Common mistakes in hiring a PPC Manager

So, you have reached to that point when you want to hire a PPC Manager. Whether you are a small or a large business with small or large budget, hiring a PPC Manager to run your PPC campaign seems like a good idea. Even though, this action can cost much, remember, it's an investment. However, if your PPC Manager is not doing such a good job, it can prove to be a bad investment. Here, we will present you some characteristics of a bad PPC Manager.

1. Failure to communicate.
First of all, PPC manager must inform you of every detail that conce
s you and your campaign. Phrases such as “Trust me” or “I know what I'm doing” are not good answers for the decisions they make. It's your money after all they are dealing with. Bad PPC managers don't involve you in the decision making process. You have the right to know what is going on. And if you are not well informed about the whole business behind PPC management, they must educate you, not just the basics, but every single detail about, for example, the campaign structure or employed strategy or any other thing you are interested in. They should send you any kind of reports you want or need. Depending on what suits you the best, you can arrange weekly reports as well as monthly reports on details regarding completed work or account statistics. You should have the access to your AdWords account or if you don't have one, they should provide you one.

2. Careful with the budget!
As mentioned above, it is your money they are dealing with. So, PPC managers need to be careful with the bidding and budget strategy they implement. Their goal is to reduce your cost-per-lead and increase the number of leads you receive, not other way around! They should set up a specific budget for every campaign and specific maximum cost on ad group as well as on keyword level. If your campaign is limited by budget, and if PPC managers are hitting the daily budget, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should increase your budget in order not to miss opportunities. You can also decrease the keyword bids, gain additional traffic but at a cheaper cost. The budget decisions should be based on previous experience and historical data you have collected. So, a PPC manager must stay tuned at all times!

3. Mistakes from the start.
First step a PPC manager takes is also crucial. Checking if “Settings” tab on Google AdWords needs to be re-structured or fixed, is considered a good first strategy. In “Settings” tab you can find everything about targeting. For example, where will your PPC ads appear geographically, at what time, where should they be displayed and so on. By choosing the correct option in “Settings” tab can improve your campaign profitability dramatically. On the other hand, if PPC manager fails to do that, it can have a great impact on your Quality Score, thus costing you a lot of money.

4. Not keeping up with latest developments.
By constantly performing tests and keeping up-to-date is vital in PPC management. A PPC manager should at very least perform a A/B test of your ad copy. By implementing this strategy, PPC manager can determine which ad was most effective and why and with this information he can start using that very same technique in other ad groups as well. It is quite normal to ask your PPC manager what kind of testing will he be implementing and why. Also, PPC managers should be open minded. If a good opportunity arises in some second tier search engines, they should consider it, not just stick to most popular ones (such as Google or Bing). They should never miss out on good and new opportunities. By constant updating on new developments in the paid search market they can make sure they don't. Unless PPC manager has some representatives in, for example, Google to keep him informed to the latest updates, he should at least be reading SEO and PPC related blogs to keep himself informed.