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Article Title: The Dangers Of Hiring A Search Marketing Firm
Author: Jerry Work
Word Count: 669
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If you hire a search agency to manage a pay-per-click campaign
(Google AdWords, Yahoo Paid Search, etc.), you may have a
serious problem. Here are two things to watch out for:
1. Your search agency may also be representing your
competitors, and artificially inflating click through rates
(and increasing its own profit) at your expense.
2. Your account may be managed by a young, inexperienced person
using a very formulaic approach.
The first situation results from what we (Work Media) consider
unethical behavior, which is representing multiple clients who
are direct competitors. How can a search agency honestly
represent a company and manage its pay-per-click marketing
campaign as aggressively and efficiently as possible when it
also represents competitors?
We recently had discussions with a law firm in California
paying unusually high click-through rates in its pay-per-click
campaign. This firm and one other firm seemed to be in a
bidding war for the top spot. The third spot for the same
search phrase was much more reasonably priced. As it turns out,
the two firms competing for the top spot, and running up
exhorbitant rates, were represented by the same search
marketing firm. This search marketing company could have easily
had the two law firms ranked one and two by bidding slightly
above the third highest bid. But instead, the company chose to
bid the two firms against one another, artificially raising the
click-through prices, and making a much larger fee for itself.
We were very bothered by this highly unethicial behavior. The
lesson here is make sure your search marketing firm does not
also represent your competition.
The second situation above often results from hiring a very
large agency. People skilled in managing pay-per-click
marketing campaigns are hard to find. So large firms often hire
as many young people as they can with the idea of training them
to manage the campaigns. But this usually involves plugging
them into a highly formulaic system that will result in
unoriginal ad copy and inefficient bid management. You may be
better off hiring a small firm with just a few people on its
staff. You may get much more personal (and professional)
attention paid to your account this way.
If you have the time, you should perform a search for every
keyword phrase your search firm is promoting for you, and check
out the ad. Make sure the ad appears, foremost, and then that
the copy is strong. And make sure there are no mistakes. We
have dealt with a third party firm that actually had the wrong
web address in the ads. The page that the ad linked to was
valid, but the copy of the ad contained a web address that was
incorrect - very poor for your branding efforts. If nothing
else, you want people to know your correct web address. If you
have landing pages created for your search ads (which we highly
recommend) make sure clicking on the ads takes you to the right
pages. If your cost per click is too high to justify clicking
your own ads, you should at least do a spot check.
You should discuss a target return on ad spend (ROAS) with your
search firm, and make sure they provide you with adequate
reporting so you will know how the firm is doing. For example,
a typical target ROAS may be 5 - 7x, although this may vary
widely from industry to industry. ROAS is the multiple of
revenue generated to money spent on the ads. In other words, if
you spend $10,000 on ads that generated $50,000 in revenue, then
your RAOS is 5 ($50,000 divided by $10,000).
You just need to make sure you know your firm very well. Make
sure they're not representing your competition. Ask the firm
exactly who will be managing your campaign. If you don't get a
good feeling about the firm, don't hire it. You're much better
off either doing it yourself or looking for a different firm.
About The Author: Jerry Work is a partner in Work Media,
http://workmedia.
firm. Work Media specializes in implementing aggressive
Internet marketing plans for its clients. Visit our site to
download our free Internet marketing guide.
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http://www.isnare.
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For more free-reprint articles by Jerry Work please visit:
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