Companies in nearly any industry can drive growth by taking advantage of tools like Google Ads and pay-per-click, or PPC, digital marketing to get their name out there and convert consumers. Because you don’t pay unless the target customer actually clicks on your ad, there is a high level of control over growing your customer base and therefore your business.
There are important questions to ask your PPC agency before jumping in bed with them. In this article, we will go over 8 questions you should be asking in your search for an agency partner.
In today’s digital, online-based world, It’s more important than ever to get to work with a PPC agency that can give you that 200% return on investment PPC is famous for. Last year, companies were spending $110 billion on search advertising, and for good reason: 93% of Americans currently use web searches to find local businesses, and, it’s predicted that in 2022, 54% of total ad expenditures will be held online.
When entrusting the power of PPC to an outsourced team, some research will help you get off on the right foot. No matter your size or industry, the way you decide which PPC agency is worth your hard-earned investment is by asking questions, ensuring there’s experts at the wheel. At Full Moon, it’s important to us that you find the PPC agency that can help you succeed, which is why we decided to compile this handy list of eight questions to ask advertising agencies.
Questions to Ask Your PPC Agency
1. What success has your agency had with clients like me in size/industry?
When asking questions of a prospective ad agency, a major goal is gauging the agency’s breadth and depth of relevant experience. Some agencies have more experience in one industry or one sector over another, for example, or experience with a certain size business or niche.
If an ad agency has seen success managing accounts similar to your own case, it’s a great sign that the ad agency is a good match.
Whether your company is a local small business, or you are an industry-leading, international player, your case might be familiar to Full Moon, where we successfully manage accounts large and small, and in such different industries as auto, mining, health, fashion, and ecommerce, to name a few.
We entrench ourselves in the brand values and company mission, and seek to understand what drives each client and the target audience. See for yourself the variety of happy clients.
2. Who exactly is in charge of my account?
Think about your long-term goals.
Do you want to be able to use PPC throughout the life of your business, whether that means growing or shrinking internal marketing departments? If so, you might need a PPC agency that is used to facilitating PPC dashboards that are under ownership of the client.
Conversely, depending on where you are in your journey, a PPC agency with exclusive tools or access to high-level partnerships and analytics might be the best way to run your campaigns.
Among all the questions to ask your PPC agency, this question to ask your ad agency during a consultation is also a great way to be introduced to the actual people on the team who will be taking over important aspects of the process.
It’s super important to ask an ad agency for details about the experience level of those experts, whether they have decades of experience like us at FMDM, or if they are more junior.
Full Moon Digital is not only backed by unique, powerful partnerships, but we also smoothly integrate into any marketing department with ease. Whether you already have a Google Ads account, or you’re just starting out, our fully transparent, flexible PPC experts can get in there and work their magic starting from just about anywhere, getting to know you and your team intimately.
3. How do you track data and conversions?
A main reason to hire a PPC agency is the ability to get a new perspective on the conversion journey of your prospective customers. Any questions to ask an ad agency should include this query specifically, in order to gain insight on the data that strategists are using to build solutions that turn clicks into revenue.
Ultimately, tracking conversions and optimizing campaigns to raise the conversion rate will make your company the most money. We cannot emphasis how important these questions are to ask your PPC agency
Our experts run extensive audits that include in-depth analysis of the best ways to generate leads, retarget previous site visitors, and convert clicks, whether that is tracking purchases, shopping carts, mail list forms, social media follows, and more.
Beyond PPC, our SEO ninjas audit landing pages and user experiences in order to catch any mistakes that are hindering your audience from following that last CTA.
4. How do you craft bidding strategies for clients?
What’s more important than driving traffic to your site, is driving meaningful traffic to your site. This means that the best ad strategists don’t just bid on campaigns that are popular, but they craft campaigns to target only the segments of the audience that will interact with your business in the way you want.
If you ask this question to your new ad agency, you will get a great idea of the expertise, knowledge, and process that your PPC experts have that they can apply to generate real leads and measurable revenue for your business.
To give you an idea of how the experts at FMDM design campaigns that generate conversions, we asked Full Moon Digital’s head PPC expert, Jose Luis, for insight. To discover the most effective bidding strategies, Jose says, “Becoming familiar with a client’s brand and understanding their overarching goals is critical in creating an effective strategy. The best bidding strategy draws from the client’s mission, values, and individual strengths to generate campaigns that return the leads the client needs.
