Most companies seek out a Google Ads manager or paid media company to help them grow sales. They reach out to several ad agencies and consultants to get an idea of cost. They also ask questions like “how long have you been in business?”, “who’s on your team?”, “how well do you know my industry?”. Sure, they’ll answer these easy softball questions with flying colors. In the end they pick a company with the best sales pitch or someone who went to high school with a family member. Most companies have trouble finding a good PPC agency to run their Google Ads or Meta campaigns. You’re not alone.
Heavy On Sales, Light On Consulting & Results
After interviewing several firms you’ll get the basic idea of what they charge and how they do business. The truth is, very few PPC agencies take the time to really understand what a client actually needs. They write up a short proposal based on the client’s budget, send out a retainer agreement, and cross their fingers they get hired.
Common Problems
Since some agencies tend to be pretty terrible at consulting, you’ll often get cookie cutter proposals and pricing. They never take the time to dig through the other reasons why your company isn’t converting leads or why the ROAS has dropped. Most companies specialize in one or two main areas, then outsource their ad management to a consultant or agency. If the company you hired isn’t talking about anything but their PPC clicks and impressions, then its time to move on. You’ll likely need a higher level of service. Below are just a few reasons why it seems like each new agency isn’t getting the job done.
Bad CRM Data (or no CRM at all)
The data your CRM is collecting or using is poor data. Filled with outdated phone numbers, list buys, AOL email accounts, etc. Your company is using spreadsheets to manage leads or has missing data that could be useful to marketing. Setting up a proper CRM to collect data is a great first step. This provides your agency with the tools they need to research customers and fine-tune campaigns.
Limited Channel Growth
PPC is just one channel in a group of activities all designed to drive sales. Going all-in on Google Ads or Meta Ads isn’t a great strategy. You may only have the budget to really execute on one channel but you’re setting your agency up for failure when your leads go flat or your overall sales fail to grow. Look to other channels like email marketing, Display ads, social media, digital PR, and other efforts to help support awareness. Sales growth is sustainable when its supported by these other channels.
Limited Brand Awareness
You’re a small fish in a big ocean of retailers. Your brand isn’t a household name so how are people going to find you? If PPC is the only way customers interact with your products, then you need a more comprehensive strategy to increase awareness. Gaining awareness on Google Ads alone isn’t going to drive growth. You’ll need other way to reach customers in order to grow.
No Sales Funnel
Your sales funnel begins and ends with a completed web form. The form submission gets dumped into a generic email account. The sales team checks this account maybe 1-2 times a day on the weekdays but not Friday. Not really the ideal way to handle inbound leads and prospects. Having a solid marketing funnel that you can optimize and manage is key for successful lead generation. Your marketing should be addressing each stage of the funnel to attract interest, nurture leads, and help close sales.
No KPIs
When asked about your goals, you respond with “more sales”. Sure, growing sales is why your running campaigns but its not the only goal you should be measuring. Having clear key performance indicators (KPIs) is important for reaching overall marketing goals. Different tactics are good at driving different KPIs. Display ads may not be the best format for driving web form completions but they’re great at generating several 100,000 or millions of ad impressions in your market.
Poor Product Reviews
Are customers reading through your reviews only to find several 2/5 and 3/5 ratings? Every product and service eventually gets a handful of bad reviews. If most of your product reviews are poor, there may be nothing an agency can do to improve your growth prospects. Reputation management can help mitigate these problems but it can’t fix all marketing issues.
What Clients Actually Need
Some clients are a bit shy to ask the hard questions or don’t really know what they’re buying when it comes to agency services. They’re coming to an agency because sales are down but PPC performance may not be the reason sales have dropped. So if you’re shopping around for a new agency, consider there may be other reasons why that new agency isn’t working out.
Why Hiring A New PPC Company Might Fail
There may be other reasons for a decline or lack of growth, such as:
- Seasonality
- Extreme events (wars, natural disasters, etc) cutting off some customers for weeks at a time
- Price increases impacting overall conversion rates
- Poor Internet security resulting in slow website performance and downtime
- Technical Issues with the website, landing pages, or hosting provider
- Competitors dropping prices aggressively
- New competitors (sometimes well funded) entering the market
- Competitors increasing their advertising
- Poor product messaging and positioning
- Poorly executed website redesign resulting in a drop across all marketing channels
- Rockstar marketing director leaves the company with no succession plan
- Failure to make updates to branding, packaging, or other materials
- ‘Outdated logo, design, or other key inbound path to sales
- Sales team not responding or not responding quickly enough to warm leads
- Going “dark” on marketing for periods of time, losing momentum
- Pausing marketing to save money for months, only to restart with a new agency
Start With A Discovery & Audit
If any of these issues sounds like you, its probably a good time to get a PPC audit and Discovery. Our audits tend to go beyond the basic checklist of marketing tactics. Getting a 360 degree view of your marketing efforts is a great first step. Along with an audit, you’ll get insights into what areas of your business have the most opportunity for improvement. Once we have a better understanding of the inner workings of your sales funnel, we can help customize a program that can meet or exceed your goals. Sign up for a free consultation to learn more.