Over the last couple years, I’ve worked on some amazing accounts and I’ve worked on some challenging accounts. Sometimes the amazing accounts were also the most challenging due to business intricacies, niche markets, etc.
I’ve also worked on some accounts that were challenging for, what seemed like, no reason at all. They were challenging because helpful information was either consciously withheld or simply wasn’t available due to limitations. No matter what the cause, this lack of information flow can make it extremely difficult for a PPC agency to achieve your business goals within the campaigns. Below is a list of five things that can hinder your PPC agency’s performance if they aren’t looped in.
Other Marketing Channels
Marketing managers should know now more than ever the importance of cross channel marketing consistency. If your messages aren’t synced between your PPC, SEO, email, or direct marketing efforts, you stand a good chance of losing some of your potential audience due to confusion with your brand or not leveraging your best performing offer.
Additionally, performance insights from one channel can help marketers make informed decisions in others. It’s in your best interest as a business to share any learnings that might be relevant from one channel to another. Maybe your PPC team came up with a great tagline that produces great CTRs that you can use for email headlines. Maybe your SEO team made updates to the copy on some landing pages that might now work better for PPC. You never know where your next big win will come from, so be sure to be open and transparent between channels, even if different agencies are working in each channel.
Understanding Desired Outcomes
I’ve written about it before. Not all outcomes are equally easy to achieve or are able to work together. It’s nearly impossible to increase online lead forms and phone calls at the same time. Whether your goals are inverses of each other, they have differing values, or their simply not clear, your PPC agency can be left to make educated guesses as to what you want them to achieve.
External Lead/Call System
For many lead generation companies, there is an external lead system or call tracking set up to help track prospective customers from lead to close. For the most part, PPC accounts are only used to track the initial lead conversion. But that’s only part of the story. Without knowing if leads are moving through to close and which campaigns are doing so at a better rate, it’s hard for your PPC agency to improve lead quality.
If you’re willing and able to share your data throughout the sales funnel, your agency can adjust strategy to focus more heavily on channels, campaigns, sometimes even keywords that bring in leads that have a higher probability of becoming a customer.
The same thing goes for call quality. On the PPC end, we can see that a call was made, how long that call lasted, and sometimes a few other data points. What we can’t see is any information about the content of the call or if that caller is deemed a marketing qualified lead. If you have the ability to use and/or share a call tracking software system that’s updated regularly to monitor call quality, your PPC agency could leverage this data in the same way as the lead tracking system mentioned above.
Promotions Not Disclosed
At times, companies will have a short run, company-wide promotion or emphasis of message. These can be really impactful on the company’s bottom line when rolled out cohesively. But if those messages aren’t rolled out to your vendors, like a PPC agency, they can miss the chance to leverage this company wide consistency. Leaving your agency out here might not mean that their performance goes down, but if all other channels rise, you’ve effectively handicapped this channel due to lack of communication.
Past Strategies and Outcomes
For accounts that have been around for a long time, knowing what has and has not worked in the past can be a real benefit to new account managers. Sometimes accounts owners (clients) might not want to share past strategies in an effort to give the account a fresh start with a new team. This is logical, but for the sake of future performance, it’s helpful for your new team to at least have an overview of what has and hasn’t worked in the past. This doesn’t mean a previous losing strategy should be ruled out with adjustment and testing or that a previous winning strategy is the only way to go, but gives someone new to the account a better picture of the history so they can strategize more effectively.
What do you think? How can transparency, or lack there of, impact a PPC agency’s performance? Share with us in the comments!
