PPC Agencies in Lincolnshire: What to Look For and What to Avoid!

If you run a Google Ads and Bing Ads account you'll probably save yourself a fortune by hiring a PPC agency or freelancer. This might sound counter-intuitive at first; why pay someone for something you could possibly do yourself? But hear me out!

Why choose a PPC agency or freelancer?

Someone who specialises in Google Ads or a similar PPC service should be able to save you a lot of money in the long run when compared to running ads yourself. There are so many tiny settings, tips and tricks that professional PPC specialists will know like the back of their hand that will help to save you money and obtain much better results from your campaigns. 

A PPC agency or freelancer will be able to look in-depth into:

• Bidding Strategies - testing and choosing the best bidding strategy for your campaign, not just accepting whichever one Google throws your way during setup!

• Ad text - your ad text has the potential to make or break your campaign. You want to be continually testing new ad text and landing page improvements where possible to consistently optimising your campaigns.

• Keyword research - agencies and freelancers will have access to some of the best keyword research tools on the market and can use these to find new keywords, analyse your competitors and more. 

• Keep an eye out for overspending keywords and ads - your freelancer or agency will monitor the performance of your ads and keywords and pause/remove anything that underperforms. This can be critical to saving money in the short and long run. Almost every time I've had a Google Ads account come to me that has been run by someone unqualified, I've identified hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds spent on irrelevant or non-converting keywords. The eradication of this alone has made paying for management a worthwhile investment. 

Take a look at this account from a healthcare professional who was wasting money on his ads showing for searches such as "jeep showroom near me" "taxi near me" and even "local homeless shelter". 

Where to look for an agency or freelancer

There are two obvious go-to's here the first being search engines such as Google or Bing and the second being social media or in-person networking. 

You've probably already got some marketing contacts in Lincolnshire. Whether you've made these contacts at networking events, via social media or if there are local companies you've just heard of it's essential to keep these in mind, but a quick Google search is also always worth a try. 

Online Social networks such as Facebook are a great place to ask other locals for recommendations. Facebook has a unique recommendations tool just for this job. You could also ask on other social networks such as LinkedIn or Twitter. 

Always check the companies reviews

I've mentioned before that many companies use review sites such as Feefo to collect reviews from their customers. Review sites like Feefo aren't 100% reliable as with these sites, businesses have to invite people to leave a review. They aren't public for anyone to post on. Because of this, (perhaps slightly obviously), companies only invite the clients they know will leave positive reviews. Take a look at Facebook or Google reviews for better accuracy.

What should you expect to pay for local PPC management?

There are a lot of PPC professionals out there, and finding the right one for you can be hard. Larger Lincolnshire PPC agencies are likely to charge higher management fees which is understandable given the additional overheads they have. Smaller Lincolnshire PPC agencies and freelancers will have varying fees but expect to pay anything from £100 and up for the management of your account. We don't have set pricing as we quote each project we receive on an individual basis dependant upon the size of the account (number of campaigns, ads etc.) and thus the amount of work the account requires in order to be managed correctly.

What to look for

Speaking with marketing agencies can be hard. Their representatives often throw around a lot of jargon that can make them seem like they know what they're talking about, even if they don't. When speaking with your potential agency or freelancer, ensure you're on the same wavelength and that they explain to you everything you need to know in a language you can understand. 

Ask if it's possible to see their results. Most PPC specialists will be able to share with you some of the results that they have achieved for other clients. Ask about key metrics such as cost per conversion (cost per lead/sale), average CPC and conversion rates. 

Finding a fair price is another tricky task when looking for an agency or freelancer. If you're new to the marketing management world, you might not know what sort of pricing to expect. Ask around and get a few different quotes for the management of your campaign. 10% of ad spend is a common benchmark price, but if you're only looking to spend a small amount on your campaign, you might be able to pick up management for a flat rate fee of around £80 per month (give or take). Don't be fooled into thinking higher prices mean better management though. We're one of the cheapest agencies in Lincolnshire but offer comprehensive PPC management because we don't work to a high hourly rate like most marketing professionals. We were founded with the intention of helping small businesses with small budgets get onto the digital marketing ladder.

What to avoid

Sometimes you just don't know how good an agency is going to be until you try them out. A client of mine recently had a new website built by another agency, and this particular agency said they would "teach her SEO" so she could manage the SEO herself. It's red flags like this you need to avoid. Realistically, it would take months, if not years of specialist training for someone to be taught SEO properly. They may be able to teach the client how to change their meta descriptions and page titles, but what use is this when the client has never heard of indexing or robots.txt?

OTHER RED FLAGS INCLUDE:

• The agency is asking you to pay them both your management fee and your ad spend. Your ad spend should be paid directly to Google/Bing, so you know exactly where your money is going. 

• Agencies and freelancers with long-term fixed contracts. 30-day rolling contracts are much better as they offer flexibility if Google Ads or the company you've chosen don't work for you. 

• Anyone who tells you "Google Ads takes time to work". This simply isn't true. Yes, your campaign will constantly improve over time with experimentation and optimisation, but you should see at least some results from your ads within the first few weeks. 

• Anyone who doesn't mention conversion tracking as a key point in the set up of your campaign. Conversion tracking measures the number of leads, sales, calls etc. you've had from your ads, which keywords generated these conversion actions and more. Although it's possible to run a successful campaign without this, having conversion tracking makes the optimisation process much more successful. 

As with all of our blogs on finding agencies and freelancers for marketing tasks in Lincolnshire, we won't mention names on who we do and don't recommend publicly as we don't feel this is fair. However, if you're looking for PPC help, feel free to contact us, and if we can't help you directly, we'd be happy to recommend someone else who can.