If you can manage your own PPC campaigns, that’s awesome, but if you cannot and feel the urge to hire a PPC agency for you, you will find that it can be a very tricky job, especially where there are hundreds of agencies, if not thousands, are claiming to be the best one in the market. So, to make your PPC agency hiring a bit easier, we have come up with a checklist for you.

1.Are the agency Google, Microsoft and Facebook certified? 

Google is the most powerful and most popular search engine on earth, and Bing is another search engine developed by Microsoft. They both offer a certification program to be officially recognized as a PPC agency on their respective platforms. Facebook also offers certification program for its advertising platform users. These certifications won’t guarantee proficiency, but they usually show a particular level of professionalism of the agency.

So, ask the agency if they have the certifications. Google Adword certificate is a must, where being Bing certified is a bonus because most of your traffic will come from Google. We are happy to claim that Dgency has both certifications from Google AdWords and Bing.

2.How are their management fees structured, and what type of management is included with their management fee? 

Agencies tend to bill you based on your ad spend, or a flat monthly fee, or estimated working hours for your project. It would help if you get a clear picture of how they will bill you for their management time. Let’s not forget that the management fee is separate from your ad budget in most of the cases. Ask everything in detail that is included in your PPC management agreement, so you don’t have to end up with some unexpected bills. Also, don’t forget to read your agreement paper thoroughly before signing.

Here at Dgency, we have very affordable management fees, and it measures upfront, based on our client’s project, product and/or services types, target audience, etc. There shouldn’t be any one-size-fit-all formula for the management fees. It should vary depending on loads of parameters on both client’s and agency’s end.

3.Would you be able to see the actual spend within AdWords/Bing?

You should be able to see and track every cent your agency is spending on your PPC campaigns, regardless of the campaign or contract type. Sadly, this is not the case all the time. Some agencies might ask you to pay them a bulk sum, and they will pay the ad bill for you, hiding you the actual spend. If you come across such an agency, tell them you want full access to the ad spending. If they don’t comply with this, never hire them.

At Dgency, we always offer our clients complete access to the PPC ad campaign spending so they can see and track it on their own in real-time. We believe it’s their right to be able to see how their money is being used.

4.Are they offering Short-Term Contracts?

The answer should be YES! There are many agencies who try their client to trap in a year-long contract when the results from the campaigns drop off after the third or fourth month. The truth is, initially, the client gets a better return on their ad budget than the agency does. Though, agencies can express the client that they have some real skill, confidence, and credibility in the PPC game by offering short-term contracts. This can significantly boost the trust level of the client to the agency.

At Dgency, we do firmly believe that, if an agency is unable to show you the desired results, you have every right to fire them.

5.Do the account and all the assets belong to You?

Always remember, all the creative assets including images, graphics, HTML5 contents, landing pages as well as the entire AdWords accounts, IT’S ALL YOURS to keep. What if you hire an agency, and after a few months, you want to switch agency due to some reasons, then you get to know that the AdWord account and all the creative assets – you don’t own any of it! Then you will have to start from scratch once you switch to the new agency, wasting all the money and time with the previous agency. You don’t want this to happen to you, right? So, make sure you really own the account and assets before it gets too late.

Here at Dgency, we ensure complete administrative ownership over your account, and we clearly state on our agreement paper that all rights served to the ad account along with the creative assets made for the client – solely to our client.

6.Do they offer full reporting with their services? Are they included, or requires an additional fee?

One of the greatest benefits of all PPC campaigns is the ability to gather data on every action, no matter how small it is. You should ask your agency if they provide reports on a preset schedule and whether those reports are included in their management bill. You should ask what is included in those reports as well.

At Dgency, we explicitly mention what our clients will get in their weekly/monthly reports. This is one of the major parts of our regular deliverables.

7.Do they have proven track records?

There are heaps of agencies out there that pretend to appear to be something they actually aren’t, and they struggle to pay their own bills because they can’t retain their clients. A good agency should have proven their track record by growing their own business too, the way they plan to grow yours. Make sure of it by asking any agencies you’re working with to describe you their business model.

Dgency grew from $0 to almost $1 million in revenue in just the last three years and spent more than $50M in ad budget on Google AdWords.

8.Do They Just Drive Clicks?

If any agency claims that just the clicks are their main metric to measure success, you should not hire them at all. A well-qualified agency will always talk more about your return on investment (ROI) and profitability than merely the number of clicks you get.

Dgency approaches PPC advertising in three simple yet important and effective steps:

1. Attract the right traffic, at the right place, at the right time, with the right message (such as sales copy, call to action, service description, etc).
2. Convert those traffic at the highest rate possible – using state-of-the-art, dynamic landing pages, and customized conversion rate optimization strategies.
3. Leverage the analytics in place to determine accurately the ROI of different portions of your campaigns, even on the granular level like keywords.
4. Clicks COST you cash, but conversions GET you cash at the end of the day, and Dgency makes sure of it.

9.Are they Strategists, or Just PPC Account Managers?

Make sure the agency you consider has a precise and organized approach and skilled staff in place to continue to show some positive results after all the primary objectives have been achieved. They should give you an idea too, of how your account will be managed on a regular basis. Our suggestion is to look for an agency that is always looking for ways to grow – not the one that sets the account on autopilot mode and totally forgets about it.

Dgency makes it very clear to their account managers that their job is to be an account strategist. Unlike most of the agencies out there, we always tailor the next campaign based on our client’s customer feedback and demand retained from the previous campaign. There is no autopilot mode in our PPC dictionary.

10.Are they fun to work with?

If the agency in question is not much fun to work with, don’t work with them. You should make sure that they are fun to talk to, fun to deal with, and know-how to get the job done. There must always be a balance between work and fun, but if that balance leans too far in either direction, anticipate catastrophe. We can guarantee you that, the entire Dgency team is very much fun-loving and playful, even while they are in their workplace.

Conclusion:

These 10 answers will help you narrow down your quest for a perfect PPC agency for your company. Last but not least, don’t ever look for the cheapest and the quickest; look for an agency that is determined to help you meet your business goals for sales, lead generation, conversions, and much more, as well as is able to deliver the results beyond your expectations. And that is one of the significant reasons Dgency thrived.