Managing Google Ads campaigns can be complex and demanding. Success requires not only a deep understanding of the platform but also mastery of the psychological aspects of paid search marketing, strong analytical skills, expertise in copywriting, and knowledge of conversion rate optimisation (CRO) and web design principles. Only with these skills can you drive optimum results.
And by the way, Google loves to switch things up! Managing a PPC account requires staying on top of frequent platform changes to maintain traction. Consistent optimisation is key, and this raises the question: is it worth outsourcing this task to a specialist Google Ads management agency?
Before we dive into the pros and cons, let’s take a quick look at the fundamental tasks involved…
What’s involved in Google Ads management?
Managing a Google Ads pay-per-click (PPC) account involves a comprehensive approach that covers the entire lifecycle of your advertising efforts. From initial setup to ongoing optimisation, each step is crucial to achieving a successful and cost-effective campaign.
Here’s a breakdown of what’s involved for effective Google Ads management:
Campaign Set-Up
The setup phase lays the foundation for your Google Ads campaign. This involves deciding on your target audience, setting your budget, and selecting the most effective bidding strategy. A well-structured campaign is essential to maximising your return on investment (ROI) and ensuring your ads reach the right people at the right time. Get this wrong and you’ll find Google Ads management becomes a struggle and your campaigns will ultimately suffer.
Keyword Research
Keywords are the heart of your Google Ads campaign. Conducting thorough keyword research helps identify relevant and high-intent keywords that align with your advertising goals. This step ensures that your ads are shown to users who are actively searching for the products or services you offer.
Negative Keyword Research
Just as important as finding the right keywords, a crucial aspect of Google Ads management, is identifying the wrong ones. Negative keyword research helps you exclude terms that are not relevant to your business, preventing your ads from being shown in unrelated searches. This saves you money and improves the quality of your traffic.
Ad Group Creation
Organising your keywords into ad groups allows you to create more targeted ads and improve your quality score. Each ad group should focus on a specific theme or product, enabling you to tailor your ads more precisely to user intent.
Advert Creation
Crafting compelling ad copy is crucial to attract clicks from the right people. Your ads should include a strong headline, a clear call to action, and relevant keywords. Effective ads address the needs and pain points of your target audience, encouraging them to take the desired action.
Landing Page Creation
Adverts and clicks only go so far. When it comes to getting conversions, it’s the post click journey that matters! Part of Google Ads management is to ensure landing pages are relevant to the ad and provide a seamless user experience. They should include a clear call to action, engaging content and copy that incorporates the keywords you’re bidding on, as well as an easy-to-navigate layout that guides users towards conversion.
Performance Tracking
Once your campaign assets are live, monitoring performance is key to understanding effectiveness. This involves tracking various metrics such as click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and cost-per-click (CPC) at keyword level and beyond. Performance tracking provides valuable insights into what’s working and what needs adjustment.
Optimisation
Efficient Google Ads account management involves ongoing optimisation, which is vital for the long-term success of your Google Ads campaign. This involves tweaking your keywords, ad copy, bidding strategies, and landing pages based on performance data. Regular optimisation helps improve your quality score, lowers CPC, and increases your overall ROI. To keep your campaigns on track, daily, weekly and monthly tasks are required.
How does outsourcing Google Ads work?
Outsourcing Google Ads is the practice of hiring external experts or agencies, like Disturb Digital, to handle the complete lifecycle of your advertising strategy. Rather than running the campaigns yourself, you engage a third-party that provides Google Ads management services to take care of everything from campaign planning to keyword research, content writing, designing, and optimisation. In simple terms, you leave it to the experts!
The pros of outsourcing Google Ads management
Here is why you should consider working with a specialist PPC agency:
Expertise & Experience
Make no mistake, an agency is only as good as its people! By working with a professional Google Ads management agency, you’ll benefit from a team of specialists who live and breathe PPC, handling your ads for you. For instance, here at Disturb Digital, our senior Google Ads strategists have over 15 years of experience and a track record of scaling accounts. Such experts can help you achieve your campaign objectives quickly, avoiding wasted marketing budget on subpar ads and targeting. Essentially, specialists have the knowledge and experience to deliver results faster and keep your campaigns on track, overcoming challenges and navigating bottlenecks that might hinder your in-house marketing efforts.
