Software for managing PPC

[DanH]

Hi,

After years of using external agencies to run our PPC with reasonable results, we wonder whether the money spent on the agency could be better spent on hiring someone in-house. The money we spend on the service aspect could easily employ someone part-time but dedicated solely to that job.

I am guessing that an agency will use software to manage their PPC accounts unless they log in to Google Adwords on a one by one basis. Does anyone have any experience of running PPC in-house and do you use any software e.g. bid manangement etc to help you?

Thanks

Dan

 

[StephenSumner]

Hi Dan

There are quite a few software platforms on the market, many priced on your Adspend.

I think if you asked a few PPC people you will get a 50/50 split between those that use 3rd party tools and those who prefer to live in spreadsheets and do things that way.

Agencies will run their clients accounts via what is called an MCC account which negates the need to login and out of each account each time and there is a tool provided by Google called Adwords Editor that allows a lot of the heavy lifting, particularly when building out a campaign or large account structure as you can simply import stuff from CSV and Excel files.

I've tried with a few of the tools with mixed results if I'm honest, I hope that helps.

Cheers

Stephen

 

[DanH]

Thanks Stephen, really useful! In comparing the cost of the agency's service cost vs a salary I have to factor in software and training. Is MCC simply an add-on to Adwords or is there an application process/cost involved?

 

[StephenSumner]

Hi Dan

Anyone can set-up and MCC account I believe, there isn't any benefit to it unless you have multiple Adwords account you want to manage. I have a few clients that have their own MCC accounts and then I connect into theirs. MCC account is also good if you want to split out accounts by region or country.

 

[DanH]

Thanks Stephen!

 

[ukperson1]

I've got 5 Google Certifications and my personal view is that it's best to have someone in-house if you can keep them busy enough and if the economics of it make sense (depends on what you pay to digital agencies, etc).

 

[webgeek]

The funny thing about finding someone to 'do' PPC is that you need some PPC skills to be able to identify the one group of people who know how to set up campaigns, ad groups and ads, and the other smaller group of people who know how to do this profitably.

Wordstream is great software for keeping you on task with PPC, regularly finding keywords that don't convert, ad groups needing more variations, etc, etc - all with weekly reminders on workflow, making the tasks as quick and painless as possible.

No amount of software is going to get you to create compelling ads with high CTR, or which align well with your targeted landing pages (you do create landing pages around one, two or three keywords right?), for maximum conversion rates.

Landing page creation is just as important as PPC ad creation.

A skilled practitioner will be able to add hundreds of negative keywords to keep you from bidding on traffic that probably will never convert.

A skilled practitioner will be able to add day-part, time-part, geographical and demographic segmentation so that again, people who are most likely to buy are the ones seeing your ads.

A skilled practitioner will be able to use remarketing/retargeting to reinforce views and get those follow-up sales on 2nd/3rd/4th visits.

If you're not a skilled practitioner in these tasks, you'll have a hard time interviewing someone and knowing if the person, or agency staff, have what it takes to do the job.

My best recommendation is to find someone you trust/believe to be skilled and experienced, whether as captive staff, consultant or agency, and put them to work. If they deliver profitability, great. If they don't, then you've got the wrong person for the job or you've got issues with things like your website or marketing 4 P's.

 

[fisicx]

I’ve worked with a number of clients who felt they were paying an agency too much.

In every case the agency focused on the keywords and advert and never once looked at the landing pages. And it’s the landing pages that are the key to success. Get these wrong and you will just lose money. There is no software you can use to fix this. It’s a manual process that just needs lots of care and attention.

 

[DanH]

Thanks for the responses. You are right Webgeek and as we have in-house marketing/PR and IT then everything you mention should fall into place moreso than any disconnected remote agency we've used in the past x years. We feel it is worth a try now but yes, it has to be based on effectiveness.

 

[DanH]

Thanks fisicx, it is that care and attention we think we can enhance in-house.