We think about this from multiple angles, considering each individual ad platform’s parameters, and building a consistent perspective as a whole.”
Hopefully, the questions so far is already giving some ideas on the right questions to be asking your PPC agency during the interview process.
More Questions to Ask your PPC Agency to Make Sure Your Hiring The Best
5. How long does it take to get started?
The onboarding process for PPC agencies can make or break a partnership, making this question to ask ad agencies a major one. “Getting started” for a PPC agency is the time period where the agency gets to know your brand, sets up a PPC dashboard, and creates and begins to run campaigns.
This process includes initial strategy, brand understanding, and audience targeting, so the time it takes to start up can be an indicator of the expertise of your prospective ad agencies.
Because PPC is known for its immediate value, you can tell an agency is a well-oiled machine if they can launch campaigns within 14 days.
With the data-driven, top-of-the-industry ad experts at Full Moon, you can expect that even within just one week, PPC ads can be up and running that are not only hyper-targeted to your intended audience, but are rich in brand voice and vibing with your brand’s values and goals.
6. When and how do you communicate results?
The manner and consistency with which an agency reports your PPC results is integral to understanding the work your PPC agency does each week, month, quarter, and year, as well as a way to see the ROI and ROAS you want. Asking this question to an ad agency is also an opportunity to decide whether the agency is able to deliver high-level results, if they can report them in a timely manner, and whether they are up-front, honest, and transparent about the process and results.
A flexible, attentive agency like Full Moon prides itself on reporting not just the data that you want, but the data that you need. We don’t hold anything back, giving you the good, the bad, and the ugly, on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis.
From weekly calls, to monthly and quarterly recaps, you will see the data in an easy-to-understand form, and get the opportunity to talk one-on-one with our strategy experts nearly anytime.
7. How do you become comfortable with my brand, values, and mission?
If a new possible ad agency has experience in your niche, chances are they are already somewhat comfortable with the industry standards you adhere to. However, each brand is different, and even the most experienced PPC agency needs to be able to take on the voice and reputation of your brand in a unique, defined way.
Asking this question to an ad agency will show you how important your brand’s unique qualities are to your PPC agency.
Full Moon Digital’s clients learn immediately how much the FMDM team invests into getting to know you and your team. From the consultation period, to that first team call, we do independent research, in-depth competitor analysis, and targeted audience analysis. And, we don’t shy away from getting to know you, the brand’s history, and what is valuable to your team.
Then, we continually check in and tweak, ensuring that before each new campaign, you know what’s going on, and you have control over your image.
8. How does your agency define a successful account?
When this is one of the questions to ask an advertising agency, it’s a great opportunity to match up what your company defines as success with the agency’s.
Whether it’s arriving on page 1 of Google, driving traffic, generating leads, or raising your conversion rates or revenue, or performing well on social media, a truly good PPC ad agency will have a working knowledge of multiple avenues of success. This means that they can adjust to your goals, as well as deliver on that giant return on investment that is the #1 goal.
Full Moon Digital measures success in different ways for each client, because each client is different. However, we consistently bring real results in the following metrics, which have contributed to incredible success and growth in our clients: increases in revenue, conversions, return on ad spend (ROAS,) and conversion rate, and decreased cost of acquisition and cost per click.
Let’s Take Your PPC Campaigns To The Next Level
After you come up with a list of possible PPC ad agencies and think about your ideal ad budget, commitment-free consultations are the perfect setting to put these questions to ask ad agencies to use.
The overall lesson you need to bring with you when consulting with PPC agencies is that a great ad agency is flexible, passionate, and honest.
From a communication style that matches your own and access to high-level data, to a dedication to your brand and experience in your niche, there’s tons of information you can get from an agency before investing your hard-earned time and money.
Full Moon will use everything in our arsenal, from classic and emerging PPC strategies and platforms, to pushing the envelope on SEO, content marketing, and social media ads, to the abilities of our masterful experts, to build a marketing plan that’s completely unique to your brand and its singular needs.
With insightful, timely reporting, constant optimization, and open, transparent communication, you’ll never be in the dark about your PPC campaigns- in fact, you’ll probably get tired of hearing us say good things about them!
Find out more about the answers to these amazing questions to ask an advertising agency by hopping on the phone with a member of the FMDM team today.
