Finding the Right Pay Per Click Advertising Company for Your Business

PPC for doctors on Google Maps Austin

12 Questions to Help Find a Pay Per Click Advertising Company for Your Business

PPC for doctors on Google Maps Austin

When searching for a pay per click company in a city like Austin, the number of options can be mind boggling. A local Google Search for PPC agency will take you far past the tenth page of listings. So how does a business find a reputable company to manage a pay per click campaign? Answering these 12 questions will help save you time and money, as well as ensure your online marketing success. 

pay per click management fees

1. What Does the Pay Per Click Agency Charge?

PPC Management Fees is first on the list because return on investment is generally the most important factor for most businesses. It’s often true that you get what you pay for, but some PPC agencies have fees that can be astronomical. I’ve heard of companies charging more that 50% of ad spend!  This seems very excessive, no matter what the advertising budget. Exceptions would be for very small budgets in the few hundred dollar range.

When choosing a pay per click advertising agency, it’s important to know where your money is going. If it’s a smaller company with a solid plan for managing your pay per click campaign(s), then lower management fees are a good thing.

If it’s a larger agency with multiple locations in different states, costs may be inflated. They may be charging you for their name recognition, and more concerned with their own growth.

Treat hiring a pay per click advertiser company as you would someone doing home renovations.

Find out exactly what your total budget is. Then find the best PPC agency within that budget. Don’t adjust the budget unless it makes perfect sense financially. If you do, make the agency show you simply and clearly why it’s absolutely necessary.

And most importantly, make sure you know exactly what your fees are going towards. Read any agreements and make sure you understand them. You don’t want to be paying to refurnish the agency’s office.

2. Is There a Minimum Monthly Spend Requirement?

Monthly budget requirements are something that should be clearly listed on any PPC management company’s website along with fee structure, but rarely is. The account size requirements refer to the monthly ad budget, and are often times nonnegotiable. This means if you want to spend $1,000 per month on your pay per click advertising campaign, and the agency has a $1,500 minimum, they won’t work with you.

This is a factor that is extremely relevant, and a question that you should ask immediately. If a pay per click advertising company can’t answer this question (or any question about fees) in the first few minutes of the conversation, walk away. Hiding this information from potential clients is a tactic of less reputable PPC companies, similar to a car salesman who refuses to tell you the price. Every business wants their customers to purchase based on value and not just cost. But the fact is, sometimes the product is simply not affordable. 

Digital marketing can be an extremely lucrative business. Many online advertising agencies start out small, but rapid growth fogs their vision. They get distracted with expansion and begin to care less about the smaller accounts that got them where they are.

Border West prides ourselves on always helping businesses of any size. Sure, spending $100 per month on Google Ads probably isn’t going to do much. But we’ll never turn away a business with a strong desire and a plan to grow. Moving companies, insulation contractors, and Hardie Siding installers need an experienced digital marketing company as much as anyone.

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We can help!

We know there’s like a gazillion websites out there that claim to have all the answers for making your website “show up first on Google”

Maybe you just have a few questions to see what are the best options for your company

Maybe you have absolutely no idea where to start

Call Border West at (512) 516-9867, or click the button and we can discuss it through email

We’ll answer any questions and see if maybe we can help. If we can’t, we’ll try to steer you in the right direction.

No pressure, no contracts, no over-inflated promises. Just honest answers.

3. Is It a Local Pay Per Click Advertising Company?

Finding a local PPC company is extremely important to some of our clients, while others couldn’t care less. This should be something you should take into consideration when choosing who will manage your digital marketing. Sometimes this can relate to the fees and what they’re spending that revenue. Many large marketing agencies have sales floors filled with people that do nothing but cold sales calls. Once they get a bite, the potential client is whisked through a confusing whirlwind. 

Now, just because a PPC company is local, doesn’t mean that they are reputable. Austin is a huge producer of pay per click advertising companies. Many of these larger corporations have their headquarters here. They still employ “boiler room” style sales tactics focused only on aggressively increasing their own sales.

I’ve personally worked at these places and I can assure you, the client’s interests are rarely as important as the company’s. If you hear a bell ring in the background on a phone call, along with people cheering, someone just landed a client. As soon as you give them that yes, that bell will ring for you too.

Saying that all large agencies are bad is not where we’re going with this. But often, the level of service goes down the larger a business becomes. And it can be important to many business owners to have a personal relationship with their marketing company.

