I've ran PPC for my current employer for the past couple of years (a web based startup selling classified ads). I've been pretty proficient at increasing spend and making money hand over fist (for my boss). While I'm glad I have the experience, I think it's time to branch off and manage PPC accounts for individual clients. I know I can create optimized and successful campaigns for them but not quite sure how I can turn it into a scalable business for myself. I'm really unsure of how to structure the billing so that it's profitable and worth my time. For instance, do I charge an hourly fee, or should I take a percentage of the monthly spend, or maybe even charge a success fee or a commission. Does anyone have any advice on how they have built a profitable business managing PPC for clients? My time is obviously limited so I can't foresee taking an hourly rate to be the road to success, but I'm open to suggestions.
I have seen an upfront fee or commitment fee so that you can weed on non-serious prospect and then a portion of their monthly spend. So your client will only like to spend more if they are earning more.
Instead of working for others, why not branch out and work for yourself. You're good at it. Sell other peoples products or services and make more then you would by doing campaigns for others.
I'd found myself in a similar situation in the past. I hate charging an hourly - it just makes me feel like I'm working a 9-5, and trapped. I'd rather something that rewards me for doing the job better / faster. There are 2 other models: pay per performance - e.g. 15% of spend. Clickmarketing.com does that... on a large scale. (You gotta be spending $10k/month +, and they take 15% of the revenue increase. Great concept, tough to negotiate. Min. + % of spend. While percentage of spend isn't a perfect reward for the amount of work / results you get, it's a good approximation. If you do your' tracking setup correctly, you could show a profitable campaign to your' clients, and then they are willing to increase the spend up to a level of equilibrium. In this way, % of spend is roughly accurate. I started a PPC Division for a large SEO company around 6 months ago, and I've been using a static setup cost for the first month, with a % of spend every month afterwards. It's worked out pretty well. FYI, industry standard is ~15%, which comes from the ad agency world - where the agency takes 15%. Good luck. @PPC-COACH - I wish I could have taken that route myself. Somehow, I tried working with a super affiliate 2 years ago, and I failed miserably. I've never tried seriously since, even though I know people who have done it pretty well, even work on some of their campaigns. I'm dipping my foot in now...