What is pay-per-click advertising?

A PPC agency is a digital marketing company that manages Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. A good PPC agency often has years of experience managing PPC campaigns across platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Amazon, etc.

Considering your business goal and assessing various factors, a PPC formulates a pay per click promotion strategy, prepares ad copy, and creates engaging visuals to help you achieve your advertising goals.

How to judge a pay-per-click proposal

Here are some of the best tips for selecting the top pay per click service provider for your business:

1. Expertise

Every penny counts, and businesses cannot waste money on ad campaigns that generate little to no return on investment. That’s why you should ensure their expertise level first.

It would help if you asked your ad agency the following questions:

• How many years of experience do they have in managing PPC campaigns?
• What are the industries they have served for?
• What platforms do they have experience in?
• Who are their PPC head executives, and what experience do they have?
• Do they have case studies and testimonials to prove their worth?
• Do they use AB testing to run PPC ads?
• Are they data-driven for paid search and display ads?
• What channels do they use? For example, Facebook advertising, Bing ads, Google Ads, Google Shopping, etc.
• Can they help with landing page design?
• Are they ADA compliant?
• Does the agency have experience working in your industry?

Answering these questions will help you choose the finest PPC agency. The last question is crucial because PPC service providers with experience in relevant industries know the little things that can significantly impact a brand’s sales.

You may also want to know if the agency specialises 100% in paid media or is a generalist and offers services like local SEO, web development, inbound marketing, and social media marketing.

2. Location

Location matters less for the mechanics of a campaign and more for the judgement behind it. Whoever runs your account needs to know which suburbs convert, how your competitors bid through the day and which search terms mean something different in Australia than they do overseas. Ask whoever you speak to which Australian markets they have run campaigns in, and what they learned from them.

Suppose you feel that any local PPC agency doesn’t have the experience working in your niche industry or under your desired platform. In that case, you could consider opting for a remote agency. You’ll want to look for things like the agency can respond to your questions immediately and communicate their processes.

3. Case studies

A case study speaks a lot about the agency and its abilities and will allow you to examine what they have achieved and how they did it. Check out the platforms used and the tactics applied to get those results?

Checking an agency’s case studies will help you to access the performance of the digital marketing company. You can easily find the case studies listed on the company website.

Take your time to read the case studies that match your industry and goals. For instance, if you want to improve your conversion rate, you can read their PPC case studies that showcase conversion improvements and return on ad spend (ROAS).

4. Client testimonials

You can cross-reference the testimonials with the case studies to ensure whether the company achieved what the client desired. Check out review platforms such as Clutch, G2, Upcity, Google, Facebook, Yelp and others to learn about the agency.

Client testimonials are an excellent advocate of the company, things like:

• How do they treat their customers?
• How does the company perform?
• How happy and satisfied are their customers?
• How did they help a business grow?
• What improvements did they make to a business’s sales funnel?

5. Pricing

There are always two numbers in pay-per-click. The first is the ad spend, which goes straight to Google. The second pays for the work on the account: campaign build, tracking, search term management and reporting. Ask for them to be stated separately, and ask what happens to the fee if your spend goes up or down. A figure that moves without explanation is worth questioning before you sign, not after.

6. Transparency

Transparency equals trust. A PPC company that is transparent and honest always follows the Google ad policies. You can ask the below questions to your shortlisted PPC service provider to vet their transparency:

• How do you create a PPC strategy?
• How do you select KPIs?
• What ad platforms will you use?
• How do you perform against Google ads benchmarks?
• What KPIs will you measure the campaign’s success?
• How often do you share the report?
• What will be the process of communication?
• Will I have a dashboard to access the campaign metrics?
• What tools do you use to share reports and check performance?

When you hunt to choose the right PPC advertising agency, you should first identify your goals. Sit with your team, fix your goal, and then have meetings with the agencies to know how they can help you achieve your advertising targets.

Where to go when you’re ready to run campaigns

Once the mechanics make sense and you know which questions to ask, the next step is seeing how a managed account is actually built and reported. You can walk through that on Warren Digital’s Google Ads and PPC management service in Sydney.