In this video we talk about why you would outsource PPC and how to outsource PPC. There are a lot of folks who have tried Pay Per Click on their own campaigns, or as a small web design firm or ad agency. And, they've run a few Pay Per Click campaigns for clients and have probably hit a wall, either resource constrained or lack of expertise. It's a natural extension of your business to think that you could find a partner that you outsource PPC to. You would still maintain the client relationship and grow your business a little faster. We know with any sort of outsourcing, there could be some pitfalls, so we address this for our viewers today.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Hello and welcome to our video on outsourcing PPC. I'm Chad Hill and I have Adam Setzer here as well.

Good afternoon to you Chad. Today we're talking about why to outsource PPC or how to outsource PPC. There are a lot of folks who have tried Pay Per Click, maybe on their own campaigns, or maybe there are small web design firm or ad agency, and they've run a few Pay Per Click campaigns for clients. And they're probably hitting a wall, either resource constrained or lack of expertise.

So it's a natural extension of your business to think, maybe I could find a partner where I could outsource PPC to. Still maintain the client relationship and grow my business a little faster. We know with any sort of outsourcing, there could be some pitfalls, so let's address this for our viewers today. And introduce this topic, what to think about when you want to outsource PPC.

Right. So when you're thinking about outsourcing and how to outsource your PPC, the one thing is that it has a few different factors you want to be thinking about. One of them is, does your team have the specific skills required to manage paid search programs?

So again, at Semify what we can do is we're able to put a team dedicated to Pay Per Click on each campaign. And that team is all Google AdWord certified, which for those of you who have tried the test, is not in any way easy. It takes quite a bit of time to actually study for that and pass it. And then you have to continue to be re certified every year. So developing the skills, the specific knowledge for Pay Per Click is one of the reasons you want to outsource PPC.

Right. And I think there's some misunderstandings about this because Google has presented this idea, oh it's pretty easy to fire up your campaign, just give us a credit card, some keywords, and away we go. But most people who have tried it know that that's a quick way to burn $500 or $1,000, and really not get any business. The reality is that there are very specialized skills to being a Pay Per Click analyst.

And as you said Chad, the certification test is difficult. I'm glad that exists because it's a great way to objectively demonstrate that an analyst has these specific skills and be who you want to outsource to.

Right. And so the next thing, of course, is if you have a high powered team, you need a way to manage them. You need both the systems and the business systems, and the technical systems, to manage that team.

So again, one of the things the Semify's done is we've invested a lot of time and effort in that. So from a system standpoint, we're able to pull in data every day from your AdWords campaign. So that we can present it not only for our analysts to see status and for the team to be able to manage the status of different accounts, but also so we can consolidate that into a monthly report or a daily report for our customer.

And then on the business system side of things, one of the really innovative things that we've been able to do is create a scoring methodology where every day an analyst has literally a grade from zero to 100 of how close they are to hitting the client's goals for not only spending their budget, but also for their converging goal. Because we all know that people want to spend their money or at the same time make sure that the money that's being spent is achieving their business goals of driving leads or phone calls to their business. So those management systems and those technical systems are another thing to think about when you're looking at ppc outsourcing.

Right, right. When you get any business process to scale, performance metrics become critical for maintaining quality control. And when you're looking at outsourcing ppc whether it's Pay Per Click or anything else, there's often this feeling of, oh, I won't be in control because I've outsourced it. And again, that's where performance metrics really address that.

So you want to see those systems, the technology systems, as well as the performance metric systems ingrained in any partner you select. Because then you know even though I've outsourced this function I'd still be very in touch with how it's performing and that will be closely aligned with what my customer needs, which is what you want.

And then the final part of I think looking at when you're talking about outsource PPC, is to think about does my team that I'm using actually do they have a standard process they're following to make sure that yes, that I'm hiring my performance goals. But then I'm also making sure that I'm utilizing all the features that AdWords or another Pay Per Click service can offer.

And so one of things again we've done is we've been able to create a standardized template that every month we know what things to go look for. For example, I'm I using the right match type for keywords? Have I tested my ad copy this month? I'm I using the right Ad extensions?

So those questions you want to be thinking about and asking every month. When you have one or two accounts, it's not that hard to remember do that. But when you actually have 50 or 100 accounts, you need a system in a process to make sure that every account you have, even if it's doing OK is getting a certain amount of attention and review to make sure that it's actually performing at its maximum.

At scale, things really start to fall apart. And that's what a lot of people see. So, it sounds like-- hire a team that is well certified, that has great systems, both technology as well as workflow systems. And then examine what their goal setting and quality control processes are to make sure you can stay in touch with those goals. And you know there's good internal management to keep on top of whether it's five accounts are 500. That's really what you should look for.