Each year millions are wasted on Google Ads by companies because they have selected the wrong management partner and this is not a result of the platform. Many organisations choose their vendors primarily based on generic sales pitches as opposed to verified data; consequently, they are unable to verify that their choice is a legitimate one. Due to the numerous directory listings and out-of-date company profiles available, it is imperative that existing buyers obtain concrete information regarding a PPC marketing agency to ensure safe choices.
As such, it is imperative that all decision-makers evaluate pricing models (including minimum budgets), as well as the precise areas they service. By analysing existing market data, we have located PPC marketing agencies that provide transparent reporting of results.
Current trends in PPC marketing indicate that agencies are migrating away from basic traffic metrics to measuring pipeline growth, actual sales, and return on investment.
Core Criteria for Choosing PPC Marketing Agencies
To find the correct agency, you must employ a systematic method of evaluation. An agency should not be evaluated solely on their website; you must also assess how they charge for their services, as well as how they measure their effectiveness.
The best agencies offer services that are directly linked to your bank account. They will not only provide you with click-through rates and generic web traffic data but also will enable you to ascertain the actual dollars generated from their services.
Measuring Real Sales and Outcomes
Whether an agency can track actual revenue is of utmost concern to all buyers. You need an agency that can identify lead quality, as well as the sales pipeline.
If your agency only has access to raw clicks, your sales team will have limited information about the leads they are closing. An excellent agency should provide you with tracking capabilities that enable you to follow your customer from the first click through to the final sale.
Understanding Pricing Risks
Pricing models established by agencies have varying degrees of risk associated with them. The majority of PPC marketing agencies utilize a standard pricing model, which is typically a percentage (15%-25%) of the amount that you spend on your ad budget. The average management fee for smaller business services ranges from $250 to over $2,000 per billing cycle. The buyer must decide what type of fee structure they want: flat fee, hourly rate, percentage model or performance-based.
The type of model used by the advertising agency has an impact on how the agency operates. Percentage models typically incentivize the agency to spend more of your money so that they can charge a higher fee.
Top PPC Marketing Agencies Ranked
The following are the most highly regarded real-world agencies identified in market research. They have specific expertise in numerous industries and have demonstrated success across a diverse range of clients.
1. Silverback Strategies
With 17 years of experience in the paid search industry, Silverback Strategies is rated 4.8 on multiple public review sites, and is known for managing complex campaigns for businesses such as eCornell and LexisNexis.
Their team focuses on combining the paid media execution strategy with search engine optimization to develop innovative digital marketing strategies.
2. Searchbloom
Searchbloom specializes in working with enterprise buyers whose financial needs are rigidly defined (companies with monthly advertising budgets over $85,000).
At the end of the research process, they evaluated 47 different advertising agencies and created a final trusted list of 12 enterprise partners. Agencies were evaluated on four performance measures, including automation, compliance, and expertise.
3. PipeRocket Digital
PipeRocket Digital is a team that specializes in B2B software companies and focuses on optimizing search campaigns for the sales pipeline and monthly recurring revenue.
They do not measure campaign success on raw clicks but rather the overall quality of leads generated. They are a popular choice for software companies.
4. Directive Consulting
Directive Consulting specializes in providing highly focused performance marketing strategies for the B2B and software markets.
They consistently rank high in industry rankings. They connect paid ad spend directly to the desired revenue outcome of the client. Companies rely heavily on the results of spending money; therefore, agencies that manage their advertising through social media and/or their customers will likely be in demand by the agency's customers.
5. Disruptive Advertising
Disruptive Advertising will manage the overall payment of the digital channels they use for advertising and are a familiar name to many agencies with large market footprints.
They concentrate on helping their clients grow long-term as well as create and maintain healthy accounts. Rather than trying to find quick funding opportunities for their clients' advertising, Disruptive Advertising invests their time and effort into building stable and reliable sources of revenue for their clients to utilize.
6. Power Digital
Power Digital, as an agency, provides clients access to a full suite of performance marketing strategies and technologies via PPC, CPA, CPI, and other paid channels and is often regarded as a top choice by brands looking to achieve fast and/or aggressive growth in size.
Power Digital supports the seamless integration of the various ads & platforms. This integration provides their clients with the means to capture buyers at any stage of the purchasing funnel from lead to sale.
7. Thrive Internet Marketing Agency
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is an agency that offers a complete array of digital marketing as well as PPC services to its clients.
They are consistently ranked as one of the best agencies in the digital marketing space. For clients, they can be a valuable partner due to their capability to provide all of the digital marketing services required in one location. Their offerings allow clients to advertise across multiple channels of opportunity, all at the same time.
8. JumpFly
JumpFly is a digital agency specializing in marketplace and ecommerce advertising.
