Recruiting A Top Google AdWords Consultant for Your Business
Finding a Google AdWords consultant is not difficult. Finding a good one to suit your business and budget is a bit more time consuming – but well worth the investment.
Embracing the power of Google is vital to ensuring your business continues to prosper. Not doing so means your competition are most likely snapping up good leads that your firm could have been in with a chance of. Furthermore, what better way to build you sales pipeline than bringing people to your website that are actively searching for your products.
Why consider an AdWords consultant?
The first reason is time. The reality is that you will not be able to invest sufficient time on Google AdWords campaigns to make them a success. There are always other urgent matters to attend to in small businesses. From customer relationships to financial management, there will always be something that gets in the way of creating – and running – Google AdWords.
The second reason is skills. AdWords do not just create themselves, otherwise it would be easy, right? Knowing the ins and outs of Google’s complex algorithm takes time in itself. Fine-tuning keywords, budget levels, ad copy and keywords all chew up more time. This is not to say it is not worthwhile, but that it is not realistic to expect to learn, and do it, in-house.
A good AdWords management company worth their salt will be constantly skilling up on these things, ensuring they know every tiny detail that can make all the difference to their clients’ campaigns. This time and expertise are difficult to achieve in-house.
How to bring some help in
So, you have made the decision to invest in AdWords consulting services. The next step is to figure out which one you want to work with.
Searching for AdWords consultants on Google will naturally throw up tens of thousands of results. Showing in search results is their job after all. The best advice is to search for some in your country or state, and whittle the list down to a few candidates.
Draw up some criteria and a ballpark budget. Send these and an overview of your company to your chosen candidates. Ask for some information about them and how they work, and what their formula is for delivering success to their clients.
When you write your brief, explain what you are looking to achieve. Hint – do not just say ‘more leads’. Be precise. Are you looking for early stage leads to nurture into a sale over weeks or months? Or are you trying to trigger a quick buying decision with a year end offer or seasonal promotion? The more information you can give the agencies about this kind of thing, the better they will be placed to advise on their approach to your campaigns.
Making your selection
The next steps and the final decision are up to you. Speak with each of the shortlisted consultants and press the flesh with them. Grill them about how much time they would spend on your account each week, and what they would expect to deliver with your budget. If their answers are vague or evasive – beware.
You will need to prioritize what it is you are looking for. Do you want a more junior person to spend longer on your account? Or a more senior person with years of experience but comes at a higher price? Considering these factors before you make your final decision will help avoid any regrets once you get started.
Managing your campaigns
Even though you have recruited an agency, it is not a case of being hands-off and letting the leads fly in. For the program to be effective you will want to at least have a monthly call with your AdWords consultant. During this session you should review the keyword stats, clicks and leads that have come in.
Having your finger on the pulse of the whole campaign will put you in the best position to follow up with your leads. It will also ensure you optimize your budget on the right keywords and landing pages.
Another important aspect of managing your campaigns is to get your resources in place. Sales, presales and marketing teams need to be briefed on what is happening. Sales will need to follow-up leads, presales may need to give demos, and marketing will need to segment the leads accordingly in order to nurture them. You will have spent good money on each Google lead, so make sure you have the right processes in place to capitalize on them.
