Working with a new agency can be a daunting prospect. This is especially true for brands that have always kept their marketing in-house and have little knowledge around how the client-agency relationship works.
What is important to remember is that a successful partnership involves healthy collaboration between both parties.
If this joint effort works well, brands could see sales grow beyond what they could have achieved on their own. But a bad match can lead to wasted opportunities, stagnant revenue and a loss of trust in agencies as a whole.
This is why it’s crucial to vet any prospective agencies from your first conversation.
On those first calls, brands will often be asked questions about their background, current setup and goals. But it is also your chance to do the same with the prospective agency. Use these initial conversations to learn more about some key factors that can be decisive in choosing the right partner for your business.
In this article, I’ll detail the information you should find out about your PPC agency, and suggest some questions to ask.
Relevant Expertise and Experience
Some paid search agencies specialise in specific industries or business types, while other agencies cover all bases. Look for an agency that has a proven track record of managing businesses like yours, whether it’s:
- Ecommerce
- Lead generation
- Start ups
- Small businesses
- SMEs
- Large organisations
Check their experience in your industry or niche, and assess their understanding of your target audience, competitors, and marketing goals.
Each business is unique, so your chosen agency should be able to develop a customised PPC strategy tailored to your specific goals and requirements.
While they likely won’t be able to give you all the specifics around their other clients’ spend or revenue, they should be able to share some case studies or talk about the work they have done for businesses like yours.
It doesn’t need to be a like-for-like client, but it should be close enough to show that they can develop a solid plan for you.
Asking about their previous work will help you avoid agencies that offer a one-size-fits-all approach, or rely solely on automated tools without human expertise.
Questions to ask:
- What type of clients do you usually work with?
- Have you worked with any clients in my industry?
- Can you send a case study of similar work you’ve completed?
Transparency and Communication
A good PPC agency should always be open and transparent in their communication with their clients. This starts with ensuring you will be the owner of the ads accounts, and you will have direct access to them (if they have created the accounts for you).
There’s nothing worse than deciding to switch agencies and realising they own all the accounts and you need to start from scratch.
You should have access to either the person working on your account, or an account manager that can answer your questions. Whoever this is, they should be able to:
- Explain their plans and strategies to achieve your goals
- Provide regular updates on campaign performance
- Be responsive to your queries and concerns.
This is a lot easier if you’re well versed in PPC strategy, but if you’re not, it’s in the agency’s best interest to get you up to speed as much as possible.
You can ask for some training so you can ask better questions on your performance updates, and a good agency will be able to provide this (although it might not be covered by your standard retainer).
Consider the level of support and account management the agency provides before choosing one. You’ll want to work with a team that is transparent, responsive, and proactive in managing your PPC campaigns.
Questions to ask:
- Will I retain ownership of and access to my account?
- Who will be managing my account?
- Will I have direct access to them? If not, who will I be in contact with?
- How are ad hoc queries handled?
Ad Platforms and Channels
You might initially be hiring an agency to work on a particular channel. However, it’s always a good idea to have the option to expand the channels your brand uses further down the line.
Advertising on more channels offers a better chance of reaching your customers on the multiple platforms they likely use. It also protects your revenue if performance drops in one of them.
Consider the platforms and channels the agency offers or specialises in, whether it’s Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, TikTok Ads, Amazon Ads, or other PPC networks. Ensuring the agency has expertise in the platforms that align with your advertising objectives can make things a lot easier once you start looking into other channels.
Another benefit is that you’ll be working with people who already know your brand well, and so can hit the ground running on another platform. It’s also a lot easier to share knowledge, insights and data across teams, which can ramp up your performance in a much shorter time frame.
More than PPC knowhow
Successful PPC campaigns go beyond the ads account itself. Sales don’t happen in a vacuum, and a good agency should have some knowledge around:
- Conversion tracking implementation and troubleshooting
- Landing page optimisation
- A/B testing
- Conversion rate optimisation (CRO)
Some technical knowledge around the platform your website is on can also be a huge advantage, as it can really speed up fixing glitches around tracking, ad or product feed disapprovals and other issues that tend to rear their head.
