Modern B2B Marketing
Modern B2B Blogs
March 14, 2007
An Inconvenient Truth: What PPC Agencies Don’t Want You to Know
Posted by Jon Miller
I just published a new article, called “The 5 Secrets PPC Agencies Don’t Want You to Know“. This article is part of Search Engine Land’s new Strictly Business column, which covers topics related to B2B search marketing.
In the article, I argue that success with pay-per-click search marketing requires business expertise and search marketing expertise. You have more business expertise than any outsider could have (especially since most agencies don’t specialize in the unique needs of B2B search marketing). If you do outsource, the need to coordinate with the agency creates latency and information loss, meaning you lose the flexibility and the agility to react quickly. Outsourcing also means losing control over a critical portion of your demand generation strategy to outsiders who may have different incentives than you.
My conclusion: The best path to success with PPC advertising is to manage the program in-house with the aid of pay per click management software. This is because the technology solution can create the best of both worlds: the control and business knowledge of doing it yourself, combined with the SEM best practices and techniques of an expert.
Check out the article: The 5 Secrets PPC Agencies Don’t Want You to Know.
Sponsored by: B2B search marketing software from Marketo, coming soon.
PPCblogger said on March 15, 2007 at 11:59 am
Thanks for the sales pitch Jon.
I didn’t realise simply using automated technology would turn the inexperienced into PPC experts.
I am so glad you don’t have an agenda.
Jon Miller said on March 15, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Graham — As opposed to most PPC tools, Marketo’s software does more than bid optimization. It can also tell you which keywords, ads, and landing pages are driving conversions, which turn into leads, and which actually generate revenue. That information is useful for tuning your content, and can also feed back to the bid optimization.
PPCblogger – I don’t see any problem with having a viewpoint. It’s no different from you, as an agency, having the viewpoint that outsourcing is best. That said, the article could have made it clearer from the start that Marketo sells B2B search marketing tools. It was never my intent to mislead anyone and I apologize if you were offended by what was perceived as a “sales pitch”.
ECWseo said on March 16, 2007 at 9:53 am
I think the most relevant thing in the article for me is: Agency business models are focused on the largest spenders.
I’ve seen some agencies give great treatment in the first month or two, and then slowly the level of service keeps falling and falling.
Because of the nature of the PPC agency – they need volume, right… there is no concept of “partnership” that I think is more prevalent in search marketing firms.
PPC Advice said on December 16, 2007 at 11:17 am
I Definately disagree. Some PPC agencies are very very good, at catering to the precise business models and helping the client achieve ROI – if not, they will lose the client in time, sooner than later. They ARE some shabby agencies or client managers out there that may not be as adept at running campaigns. It can be a hit or miss. It’s just a matter of finding the sweet spot with the right agency.
jeff paul said on December 19, 2008 at 8:20 pm
the article is just awesome i just wanna thx to you for sharing it and i am looking forward to see some more stuff like this in future.
Graham Baylis said on March 15, 2007 at 10:28 am
This is only half the story, true, no PPC agency knows as much as a business owner about their market place, but the correct research and setting up of a campaign is a skilled job… As for running it, the software you suggest just manages the clicks, it won’t tell you which ones are wasting your money or which pages are not converting. That is the domain on analysis and is just as important as setting the right click cost….