In this article, we will be discussing the pros and cons of PPC management, also known as paid search management services.

Over the years, I have had the pleasure to work for many agencies, see their billing cycles, run teams, and manage them effectively and efficiently to see client success.

When it comes to PPC management, a company has to ask similar questions to an interview process, such as, “Does this company meet the needs of our company with what we need?”.

Below are some more questions invaluable to know and or ask a PPC management service company.

Does the company spend most of the time managing the PPC work that is the most effective?

This is a fine balance between busy work, and PPC implementation and what I mean by that is one can dive into data analysis and spend a ton of time doing that, creating fancy reports, but if they are the same people expected to fulfill then do they have enough time with my deadlines also to achieve these results?

This is where larger agencies that have large teams can assist, but they have to work together to achieve the deadlines, and if one or more is not working as they should, or less knowledgeable, the ball can be dropped. If there is no team cohesion, they can’t help you effectively manage your PPC campaigns in many ways. Sure, their reports might be fancy, but you shouldn’t care so much about reports; instead, seeing successful execution and results in your PPC campaigns’ performance.

In some of my prior roles, I have done both reporting and execution of PPC campaigns, but at some point, one has to balance this out as if you spend too much time in reporting, it leaves very little time for fulfillment on results. Proper documentation on what was done, tried, and the results leaves very little room for what a company does this month to manage my PPC campaigns.

Do the employees managing the campaigns know what they are doing?

Plenty of PPC specialists out there know how to implement and do actual work, but do they also know how to analyze the data and come up with a plan?

When things don’t go as expected, do they know how to figure out what went wrong and or why? This is where the amount of time a PPC specialist has been doing the job can give a little insight into their experience but in general, the longer someone does something the more experienced they are. The National Institute of Health cites, it takes 10,000 hours for someone to have true expertise. The math, 10,000 hours divided by 40 hours is 250 weeks with 52 weeks in a year that is 4.8 years! Plenty of places have specialists right under this amount of years and in general, so they need assistance from managers or senior specialists to help manage your PPC campaigns. They also should either be very seasoned within your business vertical or, more of a generalist across a vast array of business verticals. PositiveDigitalFootprint.com we have over 12 years of experience that stems from the dedicated execution of PPC management services across a wide variety of clients over the years.

Are they the most in line with the needs of our company and our PPC campaigns?

Does the specialist know what our key performance indicators are to see success in our PPC campaigns? If a company asks the specialist what your KPI’s are and they dont know off the top of the head, are they really focused on your campaign and company goals? Why are they not know what you need to be successful?

Perhaps it’s distraction, perhaps they are managing too many tasks across a broad array of clients, but it’s worth asking this question to vet a company before, during and throughout your PPC managed services. This is where selecting a company to manage your PPC campaigns should be done carefully, and a company like PositiveDigitalFootprint.com has the experience, knowledg, and time to help your company achieve the results you need to succeed online.

Is the cost they charge too high for the services rendered?

At many agencies, they run off a percentage of ad spend, which can vary from as low as 10% or below to as high as 30% of ad spend.

For the cost they charge, do the math, if they are spending 40 hours a week on just my account, or do they have to work on many, many accounts, which dilutes your actual amount of hours in translation to PPC results. This is the benefit of working with a smaller agency that caps the number of clients they work with, like PositiveDigitalFootprint.com. Not only that, we charge a flat lower fee of only 10% of ad spend, which is a budget-saving way to enable any company to get a results-oriented ppc managed services.

Does the PPC company care about its employees?

This might seem a little out of the normal, but some companies are quiet hiring in today’s era with many other tasks which can dump a bunch more work ontop of a PPC specialist which can lead to unintended consequences like employee burnout, disengagement or worse, they quit for fear of being fired or have been put on some sort of performance plan that is unobtainable since they don’t realize the amount of work they have put on a person and or care. They just say we need this done without compensation. I have been in this position and not only can it be problematic, worse, putting mental strain to the point of physical abuse, where an employee can’t verbalize to their employer the issue for fear of retaliation. Of cours, they won’t tell a client what’s going on behind the scenes but one would hope all things are well with them at their company. This is where having some rapport and small talk can help to gain insight into a PPC specialist’s company and or mind set and mental awareness.

In closing, a company, board, and directors should constantly be interested in not only the results, but who is doing what inside their managed PPC services, their time management, work life balance, to understand some of these valuable insights into the people behind the work and if they are really in it for your success.