What is the “right” price for PPC strategy or management services? That is a question that comes up a lot. And the answer is a classic PPC answer of “it depends.” Why does it depend, you might wonder… well here are some reasons:
How complex is your current PPC structure?
Is it one campaign on one platform? 10 campaigns across 3 platforms? The number of campaigns and number of platforms directly impacts the cost of analysis, strategy or management. The more complex the setup, the more it costs to analyze or manage it.
What are your expectations?
Do you just want someone to babysit your accounts to make sure nothing goes wrong? Or do you want someone to monitor them closely and work on them regularly to squeeze every last bit of efficiency out of them possible? Babysitting accounts costs much less than actively managing them.
How experienced is the person you’re talking to?
Brand new PPC pros are obviously less expensive than moderately experienced PPC pros. Very experienced PPC pros are not inexpensive. You are paying for accumulated knowledge and experience being applied to your accounts. The more experience and knowledge, the more it costs to have that person managing your accounts.
Is price your biggest factor in selecting a provider?
If so, be prepared to not get quality service. Want to pay $500 for your account management? Expect $500 level service. The person managing your accounts may have 50 other accounts they are responsible for. Your account may be managed by outsourced teams from overseas. You may be sold by a more senior pro and end up with a very junior person actually servicing your account.
How much do you value having an experienced professional working on your accounts?
If the answer is not much, then maybe go with the cheap option. If the answer is more like – I absolutely want someone working on my accounts who definitely knows what they are doing – then you should be prepared to pay an appropriate amount for that person’s or agency’s services.
But they want to charge me as much as I am spending in the platform?
There is a certain amount of baseline work that should and needs to be done to properly manage ad accounts. That baseline may, indeed, be as much as you are spending in a platform if you hire an experienced PPC professional. You will face a choice at this point – what is your priority? Cost or quality? Because you can almost never have both low cost and high quality in this space.
Can’t I just have AI do most of the work?
I mean, you could. No one is stopping you. I would not recommend this as your strategy, but if it is what you want, by all means, give it a try. You can always have someone fix things later…
Bottom line is this:
You largely get what you pay for in PPC services. If you truly don’t have the funds to pay a reasonably experienced professional, then perhaps you should consider hiring a Google Ads coach who can at least train you in the basics of running your own account. That may be more of an investment that you want to pony up too – but you can either pay now or pay later. Or roll the dice and choose a super cheap provider or try to manage it yourself or worse yet, let Google help you manage your account.
If you are interested in managing your own accounts – we have a service for that! Learn & Return PPC Coaching
If you tried AI and are not sure if what it gave you is correct – we have a service for that too! PPC AI Strategy Double Check
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