Adwords consultant prices ?

bigspender

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Feb 23, 2014
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Anyone hired an Adwords consultant before?

How do they charge? Eg, CPA basis or just hourly

How much did they cost?

Cheers!



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£250 setup fee then £50/month. Savings and income mean costs were covered in about 3 months.

A lot depends on the size of your business. If your adwords spend is £10,000/month then expect to pay a lot more for a consultant.
 
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Do you advise on whether Adwords is feasible and suggested budget if a client is not already using Adwords ?



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It depends on the business, their current marketing, and most importantly their website. If you are going to focus on adwords to bring in customers the website will almost certainly needs changing. You can't just do adwords - you need to make sure the whole chain is optimised product > website > adwords > sales funnel
 
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This advice would be included in the setup fees? Or before starting ?

How much is stand alone optimization advisory? Do you deliver a report or something ?


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Sorry, I think there is some misunderstanding - I'm not an adwords consultant. That's just how much they cost when a client of mine used one.
 
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We don't tend to charge a setup fee, and charge 20% of budget month on month.

i.e if a client's Adwords spend is £1,000 per month, we charge £200 per month management fee. The aim obviously being to deliver a performance increase that represents the value of the management fee.

The only extras which crop-up every now and again are things like creating images for Adwords remarketing campaigns.

If a client has a very small Adwords spend, we do on occasion do a one-time setup service in order to get their campaign up and running.
 
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£250 setup fee then £50/month. Savings and income mean costs were covered in about 3 months.
That seems low to me. When we offered standalone PPC management it was £300/month. I think the resident expert here starts at £200/month.

We don't tend to charge a setup fee, and charge 20% of budget month on month.
Percent of budget always seems a conflict of interest to me. Perhaps a better model would be percent of sales or profit... :-)
 
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That seems low to me. When we offered standalone PPC management it was £300/month. I think the resident expert here starts at £200/month.
It was low but the client had a very niche service so looking after it was really simple. It generated an average of £3000 per month until the niche got swamped by wannabees.
 
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I am in the process of using a local guy to set up two accounts for us. £100 each.

Ongoing work is £30 p/h.

Not really in need of anyone to 'manage' it day to day so this works well for me as I can just pay for additional work as and when I feel it's needed, probably quarterly.
 
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you can look up some freelances on websites like: odesk, freelancer, or peopleperhour there are plety of choices and you will be able to find a good price too.
 
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Hi,

Like with anything in business, finding the right PPC Specialist for your growing concern is important. After all, you need to see a return for your investment.

If your budget is low, then you're going to get low value people. Hopefully someone will know what they're doing!

But investing in PPC is to ensure a return; not throwing money down the toilet. So perhaps think that if you can invest in someone a bit more high end; then you will see a better return and your money back plus profit.

Another Option
Employed PPC Specialists earn on average £25k per annum - that's just £12.50 per hour. If you have £500 to spend, you could employ someone looking for work on a self-employed basis who is experienced for a value of 1 weeks full-times' worth (38.5 hours) of Adwords joy to set this all up for you. :)
 
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Prices do fluctuate, but Elliott is right £25 to £30 an hour is about right.

We charge:

  • £195 for campaign setup
  • Around £150 a month for management and optimisation
  • £175 for 14 image banners adverts
  • £295 for Google Shopping campaigns including developing XML feeds
 
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Consulting & managing are 2 different things.

If you want managing your adword accounts then you can expect to pay anything from £100+ per month depending on the size of the campaign/s.

If you want someone to look into a market where a Google Partner (or someone else) can look into a niche then you expect to pay on a project basis. I've helped companies tap into markets which they never knew or thought existed. For the consultancy work, it is not about how much you pay someone per hour, it is about how much value can that person / consultant can bring to the table to increase your sales, market share, etc.

Part of my work helping companies is that I have access to historical data on Google which is not available publicly. With this data, we can look at various metrics in great detail on the performance of that market, CTR, CPC, trends like mobile, video advertising and much much more. (This data is not the same which you get with every Adword account).

Hope this helps and if I can be of any help, I'm just a phone call away :)

Best
Oz
 
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Hello Sirearl,

I don't need to put up any porkies of any kind and I do take offence at this implication.

I send the reports to each of my clients before any project (consulting or managing) is started. If you were to become my client, you too will get a report on your vehicle leasing/rental market.

Best
Oz
 
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An alternative to hiring a consultant is to speak to the Adwords team directly. Once you're up and running they'll schedule in a 20 min consultation and go through a load of suggestions with you, and answer any queries. I have a review every few weeks. They're really helpful, and I think it's a good idea a get to know Adwords a bit, even if you're planning on getting a consultant in.
 
