How Much to Charge for PPC Work?

[incrediblehelp]

Most of the time I work on organic work for my clients and occasionally I include some small PPC work for them, but I was wondering if I were to just do PPC work for clients how much to charge.

I see some industry standards exist around 15%-20% mark up from the monthly budget. How much do you charge?

Also if the monthly budget is much smaller say around 1-2K month do you have a bare minimum that you charge regardless of the % basis used above?

Also I am not interested with comments like "whatever they will pay", LOL.

Just really interested to to hear everyone's basic rates for PPC work only.

Feedback is appreciated!

[incrediblehelp]

So basically no one charges for their PPC/CPC services here or at least cares to discuss it, LOL?

[SEOforGoogle]

The charge scale I use is based on the budget of the client - one client spends about 80k per month on ppc - so the charge is 22% on top of the monthly spend.

Another ppc client spends no more than $100 per month in total (for the clicks) - but they are charged $125 per month for services.

Both clients are happy since they are both making a great ROI - but I think it's obvious which client gets better service... ;-P

[incrediblehelp]

Thanks for the feedeback and yes that is close to what I am doing now.

I wonder where the fair cut off is between charging on a % basis and flat rate? 1-2K per month spend? Fair meaning for yourself doing the work and the clients spend.

[SEOforGoogle]

I think that depends on how much you can automate, and how much manual time you have to put in - in the end, you need to determine what your time is worth, and if the effort needed to stisfy the client justifies the time and price charged.

[Orion]

I didn't get the newsletter with this in it the first time. I wonder if that's why there was no replies?

Personally I go hourly on it. $100 CDN per hour for standard and of course I deal with mostly small bus and soho so I often will discount my rates.

Min $150 a month though.

The initial setting up of it all often is just part of a full redesign / optimization or upgrade package, so harder to break that down.

[robmuld]

Do you guys include keyword research in your gee? Or is this with a PPC campaign already set up, Adgroups in place etc?

[jestep]

I think it depends on a few factors. How much ongoing work you are putting into the campaign and what the monthly PPC budget is.

If I was going to pay someone 20% of my monthly PPC spend, they would have to be showing me some very positive results. Especially if you are going to take over managing an existing account, you need to make sure that your client feels that they are getting a positive ROI on your services.

If you are taking on a very low budget campaign (Anything less than say $500 / month), it may be better to setup their account, manage it for a month and then turn it over to them. These small accounts will just end up taking up your time, when you should be working on your major clients campaigns.

Down to the actual price. I have seen anywhere from 10% up to 50%. Sometimes there is a flat monthly fee in addition to an ongoing percentage. You should charge what your services are worth for the amount of work you are putting in.

Something like $1000 - $2000 / month and 10 or 15% seems like a fair price from the buyer's side.

[Serrbiz]

Industry standard does seem to be 10%-15% depending on the client. However, small clients may not have a worthwhile budget, so we have a $1,500 a month min. That includes PPC and SEO as needed. Just easier to fold a small PPC campaign into overall hours/work, than to calculate percentages on small spends under $15,000 a month.

Also, it's a good way to build the relationship and let the client increase the spend as their sales grow.

[imvain2]

We base everything on hourly rates. One thing that we realize is the fact that we are one of the largest web design firms in the area, and we work with mostly local clients who do talk to each other. And if we were charging based on a percentage of their budget and 2 clients talked and mentioned how much they were being charged for the work, it would be a tough conversation telling the one that we are charging more that since they are willing to pay more for their PPC budget that we are charging them more.

[martink]

Hourly makes sense to me. Big accounts will take more of your time and therefore you can charge more. It seems weird to charge a percentage based on budget. i.e. If one client has a lot of low bid keywords that you spend hours managing vs. another with a more simple account that contains a big spend for some high-end keywords, would you really charge them the same if their budgets wound up to be the same? I guess you could and I'm really not a pro in this area, but that's my take.

Anyway, I work with a marketing firm and they charge around $150/hour for PPC services.

[Irishjim]

All this sounds fair but I agree it should be on some sort of scale. I charge by the hour since like you, this isn't my normal work.

By the hour is what I would be losing in time to shift gears and work on the PPC. This means it's a bit more than my hourly rate.

Good luck with this and I just got this log so I haven't had time to respond. You are always so helpful with others, we are all happy to lend a voice to your questions, lad.

[philscanlan]

Originally Posted by SEOforGoogle

The charge scale I use is based on the budget of the client - one client spends about 80k per month on ppc - so the charge is 22% on top of the monthly spend.