Resource Efficiency
Managing pay-per-click campaigns is time-consuming. One of the key benefits of outsourcing is the ability to allocate your internal resources to core business activities and simply delegate online advertising to a Google Ads Management company. This is especially useful if your business doesn’t have a dedicated PPC Manager, or a marketing team that can dedicate enough time to managing complex digital ad campaigns.
More than Just PPC
Don’t settle for just ad creation! To maximise your return on ad spend, most specialist PPC agencies will have access to a wider team of designers, developers and copywriters to build responsive web-landing pages that resonate with the target audience and drive post click conversions.
Value for Money
Outsourcing Google Ads management to an agency can be surprisingly cost-effective, especially when compared to hiring a full-time, in-house PPC Manager where the average UK salary is *£42,500. Using an agency could save you 60% or more on management costs, depending on the size of your account and level of ad spend. Plus, with an agency, there’s no recruitment fees or training costs!
*source: Total Jobs
Result-Based Perspective
More important, though, is that when you opt to outsource Google Ads management, you are working with professionals who are motivated by results. Their primary priority is to retain you as a client. As a result, agencies fight for your advertising campaign’s success, putting all their expertise to work to achieve your advertising goals and increase your ROI.
Scalability & Adaptability
As your business grows, you will need to optimise your ad campaigns. A specialist Google Ads management agency will easily scale your campaign to reach new audiences and expand your market reach. Moreover, they stay on top of the latest Google Ads policies and developments, ensuring that your campaigns are always compliant and competitive.
Conversion Optimisation
Agencies offer more than just ads. At Disturb Digital, we develop and implement full-blown lead gen and ecommerce strategies that nurture prospects through to conversion. This includes building high-converting landing pages, setting up data capture functions and advising on user journey optimisations to improve conversion rate.
Reduced Risk & Hassle
Outsourcing your ad campaigns to agencies reduces the risk and hassle associated with recruiting, training, and managing an internal Google Ads team. It also frees you from the ongoing and recurring responsibility of monitoring and optimising your ads, giving you flexibility to focus on your core business.
Specialisation
It’s important to consider the depth of expertise that agencies specialising in Google Ads can offer their customers. Regardless of how many webinars or courses you complete, these companies have much more extensive experience with the platform. You can only get so much out of learning. The proof is in the doing. As a result, a Google Ads management agency can quickly identify opportunities that otherwise may never have come to your mind.
Advanced Tools & Software
Almost all agencies have professional bid management software and analytics tools, which aren’t cost-effective for solo or small in-house marketing teams. These tools often provide deeper insights, help automate routine tasks, and enable agencies to apply highly precise optimisation strategies that can get you much better results.
When is outsourcing not the best idea?
While outsourcing the management of Google Ads has a lot of benefits, the truth is, paid search doesn’t work for every business! Here are a few scenarios where in-house Google Ads account management might be preferable:
- Small budgets: With limited budgets of less than £1,000 per month, agency management fees might prevent you from seeing a return on your investment. In this case, consider using Google’s free resources to learn the basics of managing Google Ads yourself.
- Very limited search volume: If search volume for your product is extremely low, Google Ads might not be the best marketing channel. Consider using other marketing channels, such as Facebook ads, where you can get more reach.
- Simple campaigns: If you have a very straightforward campaign with only a few targeted keywords, in-house management might be more than enough for you.
- Beware of low-cost agencies: While cost is a consideration, excessively low agency fees can be a red flag. Agencies that prioritise quantity over quality may struggle to deliver the personalised attention and strategic expertise your campaigns deserve.
Ready to outsource your Google Ads management?
Managing Google Ads can be complex and time-consuming, but you don’t have to do it alone. At Disturb Digital, our team of seasoned, multi-sector PPC experts are ready to take your campaigns to the next level. With over 15 years of experience, we ensure your ads are in the best hands, driving results efficiently and effectively.
Don’t let the intricacies of Google Ads hold you back. Contact Disturb Digital today and let us help you achieve your advertising goals!