We all know that in today’s modern society, for a business to be successful, a professional, digital presence is mandatory. There are a number of off-the-shelf products promising you the world for little to no effort, but if sales and marketing exposure make up any of your business objectives, there are few service offerings that can match Pay-Per-Click (PPC) for its ability to provide immediate satisfaction.
Let’s assume you already have a glossy, professionally designed website and your content management is relevant. Where do you go from here?
The answer for most companies is obvious: paid search. There are numerous benefits to adopting this initiative into your online business objectives:
- Your competitors are already using it
- You only pay for results
- You can attract new customers
- You get immediate results
- Campaigns are flexible with real-time change controls
- There’s no minimum spend
- You can target anyone, anywhere, at any time
This may all sound appealing, but does that mean that it’s right for you?
Having worked directly for Google as an intermediary for their PPC clients and as an Account Manager with an agency, I have seen the pros and cons of both self-managed and agency managed accounts, so to answer this question, I’ve written a balanced review of your options:
In-house Management
Self-managing your AdWords campaigns often appeals to the majority of us. For one, you have intimate knowledge of your business. You know your products better than anyone, you hopefully know your customers and of course, you know those pesky competitors.
Self-management also tends to invoke a sense of individuality and on the surface of it, this option appears to be free (with the exception of your click costs).
So now we know the pros of self-managing, what are the inevitable cons?
There are many potential pitfalls to ‘going it alone’, but these are, in my opinion, the main ones.
First, and perhaps foremost, is lack of knowledge. When you’re paying for each and every click, there’s a fine line between managing a successful AdWords campaign and running a disastrous, loss-making exercise: get it wrong and it could end up being detrimental to your business, not to mention costing you an awful lot of money. In the same way as “you know your business better than anyone”, the same can be said for an experienced PPC professional.
Secondly is access to support. In-house employees will in most cases, not be surrounded by PPC professionals and as a consequence, will be limited to the support they can receive. Reading blogs and watching ‘how to’ videos can be helpful, but nothing will replace being surrounded by a team of experienced PPC professionals with a shared wealth of knowledge.
Lastly is cost. PPC campaigns are not inherently self-sustaining and as such require regular interaction. Ultimately, it’s either your time that costs, because you will need to invest a large proportion of your valuable time into managing, testing and optimising your campaigns on a regular basis, or it’s the on-going financial burden of an employee’s wages. Either way, PPC campaigns are never truly free to run.
Agency Managed
Your other option is to outsource to an agency. Most agencies offer tailored digital marketing solutions, including paid search. With this approach, there’s a certain level of comfort and security through collective knowledge. A good agency will not only have extensive individual experience, they will more than likely have shared best practices and a second-to-none support mechanism to guarantee positive results, leading to that all important return on investment. They’re also usually fully certified in search, display, and analytics. The other key benefit is that agencies are also able to dedicate more time and resources to an account. The ability of an agency to always put fresh eyes on an account is also something that can’t be done with limited in-house experience.
Whilst there are management cost implications to consider, it’s a speculative cost. Agencies have to perform in order to charge fees. With optimal performance comes an on-going return on your investment. In most instances, hiring an agency is also far cheaper than increasing headcount within an organisation.
With an agency, you also get access to additional support resources. A good agency will hold strong working relationships with the large advertising platforms such as Google and Bing. This is not only vital for issue escalation, agencies often gain access to insights that are simply not shared directly with advertisers.
As with self-management, there are some cons to consider before appointing an agency. Initially this will be around communication. As the client, you will need to communicate your needs and wants so that the agency knows how to construct and manage your campaign(s). Whilst this is usually conducted through strategic consultation, it will invariably require some commitment on your part to dedicate the time and gather relevant information.
Agencies will not initially have intimate knowledge of your business model either, so inevitably there will be also a period of getting to know your business.
To establish which solution is best for you will boil down to individual choice. You will need to understand a number of factors to objectively make your decision:
- What are your marketing objectives?
- How will these objectives be met?
- What resources are required and how much time is needed?
- What is your minimum cost-per-acquisition and what are your current conversion rates?
To implement and manage successful campaign(s) requires knowledge, and lots of it. Do your research, speak to agencies, get a feel for their knowledge and experience and follow your gut instinct: if it feels right, it probably is!
By David Levett, PPC Account Manager at Search Laboratory.
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