AdWords Account Manager - 7 questions to ask
before you hire
If you are looking for an
AdWords Consultant there are a few
things you need to check beyond his/her basic competence and
familiarity with the AdWords system before you hire.
- Is he/she capable of
understanding the business you work in, beyond simply being
able to research keywords?
- Can he/she demonstrably
show that he/she understands what impact on your sales,
profits and cashflow that advertising with Google is going
to have?
- Can they explain,
(without looking at this page about AdWords ROI) why ROI is NOT the
prime measure of an account's performance? (If they can't
do this, they don't understand any business let alone
yours!)
- Can you get in touch with
them easily by email and 'phone when you want?
- Can they explain why the
amount you pay for a broad match keyword click can
vary dramatically and why your ad ranking for a broad match
keyword may vary dramatically too?
- VERY
IMPORTANT: Do they insist that they "own" the
contents of your account so that they demand the right to
delete everything from your account when you stop using
their services? This is underhand practice.
- Do they possess ALL
these key skills?
- copywriting
- understanding
consumer motivations
- understanding ad
distribution and associated market
behaviours
- understanding account
structures - Campaigns and Ad Groups and, specifically,
what controls are available at what level
- statistical analysis
capability and an ability to analyse data and decide
what is statistically relevant and what's
not
- keyword research
capability- knowledge of research tools, what they do
and how to use their results
- familiarity with the
AdWords editor
- knowledge of
conversion tracking - what it is, where it works and
where it doesn't
- ability to integrate
AdWords with Google Analytics - and how to work with
different traffic sources
- ad scheduling - basic
and advanced
- negative keyword
utilisation to control which ads your target market
sees as well as who doesn't see them at all
- the difference
between negative phrase and negative exact match
keywords
- geotargeting
capabilities and how to exploit them to the
full
- time-dependent account
optimisation
- billing
cycles
- competitor
research
- keyword
types
- content-targeting
- the AdWords pricing
model
- relationship between
AdWords/PPC and
SEO and precisely why you don't need to
optimise your AdWords landing pages for SEO.
There are a bunch more too but
that's a quick list. Copywriting alone is a skill that can
takes years to develop.
Over and above this list your
AdWords consultant needs to understand how businesses
work, the lifetime
value of a new customer, cashflow issues, impact on margins
of operational gearing. They also need the ability to work with
you closely so that the goals for the AdWords account you
are managing are aligned as closely as possible with those that
will maximise profitability. Check out this article on
Business Analysis and AdWords
optimisation to
see how a deep understanding of business puts perspective on
the role of an AdWords
Consultant.
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