What to Expect From a Great AdWords Review
by Casey Walrath • May 25, 2016
Anyone who’s spent time managing a Google AdWords account knows that sometimes you need to step back and evaluate your performance.
Whether you do it yourself or enlist the help of a third-party pay-per-click agency, the goal is to look for ways to cut inefficiencies and improve ROI.
For this post I want to offer some advice for why an AdWords review can be helpful and turn the lens back on agencies like Disruptive Advertising to help explain what we do and how we can help companies like yours.
Google AdWords is Just Simple Enough to Spend a Lot of Money
Google AdWords is powerful and customizable, yet simple enough for a beginner to use with just a little effort. In fact, it even walks new users through the process of creating their first campaigns, ads and keywords.
That simplicity is exactly what makes AdWords dangerous!
Don’t get me wrong: AdWords is a great product for marketers and advertisers in almost any industry. Just remember that Google makes money whenever someone clicks an ad, whether they buy your product or not.
So, their incentive is to make setting up an account nice and easy—but setting it up for your company’s long-term profitability is up to you.
I’ve seen too many AdWords accounts with thousands of dollars in wasted spend, with confusing campaign structures and with no testing strategies—all of which leads to lots of money for Google and none for the advertiser.
And that’s where a good PPC agency can be a huge help.
PPC agencies like Disruptive Advertising set out to optimize and manage AdWords accounts using best practices and rigorous testing strategies, allowing business owners to focus on what they do best: running their businesses!
We start all our potential clients with an AdWords review (aka a PPC audit), where we look at exactly what’s working in the account and what’s not. From there, we can develop a strategy tailored for our clients’ businesses.
An AdWords Review Should be More than a Sales Pitch
Most PPC agencies offer an AdWords review to prospective clients as part of the sales process. Disruptive Advertising is no different—AdWords audits are a great way for showing what we can provide in a concrete way.
However, it’s important to remember that a good AdWords review is more than a sales tactic.
What does that mean? It means that an audit should give you a good idea of where your account can be improved even if you don’t use that particular agency’s services.
Any agency should be able to show you, live and directly in the AdWords account, which keywords are hurting you, which ads are most and least effective, how your impression share looks and more.
Then, they should be able to explain what those metrics mean to your business without confusing jargon.
It also means a good AdWords review will include a strategy for how to improve your account’s performance.
Obviously, a PPC agency wants to handle your AdWords campaign management. But, if they can’t explain their specific plan for your business up-front, then you’re not getting the service you deserve.
In addition, transparency is critical. Every PPC agency will tell you “We can do this better!” but some agencies hide client access to AdWords accounts.
To me, that’s asking for trust where none has been earned. You’re the client—you should be able to verify everything yourself whenever you want!
AdWords Campaign Management Is Worth It—If It’s Done Right
The reality is, Google AdWords has a ton of moving parts.
Sure, setting up a simple campaign isn’t too hard, but when you start to include ad extensions, mobile bid adjustments, specialized campaign types like gmail sponsored promotions and remarketing for search ads, ad and landing page testing and a hundred other things, effectively managing an AdWords account takes time and energy.
For many businesses, it makes a lot of sense to delegate that. Even a dedicated marketing director probably wants to spend more time looking at high-level strategies and cross-channel promotions rather than being stuck in the weeds managing AdWords.
Some companies hire people to manage AdWords in-house, but that can be expensive and often inefficient given the fluctuating workload that AdWords management entails.
Agencies target the sweet spot of providing the time and expertise to manage an account effectively at a fraction of the cost.
And, I can tell you from personal experience working with my clients—it can make a difference!
A good client-agency relationship where both sides understand what the other’s goals are can become the backbone of a business.
The trick is that when a PPC agency is reviewing your AdWords account, they’re also providing an opportunity for you to evaluate them.
You can learn how responsive they are, how simply they can explain advanced ideas, and how specific they can be creating plans for your business.
PPC agency pricing often depends on the scope of the service and the size of your company. However, remember, price can be deceptive. There will always be an agency willing to offer more for less, but that doesn’t tell you anything about the work’s quality.
More important questions to answer before you look at price include:
1. How much attention will my account actually get?
Cheaper agencies often sacrifice attention for account volume. If you’re one of fifty clients for a single account manager, chances are you’re not getting what you’re paying for.
2. How transparent and accessible will the service be?
If you can’t get ahold of your account manager or expect a reasonable email response time, what’s the point of working with an agency?
3. How do they measure success and progress?
Success is never guaranteed in PPC, but a good agency will provide specific, regular milestones and helped make sure everything is tracked—from leads to purchases to phone calls.
Finally, a good AdWords agency will focus on your profit and ROI and not just traditional PPC metrics.
Get Your Free AdWords Review
If you clicked this post chances are you’re looking for a review or audit of your AdWords account. This post should give you, as a business owner or marketer, a chance to put us to the test by our own words!
Click Here to get your AdWords review today and we’ll show you exactly where you can improve your Google AdWords account. We’ll show you how to get more conversions and a better ROI today.
