10 PPC Management Questions To Ask When Interviewing PPC Companies

To determine if you are working with Pro’s Vs Amateurs, there are 3 primary areas of focus you should review when hiring: management process, transparency and control.

1) How do you define success?

Impressions, Clicks and Traffic do no mean success. Only if the phone rings or when cash register goe cha ching does a business success occur.

2) How do you measure success?

This question is a loaded question and the only acceptable answer is Analytics.

You can not manage what you do not measure. The most important first step in sales and marketing is to ensure your measure tracking is 100% accurate with no holes in your funnel.  Ensure the PPC Company has a process to setup, execute, and Quality Control web analytics.  Make sure the PPC measurement for success is the same measurement your business defines as success.  And the tracking that defines business is success is completely alligned with how PPC advertising is going to increase your business.

3) How does your process work? Is there a process and show me your process? 

If the response is that is our secret sauce or they dodge the question, move on.

4) How do you ensure your process is followed? How do you know if the ppc management is not being executed?

This ensures the company has a defined process with a quality control process to match.

5) Ask the PPC management company who is responsible for the management and execution of strategy?

To be successful in PPC Advertising, you must have 5 different skill sets on the team: PPC Expert, Analytics expert, Graphic Designer or someone to create new landing pages, Marketer/copywriter and a website programmer. If 1 person is wearing 5 hats, you will have a jack of all trades and an expert in none.

Make sure the PPC manager is Google Adwords Certified and Bing Accredited.

6) Ensure your PPC account will be managed under your companies credentials and that you will always have Admin login access.

Do not allow the company to setup your PPC campaign under their company logins; if you don’t, follow this advice, expect disaster later.

Ensure in the contract that PPC account will be returned to your company at the end of the contract/relationship. Companies such as Reach Local, Yodel and AT&T are known for keeping your account after you terminate services.

7) How transparent is the PPC Manager with day to day optimizations, cost reporting and keyword bidding?

If they are not 100% transparent, you should look elsewhere

8) How many years of experience and how many certifications does the company have?

9) Experts in PPC use PPC to bring their business customers.  Make the company prove they have been successful on their own company along with that of their clients.

10) What is your testing strategy?  If a company has a testing strategy and employs it, you will be in good hands.

For companies that do not do split testing, their strategy is based on autopilot or they do not have the experience to know how important testing is to the success of your ppc campaign.  Automated or auto pilot does not work for PPC management. It requires daily optimizations