Another ppc client spends no more than $100 per month in total (for the clicks) - but they are charged $125 per month for services.

Both clients are happy since they are both making a great ROI - but I think it's obvious which client gets better service... ;-P

Just looked at the website in your sig - I was just wondering how exactly this site is optimized when you have a script before the doctype declaration and over 30 HTML validation errors.

[exoticpublishing]

I'm actually looking for a really good PPC Manager to replace my previous one who only charged me $10/hr.

I'm willing to pay a bit more (max. 15/hr.), but not $100/hr. IMO, that's just nuts to pay out, unless you are a HUGE corporation or at least Med. one that has money to burn.

I'm a small company still trying to grow.

Based on what I know & someone else I've asked who's a guru with AdWords, it would take around 6-10 hrs. of work per month b/c I'm in a niche market, so finding new keywords isn't really as big a deal, but still needed if anything new crops up.

I'm not looking for an SEOer who doesn't know the first thing about PPC, or web designers who THINK they know about PPC, but end up ruining my campaigns.

I've been down that road a few too many times & it cost me a ton of money & got me very upset for obvious reasons.

No, you won't want to do a % with me b/c I should only be paying out $40-55/month in click charges. If I'm paying more, I expect to see a ton more sales to offset the click charges, or the person clearly doesn't know what they are doing.

If I have little to no competition, I should be paying the bare 5 cents per click.

So if you are a nice person (with little to no HUGE ego, or someone who trys to rip companies off by overcharging them hours - I've come across people like that too) who wishes to grow with my company b/c yes, there will be a lot more work down the road as the company grows & I build new sites, plus I want to start offering this as a service to my own customers, please respond to my e-mail address.

jobs@exoticpublishing.com

Thanks a ton, sorry for the run-on sentences LOL, & I wish everyone all the best : )


Michelle

[Peter (IMC)]

PPC work we handle from a consultancy point of view. So our clients pay for our hours. A client that has a budget of 100 dollars a month, is almost not possible to help unless he's willing to pay more than he spends,. at least to set the campaign up.

Clients with very small budgets are generally better of learning enough about PPC to run their own campaigns. There are some very good ebooks out there that can get a startup PPC client going very well.

[rms7design]

hi,

I charge a setup fee if the account does not exist (includes setting account, setting campaign, research keywords, setup keywords, setup budget)

then I charge a monthly fee which depends on factors like industry, number of keywords, constraints

voila

[PARoss]

I use http://www.netlocalads.com, which not only provides geotargeting of ads on all major search engines, but it is implemented from one management portal, which makes it all much easier.

Phil

[PARoss]

I use http://www.netlocalads.com , which not only provides geotargeting of ads on all major search engines, but it is implemented from one management portal, which makes it all much easier.

Phil

[Irishjim]

Does it also throw duplicate errors, Phil?

(Sorry, couldn't resist a little innocent slagging, lad.)

[No Clue]

I would charge minimum of $300.

[Viejo]

We battle with this question often because there are such differences in client reqs. We tend to charge for the time to set it up if the kw list is very small or very large. Definitly we charge if kw research is involved. Then a sliding scale starting at $150 p/mnth for 1 SE and up to 4 campaigns. We re-evaluate after a campaign runs for a while and will adjust if the ROI is not in line. Basically we feel that all our work is performance-driven and ROI is the final measure.

[Webdango]

I consult for PPC

Charge a setup based on number of keywords adn providers you are setting up in.

I advise companies NOT to pay based on percent of spend. Percent of spend is inherently unfair.

Why should a comapny marketing insurance and paying $2.50 a click pay 5x as much as a company selling running shoes for .50 a click?

Explain to an ecommerce company that their budget will quadruple for 2x the clicks around the holiday season. See what they think....

Volume is the only fair way to go. Tell them you will run their campaign for a penny a click. Drive 100,000 click in a month and make a grand . Or charge them .02 a click....

It's easy to make all the agencies that charge on a percent of spend look like thieves if you go to per action pricing.

[NameCritic]

who wishes to grow with my company b/c yes, there will be a lot more work down the road as the company grows & I build new sites, plus I want to start offering this as a service to my own customers

Had to quote that for two reasons.

1. Everyone is always going to pay me more money sometime down the road when they grow their business.

2. Personally I just stay away from providing a service to my customers that I cannot personally take over if my help lets me down. I don't do web design so I don't sell web design for example. If I had to take over a web design project it would come out looking so 1994.

