I was thinking.. Is it better to hire a PPC manager who can take care of your money and enhance conversions rather than your own hit / trial ? I am complete newbie.. so what would you all suggest - Should I hire a PPC manager.. if so, from where and what do they charge ?
You normally hire someone to do something you have little or no knowledge of (a doctor for example) or because you don't want to do the work (house cleaning). In all cases, you expect and hope the person will help you. In the case of a PPC manager, you hope that they will do a better job than you can in bringing more qualified visitors at a lower cost, hopefully low enough that it will cover his fee. If you don't want to learn PPC or don't have the time or want to start a campaign off on the right foot and minimize the learning costs of doing it yourself, hire a manager. As for how much they charge, many different fee structures. Most will charge a percentage of your spend, usually around 10-20% and there will be a minimum. Myself, I charge based on number of landing pages for small campaigns. As to from where, it doesn't matter as it's something that can be done from anywhere. As long as the manager is competent and knows their stuff. You won't know until you hire them and even then, you might be satisfied but might do better with someone else. Ask questions. Get my Adwords FAQ which could help ask them and the proper answers. Keep in mind that you are hiring knowledge and knowledge costs.
By all means hire a manager, but also take the time to understand how things work so you can comprehend the things he is doing and why. other wise you are throwing your money into a pit and hoping something comes back out because another guy says it should....!
Hey ask if they are Adwords certified, don't mean a lot, but they do need to pass a 120 question written exam every 18 months and must have run a 300 bucks a month spend under direct review by google...for a period of at least 3 months. Other wise depend on references...Run if the guarantee you that they can produce a specific amount of leads... Rough estimates are ok... but I can do this and I can do that is usually bull shit.
It's always a bad idea to get advise such as this one, in a forum where the people who respond have their own 5 dimes in where they direct your actions to. Advice from "PPC specialists" on a subject such as "Should I hire a specialist", is pretty much like asking a stereo sales person about getting a new stereo or not. Anyways. My advice - NO, NEVER take someone to do it for you. IF you know nothing about PPC - get them to do the basics, but get the account to yourself after its ready for management (As many don't let you get the account and its pretty much like marrying them). A 3rd party will never be devoted like yourself under your own campaigns. (Most of them will not open adwords on the weekends, while this is usually the busiest.. letting you spend without proper caring - I have seen a $3000 per weekend campaigns go on AutoPilot just bcz a "PPC Manager" decided he doesnt work on the weekends). Done it, seen it, in over 4 years - doesnt work in the long term.. But again - that's how I see it..
Wog is right. But if you do decide to hire someone, you are under no obligation to hire someone from this forum. You can, as he suggests, let them set it up, do the basics and take it from there yourself. If that's your long term intention. It's true as well that a third party may not be as devoted as you. And nobody but you knows your business better than you. A good manager knows this and will work with you to understand your business. Bottom line, they have an expertise which you lack. You simply need to find the right person, one who is devoted to PPC and learns from you as you learn from them. Work together so that you both profit from the experience.
Let me adjust my response: They way I see, from my experience, there are exactly 2 occasions for all of us marketers when we need to get PPC going and consider hiring someone. Say in both, you know nothing about the basics. 1 - You own a company, and have people multitasking for you while you are the business supervisor. 2 - You may own a company (or just active as an affiliate marketer) - and you pretty much do everything yourself. For 1 - Get a PPC individual to do the PPC management for you - but always monitor on a constant basis. For 2 - Get someone to do the basics. let him spend a few hundreds and check the results while in the mean time, you study whats going on and how things work (google adwords is NOT easy.. not easy. to be honest). If you are satisfied - Keep going carefully, if not - take everything on your own. As Lucid wrote - a professional is a professional, so don't get discouraged by what I wrote before. but examine what happens during the process. ** And as for the charge - It is pretty much always a % from the cost with a minimum flat fee. (Ongoing percentage).
Totally agree, keep an eye on what's going on. Ask questions on "why did you do this that way" and that sort of thing. Although most clients I have, especially if they have been clients for a while, it's "do what you think is best" and I'm the one asking most of the questions. Note that I don't think you can learn PPC just by looking at what someone else does and certainly without knowing the why.
quote: just by looking at what someone else does and certainly without knowing the why Amen: A wise man once said "The man who knows how will always have a job, but the man who knows why will be his boss. hee... hee.
Its not just about certification. Just ask for referrals ...That's is the only way to find good one. Don't Just go blindly be seeing a certification.
I specialize in PPC marketing, I sell everything from $10.00 stuffed animals to HVAC pieces of equipment costing in excess of $6,000.00. I will send you my portfolio of my improvement and results. In fact I just started a campaign for a client selling World Cup soccer tickets and had the first conversion in 4 days.....