Tips for Hiring a Qualified PPC Consultant

Unless you’re a highly skilled ad and landing page copywriter who knows how to select the most lucrative keywords, you’ll probably need help with your PPC campaign.  If you continue running your PPC campaign blindly, you can end up throwing tons of money away with no ROI to speak of.  To ensure that your PPC campaign brings you a high ROI and helps you achieve your revenue goals, it’s advisable to hire a PPC consultant.  Here are some tips that will help you find a qualified PPC professional who is truly capable of giving your campaign a boost and helping you generate more leads.

Adwords Qualified Individual

If you’re running a PPC campaign, you’re most likely using Google Adwords.  If that’s the case, it’s essential that you hire an Adwords Qualified Individual as a consultant.  The consultant should have the Adwords Qualified Individual logo displayed on his website, and the logo should link to a page hosted by Adwords that confirms that the individual is indeed who he says he is.

Keep in mind that all Adwords Qualified Individuals receive free advertising credits for Adwords.  That means that they should be able to offer you a free trial campaign to demonstrate their skills before you agree to sign on with them.  If a qualified consultant doesn’t offer you any sort of free trial, beware!

Conversion Tracking

Find out what types of conversion tracking tools are used.  Driving traffic to your website is great, but that isn’t the end of the story.  The traffic that your site receives from PPC ads should actually convert.  Each time someone clicks on an ad and visits your site, the goal should be for them to take a predefined action, whether that is to sign up for your newsletter, buy your service, or order your product.  Find out what kind of tracking tools the consultant uses in order to measure whether or not your prospects are taking the predefined action.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is a highly important component of your PPC campaign.  Find out what kind of strategy the consultant uses to determine which keywords are most lucrative for your campaign.  Not all keywords are created equal.  The more keywords you have, the more likely people are to click on your ad and be led to your page.  However, you have to be sure that the keywords chosen actually have the potential to convert prospects into customers.  The traffic you receive must be targeted.  Each keyword has a unique ROI so have the consultant explain what their methodology is for establishing the initial keyword list that they use to launch the campaign.

Landing Pages

A PPC consultant must be able to help you design a landing page that captures visitors and leads them to complete the desired action.  The copy and design of the landing page are both incredibly important when you are trying to capture leads.  Not only should the copy be relevant to what the prospect read on the landing page, the design should be uncluttered and push the prospect towards completing the desired action.  Don’t believe that you can run a successful PPC campaign by sending prospects to your home page after they click on your ad.  Your landing page must be specific to your ad.  There is no continuity if you have prospects click the ad and they end up at your home page.

Bid Monitoring/Management

Tweaking bids for a PPC campaign is not only time-consuming; it can also lead you to lose money if you don’t know what you’re doing.  Find out how the consultant plans to monitor and manage bids.  There are several software programs out there that automate the bid monitoring and management process, enabling the consultant to devote more time to other priorities.  Not only do PPC bidding tools eliminate guesswork, they help you maximize ROI.

Find a Consultant Willing to Share the Secrets to His Success

When you hire a PPC consultant, take care to find one who is willing to keep you in the know throughout the entire process.  If the consultant does not explain what he is doing and how he is doing it, it leaves you in the dark.  Anytime something goes wrong or you are unsure of something, you will have to hire him again.  For most companies, hiring an in-house Adwords consultant is not practical or even possible.  You probably only need a consultant for a short term period in order to give your PPC campaign the oomph it needs.  Don’t fall into the trap of hiring a consultant who wants you to keep returning to him again and again anytime you need help.  Find a consultant who is willing to teach you how to run a successful PPC campaign on your own.