Liberty League International, The Dangers Of Hiring A Search Marketing Firm

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Liberty League International, The Dangers Of Hiring A Search Marketing Firm

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.

www.libertyleagueinternational.info

www.libertyleagueconference.com

www.beyondfreedom.com
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