There you are, a solid 9 months into a relationship with your SEM agency. You’re paying them 15% of what you’re spending with the search engines. Yes, they’re paying for themselves through their gains, but lately, you’re starting to question what they’re doing. There was the initial bump, and then a few months ago, a junior account representative was assigned and the hockey stick ROAS chart you thought you’d be seeing is starting to look more like a hockey rink – flat and cold. In the back of your mind a few questions are racing around… Did I just get placed onto the autopilot list? Do these guys know what they’re talking about? Am I being taken for a ride? Did I just find the end of the Internet?


Well from our experience, you’re not alone. And unfortunately, as this field has grown in popularity, the number of bad practitioners has grown exponentially. And, since the word we’ve chosen is “bad”, let’s dive a little deeper, since there’s some ambiguity.


What does bad look like?


In performing 3rd party audits of PPC campaigns, we have seen bad. Poorly constructed campaigns that bear no semblance to PPC best practices… misinterpreted, cherry-picked and even downright falsified reports… campaigns that have barely been touched for months that are flying on auto-pilot for the most part. Needless to say, often the picture painted by the SEM agency is far different than the picture revealed when the reports are pulled straight from their sources and the data and campaigns are scrutinized with a 3rd set of neutral eyes. Bad can be a matter of poor selection or misguided intentions.


Bad: Darwin’s kind (there are a lot of these)


Sometimes the root of the problem in a bad situation is just a lack of knowledge on the agency’s part. Bottom line, there are just way too many people out there claiming to be ‘experts’ on PPC, but who really don’t fully know what they are doing. And to make matters worse, the engines make it really easy to slap up a campaign and get it running in a matter of hours. Note, that is not to say that they make it easy to set up and run a good campaign in a matter of hours - that takes a lot of diligent, thoughtful work! Doing PPC and doing PPC well are 2 totally different things.


Bad: The Used Car Salesman (there are fewer of these)

Other times the root of the issue isn’t lack of knowledge and skill, but more plainly about money. Since many agencies operate as a percentage of spend, the more they can convince companies to spend on PPC, the more the agency makes in commissions. For this reason, companies are often advised to keep throwing money at PPC even when it it may not be in their best interest. Like any other investment, Search does have a point of diminishing returns followed by negative returns. Obviously, you don’t want to go there… While increasing spend is sometimes a legitimately advisable course of action, the inherent conflict of interest could be cause for speculation in some cases. Unfortunately, there are a few too many bad apples that justify the alarm.

One of our clients eloquently explained the good agency/bad agency predicament with the analogy of a ‘financial advisor’ vs a ’stock broker’.

The financial advisor is looking out for your best interests and trying to build a strong portfolio for you — they want to make you the most money possible. Why? Well, their fees are aligned with your interests - the better you do, the better they do. In turn, the financial advisor is motivated to maximize your return by continually seeking ways to improve upon your current level of success.

In contrast, the stock broker is primarily, if not solely, looking out for their own interests and will do whatever they can to make more money off of you… secondary to making more money for you. Ultimately, the stock broker does want to keep you as a client, but is motivated to produce results that are just good enough to keep you in the game and paying the fees. Managing to these base expectations may be enough to retain you as a client if you don’t know any better, but over time your portfolio will never meet its full potential as areas for improvement are rarely sought out.

Happily, the client that drew this analogy put us in the trusted ‘financial advisor’ category (whew, I would be horrified to be called otherwise). Unfortunately for the client though, their agency-of-record fell into the ’stock broker’ category. Hence the need for us to come in and act as a 3rd set of eyes.

So how do you know if your SEM agency is working for you or working you over? How do you know if you are dealing with an SEM advisor vs an SEM broker?

Here are some indicators:

  • Do you have access to your account, minimally at the reporting level? The SEM broker tends to keep the campaigns under lock and key - the client can’t even view their reports without having to request it from the agency. Remember, this is YOUR COMPANY’S data - there should be some level of transparency and direct access to your data. If not, this is a red flag.

