PPC Partnership Questionnaires: Client to Agency
The first meeting between an agency and a prospective client can play a huge role in the decision to form a working relationship. Many clients looking for digital marketing help are unsure of exactly what they need or can afford. It is this first meeting where all of their questions are answered, and the agency has the opportunity to get their first set of data points. In other words, this is, next to the payment for services rendered, the most important meeting you will have; as both agency and client.
In furtherance of Lift Conversions mission to educate and inform, as well as serve, our clients we have put together a list of the questions a prospective client should be ready to ask an agency, and the questions a client should expect our agency to ask of them. Hopefully, this will illuminate what can be a rather murky process, and help you come to the right decision when choosing an agency partner. Lift Conversions wants to be that partner, so please visit our Contact Page to begin learning more about what we can do for your business.
The complexities of internet marketing can seem daunting to most business owners. There is no time to become an expert in a new field simply to keep pace with the current business model, and hiring someone to handle all the aspects of digital marketing is just not a realistic option for many small businesses. This disconnect, sadly, is widened further by the always-changing nature of the medium.
Digital marketing is constantly evolving, and its ties to technologies means even the tools used to achieve a given result can change without notice. When all of these issues are looked at as a whole, the knowledge and experience gap is just too wide for most companies to overcome on their own, so they look outward to find an expert who can solve their problems, keep them competitive, and collaborate on future digital marketing endeavors.
So, the time has come to bring in an outside agency to deal with the digital marketing side of your business. Who should you hire? What information should you have when interviewing potential marketing partners? Below we have compiled a list of some of the more important questions you, as a prospective client, should ask any agency you are considering working with, and a brief description of the kind of responses you should expect from a professional, competent internet marketing agency. The questions are as follows:
- What is your agency’s standing with the top search engines? Please explain your answer.
Lift Conversions is proud to be a Google Partner Agency, a Bing Accredited Agency, and an Amazon Business Service Provider.
- Are all of the team members you assign to accounts certified by the top search engines? If no, why? Please provide details.
Yes. All of Lift Conversions Account Executives hold all of the necessary Google and Microsoft certifications.
- Leadership in any field is important to success. How has your agency showed leadership in the internet marketing arena? Please give detailed examples.
Lift Conversions CEO Spencer Wade is a Google Ambassador, a Google Mentor, and a Google AdWords Product Expert. He holds Product Expert status in a wide variety of fields. He has authored numerous papers on relevant topics within the field of digital marketing, and his efforts can be seen all over the web from the Google Product Forums to our own sites.
- Is the internet marketing solution you offer full-service? If yes, what does full-service mean?
Yes. Lift Conversions Paid Search campaigns are full-service efforts. We craft a strategy, implement it, monitor its progress, manage its resources, and optimize, optimize, optimize. From setup to reporting, Lift Conversions will be there the entire time to handle any and all of the details that make a campaign successful.
- What are the technologies involved? Are they frequently updated? Please give details.
Nearly 100% of the PPC technologies necessary to create and manage your campaign are free tools created by Google and Microsoft. Proprietary technologies, while impressive sounding, are completely irrelevant to the campaign you want to run, so any company that offers results that beat the industry standard based on some in-house technology is probably a company to avoid; unless their data proving their technology’s benefits are ironclad and publicly available. The updating of the tools we use is not a factor in our campaigns due to the nature of the updates and their source.
- Does the technology in question have direct API integration with the top search engines? Please explain.
Yes. The technology used to run your campaign has direct API integration. Our teams know the specifications, and the guidelines to follow to get the job done right.
- What is the specific timetable for the launch of my campaign? Please give detailed timeline.
Lift Conversions begins each campaign with a timetable of three days from the initial meeting with a client to the kickoff of their PPC campaign. This timetable is flexible enough to allow for the inevitable issues to arise, but was established as a baseline to keep any project on track through the initial planning phase. We strive to meet deadlines on time, on budget, and on target conceptually.
- Is my campaign optimized once it is launched? If yes, please explain.
Yes. Lift Conversions will optimize your campaign upon launch. We also recommend optimization at 30, 60, and 90 day intervals. The data needed to thoroughly optimize your campaign takes time to compile, so revisiting it after one, two, and three month intervals is a must.
