out source PPC plan?

[lisaC]

OK, I'm a few days and several hours into this whole PPC thing and think I may be better off outsourcing the function of creating, executing and monitoring a PPC plan. I am a business owner and am very busy fulfilling my current contracts (sales effectiveness/enablement consulting). I'm afraid I'll never get my muse off the ground. Any ideas on outsourcing this function, even if I want to start small? One post said don't hire anyone unless your budget is over 3k a month. I want to start at under 1,000.00/month. Any advice or recommended resources? is this something I should hire a VA to do?
lisaC

[travelhead]

Hi Lisa,

You definitely need a professional to handle your campaign, someone with significant experience (5+ years, Google Adwords Qualified, etc).

The reason is because Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing & MSN have become SO competitive, to the point where you can easily lose your shirt by not setting up your campaign correctly , or bidding appropriately.

There's too many ways to fail. Especially if you are competing on a national market in a medium to highly competitive niche.

However, if you are advertising in a local area in an uncompetitive niche, you can do this yourself with a bit of training.

[Mike Rhodes]

Hey Lisa,

The 3k thing is certainly not a fixed rule.. quite a few of my clients are only budgeting around $30/day (<$1000/month)
It all depends on value.
Sure it's not worth paying a professional $1000/month if you're only spending that much on clicks, but a small account shouldn't need that much time each month to run it.

By far the most critical thing is the setup. If that's done properly, then the ongoing maintenance required is a lot less. The right setup will also make your cost per click cheaper (sometimes 90% cheaper) and improve your all-important Quality Score - eoughly: how good Google things your keywords, ads & website are.

I'm biased (!) but I don't believe a business owner should invest the money to learn enough to setup an account the right way. It just takes far to long to learn that.

What we've started doing is to setup accounts for small businesses & then teach them to run it.
I'd advise trying to find someone who can do that.

Of course you can get a VA or similar to run your campaign, but the info that you gain from doing this yourself is MASSIVE!
You learn so much about your market, which headlines they respond to, which words THEY use to describe your products.
There are lots more reasons (I recently blogged about an interesting use of AdWords here: http://websavvy.com.au/adwords-benefits-part-2-ethically-spying-on-your-competitors/ (moderators: I hope that's ok to post :)

Another option available to you is set it up yourself & then get an AdWords Pro to take a look at it & offer suggestions/make changes. This is probably the most cost effective way

Best of luck Lisa
Cheers,
Mike

[webgal]

Lisa- I'd read Mike's blog. He's really a pro and he presents the information very well.