One of our clients, PSP Co. wouldn’t have hired us if they couldn’t have met us first. Hiring a local digital marketing agency  was extremely important to them. They wanted to sit and discuss their business goals with us, which we’ve done many times since. Personally, we prefer this type of relationship too, but it’s not always possible.

Austin Skyline Best Pay Per Click Advertising

4. How Transparent is the PPC Management Agency?

I often overuse the term “transparency” when speaking with potential clients, but with good intention. The actual definition means something that is clear or see-through. In this sense of the word, it’s more about not hiding anything.

How transparent a PPC agency is with their stats often speaks volumes about the company themselves. They should, at the very least, offer detailed reports once per month. Really, they should be willing to provide pretty much any information about your account whenever you ask.

Since we started Border West, we’ve heard some ridiculous excuses used by other PPC agencies for not being transparent. One company stated that his Google Ad Manager account was connected to all his clients. He couldn’t tell this particular customer his monthly budget because they were all bunched together. Another PPC company simply said that he never agreed to provide information on where the client’s money was going. Both of these clients have since moved on to Border West for all their digital marketing and seem very happy with their choice.

Another tactic to watch for is how easy is the information to understand. It’s easy for a PPC professional to flood your inbox with pages of information that only they can comprehend. Google explains some different types of Google Ad reports. A good digital marketing agency should offer easy to read charts with relevant information highlighted. They should also be more than happy to further explain any discrepancies or difficult information. After all, it’s your money.

5. What Are the Terms and Length of the Contract?

Many pay per click advertising companies have term requirements for them to do business with a client. These requirements can go from as little as three months, to multiple years, although more than a year is uncommon. This is included in the contract that is signed before they’ll begin a PPC campaign. 

When starting a new project, it’s very important to give the agency enough time to create a successful campaign. Paying a PPC management company for only one month and expecting amazing results will often lead to disappointment. Generally, we ask that our clients give us at least three months to see the true potential of our digital marketing efforts. Although, we ask this, Border West never requires any term commitments. 

One thing to be cautions of is long term contracts that only benefit the PPC agency. This is not uncommon and is usually buried deep in the contract somewhere. It can also be legally binding, resulting in a lawsuit that could require you to pay for services you no longer want. If your company is spending a million per year on Google Ads, a two year contract makes sense. If a pay per click advertising agency requires a two year contract for your single truck moving company, find a better one.

6. Who Will Be Your Point of Contact Within the PPC Agency?

For some clients, knowing the person they’ll be speaking to with questions or concerns is a top priority. For others, it is irrelevant. They don’t have any intention of being even remotely involved in their ad campaigns and are never going to call anyways.

For many of our clients at Border West, having a point of contact that you know is what separates us from other internet marketing in Austin. We answer our phones during night and weekend hours, which is often the only time some clients are available.

Also, being able to call and speak to the same person all the time can be very comforting. As head of accounts, I’m generally the point of contact for all of our clients. I completely understand everything involved in their digital marketing campaigns, and am able to offer real solutions, often immediately. This is because I was involved with them from the first time they spoke to Border West.

A pay per click advertising agency’s customer service, after they’ve received your payment, is the true definition of their worth. Whenever possible, find out who you’ll be speaking to with issues before choosing a PPC management company. This could be the difference between fast friendly answers or wasted time and frustration every time you call.

7. Who Will Manage the PPC Account from Your Side?

While this may not seem important to you, from the standpoint of the PPC manager, it is very relevant. Often times an owner or manager will initiate the conversation and set up the account with the agency. Afterwards, the owner or manager may never speak to the agency again and the point of contact becomes a secretary or someone similar. 

This can create issues for several reasons. One, the person communicating with the agency needs to be knowledgeable about the campaigns. We’ve had many situations where we’re discussing accounts with employees of the client and they have no clue what we’re talking about. They then try to convey this information with the person in charge, and it doesn’t get communicated correctly.

Another issue with this is making sure the person speaking with the PPC manager has the ability to make decisions. Often, issues are discovered that are time sensitive. Waiting on a back and forth causes delays that hurt performance. 

Anyone who your company intends to be involved in any aspect of your digital marketing campaign should be involved in the majority of conversations with your account manager. This will ensure they know the goals and expectations. A successful digital marketing campaign is made up of of many moving parts. Ensuring that all sides are on the same page will offer your company the most success.

8. How Big is the Pay Per Click Advertising Company?

I’ve mentioned the importance of the size of the agency several times. That’s because this factor is extremely important in choosing a PPC account manager to represent your company. In any search of pay per click Austin, several of the first names that pop up are huge companies. While not always bad, many are much more focused on their own growth than that of their clients.