- Will my campaign be aligned with other online marketing efforts? If yes, please explain.
This is a tricky one. The Paid Search campaign Lift Conversions creates for you will be outlined in detail in our Statement of Work (SOW). Preexisting online efforts can be included with some exceptions. We offer a full range of digital marketing services, and other services needed, outside of the scope of a Paid Search campaign, must be discussed, pricing agreed upon, and clearly defined additional service(s) added to the SOW.
- Who will be managing my account? Please explain.
Lift Conversions will assign one of our fully certified, cross-trained Account Executives to manage the activities of your account.
- What is the average account manager’s background and experience? Please give details.
Lift Conversions’ talented team of Account Executives are all fully certified with the relevant agencies in all of the relevant technologies, and have been working in the field for at least five years. We have an extensive and arduous training program that emphasizes vertical cross-training and interpersonal communication. Our AEs are knowledgeable, proactive and laser-focused.
- In terms of allocated resources, what does my account manager bring to the table? Please explain.
Every Lift Conversions Account Executive brings all the resources of our agency to bear on the campaigns they manage. They have unlimited access to the tools and the knowledge they need to surpass your expectations.
- Do your account managers have vertical experience? If so, which verticals?
Yes. Lift Conversions Account Executives are experienced in a wide range of verticals, and cross-trained in a variety to better grasp the complexities of the industries we work with. We have experience working in Automotive, Business and Industrial Markets, Consumer and Packaged Goods, Education and Government, Finance, Healthcare, Media and Entertainment, Retail, Technology, and Travel.
- Are bids, keywords, all copy, and landing page management all the account manager’s responsibility? If no, are there teams who handle each individually? Please explain.
No. Lift Conversions trusts our Account Executives to handle all of the aspects of Paid Search campaign management, but we have a team of dedicated copywriters and content specialists whose sole responsibility is delivering copy that search engines and customers will love..
- Do you have a separate technical support team? Are they available 7 days a week? 24 hours a day? Please explain.
Yes and No. Lift Conversions has a small in-house technical support team that can handle most issues that may arise, but if a larger, more comprehensive team is needed we have strategic partnerships with three different technical support outsourcing companies located across the US. Technical support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
- Will there be opportunities to network with other clients? If yes, please explain. If no, give reasons.
Yes. Lift Conversions CEO Spencer Wade is one of 40 Google Product Experts in their flagship platform AdWords. Events are hosted yearly to bring the best and brightest, along with their clients who want to attend, together to network and socialize.
- What is your agency’s formula for a successful campaign? Does it include a specific strategy for bid management? Please explain.
Lift Conversions believes that every case is unique, so we don’t utilize any specific bid management system. We have our own best practices developed through years of experience, so we don’t shackle our team’s creativity and insight through regulation and routine. We believe if you spend X and we return Y our job has been done well. Return on Investment (ROI) is the only real measurement of success.
- How does your agency define a successful campaign? Can you describe the metrics you use to arrive at your conclusion? Please give a detailed response.
As stated in answer to the last question, Lift Conversions #1 metric for measuring success or failure is ROI. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that give an indication of a client’s goals being met are hammered out during the initial meeting with the client, so the metrics involved can’t be stated in a formulaic way. But, if you were to force us to give you the metrics formula we use then it would be USP + KPI = ROI.
- For reporting purposes – do you use referral or API data? Please explain why.
Lift Conversions is proud of our reports. We think they are an important part of the process, so we’ve taken the time to create a reporting format that is quick and easy to understand with enough depth to cover all the pertinent bases. We use API data to generate reports because it allows us to scale data to better present it for public consumption.
- What are the other digital marketing services your agency can offer? Do you have any suggestions?
Lift Conversions offers a full range of digital marketing services to our clients. We can provide Reputation Management, Search Engine Management (SEM) and Optimization (SEO), Social Media Management (SMM), Video Marketing (YouTube), and IT Services. We always offer every Paid Search client the opportunity to maximize their results through our SEO efforts. Paid Search, in our opinion, is instant gratification while search engine optimization is taking the long view. Both are excellent ways of arriving at one’s goal, but deliver significantly different payoffs. In tandem, they are the best way to get the most from your investment.