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I agree with Amy, it's always a good idea to learn about PPC if you're going to pursue it as a marketing channel - even if you only ever use this knowledge to have better conversations with your PPC consultant. The first reason for most companies to employ a consultant is that they don't have enough time to manage the campaign themselves. The second reason would be to grow into new markets and areas from something that is already working well.
 
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I've used Clare Associates for something slightly different but they also do SEO. Good value and price may range from £200-£400.
 
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The first reason for most companies to employ a consultant is that they don't have enough time to manage the campaign themselves.

PPC is way too expensive, the competition etc. The crazy testing of ads drove us nuts eg: ad setup, test, tweak, test = failed advert -- ok, start again, set up new ad, test, monitor, re-test.

This was us doing/testing 2 adverts at a time, using the best one and doing the 2nd again, gave nothing but costly fees with little conversions.

Solution, we got a few text ads on targeted sites and suddenly got 35 enquiries in YP giving us business worth = £1750. Sadly, everyone's a pro copywriter when it comes to Adwords it seems, largely without the qualifications to back it up.... and with crazy management fees on top of your PPC fees, its a hiding to nothing for many businesses.

We had a client who was chucking £200 a month on Google PPC for a hospitality campaign, he used us and got 100 targeted visitors to his website, and 10 clients used his services. My view is to go out and source targeted/relevant paid ads, as the visitors will be more likely to buy than a bunch of 'check it out' punters. You don't want window shoppers, as that's what everyone else gets - you want visitors who genuinely want to be on your site, not passers by.... Passing traffic doesn't pay, never pays, or at least significantly reduces that chance of sales.
 
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Hello Sirearl,

I don't need to put up any porkies of any kind and I do take offence at this implication.

I send the reports to each of my clients before any project (consulting or managing) is started. If you were to become my client, you too will get a report on your vehicle leasing/rental market.

Best
Oz

So you have a special relationship with Google.;)
 
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I agree with Mediaguy35 - I'm not entirely sure why you'd need a consultant/management for PPC in the first place. It's easy to set up a campaign.
 
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I agree with Mediaguy35 - I'm not entirely sure why you'd need a consultant/management for PPC in the first place. It's easy to set up a campaign.

Setting up is the easy bit. Opitimising and minimising wastage, increasing CTR & conversion is all together a different ball game. That's when you will need someone who is good at Adwords.
 
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I agree with Mediaguy35 - I'm not entirely sure why you'd need a consultant/management for PPC in the first place. It's easy to set up a campaign.

Simple setups are. Tracking can get interesting.

However I find accounting and bookkeeping fairly simple, same with copy writing, I'm not too bad at mopping the floor when I need to also - however it make sense for me to focus on the core of my business and not expect to do everything.
 
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Adwords is not just about throwing a selection of keywords into the pot, paying a price per click and making loads of money

It needs well thought out keywords and adverts, sensible cost per click and weekly investigation as to how they are doing, some words will take plenty of clicks and no conversions others the other way round, At one stage we had many thousands of Keywords and Negatives plus hundreds of adds but little profit to show for it

It's very hard to find a good PPC person and you need to fully check them out by talking to their customers to get the truth

Myself I feel its like shipping your goods far better to hire a company to do it in a professional way than play around in the dark, but it's your money

Many people on this forum seem to be obsessed with getting the cheapest solution be it open source software or reading XXX for dummies. Some thing are worth paying the going rate for, and the long term view like if my business grows will the free software still integrate with all my other equipment i will need and will i be reliant on one supplier who is maybe a one man band
 
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Chris is absolutely right here, price should definitely not be your qualifier when choosing professional adwords consultants to develop and optimise your PPC campaign.

An ideal awords partner is results focussed. Despite what has been suggested in this feed, PPC advertising (if researched, targeted and deployed properly) pays for itself.

Is adwords the one solution?

Of course not. It is a tactic that needs to be placed within a grander strategy and marketing framework.

We are moving towards a world which responds more positively to inbound marketing, but adwords still has a place as a sustainable channel that consistently generates leads and additional revenue.
 
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Doesn't that disincentivise the adwords consultant from saving the client money?

The focus should always be on results.
 
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The problem for small businesses is this: many want to outsource PPC management because they feel they don't have the time or the skills to do a good job. But very few have the budget to make outsourced management viable. The average cost of PPC management is 10% of spend. If a company is only spending £1,000 per month on Adwords, that's £100 to the consultant or agency for the month. It's simply not a viable business model for them - and be wary of any agency who offers it, because what are you getting for £100 a month? How much of their time? That is an hour's worth of my time, and there's a limit to what you can get done.

This is why I'm working on an online course for small businesses - something they can buy as a 'one-off'. It won't be too time-consuming and there will be a private support forum attached for any ongoing management questions.

The difficulty I face is getting small business owners to realise that Google's own 'free' adwords tutorials will teach you the basics but not how to seriously make money with Adwords - they are too focused on CTR at the expense of conversion optimisation.
 
