Maybe you’re an online shoe retailer or a brick-and-mortar clothing store with a website. You could be a Fortune 500 company or a youth marketing agency looking to increase traffic to your site with the hopes of boosting sales and expanding your clientele. In any case, by now you’ve probably realized the importance of marketing, but you may not be sure how to do it, or be able to tell if your current efforts are producing any real results. You may have heard about something very sexy and alluring called pay-per-click advertising but you’re not quite sure if you’re ready. While PPC can deliver very compelling results (i.e. sales), it can cost a lot of money an advertiser is ill-prepared. While hiring a professional PPC management firm can help mitigate risks, you should address the following 3 things before you make the call.

1 – Do you know what you want to sell?

Don’t laugh. This first question may seem obvious but you’d be surprised how many businesses start advertising without a definitive sales strategy. Many think they can go broad with their PPC campaign and they will capture ‘everyone’ but this strategy rarely works. The key to PPC is to be specific and match the user-query. For example, if you are a sporting goods store that carries a variety of goods. Bidding on the keyword ‘sporting goods’ and serving up an ad that says ‘All Sports Equipment’ is fine but you aren’t likely to get great results. This is because a user searching for ‘sporting goods’ may not necessarily be ready to buy. Likewise, serving up an ad with ‘All Sports Equipment’ as the headline won’t do much to separate you from the pack.

When it comes to PPC, specific is better. Bid on specific terms like ‘Jansport backpack’ and use the keyword in your ad-text headline. This will reinforce to the user that you have what they are looking for and also help you target users who are more likely ready to buy than those searching for more general terms. Working with a PPC management firm will also help you identify keywords that convert.

2 – Do you have a strong call to action?

This is a big one. A strong call to action, also known as a ‘CTA,’ helps motivate a user to take action and should be tied into your sales strategy. If a user wants a Jansport backpack for example, ‘Buy your backpack here’ may seem like a good CTA to use in your ad and on your landing page, but you can make it much better by offering up a discount. ‘Get 25% off a Jansport backpack now’ is a compelling CTA and more likely to motivate the sale. Since you can’t advertise discounts you aren’t offering, figure out your CTA’s when you figure out what you want to sell (see #1 above) and make your CTA’s relevant to your overall sales and PPC campaign building strategies.

3 – Do you have a custom landing page designed for each promotion?

The theme again is being specific. If you are bidding on terms like ‘Jansport backpack’ and advertising a ‘25% off discount on Jansport backpacks’ in your ad text, don’t send a user to your website’s homepage and make them hunt for what they want – make sure your landing page reflects the user query and ad copy that came before it. While making unique landing pages for every keyword and ad pair isn’t necessary, start out by identifying your best-sellers and design custom landing pages for each.

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PPC is one of the cost-effective forms of advertising available and a smart investment to make in your business. Pay-per-click campaigns make it possible to track everything, from keyword performance to click-through-rate, right down to ROI for every dollar spent. Despite these clear advantages, however, jumping into PPC without an idea of your budget limitations is a bad idea.

Get an idea of how much you can afford to spend per month in relation to how much you are willing to spend on each new customer, conversion, or sale. Communicate this to the prospective PPC management firm and then be sure their fees will not put you over budget. If you know what you want and what you can afford, a firm may be willing to work with you to arrange a fee structure that meets your needs. Do your homework.

2 – Are there any guarantees?

Guarantees in business can be good. They can make us feel secure, and they give us some sort of protection if and when something goes wrong down the line. But if a PPC management firm guarantees performance or success, run the other way.

There is no such thing as a guarantee of success in search engine marketing, although there are many companies who will tell you otherwise. Don’t listen. Whether you are dealing with PPC or SEO, there are many factors involved in success and what works for one company will not work for another. Get clear on the terms of your contract and go from there. Make sure your contract terms are fair, but don’t get fooled into believing there is anything that can be done to predict success.

3 – How will you demonstrate improvements?

This is a big one. One of the reasons you are probably attracted to PPC in the first place is because you want to improve your business – in the form of sales, clients, or more accountability in your marketing. Make sure your PPC firm is committed to the same goal. Ask about reporting frequency, campaign benchmarks, and performance metrics. Make sure your firm feels strongly about improving your bottom line and will demonstrate that to you in the form of tangible deliverables on an ongoing basis.

4 – How many people will handle my account?

If you ask a firm how many people are handling your PPC account and they say 3 or more, this should raise a red flag. Unless you are purchasing a more comprehensive media package, it should take no more than one competent account manager to handle your PPC campaign. In fact, it is preferred that one person handle your account so they understand the history behind it and can make informed and strategic decisions to improve your performance moving forward.

5 – Can I speak with some of your clients?

If you only ask one question on this list, let it be this one. One of the quickest ways to suss out a disreputable PPC management firm is to speak with their clientele. If you ask to speak to a firm’s clients and they are withholding, consider this alone a red flag and move on to your next prospect.

The kind of firm you want to work with should be more than willing to hand you a lengthy list of clients ready to give them rave reviews. Call a few clients on their list and ask for written testimonials. Do whatever you can to ensure the firm in question has a pool of satisfied clients.

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