You have created an excellent online shop. You have great products, your site is clean but the sales are not flowing as steady as they should. You are ready to use the power of paid advertising, yet the balancing of Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, and social media advertisement is a complicated full-time job on its own. The logical next step? Recruiting an ecommerce PPC expert.
This is a decisive time with your business. The correct agency will help jump-start your revenue, whereas the inappropriate selection will make your budget go down the drain. The difference usually boils down to the need to avoid such traps that are common, and yet critical in the process of selection.
These the seven most expensive mistakes to make when contracting an ecommerce PPC services provider to sure that your investment paid off.
1. Focusing on Low Cost rather than Real Value.
This is, by all means, the most widespread and the most dangerous error. You actually get what you pay in the world of PPC.
The Temptation: You have agencies that promise to do everything with a couple of hundreds of dollars per month. It is like a steal against the established firms.
The Reality: PPC management will take much expertise, time and advanced tools. It is not uncommon to have a rock-bottom price, which implies that the agency is skimping. They could be applying automated guidelines that do not suit your business, put your account in the hands of a hardworking junior employee, or even be just operating in a set it and forget attitude. They are out to buy quantity, not to make you successful.
How to Prevent It: Change your way of thinking about cost to Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) or Cost per Acquisition (CPA). An excellent ecommerce PPC consultant must have the capability of showing how their charges are an investment that would yield positive payoff. Follow up with them: What do you think is the target ROAS we can achieve based on your experience with other similar clients? What are your fee structure that will correspond to our development? Consider the value they bring, and not the invoice value.
2. Not Vetting their Ecommerce-Specific Experience.
Not all PPC created equal. The process of organizing campaigns with a B2B software company completely different compared to the process of persuading people to purchase products in an ecommerce store that has hundreds of SKUs.
The Temptation: You awed by the glamorous case studies of an agency that utilizes big B2B clients. You suppose that their capability can directly transferred.
The Truth: Ecommerce PPC is a job that needs a skill set: one needs to know how to use Google Shopping Feeds, dynamic remarketing, seasonality planning, inventory-linked bid strategies and have a strong understanding of the bottom-funnel customer journey. A generalist agency may lack the peculiarities of product listing ads (PLAs) or the ability to optimally plan a campaign to get the best conversion value.
How to evade it: Explore their portfolio. Ask pointed questions:
- Can you present case studies of ecommerce clients only?
- What is your process of optimizing Google shopping feeds?
- How do you cope with campaign organization when dealing with a large product line with clients?
- How are you familiar with such platforms as Shopify, BigCommerce, or Magenta?
Make sure the online retailer rather than the lead generator is being built into the ecommerce PPC services they provide.
3. The Neglect of the Role of Transparency and Communication.
Any deficiency in transparency is a big warning. Do not ever feel that your PPC account is a black box.
The Temptation: An agency is on a great basis with splendid outcomes but obscure as to how they are going to accomplish it. They speak in complicated terms to avoid easy questions.
The Fact: When an agency does not start out transparent, it will only deteriorate. You should be aware of the situation with your budget. How frequently will you be getting the reports? What are the contents of those reports? Access to the ad accounts will you be direct? The waste of money or poor strategies can be covered by opaque practices.
How to Avoid It: In the selling process, inquire about their communication procedures.
- How will I have my primary point of contact and what is his or her availability?
- How frequently will we be having strategy calls?
- What reporting platform do you have? What metrics will be added?
- Will I be granted complete administrative rights to my Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts?
These questions will be embraced by a reliable agency and will have both clear and documented procedures of keeping you in the loop.
4. Data Integration and Full-Funnel Blindness.
PPC doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is a fragment of your greater marketing system. The biggest error is to recruit an agency which is silo-based so that it is totally out of touch with other outlets.
The Temptation: You would like a specialist to do only the ads because you believe it is more effective to keep the things apart.
The Truth: The most successful ecommerce brands possess a unifying approach. The other marketing actions should also inform and tell your PPC efforts. As an example, when an ecommerce SEO company organizes a good organic traffic on specific keywords, your PPC approach may shift towards complementary terms or competing terms. An effective email marketing plan would drive robust customer match lists to your advertisements.