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If you take the average pay according to the government stats its £25000 pa

Number of working days = 220 less say 30 days holiday = 190 days

£25000 divided by 190 = £130 per day or £16 .5 per hour

Maybe your a lot better than average or a lot less or just bullshitting your hourly wage to impress others, but that £100 should give you about 4-5 hours work each month at least

Assuming the first 4 months are the hardest and after that its just inspecting the results and modifying then that would seem quite a lot of work on Adwords
 
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If you take the average pay according to the government stats its £25000 pa

Number of working days = 220 less say 30 days holiday = 190 days

£25000 divided by 190 = £130 per day or £16 .5 per hour

Maybe your a lot better than average or a lot less or just ********ting your hourly wage to impress others, but that £100 should give you about 4-5 hours work each month at least
So you pay yourself £16.50 per hour, do you...? :rolleyes:
 
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If you take the average pay according to the government stats its £25000 pa

Number of working days = 220 less say 30 days holiday = 190 days

£25000 divided by 190 = £130 per day or £16 .5 per hour

Maybe your a lot better than average or a lot less or just ********ting your hourly wage to impress others, but that £100 should give you about 4-5 hours work each month at least

Assuming the first 4 months are the hardest and after that its just inspecting the results and modifying then that would seem quite a lot of work on Adwords

Not trying to impress anybody, I've worked with several members of this forum who will vouch for my expertise. The fact is that like most things in life, you get what you pay for. e.g. I can find you a web designer who charges £16 an hour, and one who charges £1000 per hour. The results will *probably* be very different.
 
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Actually i started on £0.50 per week as a boy sailor in the royal navy in 1962

If he works for 4 hours at £100 thats still £200 per day which is not bad going £38,000 pa
But .50p a week was probably your worth then (no insult intended). You're forgetting the 10,000 hours he put in to become an expert...
As a businessman I've never been one for hourly rates. I'd rather pay someone on performance. If someone makes me a million, I'd be happy to pay him/her 100k even if it only took them 5 mins.
 
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I agree with Mediaguy35 - I'm not entirely sure why you'd need a consultant/management for PPC in the first place. It's easy to set up a campaign.

It certainly is easy to set up a campaign. Google makes sure it is.

But that doesn't mean it's easy to do well. Or that doing it yourself will result in more profit than paying a professional.

I have a case study on my website where I took a 7 year old account that had been managed by a very well-known PPC agency, and increased profits by 643% in 7 months.

It like to see a D-I-Y newbie do that.

Steve
 
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I agree with Steve. Google currently advises, if you choose to go it alone and do it their way:

- Mobile ads displaying as default regardless of whether your site is mobile-optimised
- Whole of UK targeted as default. Not just people IN the UK, people who may be in Timbucktoo viewing pages ABOUT the UK.
- Ad groups containing up to 20 keywords
- Broad match keywords created as default
- Search & Display Network as the "best opportunity to reach the most customers"
- Ads showing on their search partners as default
- Negative keywords hidden away
- No website optimisation

Then you might want to let them tinker with your bidding strategy or your keyword list. Go ahead, see what happens, but don't come running to us when you're broke & begging on the streets...
 
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10'000 hours to become an expert - is 1'920 hours per year for 5 years. Unless being an expert carries a degree/diploma in a Marketing subject, I wouldn't touch em with a ten foot cattle prod. There's got to be more than some lines of bs on a website.

Saying that, its possible, but rare trust will be there without something to back it up. You can say anything you want on a webpage, the lies I've seen over the years, especially the ones who claim clients such as Fujitsu, BBC, Radio4 etc, well I rang up those companies once and the testimonials were fake. So much for the guys expertise. The 'about us' pages are funny too, row of smiling staff to make it look like a huge company, loads did that.

Everyone knows the SEO/PPC industry is unregulated, there's no authority to check who's who, why are they an expert and what gives them the right to call themselves that. The massage industry is the same, as are Estate Agents, anyone can set themselves up as one, with no assurance for the poor punter at the end of the day. You bugger up someone's back because you don't know what you're doing, you'll get sued - you can cripple someone for life, just as a business can be crippled if you pick the wrong PPC firm/person.
 
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10'000 hours to become an expert - is 1'920 hours per year for 5 years.

2,000 hours a year.

Leaving aside whether the 10,000 rule is true, does someone really need 10,000 hours experience in order to be better than a business owner with zero hours experience?

For example, if I were being asked to make a table, would I - someone with a few hours woodwork classes a few decades ago - expect to be as good as someone with 100 hours woodworking experience?

So the only question is whether the PPC person is good enough to justify his/her fee. And that comes down to:

Value of PPC expert = Increase in profit + value of time saved (from the business owner not doing the work) - fee

Steve
 
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