It appears that there are still a number of people out there who implement a paid search campaign in AdWords and then once it is operating at an acceptable level proceed to switch their minds off and forget about it.

Once they have ascertained that the existing CTR is acceptable, CPC is not bad and conversion rates going well, depending on their relative definition of ‘well’, they become opposed to the idea of changing anything, to avoid disrupting this status quo. What this means is that ad copy goes through little revision, if ever, and landing pages, well, let’s just say landing pages are as new as the 90s.

In the game of paid search where incremental changing, testing and analysing are required elements to increase performance, this can be a major setback. How do you deal with a client who simply does not wish to send a ripple through calm waters?

1. Persevere & Educate – It is imperative that you show your client the value of testing in PPC. Present them with white papers, industry citations, case studies that discuss the importance and successes of A/B Testing, of both landing pages and ad copy.

2. PPC Success is Relative – Help your client understand that ‘good’ in paid search is relative. How do you know that your current ‘good’ conversion rate is the best it can possibly be? You don’t. For this simple reason you should at every opportunity push forward the performance of the account.

3. ‘Help me, Help you’ – Every client will have paid search goals that tie into bigger business goals. If the goal for the quarter is to grow or reduce customer acquisition cost, help them see how revised landing pages that obey best practices may be exactly the change required in order to reach those goals & KPIs.

4. Testing is Safe – With technology such as Google Web Optimizer, you do not have to forgo the current ‘good’ landing page. It is as simple as setting up a Google Optimizer test – the winner takes it all. If you see the new design blow the old landing page out of the water, the business case for changing the landing pages becomes a lot more compelling.

5. Make it Easy – Some clients are so busy that the notion of organising new landing pages is a task with which they simply do not wish to deal. If this is what is preventing the recommended changes from moving forward, try to present alternatives. Ask the client whether they would be open to outsourcing landing page designs rather than doing them internally. If this is compelling to them, put together a quote and take this task out of the client’s hands. You can then have more control over the design process and you remove the burden for your client.

Sometimes clients launch into paid search advertising, leaving the decision making to the agency without fully understanding the strategy being implemented. They nod, agree and seem to ‘get it’ so you proceed with the project, implementing structures that have been agreed upon, setting up the appropriate reporting to report on business goals and KPIs, which the client has identified as important. The project starts to move forward and then 2 months later, the client drops the bomb and says:

• The current paid search account structure does not fit our internal reporting model
• We would like to modify the current goals, our CPA goals have become more aggressive – CPA target is now 50% lower
• We wish to change our paid search online strategy, radically

Fools Rush In

The result of any of the above points can easily spell hundreds of hours of wasted work, particularly if it is a large PPC account that uses intricate campaign segmentation and geographic targeting.

This happened because at the start of the project the client just did not ‘get’ paid search. Nor did the client appreciate that PPC advertising goals tie in directly to structure, set up, design of campaigns & ad groups. The client will certainly not be able to grasp the number of wasted hours on a set up that they have practically declared null.

Get on the Same Page

A typical problem of launching projects is that once the client has paid some money upfront or a percentage of the costs, there is an expectation that things will get rolling right away. There is a pressure from the internal sales team to get the project going in order to develop a good business relationship with the client in those first 2 months of operation. This generally means everyone comes out guns blazing, both the agency and the client.

Strategies are discussed. Things are rushed. Tactics are implemented. The client tries to ‘get it’. But doesn’t. Two months later, after putting two and two together, the client demands radical change.

It is critical that at the start of the paid search project, the client is taken through a process of education. Just because a company has been running a PPC campaign for 2 years does not mean that the people now responsible for that campaign know the first thing about PPC.

A safe assumption is that the client knows very little about paid search and even if they think they know about PPC, remember that you are the professional being paid to implement the services. Ascertain, at the start of the project what the level of understanding is and proceed accordingly with the education required. Do not rush into a project because the Chief Marketing Officer is pressuring both you and his internal team to do so. At the end of the day, that internal team reports results to the CMO – those results will be much stronger in two months if you push back a bit, put your foot on the breaks and ease into the project, making critical strategic and tactical decisions only when it is clear that the client fully understands the implications of those decisions.