How to Prevent It: Inquire possible agencies concerning their holistic approach.
- How do you work with our internal team or other agencies (such as our ecommerce SEO services provider)?
- What is your PPC targeting utilizing data on our email platform or CRM?
- Do you take the effects of organic search and social media into account when designing PPC campaigns?
The most qualified ecommerce PPC professionals will consider themselves as part and parcel of your growth team.
5. Selecting an Agency that is not cognizant of your business objectives.
A cookie cutter approach is a formula of mediocrity. An agency will need to be able to hear about your special business and your target audience and what you want to achieve.
The Temptation: You enter into an agreement based on a generic sales pitch which could have been offered to any other business any industry.
The Reality: When the agency does not know your profit margin, average order value (AOV), customer lifetime value (LTV), or seasonality, it will have no chance of setting the appropriate KPIs. A pure click-based strategy will put your business in bankruptcy in case you are targeting a high ROAS. An agency that does not inquire profound questions concerning your business will not be strategizing to produce a tailor-made approach.
The Solution: Check their interest. You will be interviewed by a great ecommerce PPC consultant. They should ask about:
- Your sales and profit makers.
- Demographic and psychographic of your target customer.
- Short and long term business goals (ex: brand awareness vs. direct response).
- What you have done/what has not worked in your marketing in the past.
Their concept of the strategy must seem though it were tailor made.
6. Falling victim to Vanity Measures rather than Business Results.
We call it vanity metrics; clicks, impressions, and even click through rate (CTR). They appear great in a superficial report but do not necessarily reflect in terms of sales and profit.
The Temptation: An agency presents a report in which there is a massive growth in clicks and reduced Cost-per-Click (CPC). It’s easy to impressed.
The Reality: How are 10,000 clicks worth when they do not turn into any conversions? The decrease in CPC does not count when the quality of traffic is poor. The metrics that actually count are the ones which influence your bottom line: Conversion Rate, Cost per Acquisition (CPA), Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and ultimately, the total revenue and profit.
How to Prevent It: In the proposal phase, make the discussion business-oriented. Ask:
What are the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) that you will strive to optimize besides clicks?
How to Avoid It: During the proposal stage, steer the conversation toward business outcomes. Ask:
- “Beyond clicks, what key performance indicators (KPIs) will you primarily optimize for?”
- “How do you track and attribute conversions across multiple devices and touchpoints?”
- “Can you explain how a strategy that increases impressions will ultimately lead to more sales for my store?”
Make your agency responsible for the metrics which prompt the growth and not only activity.
7. Not taking the Chemistry Check and Onboarding Process
The association with your PPC agency is a collaborative effort. The collaboration can go awry even when they possess the most appropriate technical skill and have a poor cultural fit or lack of an organized process of onboarding.
The Temptation: You are too impatient to waste more time getting to know each other and you sign the contract.
The Fact: You are going to work in this team closely. When communication styles do not match or you do not feel that you are working together, then that relationship will not be effective. A disorganized, incomprehensible onboarding process is an excellent predictor of the direction of the remaining engagement as well.
How to prevent it: Be attentive to the sales and onboarding experience.
- Chemistry: Do you like to talk to them? Are they clear in their explanations? Do you feel like they are part of your team?
- Onboarding: Request completion of their onboarding checklist. An agency can be professional, so the process of collecting assets, providing access, configuring tracking, and initial KPIs will be detailed. This is a show of arrangement and a willingness to have a good beginning.
Your Road to Profitable Growth
Outsourcing your ecommerce PPC services to an agency is a huge investment but when properly implemented, it is one of the quickest means of growing your business. Those seven common errors should be prevented: a company must emphasize value over cost, require ecommerce-specific knowledge, insist on transparency, identify integration, ensure alignment of goals, focus on actual results, and verify that there is good chemistry, and you will be able to choose a true partner.
The ecommerce PPC experts that work right will not be a mere vendor, but rather a business partner who is keen on knowing your brand, and making sure that the growth is measurable and profitable. You have plenty of time, you should ask the tough questions and you should have a partner who is as committed to your success as you are. It will do your bottom line a favor.
