Have you ever sat and thought to yourself…

“Self….”

“What are the do’s and do nots of working with a PPC Management Agency?”

Alas!  I’m so glad you asked.

We are going to reveal today, what other agencies are talking about, and what HOP2THETOP, one of the industry’s leading PPC Management Companies, has revealed in their latest posts.  That is, what are the do’s and do nots of working with a PPC Management Company?

As the founder and lead consultant here at Hop2TheTop, we have worked with countless small, mid sized, and fortune 100’s over the years.  And I want to give you the HONEST and transparent take on this critically important subject.

And while you may think of this question as more of an after thought.  I mean, after all, how you deliver your communication, set expectations, and overall treat your relationship with vendors, doesn’t REALLY matter in the grand scheme of things, does it?

WRONG.

It matters more than you can imagine.

Because at the end of the day, vendors, especially a pay per click management vendor, can have a massive impact on your bottom line.  And so, creating for example, a toxic dynamic between your company, and key vendors, is a massive error you can make from a management perspective.

Why?

A motivated team is a productive team

It SHOULD go without saying, if your team(s) are not motivated, they will under perform. In fact, according to the Motivation Speaker’s Agency, companies which highly value their teams, increase revenue by a whopping 682%.

And often times, this is not a matter of “forcing” your team to WANT to generate results.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite.  The counter intuitive approach, is to back off a bit, and ALLOW your team members, vendors, systems, and strategy to play itself out.

This is like anything in life.  When we try to hold on too tightly, we end up “suffocating” the situation, and the OPPOSITE of what we want happens.

Micromanagement is NOT the way

According to a study by Forbes, teams who are not micromanaged produce 50% more, and experience burnout 40% less of the time.  Additionally, evidence shows that micromanagement can be considered a form of bullying, and can negatively impact the mental health of your teams.

Often we hear about agencies that have clients that are extremely controlling over every aspect of their strategy.  They dictate keywords, ads, strategy, and so on.  To the point where the PPC agency becomes nothing more than an “order taker”, providing no more value than an intern or junior person would contribute.  Not because they can’t provide that additional value, but because the client ends up FORCING the agency to take that role.

At the end of the day, micromanagement is the default management style by less experienced executives who know no other way to motivate their teams than by forms of overt or passive aggressive.

Forcing Reactivity Instead of Proactivity

When you monopolize your vendors time, through ongoing calls, emails, slack messages, and so on, it should be painfully obvious that this energy and time spent on communication will dip into the strategy time.  But often, we have heard of night mare client scenarios where the client will over engage with the PPC management vendor, where they are baby sitting / spoon feeding the vendor what they want.

What To Do:

• Focus on RESULTS, not on the process.  When you hire a PPC agency, you hire them for a reason.  Not to dictate every step of the way.  You do it, hopefully, to get better results from your PPC campaigns.
• Have regular, standard communication.  Don’t over do the slack messages, emails, and so on.  Instead, have a pre determined meeting schedule whether that is monthly, bi-monthly, or weekly, and stick to that.  Don’t inundate your team(s) and vendors with constantly asking about results, constantly adding more and more to their plate after you’ve agreed on a strategy, and so on.
• Keep an ENCOURAGING and positive mindset.  Are you always approaching conversations with a negative and fearful mindset?  What if they don’t improve results?  What if they aren’t working as hard as we want them to?  Etc Etc. Etc.  When was the last time you THANKED your vendor(s) for what they have accomplished?  For their hard work?

Now this isn’t all to say you don’t hold your vendor(s) accountable for results, and you do not communicate regularly, and don’t collaborate with them.  But there is a fine line between supporting your vendor(s), and breathing down their necks to the point where your self sabotage your results.

At Hop2TheTop we have a proactive PPC management process, which we apply to all accounts.  We do this to ensure that no account “slips through the cracks”, and that regularly fundamental processes of optimization happen.  We find that 99% of PPC agencies fail at even the most basic PPC management tasks.  Then we dive deep on analytics, landing page strategy, competitive analysis, creative strategy, and more to ensure we maximize the ROI from your campaigns.  Request a FREE audit today to uncover the opportunities in your account, so you can start generating a higher return from your campaigns.