8 Questions To Ask Before You Hire a PPC Agency

There are a lot of ways to promote your business online, from social media to email marketing. But even with all the available options, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is still a prime choice for many businesses. That’s not surprising, since it’s still as effective as ever.

As effective as ever — and as much work as ever. It takes a lot of time and effort to create successful ad campaigns and optimize them to the point where they’re driving a substantial amount of revenue. That’s why you may be looking to hire a PPC agency to help you with the workload.

The question is, how do you know what to look for in a PPC agency partnership? That’s the question we’ll be answering on this page. We’ll help you identify PPC agency red flags by going over eight questions to ask when considering an agency, including:

1. Do they offer affordable pricing?
2. Do they have a lot of experience?
3. Do they have a high client retention rate?
4. Do they offer customizable services?
5. Do they prioritize data-driven marketing?
6. Are they transparent with their processes?
7. Are they familiar with your industry?
8. Do they have a lot of good reviews?

You can learn more about hiring a PPC agency further down the page. You can also subscribe to our email newsletter, Revenue Weekly, to get more marketing tips sent straight to your inbox!

1. Do they offer affordable pricing?

One of the first qualities you should look for in a PPC agency partnership is affordable pricing. If an agency is outside of your budget, you obviously shouldn’t waste your time considering them further. You need to choose an agency that’s affordable.

Notice that we’re using the word “affordable,” not “cheap.” If an agency costs a suspiciously low amount of money, it probably means they’re not a very good agency — you get what you pay for when it comes to PPC services. The best course is to find something with midrange pricing.

2. Do they have a lot of experience?

Part of the benefit of partnering with an agency is that they bring a level of expertise you may not have on your own. But that’s only true for agencies that have a substantial amount of experience. If your chosen agency has only been around for a couple of years, they may not have as much PPC expertise as you’d like.

Thankfully, there are plenty of agencies out there that have been around for years (or even decades), with a proven track record of results driven for past clients. That’s the sort of agency you should partner with if you want to feel confident that they know exactly what they’re doing. 

3. Do they have a high client retention rate?

Suppose you’re considering hiring a PPC agency, and everything about the agency looks great — but then you find out that every client they have leaves after a month. That would probably change your mind, wouldn’t it? A low client retention rate is one of the biggest PPC agency red flags.

What you want is an agency that does a great job keeping clients around for a long time. That shows that their clients are happy with their services, which indicates that you probably will be as well. It’s not a fun experience having to switch agencies only a short time after starting with one.

4. Do they offer customizable services?

Cookie cutters are great if you’re making cookies. They’re decidedly not great, however, if you’re looking to hire a PPC agency. If an agency offers cookie-cutter services, using the exact same strategy on every client, that’s a bad sign. It means they’re not taking into consideration the unique needs of each client.

You want to find an agency that will customize their services to you. An agency in this category will start your partnership by assessing your audience, budget, and other specific needs to determine the best approach to your PPC strategy. They’ll then put that strategy into action for you.

5. Do they prioritize data-driven marketing?

All the best marketing campaigns rely on data. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) like click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate, you can determine which ad campaigns are seeing the most success, and how to improve the less successful ones to drive better results.

But that’s only possible if you value data in the first place, which some agencies don’t. That’s among the biggest PPC agency red flags. You need to find an agency that hinges their PPC services on data because without it, your campaigns won’t really see any improvement over time.

6. Are they transparent with their processes?

Another must-have quality in an agency is transparency. That is, an agency you partner with should be very open with you about everything they do for your PPC strategy. Ideally, they’ll send you regular reports on optimizations they perform and the results those optimizations drive.

Unfortunately, many agencies opt to keep their clients in the dark about the details of what they’re doing. With one of these agencies, you’d have to just blindly trust them to drive results for your PPC, which can be stressful. That’s not fun, so try to find a transparent agency.

7. Are they familiar with your industry?

Imagine you’re visiting a new country, and you want to bring along a guide. Would you bring someone who has no knowledge of the culture or language? Or would you bring along someone who’s intimately familiar with the country you’re visiting? Probably the second one.

It’s the same with a PPC agency. Your unique advertising needs will depend on your industry, so you want someone who has experience working in that industry. If your agency knows nothing about your field, they won’t be able to help you that much. But industry experience leads to higher-quality services.

8. Do they have a lot of good reviews?

The final thing to look for when hiring a PPC agency is positive reviews. Reviews are one of the most reliable ways to verify an agency’s quality. Any agency will say good things about themselves, but the question is, do their clients say good things about them?

Clients have no incentive to promote an agency, so you can trust what they say. For that reason, be sure to look up some reviews and testimonials for any agency you consider partnering with. If there are a lot of negative reviews, maybe pass on that agency. But if reviews are mostly very positive, that’s a good sign.

WebFX — the optimal PPC agency partnership for your business

If you’re trying to find a reputable, experienced, and trustworthy PPC agency to partner with, look no further than WebFX. We have over 29 years of experience driving revenue for our clients through advertising, and we can do the same for your business.

When you partner with us for our PPC services, you’ll get help with everything from building landing pages to setting PPC bids to monitoring campaign results. We’ll also assign you a dedicated account representative to keep you in the loop about everything we do for your business.

Interested in partnering with us? Just give us a call at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!