PPC Firms

Many traditional businesses face a rapidly increasing source of competition - the Internet. Each year, more and more companies turn to online advertising in efforts to gain more exposure to customers who are using less traditional means to locate their products and services. The challenge for the business owner is deciding whether or not to manage the online advertising themselves or hire an experienced pay-per-click (PPC) advertising professional.

So, at what point should you consider hiring a professional PPC firm rather than managing the online advertising yourself? Consider these two following factors before weighing all your options.

Time

When hiring any professional service, a bulk of your money invested goes to the time the individual or company has spent researching their specific field and honing their professional skills. Consider how much available time you’ll have to learn PPC management, and consider these questions:

• Are you internet savvy?
• Do you have ample time to spare to tweak, test, and adjust your ad copy and landing pages? You’ll also need enough time to learn and master the advertising platforms provided by the major search engines, and also how to track your sales and/or leads to know what is working and what is not.
• Do you have many products and services you’d like to advertise, or only one or two, which will take less time management?
• Are you looking to launch your advertising campaign right away?
• Have you researched your online competition, and which keywords will bring you the most qualified traffic?
• What is your monthly advertising budget, and what type of ROI are you looking to gain?

These are all things to consider if you’re thinking of managing your own online advertising campaigns. Remember, time is money.

Budget

Monthly online advertising budgets can range from a few hundred dollars to a few hundred thousand dollars. If you’re looking to advertise your local service business and spend a couple hundred dollars a month on specially-targeted traffic, you may be able to manage your own campaigns safely as long as you remember to cap your monthly budget spend. However, if you own a business that is able to scale to a large amount of internet traffic, you may want to consider hiring a manager or management team.

You know your business best, which means you know which products and services sell the best. Knowing your numbers offline can also translate similarly online. Starting out with a moderate budget and increasing the budget as you increase sales or leads is something to keep in mind. Spending $500 per month now and tracking the right data could mean spending a lot more per month down the line. Consider if you want to scale your business in the future, and this may also help you decide whether or not to hire a professional.