There is an excellent thread over at Search Engine Watch Forums that discusses how one Google AdWords advertiser is too busy these days to manage his account. He asks, what is the safest way to delegate those responsibilities to a third-party company.
For the last several years, I’ve always setup and managed my own Google AdWords campaigns and ad groups. In the early years, when I could devote the proper time, we did very well with AdWords.As time went on and I got pulled in many different directions with other non-PPC-related aspects of the business, ROI declined. I sense that Google AdWords could still work very well for us, if someone competent would just put in a good 10-15 hours/week.
So I’m looking to outsource this task.
There is some excellent feedback in the thread.
(1) Agency reputation is critical. Speak to people in the SEM community, do searches, speak with their clients, try to track down past clients, just get as much information about the SEM company that you can, so you can be comfortable with your decision. If you are second guessing yourself, you will probably end up spending more time reviewing the work of the SEM company than just doing it yourself.
(2) The Google AdWords interface does not enable someone to view the full credit card number, after it has been entered. So you do not need to worry about your credit card getting into the wrong hands. However, most PPC companies will put the bill on their credit card and then bill you at the end of the month for the spend.
(3) If you want to test the waters with the company, maybe set the daily spend lower than you normally would. One thing is that this may restrict the PPC company from strutting their true potential.
(4) Sign a legal contract detailing everything you are worried about and then some. Spend amounts, daily budgets, keywords, and so on.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