Having access to all these services within an agency can be your best bet to ensure you get the most value for money.
Questions to ask:
- What other platforms do you work with?
- Do you have technical knowledge around my website’s platform?
- Can you implement tracking changes?
- Are you able to offer advice on landing pages and CRO?
Processes
When you start working with a new agency, you might get a set of deliverables that touch on their process around keyword research, campaign creation and optimisation and ad A/B testing.
However, good agencies go beyond that and create processes to make campaign management and troubleshooting faster, giving you much better value.
Inquire about the agency’s approach to anything from:
- Budget management
- Whether they have anything in place to quickly identify technical issues such as tracking dropping
- How they handle product launches and setting up promotions
If they can provide you with examples and templates to manage all this in an efficient and organised way, you are likely in good hands.
Questions to ask:
- What kind of processes do you have in place for managing ad accounts?
- What would the first month of us working together look like?
- How do you manage monthly budgets to prevent over spend?
- How do you handle product launches and promotion setup?
- Do you have a way to flag technical issues on the ad account or website?
Analytics and Reporting
A reputable PPC agency should have robust analytics and reporting capabilities. They should provide detailed reports on key performance indicators such as:
- Click-through rates
- Conversion rates
- ROI
Without access to this data, it can be tricky to assess if the channel you’re advertising on is working for you, or if there is growth in the account.
Aside from the metrics, where an agency can provide the most value is with interpreting this data. The numbers should come with a commentary and a performance call so they can:
- Take you through what they’ve worked on that month
- Explain any drops or increases in performance and why they happened
- Share what they’re going to do to capitalise on performance improvements or tackle performance drops
An agency that can identify these pattern changes early and share them with you is invaluable. It can help you both to make quick decisions to push the campaigns if performance improves significantly over a certain period, or pull back if it drops.
You don’t need to go down to the nitty gritty, but you should always have an idea on where your account performance is at and what they’re working on.
Questions to ask:
- How will I get my performance reports?
- How often will I get performance updates/calls?
- If there are any significant changes, good or bad, will I be notified?
Reviews, References & Awards
Before making a final decision, research the agency’s reputation by checking client reviews and testimonials. You can do a simple search on Google to find out if they have any reviews and how positive they are.
You can also have a look at their case studies and do some research on their clients to see who they’re working with.
Their social media channels and blog can also be a good window to check what kind of content they’re putting out:
- Is it client centric and helpful?
- Do they showcase good results?
- If you can find the agency’s employees on LinkedIn, do they show good experience in the industry?
- Have the agency’s employee’s been with the agency for a while?
If the answer to all of these is yes, there’s a good chance you’re talking to an agency that cares about sharing good insights, attracts good people and provides a good working environment.
Checking references
A reputable agency will also be happy to provide the contact details for a couple of their current or past clients. Talking to their clients can be a great way to get insights into their campaign results, as well as their working relationship and general satisfaction with the agency.
If they aren’t forthcoming with this, it could raise a red flag around not having many satisfied clients.
If they have won any industry awards recently for their work on client campaigns, the agency is likely to have shared this on their website and socials. You can ask them to elaborate on the work they did to win these awards, and see if a similar strategy might be applicable to you.
Questions to ask:
- Could I speak to one or two of your current clients to get some references?
- Have you won any industry awards in the last couple of years?
Taking the next step
If you ask these questions next time you are looking to engage with a PPC agency, you’ll increase your chances of selecting the right partner for your business. And the right partners equals a great, long-term working relationship.
Knowing how much a mismatched partnership can set you back, spending some extra time going through them on your initial call should be on every business’ list.
If you would like to find out how we increased revenue for one of our clients by 234% YoY, take a look at our work for Lakeland Leather here.
If you need help with growing your revenue on PPC, get in touch with our team here.