  • When “increase your spend” is the only answer you receive when you ask your agency what can be done to get more out of your PPC campaigns. Yes, ‘increase your spend’ can be sound advice if you are not fully maximizing your Search ‘inventory’ and there is more to be had at a positive return. But, ‘increase your spend’ should not be the full extent of the strategic advice you receive. You should also be hearing qualitative suggestions and plans such as ad copy enhancements, A/B ad testing, landing page improvements, keyword and match type refinements, etc. You should feel confident that every dollar is being maximized before you’re asked to add more to the pot.
  • Does your agency educate you about your PPC account and SEM in general, or does it feel like they prefer to keep you in the dark? The best client to agency relationship involves open communication about what PPC is and how its components work. As a client it is ideal that you have some level of understanding of PPC, in order to help the agency translate your company messaging and goals into online success. However, some broker-esque agencies worry that educating their clients on even just the mere basics of PPC is a threat, and so they instead put PPC in a mysterious ‘black box’. If your questions about PPC are completely shunned by your agency or met with vague answers, then there may be reason for concern.
  • What is the overall trend of your PPC portfolio? Is there a positive performance trend over time? Or is performance and ROI completely sporadic from month-to-month? To be realistic, you should expect that there will be seasonal fluctuations and minor dips and peaks. However, when you look at your performance over a span of 6 months or more, you should see a consistent upward trend in performance and ROI. If there isn’t a fairly consistent improvement in performance over time, that may be a sign that your campaign is not being fully managed and optimized.

  • When was the last time your agency let you know what recent strategic changes were made, what tests were implemented, and what the outcomes of those changes and tests were? Don’t expect to hear about every little bid change by any means. But, if you aren’t hearing about high-level, strategic moves being made on your account, then there is a good possibility that they aren’t being made at all. Because of its very granular level of trackability, PPC lends itself to continual testing, learning and refinement. Whether your campaign is relatively young or very mature, auto-pilot should never be activated.

  • Are you being charged extra for tasks that are inherent aspects of PPC? For example, we heard of one agency that actually charged extra for A/B testing ad copy! Huh? Ad copy testing is one of those things that should just be considered a given. If you are being charged extra to run multiple ads, adjust ad copy, add or delete keywords, test different match types, test landing pages, etc, you really shouldn’t be. A good agency knows that these fundamental PPC best practices are not add-on’s, but rather essential elements of a solid PPC campaign.

  • What are the conditions of your contract if you want to end the relationship? Is there a long contract term with penalties if you back out? Don’t get me wrong, agencies do need to protect themselves from flaky companies who want to ‘dabble’ in PPC and ultimately end up wasting their time. However, in our opinion both the client and the agency should have the option to terminate the contract at any time. If an agency has confidence in their ability to meet or exceed client expectations, as well as confidence in their ability to choose clients that will value them in the long-term, then a contract term shouldn’t be necessary. All too often, we have seen companies locked into contracts with agencies that were grossly underperforming as PPC managers, and therefore losing money for the company with each and every month that the contract continued on.

In the end, if you work with an agency don’t be afraid to ask questions. Request access to your accounts and data. Find out what work is being done on a regular basis. Schedule regular check-in meetings to discuss progress and upcoming strategy. Spend some time learning some of the basics of PPC and looking at your data independently. If you don’t get good answers, or if you have a feeling that things aren’t going the way they should – don’t hesitate to have your campaigns audited by a third party. With PPC accounting for more and more ad spending, there’s too much at stake to risk running an underperforming campaign.

These are things that any agency should be perfectly comfortable with if they are well-intentioned and confident in their work. And fortunately there are a lot of those out there - excellent PPC professionals who work with a high level of integrity! Get them on your team and you will reap invaluable returns on your web investment and priceless peace of mind.

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