PPC Campaign vs. Online Lead Services

[Eli Rose]

Any insight into cost per customer acquisition from a PPC Google Adwords campaign vs. online lead services? If we go the Adwords route, I would likely manage the campaign. My sister-in-law works for a prominent SEM company and she was gracious enough to help with the campaign setup; however, optimization would be my responsibility. I am not a PPC expert nor do I have the desire to become one. I am not opposed to outsourcing the campaign management/optimization, but this would eat into my shoestring PPC budget of $1,000 per month. I see the main benefit of a PPC campaign being lead exclusivity. On the other hand, the online lead services are competing for the same leads with a much bigger budget and they likely understand their keyword optimization and bid structuring much better than me. The leads would not be exclusive; however, the lead gen process would be truly automated. The online lead services we are considering are REDX, zBuyer and FastHomeOffer.com. We wholesale in Cobb County, GA and Cherokee County, GA which are North Metro burbs of Atlanta; specifically Woodstock, GA; Kennesaw, GA; Canton, GA; Acworth, GA and Marietta, GA. For those not familiar with Metro Atlanta, these are a very competitive markets. One of the main PPC research challenges we have faced is determining long-tailed keyword bid amounts. For example, "Sell My House Fast Kennesaw", Sell My House Quickly Woodstock", etc. Thanks for the comments and advice in advance!