep strategy?
While an Adwords management company can provide helpful services to improve your business traffic and sales, beware of companies that practice skin deep strategies. Skin deep strategies are strategies that involve only improving or recording trivial metrics such as click-through-rates, cost per lead, and impressions.
Given that there are many useful tools and apps that provide ways for you to measure the metrics of your PPC strategy on your own, focus on finding companies that place more emphasis on your business’s overall revenue and profits.
3. Does the company ask the right questions?
When you first contact an Adwords management company, they should be just as engaged as you are. Are they asking questions about your budget? Your previous experience working with an Adwords management company? Do they have any questions specifically about your business goals?
4. Is there a contract involved?
In some cases, an Adwords management company will present a contract for their services. Double check the fine print of the contract—the contract will typically state how much you’re expected to pay for the PPC strategy and how long it can be binding-wise. Knowing these details is important for gauging the cost-benefit of hiring the Adwords management company as well as assessing it along with your business’s needs.
5. What are your first impressions?
Even though many business interactions today involving Adwords management companies are through the Internet, this doesn’t excuse a lack of customer service. Does the Adwords management company have seamless, smooth communication? Are they flexible? You aren’t paying for a digital tool when you hire an Adwords management company, you are paying for the insight, skills, and professionalism of experts.
How to Start an Online Advertising Agency
Maybe you are on the opposite end of the spectrum—you aren’t looking to hire but to create an Adwords management company. Perhaps you looked up SEO and PPC concepts out of curiosity and now you’re delving into starting your own online advertising business. Before you jump-start your business, here are some points to keep in mind:
How To Know Your Niche
In any market, knowing your niche makes the difference between competing with long-established agencies and having breathing room to expand your company and become the leading expert in your field. Knowing your niche not only shows you’ve done your research to potential customers, but it’s also easier for you to appeal your business and its services.
How to Get Better Certified
Consider joining Google’s Partner Program for both the certification to prove the authenticity of your business’s services and for the educational tools provided. While a Google’s Partner Program badge is the bare minimum to distinguish amateurs and non-amateurs in the Adwords management market, the Google’s Partner Program makes your business seem more trustworthy. It also provides networking opportunities and tools that only serve to make you a stronger business owner.
How To Generate Leads
Besides carefully establishing keywords and appropriate call-to-actions for advertising your business, don’t rule out networking. Network within a variety of communities—Slack groups, Facebook groups, advertising industry trade associations, and communities related to your business’s niche. Creating meaningful, long lasting connections will only strengthen your business, whether it’s bringing in more customers via referral or building tools and services with partner companies.
Create, Don’t Regenerate
Build your company with the ability to offer tools or helpful methods for PPC practices. Focus on not only bringing something new to the table when discussing partnerships but something that is new and necessary. Building partnerships through this method is good not only for reinforcing the reputation of your business but also for growing your business’s reach and helping others grow with you as well.
Conclusion
Regardless if you’re interested in buying the services of an Adwords management company or plan to start your own company, the most important factor is to keep all parts of your business in compliance with rules and regulations. Make sure to carefully review the companies you want to handle your business’ PPC strategies and if you are starting your own Adwords management company, review Google’s regulations on what not to do with your online marketing strategy such as keyword stuffing.
Reference