They have developed a deep understanding of the complexities associated with advertising physical goods for sale online. JumpFly's team is well-versed in the many complexities associated with managing large numbers of product feeds, as well as managing product-based shopping campaigns, making them an excellent choice for retail brands with large catalogs of products available for sale on e-commerce platforms like eBay, Amazon, and others.
9. Digital Third Coast
Digital Third Coast has built a strong service offering that encompasses a variety of different performance marketing strategies across all paid ad platforms.
In doing so, they connect their paid advertisements to their clients' larger strategic business goals and sales objectives. Digital Third Coast is regarded as a top choice for clients with mixed business needs for their advertising campaigns because they ensure that their paid search advertisements will support their clients' overall business strategy and objectives.
10. Ninja Promo
Ninja Promo offers an innovative multi-platform paid media program powered by a subscription-based pricing model.
Beginning at a price of $4,000 per month, you can access their core management services. They maintain a 4.9 / 5.0 average rating based on 82 public reviews, which reflects the transparency of their pricing rules, allowing buyers to anticipate a budget.
11. Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter targets businesses and sells qualified leads. They present their pricing openly to provide visibility and trust to potential buyers.
Their monthly management services start at $1,500 and allow small software companies to safely enter paid search without experiencing any risk.
12. KlientBoost
KlientBoost manages conversion rate optimization through PPC (paid search) management for their clients while working together to test their landing pages and enabling ad clicks to convert into actual sales.
They have a visible presence in software and growth agency research by providing a dual approach of fixing both the ad traffic and user experience on the website.
13. Single Grain
Single Grain builds advanced growth marketing strategies for software companies. By managing budgets effectively through data analysis to identify the lowest cost to acquire new users, they focus heavily on safely scaling user growth.
Their method is data driven and relies upon continually testing campaigns to quickly identify winning combinations.
14. NoGood
NoGood serves as a dedicated growth marketing team for modern brands by testing new ad opportunities quickly to establish hidden sources of revenue.
Every campaign is monitored from a pure mathematical perspective with fast execution times, eliminating the need to waste time and resources on campaigns that do not quickly produce positive returns.
15. Kalungi
Kalungi offers software companies exclusively dedicated marketing services. They create predictable lead generation engines for businesses and create them from scratch.
They have a strong understanding of the software industry and how long it takes for buyers to buy enterprise software; using that knowledge, they align their advertising campaigns to match that style of decision-making.
How to Pick the Right PPC Marketing Agency
For agencies, there is an established process to evaluate and find an agency. Don't just pick up the phone and call the first company you find on Google.
Comparing Candidates and Finding Your Match
Buyers should review the minimum budget requirements for PPC marketing agencies before booking a demonstration with a sales rep of a potential partner. Many successful agencies will not work with businesses that cannot spend enough money on their advertising campaigns.
The ability of an agency to onboard a client and to get their new advertisements up and running after signing a contract, is important to the operations of the client's business. To this end, be sure to ask the agency about the agency's onboarding timeframe, from signing the contract to launching new advertisement campaigns.
Agencies should conduct an audit of your historical account data before they request payment. An audit will help agencies identify areas of excessive spending and broken tracking codes.
When comparing proposals, ensure that the proposals include specific references to the areas of your account that require fixing, not just ideas or strategies regarding fixing all accounts.
Key Takeaways for Choosing a Partner
Selecting top PPC marketing agencies requires adherence to set guidelines and careful examination of all available information regarding an agency. Agencies that specialize broadly, lack expertise when they work with very complicated and specialized markets. Therefore, clients need to ensure that agencies selected are very much linked to their specific industry as well as to the size and structure of their advertising budget.
Clients will demand comprehensive documentation of all additional revenues generated by their efforts. Clients will be able to avoid the pitfalls of adopting poor pricing models and the other resulting impact on paid media performance, by setting clear expectations when selecting an agency. If an agency will not provide any record of actual sales, then clients are making a poor investment.
Questions and Answers About Paid Search Management
Why do campaign results drop immediately following the switch from one paid search vendor to another?
The typical reason is due to the improper management, loss of, or faulty transfer of the historical account data. Moreover, when new vendors onboard new clients, they typically start from scratch so that they can replicate their own internal processes for the new client; as a result, their platform algorithms lose previous optimization learning. Consequently, clients must establish a tight transition plan prior to transferring access to the new vendor.
What should the internal team do to confirm an agency's claimed revenue figure?
The internal team must match the agency's reporting to the internal sales reporting for every lead. If additional leads have been generated, the internal team will need to track how many leads signed contracts with their customers. Numbers in an ad platform should only be used in conjunction with the internal team's tracking and verification processes.
What are the actual risks associated with percentage-of-spend pricing models?
Percentage-of-spend pricing structures lead to a larger investment of the client's resources in paid media than what was originally requested by the client. Even when the additional spending does not result in lead generation, the agency continues to create additional profits based on the additional spending. Therefore, clients need to establish tight stringent guidelines surrounding target lead costs in order to protect their advertising budget from excessive spending by an agency.