Hello fellow DPers, I am thinking of starting an Adwords management business, in which I would create and manage Adwords campaigns for advertisers. Of course, there are alot of people doing this, but I have a big leg up on everyone else- I used to work at Google! In fact, I was there when Google launched the Adwords platform and had input on its development. As a coordinator in the Adwords department,I was one of the original three Adwords Optimizers- my job was to create and manage campaigns for the top-tier advertisers on Google. In addition, I've founded a couple of successful businesses of my own using adwords and have spent millions of dollars on my own Adwords campaigns with great returns. To be perfectly honest, I don't think anyone (unless they work at Google) has the experience with Google Adwords that I do. I also have a network of excellent web designers, graphic designers, web developers, seo specialists, etc that could help my clients. With that said, I am thinking of starting my own Adwords management agency. I am curious, do you think that I could leverage my experience to get clients? Would people pay a premium for my experience? Where would I find clients? How should I charge for this service? Any input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks Brad
Sure, saying you worked at Google would give you a slight advantage in a lot of cases. I would say this - I hope you're better than the "Adwords Optimizers" I've dealt with in the past. Yea, they know AdWords pretty well but didn't have an ounce of real world marketing experience. They were so click/traffic driven in their actions that I yanked all the accounts I had them set up and re-did them myself. It was serioulsy some of the worst AdWords marketing I had ever seen. PPC is a very competitive industry, whcih I'm sure you know. While your employment record may give you a little bump in the bidding process it won't help after you've won the business. You'll need to impress the hell out of your clients, and, be ready to justify your prices when people start under bidding you by 50 - 75% (they will!). Good luck! ps - get into more than just adwords - people like all their ppc management "under on roof" so to speak.
The fact that you worked on the AdWords team should be one of, if not the main selling point of your business. Larger companies would easily pay a premium for your knowledge and expertise on this. May be start finding clients by advertising on AdWords? Or find companies already using AdWords and approach them directly. Charge whatever the going rate is for current AdWords managers, plus another xx%.
Thanks for your replies and thoughtful input, please keep it coming. To answer a few questions, yes, I left Google and started my own business, which has done very well for me, using almost exclusively AdWords. GuyFromChicago, As one of the first 3 optimizers, I got some great insight- I'm not sure who's optimizing at Google these days, but i'm sure they have hordes of employees dedicated to that cause. The good thing is that they haven't really changed the system since I left, so i could basically start where I left off. Also, I have a good deal of non-quantitative (read non-adwords metrics) marketing experience, as I've been on the backend of Adwords and a top-tier advertiser on the front end. I agree that diversifying beyond adwords would be a good value ad for clients. I'm sure I could apply my experience to other platforms (I've used many of them as an advertiser). Please keep the comments coming, I'm interested to hear what people have to say.