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How to choose the right PPC agency for you

PPC (pay per click) or paid search advertising, can be a highly beneficial way to market your brand through sponsored ads. A well-managed PPC campaign will put your brand in front of the right audience whilst offering multiple other benefits such as increased conversion rates, brand awareness and advanced targeting.  

PPC requires a combination of knowledge and experience. Here, we’ve listed the things you could be looking out for when searching for an agency to work with, to make sure they’re a good fit for your brand.

Takes the time to discuss your unique goals

Is an agency promising you huge results without taking the time to understand your brand? If this is the case, we’d see this as a red flag.

We suggest discussing what you hope to achieve from your digital marketing efforts before approaching an agency. Once you know what kind of results you are hoping for long-term, then you can choose an agency who can match your goals. Ideally, your PPC agency will:

•    Have an initial chat to understand the results that really matter to your business.

•    Ask questions about your brand to make sure they’re matching their PPC process with your goals.

As well as understanding your aims, analysing the keywords that will work for you is also essential. An experienced PPC agency will know how to use insights to understand the interests, demographics and online behaviour of your target audience. These initial steps are essential if you want your PPC marketing to make a difference.

Communication style

You should be kept in the loop throughout your campaign. You can ask questions about how they will contact you regarding your campaign performance, strategy, optimisation and any recommendations. It’s always beneficial to receive straightforward updates on your account’s performance – rather than being left confused by technical terms.

Transparency is needed when it comes to working with an agency – you shouldn’t need to spend time trying to figure out unclear reports and updates. We suggest asking the following questions to ensure you’ll have a smoother process:

•    What standard reports can you provide?

•    Will we be given regular updates?

•    Who is the main point of contact for us?

Specific PPC experience

PPC is a complex area in digital marketing, so it is helpful to see proven PPC experience and try not to be sold by PPC buzzwords or promised overnight success. You might want to have a look at the case studies and previous campaigns the agency has managed.

•    Have they delivered real results for clients previously?

•    How long have they been managing PPC campaigns?

•    Do they cover a variety of PPC services?

It’s also worth considering that the person you first speak to is not always the person who ends up managing your campaign. To avoid disappointment or confusion, you should ask who will be handling your account. It can be good to have a conversation with the person or the team managing your accounts before you get started.

Digital marketing process

Does the agency have their own PPC process in place, and does it work alongside other channels? What we mean here, is there is no harm in looking for an agency who understand the impact that your SEO, social media and other channels will have on your PPC efforts. Here are some digital marketing areas that are useful to know about when it comes to paid search:

•    Keyword research – SEO and PPC keyword research are different channels but are closely related. Understanding search queries in organic and paid search will help you target the right keywords.

•    Locality – If reaching out to a local audience is your goal, you could benefit from combining your local SEO with location-targeted PPC ads.

•    User intent – People use different platforms depending on what they are hoping to find. Depending on your audience, you might benefit from using Google, Bing, Yahoo or a social media platform. Understanding user intent will help you make use of more than one search engine.

•    Landing page optimisation – When users click on your ads, they should be encouraged to complete your desired action. To increase the number of users converting, you should be delivering high-quality and relevant content on your landing page.

•    User experience – If there are site bugs and errors on your landing page, you’ll likely be paying for clicks without a return on investment (ROI). It’s essential to know how to make your site user-friendly, to avoid losing valuable customers.

Tools and technologies

A well-managed PPC campaign requires the right tools and technologies to be able to keep track of things like costs, clicks, conversions throughout. Knowing how to use the best analysis tools for a specific campaign, will enable you to work out any adjustments that you need to make along the way.

An agency with experience using various advanced PPC tools is much more likely to provide you with the best return on investment (ROI) possible. To give you an idea of what we mean, we’ve listed some of the different tools that we use here at Summon:

•    Search Ads 360

•    Google Keywords planner

•    Google trends

Understanding your budget

The great thing about PPC compared to other channels is that you can have more control over when and how you pay. It’s helpful to know what you can expect within your budget before going ahead with a campaign.

You can ask an agency for their opinion on your estimated budget – so, things like whether it’s too low, too high or if it would be better spent on another marketing channel. Honesty about budget shows a genuine knowledge of PPC plus transparency as an agency.

An agency should be able to make continuous adjustments to your campaign to offer you the best ROI possible. You might want to ask what performance tracking systems an agency have in place. Knowing how to use the right systems and tools to keep on top of your account’s performance is really important.

Get in touch

If you have any questions or would like to have a chat about how we work as a digital agency, feel free to get in touch.