Do You Need a Pay Per Click Advertising Agency? [Free Checklist]

Pay per click advertising works, but it can be difficult to navigate (nevermind optimize). Especially if you're not trained in Google or AdWords best practices. 

Most small business marketers who come to us for help have no training or experience with sponsored advertising before jumping (or being thrown) into the deep end. Usually, they're the designated "marketing person" who was handed the role out of necessity, and they're now wearing a tower of multicolored hats. 

Small businesses often can't afford to hire an expert PPC marketer - and that's where PPC agencies come in! They're an affordable alternative to a full-time PPC employee, and if they know what they're doing, you'll see their costs paid back and then some. 

One of the benefits of working with a PPC ad agency is they're specifically trained to avoid the following extremely common pitfalls. They understand how relevancy, competition, and search volume are the biggest factors in PPC keyword choice. They know exactly what "relevant" means in regards to your specific company. They know how to build effective campaigns and optimize ad groups to pay the lowest possible CPC while still producing great results.

In short, they're experts. By definition, they know things about pay per click, search engines, and sponsored advertising that a regular person doesn't. If you think you're paying too much for clicks, an experienced PPC agency will be able to tell you where you're going wrong.

Here are 8 signs you could use the help of a PPC advertising agency.

8 Signs You Need a Pay Per Click Advertising Agency

1.  Your cost per click is high, and your ROI is dismal

Are you paying out the nose for clicks and seeing little to no return? There are a few reasons you could be seeing low ROI for high bids:

• Your ads are irrelevant
• Your chosen keywords are low quality
• Your ads are poorly worded
• You need to refine your ad groups
• You haven't picked negative keywords
• You're using automatic bidding
• Your quality score is low
• You're paying a lot to rank for irrelevant keywords

 Your cost per click (CPC) should be offset by your ROI - that's why State Farm and Amazon are happy to invest millions per year into sponsored advertising. They're obviously getting that money back (and more). An experienced pay per click agency can get you those results.

2.  You're seeing competitors succeed

Obviously, if your competitors are finding success through AdWords, growing their business, and taking on new customers, you have a problem. If you're not finding similar success through PPC, you have a PPC management problem.

There's nothing more frustrating than seeing competitors take customers that you could have easily won. You can put a stop to it now, if you start managing your PPC properly. If you can't figure out how to optimize your campaigns, look into hiring an ad agency to do it for you.

3.  You don't have time for PPC

If you don't have time to manage your PPC account, you need help. You have a lot of responsbilities, and PPC will often take the backseat to more urgent matters. However, that doesn't mean you should be neglecting your PPC.

If you're setting-and-forgetting your campaigns while you attend to other responsibilities, you could easily be losing thousands of dollars to bad keywords. To get the most out of your PPC (and make sure you're not pissing money away), you should be checking and optimizing your campaigns every day. 

If that's not feasible for you, that's why PPC advertising agencies exist. It might be time to call in the cavalry.

4.  You have no idea what you're doing

If AdWords is causing you nothing but frustration and confusion, you need to take a different approach. If you just can't get PPC for whatever reason, don't tear your hair out or flip the table. It's not worth the stress. Hand the job off to someone who knows what they're doing, and be at peace, young grasshoper.

5.  Your account is a mess

Does your AdWords account look like the digital equivalent of your kid's messy bedroom?

This is where dreams go to die.

Although you won't find new species of slime molds growing under your disorganized keyword list, a sloppy account makes for low quality PPC. Low quality PPC leads to issues with CPC, ROI, click through rate, and quality score. 

6.  Your click through rate is depressing

A low click through rate (CTR) sounds like a blessing in disguise - after all, the fewer clicks, the less you're paying for PPC, right? 

Not so much. One metric that Google uses to calculate the value of PPC ads is CTR. A low CTR generally means the ad is irrelevant or otherwise doesn't meet searchers' expectations. A low quality ad gets a low quality score and is shoved to the bottom of the ad pile. You'll start to see fewer impressions, even fewer clicks, and you'll be paying more for the clicks you do get.

7.  You already have too much responsibility

There's only so much work that one person can do in one day, especially if they have other responsibilities. PPC may fall outside of your job description (but your boss needs you to do it anyway because you're the only one with some tech savvy), you may be wearing way too many hats already, or you may not be able to put in the extra work due to taking care of family.

That doesn't mean PPC has to fall by the wayside - that's how competitors get a leg up on you. Teaming up with a qualified PPC ad agency will get the results you need while allowing you to take care of things that are more important to you.

8.  You're only doing the bare minimum and playing it safe

PPC requires some experimentation and creativity. Getting great results from PPC requires more than checking in to adjust your bids every now and then. You need to be taking advantage of new features when Google releases them, A/B testing everything, using trial and error to test new keywords, and thinking outside of the box to stay one step ahead of your competitors.

Playing it safe and bidding low every time won't grow your business. An experienced PPC marketer can balance experimentation and your budget to bring ROI while helping your business grow. If you're not confident in your ability to produce results while doing a little gambling, you can always ask your friendly neighborhood PPC ad agency about their services.

Your Free Checklist

If you're already running PPC campaigns, fill out this PPC Checklist to find out where you're falling short. From there, you can use that knowledge to optimize your ads, ad groups, and campaigns.

If you're still not seeing results, or you're simply struggling to understand how PPC works, feel free to contact us for assistance.