I think pretty much everyone here nailed it. Small companies need to learn to run their own campaigns. They cannot pay someone enough to do a good job on their adwords campaign. Anyone who is willinjg to work within their budget is usually not someone who is very good at doing it.

[Irishjim]

1. Everyone is always going to pay me more money sometime down the road when they grow their business.

Good God, man, is this ever the truth.

[The Founder]

When my firm, Yooter InterActive Marketing was brand new, we didn't know what to charge.

We are sort of the mavrick in the industry because of our pricing model, mostly because how we came to it. We don't charge for SEM, SEO, Video SEO, etc etc... We charge for Search Engine Services.

We were fully an SEO firm and to make matters more intresting, PPC was shunned like the plague for good reason. 80% of the searchers skip PPC ads, leaving PPC only listed companies paying for 20% of the traffic left.

We charged a flat 100-200/hour for SEO work. When our SEO clients started asking us for PPC, we looked at our pricing options open to us.

The situation was that all of our clients hired us out for SEO at that rate, so we simply adapted the pricing to PPC. So when our clients hire us on retainer, we could do whatever they want us to do for the same price.

Another reason is because (and you might laugh) that our contract with the clients (most of them NYSE or NASDAQ listed firms that required 1.2 million lawyer reviews) had "Search Engine Services" listed as what the contract was specified.

So in order not to rewrite the entire contract, we simply lumped in SEM into the existing SEO billable rate.

So there you have it, We do SEO / SEM and virtually anything search engine related for the same billable rate.

If a client signs up for 10 hours, we do 10 hours worth of work, if that is 8 to SEO and 2 to SEM or 5 to each it doesn't matter, our basic rate is the same, and we don't charge on a revenue basis.

This actually became our selling point (contract wise), because unlike the percentage of revenue billing model, our model doesn't focus on trying to get the client to spend more, it's more focused on ROI for the client.

[deepsand]

That it's PPC work, as opposed to something a bit more esoteric, is, in my view, irrelevant.

The real issue is the value that you place on your time.

Of course, if you've plenty of free time, and have no real need for the income, then you might wish to consider charging at a lower hourly rate than you otherwise would.

[jeffposaka]

I normally charge a monthly flat fee for PPC management of 425. This also includes some SEM work with link building.

With some other clients I do a revenue share for conversions from the campaigns. That helps if the client is strapped for cash.

[ppc123]

We charge 15% of spend amount with cost per conversion determined before taking over the management of account. A minimum monthly fee of $1000 is required. I have to disagree with the folks doing hourly because it short changes the client. The skill set needed to manage by cost per conversion includes landing page creation, website consulting, ad writing, optimal account creation and weekly account analysis and implementation of those findings. I think many small business owners dont fully understand the amount and type of work required to succeed. Its a position that requires that all cylinders are firing all day. This is a new dynamic sales channel. One metric that I use to qualify and open the door is the "cost of sales" using their existing channel and compare that to ppc cost.

[ksawatzk]

While I haven't done any PPC work in a couple years (once the businesses figured out how much it was costing them compared to ROI), I just charged them the same rate I did for web work... $35/hour

Before PPC, I managed a large site where every new news article had to be on a separate page with it's own keywords, etc, and had to be submitted/tracked at numerous engines... $60/hour

I know that doesn't seem like much, but I do it as a part-time job to keep me from getting bored. No office, no overhead, etc.

I'd think that a combination flat setup/startup fee and .01-.02 per click could be a workable solution for most situations? (The smaller the planned budget, the higher the setup fee, of course)

[edhan]

We charge between 15% - 20% but if they are using our hosting services, we will then charge at 5%.

[The Founder]

Originally Posted by ppc123

I have to disagree with the folks doing hourly because it short changes the client.

How? I think it's by far the most fair.

The reason I am asking is because I thought charging the client a percentage of what they spend is akin to a retail stock broker charging comission on what the clients buy.

Leaving the incentive for the broker (and the SEM guy) to increasing the ad buys rather than factoring out that issue, doing a flat fee simple rate and focusing on ROI.

I am not saying you don't generate a positive ROI for your clients.. by far you wouldn't be in business if you didn't, but the model is too aligned with the retail stock broker's model, and that has been critized time and time again as not aligning the broker with the client in terms of generating an ROI.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ppc123

We charge 15% of spend amount with cost per conversion determined before taking over the management of account. A minimum monthly fee of $1000 is required. I have to disagree with the folks doing hourly because it short changes the client. The skill set needed to manage by cost per conversion includes landing page creation, website consulting, ad writing, optimal account creation and weekly account analysis and implementation of those findings. I think many small business owners dont fully understand the amount and type of work required to succeed. Its a position that requires that all cylinders are firing all day. This is a new dynamic sales channel. One metric that I use to qualify and open the door is the "cost of sales" using their existing channel and compare that to ppc cost.

