Is your Google AdWords agency ripping you off?
If you pay a Google AdWords agency to manage your campaigns on an ongoing basis, you should be able to see the work being done. A great initial setup isn’t the same as monthly maintenance. And if you can’t even access your own account, alarm bells should be ringing.
I’m sitting here in August 2010 after reading an interesting blog post by Jacob Kildebogaard on exactly that subject. Jacob has just visited me for three days in Florida and helped get our Google Analytics on Amino set up properly.
Now I can see revenue from things such as Plus links and Plus memberships and see where the person buying came from. It’s great to have that insight. But what I want to discuss here is his point about agencies charging for work they don’t do.
What are you paying your Google AdWords agency for?
Imagine an agency saying: We’ll bring you traffic. It costs 5,000 kroner a month, and for that money we’ll work on the account and take care of your clicks.
That sounds fine enough. The problem arises if the agency spends perhaps ten hours setting up the account and then never touches it again. You keep paying 5,000 kroner every month while the agency pockets the money for doing absolutely nothing.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with paying for a setup. What matters is what you’ve agreed and whether it’s clear what the money pays for.
A campaign might take three hours to set up, twenty hours or something else entirely. For example, the agency could say: You pay 20,000 kroner for the setup, then pay Google directly for the clicks that come in. Then you can call once a month and buy a couple of hours to review the campaign.
That’s a fine way to do it if that’s your agreement. My numbers are examples. The point is that you know what you’re buying. Also read E-pusher about my experiences with online sales and marketing.
If they promise maintenance, they need to maintain it
It’s different if the agency says the setup is free, you just pay a fixed monthly amount and in return they’ll adjust the account on an ongoing basis. Then, of course, adjustments need to happen every month.
In my opinion, an AdWords account gradually becomes less efficient if you don’t work on it. You can’t simply set it up once and assume it’s fine forever.
People change how they search. Google changes things. New competitors arrive and others leave. It’s a dynamic area where things are always happening.
I compare it to a herb garden. You can weed, plant seeds and water it, and after a week it might look great. But if you leave it for a year, it doesn’t look after itself. After a month, weeds appear and some plants have died because they weren’t watered.
That’s how I see an advertising account too. Looking good and working at launch isn’t an argument for leaving it unattended.
Read the contract and look for the work
Start by looking at your contract. What have you actually agreed with the agency? If it says they’ll maintain the campaign on an ongoing basis, log into the account and check whether they’re doing it.
In his blog post, Jacob describes a way to see whether the agency has done the work it should. I can’t remember the procedure precisely enough to explain it in the video, so I refer to his post below.
It’s better to investigate than simply assume a monthly invoice means someone has been sitting working on your campaign.
You need access to your own account
If your reaction is: I can’t log in because the agency runs the account and I have no access at all, then every alarm bell should be ringing at full volume.
I think you need your own Google AdWords account where you can log in and see what’s happening. Handing everything over blindly requires enormous trust. It isn’t something you should do just because some random company called you.
If it’s your best friend or someone you really know is decent, I can understand the trust better. But even then, I struggle to see why you shouldn’t have insight.
And I don’t buy the argument that you’d then be able to see the agency’s secrets. If you won’t share that knowledge with the customer you’re working for, in my opinion you don’t deserve to run that business.
You need access to the whole bloody lot. Otherwise, I’d find another supplier.
If you use an agency for your Google AdWords campaigns, watch this: And read Jacob Kildebogaard’s excellent blog post – Is your AdWords agency taking you for a ride?
Dejligt at se og høre, at den indledende artikel i AdWords-LEX har givet fornyet fokus på den problemstilling.
Heldigvis lægger Google jo nu om på reglerne så fra 2011 er det slut med at kunne køre kampagner for kunder uden at give disse adgang til alle relevante data.