Google PPC Campaigns

[Ben Robbie]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone had a recommendation for Google PPC/ Marketing company that focuses on real estate websites and generating real estate buyers/ renter/ seller leads. 

[Angel-Ty L.]

@Ben Robbie Don’t have any recommendations specifically for this industry other than me ironically lol, but I will give you some pointers on what to look out for when looking for when vetting a ppc agency.

1.) Do you have access to your accounts whenever you want?
This is major because I’ve seen it happen where someone will have no idea how their accounts are being managed because the agency won’t allow the client access to the account. Even if you’re getting regular reports you do want to make sure that everything matches up, especially your conversion data, by looking into your account yourself at any time.

Another reason is just in case you and the company part ways you want to still be able to have access to the account history that you’ve already spent your money on.

Some agencies will try to argue that they keep clients out of their accounts because they don’t want the client to make any changes that could harm performance, which is total baloney so run the other way!

2.) What questions are being asked to you during the discovery period?
In my experience, the best ppc accounts perform consistently well because of historical data. Without data it is extremely hard to confidentially make decisions to direct an account to success, it's basically like you flying blind. So, a good thing to pay attention to is the questions that the ppc agency is asking you in the discovery call.

For example, I like to always ask what the average profit from a wholesale deal is. By having that number, I can work backwards with your average # of leads to close a deal, average website conversion %, average CPCs, etc… to come up with a range for a realistic/ achievable CPA that can be used to set expectations.

If you're in a discovery call and the agency is making claims that they can get you this many leads and ensure that this many people visit your website etc… before getting the numbers needed to do estimations, then you’ll know this is probably not an agency you want to work with because they didn’t even bother to get the information needed to make an accurate estimation beforehand.

3.) How is reporting being handled?
Like I mentioned above for one you want to double-check and make sure your reports are accurate. Shady agencies love to inflate the number of conversions you get so it would be worth your time to check the reported conversions, how those conversions are set up/ being triggered and then compare that to the actual amount of leads you’ve received.

With reports, you also want to make sure they are actually of use to you. Creating reports, if not automated, takes time and if they’re going to bill you for it then have it be of value to you.

For example, getting weekly reports may not be necessary, you can always peep into your account and within 5 minutes of signing in know exactly how many clicks, impressions, conversions, conversion rates, etc… by just going to the Google Ads overview tab.

With that in mind, let’s say you have a small budget, it wouldn’t be necessary to get weekly reporting because there’s less volatility within the account. Opting for bi-weekly reporting will help you save more month to month by cutting out hours billed for unnecessary reporting

4.) Be mindful of any promises or expectations.
A standard question that most who’ve never run ppc ads are usually “how many leads can we expect per month?” If an agency says they guarantee xxx number of leads… again run for the hills!

This is because it’s impossible to guarantee leads for a brand spanking new account. Sure we can give you a low and high range estimate using average CPCs, previous landing page conversion rates, monthly budget, etc… but you have to keep in mind the factors that are unknown when just starting out such as your budget may be too small for the market, your landing page could be hot garbage, your website runs into issues that affect the conversion tracking, etc…

PPC is about testing until you find the winning setup, so if your account is brand new you should have a clear understanding that you will most likely have to dial in those leads through ongoing optimizations unless of course, your first launch is a massive success first week which is rare but still possible.

The end goal is to create a profitable lead generational source so working with the right company is pretty darn imperative, hope this helped! If you have any questions, feel free to inbox me!

P.S. @Brian Nally was any of the issues that you were having with the other companies one of the problems I listed or was it more of just a performance issue?