The size of a digital marketing agency is also relevant to the size of your businesses. If you have a small, local business, it may be in your best interest to find a small, local pay per click company. If your business is larger, you may need a dedicated marketing team to manage your account.

Whatever your reasoning, always look at fees and budget requirements in comparison to the size of the PPC agency. Our company, Border West, has very reasonable management fees, while still producing best in class results. We do this by keeping our overhead low and our rent cheap. No putting greens, free beer taps, or rec rooms like many larger online marketing companies in Austin.

9. Do You Want to Provide Input on the Ads and Targeting?

This is another area that could be extremely important, or absolutely irrelevant depending on your company. How involved do you want to be with the pay per click campaign? And if you do want to be influential, will the PPC agency allow it?

Having been on the campaign creation side, customer involvement can sometimes be counterproductive. When we started Border West, we truly wanted to differentiate ourselves. We wanted to avoid the negative aspects that are common with digital marketing agencies we’d worked for in Austin. As a PPC account manager, I appreciate the involvement of clients and I think it creates a better digital marketing campaign when they share ideas. 

Whatever level of involvement you wish to have, be sure to ask if it’s possible up front. Many marketing companies will allow very little, if any, input from their clients. This becomes more true the larger the agency. If this is something that may be important to you, be sure to ask about it before you get involved with a PPC manager that that doesn’t allow it. 

10. What Other Services Do They Offer Besides Pay Per Click?

Digital marketing companies that offer multiple services can be extremely beneficial to your business by solving countless other issues that may occur. Often times, clients will approach a PPC agency with their idea of exactly what their company needs. Maybe they saw a Facebook ad that they liked, a pop up on an app, or a mass email from a reputation management company. Perhaps they just want to run Instagram ads because a friend found great success with it.

Hiring a online advertiser with versatility can be extremely important for multiple reasons. A complete digital marketing company that knows how to advertise on Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp (you get the picture) can show you which where your advertising budget will be best spent. They can also steer you away from areas that would be less effective.

Also, hiring a digital marketer that can shift time and budget towards areas like SEO or website updates correctly can greatly increase customers, online exposure, and profits. You may not want to incorporate Social Media Management right away. Being able to include it at a later date with a company you already trust is a great benefit.

Lastly, does the digital marketing company provide Google Local Services management for their clients? Google Local Services is an extremely powerful PPC advertising format created recently and expanding very rapidly. We are one of the few pay per click advertising companies that manage Google Local Services accounts as well, often incorporating them directly with our clients’ other Google Ad campaigns. If you’d like more information, reach out and we’ll check your eligibility.

11. Will the PPC Agency Create Website Landing Pages if Necessary?

This question goes along with other services offered by pay per click advertising agencies, but it’s importance alone is much higher. The ability of an agency to create or modify landing pages on your website is a huge factor in any pay per click campaign. At the very least, they should show an interest in who is in charge of your landing pages before offering a business proposal. If you have a web developer that can (and will) make necessary changes to pages on your website, that’s terrific. If not, hiring a digital marketing company that can work on your landing pages for you is crucial.

The importance of landing pages is difficult to explain, although WikiPedia offers a thorough explanation. There are so many factors that quality landing pages influence;

  • Google Quality Score 
  • How high ads show up on searches
  • Cost of clicks
  • The amount of time people spend on a website after clicking
  • How many website visitors convert to customers
  • How many visitors return to the website

Creating, and spending money, on PPC ads, only to send potential customers to an ineffective web page is wasteful. Alternatively, having amazing landing pages can get great results with a much smaller budget.

12. How Soon Do You Want to See Results?

Once again, the size of the pay per click company comes into play. This can be tricky because there’s no right answer that works across the board. A large digital marketing company could have the staff to get a content heavy online advertising campaign up and running in a week. But they might be too booked up to even start on your project for several weeks. 

At Border West, how soon we can get started on a new campaign depends on current workload. Because we are an independent digital marketing company, we only answer to ourselves and our customers. There have been several occasions where we were able to shuffle other projects around and get a priority PPC campaign started in a couple of days.

The most important aspect to consider is your personal expectations. If you feel that the start time is important, this needs to be discussed in the intro call. Even if it’s not something that you deem very relevant, it’s still necessary to find out the estimated time to start your campaign. You’ll find that a good line of communication is going to go a long way towards a successful marketing campaign.