First of all, thanks for everyone’s insightful replies.
You confirmed everything that we have been thinking.
It might take a few replies to address everything.
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Originally Posted by littlelo
Another idea is to pay him based on conversion rates.
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The client has decided to terminate the agreement with the SEM. -- This particular SEM has had 3 clients who were doing Internet Marketing with him suddenly drop him... I had a chance to discuss it with him face-to-face, and grilled him on some very direct questions (since I am at least proficient in SEM knowledge) and he gave me a very flustered and devious response to my questions.
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Originally Posted by bhartzer
Uh, why did it take 6 months for them to realize that they're only getting once conversion a month?
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We just found out within the last month that this money was being spent on the service.
Once we found out, I insisted to the client that we needed to take a look at detail traffic reports, I spent several hours going through the report with the client to help them understand where traffic was coming from...
After we realized traffic was near NULL from any outside sources (besides direct and some searches on Google for the domain name), I asked the client to request a detailed expense report from the SEM.
After a week of conversation back and fourth, the SEM refused to show the client anything but a generic breakdown of monthly expenses
"$xxxx for Ad campaigns, $xxxx for leg-work per month" -- was the report, with no detailed report, and no documented proof of ad campaign expenses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartzer
The traffic report should show where the traffic is coming from--and it's it's coming from a PPC campaign or ad campaigns then that should show up in the traffic report (see the referring sites section).
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There are NO results from any PPC or any ad campaign as far as I can tell. -- I don’t have direct access to the Analytics traffic report, but the client does.
There are no referrals from any sites.
There are only a handful of organic results and the rest of the traffic is direct hits.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartzer
It's standard for the client to have direct access to the campaigns so they can log in...especially PPC campaigns like Google AdWords campaigns and Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns.
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This was my thought as well, but the SEM refuses to share any detailed information, saying that it’s unethical for a business to request expense reports from another business.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartzer
Since things are done online, then it may be tough to produce a "receipt".
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The Client is not aware of how SEM works, so he thought there would be physical receipts, but basically, all the client is looking for is proof, physical proof from the Ad companies that they are supposedly supposed to be advertising with.
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Originally Posted by Dinghus
He should be able to at least show the ad campaigns and how much has been spent on them AND results.
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The expense report was rounded to the nearest hundred.
The results, the SEM says are in the Google Analytics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by brander
If you are not in a contract or under a service agreement with this person or their firm, then cease your relationship immediately and find a professional.
If you do have a service agreement or contract, then review it for any breach regarding reporting standards. If the service agreement or contract has no section that defines reporting, then next time you sign a service agreement or contract; make sure that you clearly state your expectations and needs prior to signing it.
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Regardless of what "precisely" was defined in the contract, any agreement does require both parties to fulfill their end of the agreement.
Client pays SEM $x-amount to do X - job. X-job is not being done...
The Client is going to break contract with the SEM, as the agreement has not been upheld by the SEM.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marcel
Ask to see statistics on the ad campaigns.
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Again, the SEM has insisted that the analytics traffic report should be sufficient, but as you know, as all of you know, it’s not... especially when spending several thousand on ad-campaigns, you want to see physical results, but there is nothing...
Quote:
Originally Posted by marcel
Also, maybe he does not want you to go do it yourself. If you see the emails receipts, he might afraid that you stop using his services.
A good Internet Marketers should be able to show you much more buzz activity.
Especially if you spent seaveral thousand dollars.
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Exactly!
But he’s also afraid to come out and say that he really didn’t have any time to put into the SEM because then he would be liable for the tens of thousands of dollars that were paid to him to do the service, and he would have to pay it back.
So obviously the SEM is going to keep up the facade.