1) At what point do you draw the line? Why not base ALL charges on the client's ROI?

2) What if the client realizes a NEGATIVE ROI? Do you then pay the client for the work that you've done which led to such?

'Tis a very slippery slope that you've chosen.

[ppc123]

First in response to why a % vs hourly... if someone is managing $500 in monthly spend vs 10k the complexity of the account requires a different set of skills. Managing low budgets with few keywords doesnt allow for landing page testing and shouldnt require much work. You could look at it from the perspective do you want someone to manage your money full time with responsibility for success and failure or do you want someone to process your orders. The value in my opinion is not only in the managing but the setup structure which when you are doing large budgets may include local, national, regional settings or smaller defined target markets, dayparting campaigns, promotions, etc. When you have large budgets, you can utililze more services from each engine.

I would be ok with managing by conversion only except the fact that would require I dictate the website specs etc. so that I can improve conversions. Most clients don't want me to dictate website and landing page construction, sales messages, etc.

Typically during the first few months, baselines are established to work from. Management is done daily so if a negative ROI was taking place, account modifications, web site changes, landing page corrections, etc. would be implemented very quickly. Since ppc is direct response marketing, changes will occur very quickly.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ppc123

First in response to why a % vs hourly... if someone is managing $500 in monthly spend vs 10k the complexity of the account requires a different set of skills. Managing low budgets with few keywords doesnt allow for landing page testing and shouldnt require much work. You could look at it from the perspective do you want someone to manage your money full time with responsibility for success and failure or do you want someone to process your orders. The value in my opinion is not only in the managing but the setup structure which when you are doing large budgets may include local, national, regional settings or smaller defined target markets, dayparting campaigns, promotions, etc. When you have large budgets, you can utililze more services from each engine.

I would be ok with managing by conversion only except the fact that would require I dictate the website specs etc. so that I can improve conversions. Most clients don't want me to dictate website and landing page construction, sales messages, etc.

Typically during the first few months, baselines are established to work from. Management is done daily so if a negative ROI was taking place, account modifications, web site changes, landing page corrections, etc. would be implemented very quickly. Since ppc is direct response marketing, changes will occur very quickly.

That's really a non-substantive response, in that it fails to answer the questions posed.

And, while you are correct re. PPC being direct marketing, what is the relevance? How many ad agencies base their fees on the client's ROI?

[khurramali]

I offer all my services including web development, website maintanence, SEO, SEM and internet marketing for US $ 100 A month for small website owners and businesses.

The reason why i can afford to work at such a low cost is because i live and work from Pakistan. So my clients are outsourcing their work.

And because of the Dollar Rupee conversion difference, I can afford to work at US $ 100 a month.

They save alot of money and I work hard and earn my living honestly.

I sign a contract with them for minimum 6 months of seo work, but if you compare actual number of hours that i put in for each customer then it comes to about 5 hours a week.

[ppc123]

Many ad agencies are focused on branding which equates to impressions. ppc is about conversions and that is what is transforming the industry now.

Not sure what your referring to hounddog...relevance??

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by ppc123

Many ad agencies are focused on branding which equates to impressions. ppc is about conversions and that is what is transforming the industry now.

Not sure what your referring to hounddog...relevance??

Simply that, by and large, direct marketers' compensation is NOT based on the clients' ROI. Therefore, that PPC is DM is irrelevant to the issue.

ROI is an elusive metric, one that varies with the perspective of the observer; i.e., ROI is subjective. Time is tangible, i.e. objective.

With respect to billing, objectivity is superior to subjectivity.

[CreditFN]

We charge a fixed percentage based on the budget actual spend for the month. We also charge a setup and make our clients committ a minimum of $500 a month to pay per click marketing.

[khurramali]

Originally Posted by ppc123

Many ad agencies are focused on branding which equates to impressions. ppc is about conversions and that is what is transforming the industry now.

you get good branding options with adwords as your ads get displayed just like the big guys, no preference to anyone. same rules applies to all the advertisers.

And because you are paying per click, so the actual people who see your ads is a lot more than what you pay for.

[paisley]

Originally Posted by ppc123

I have to disagree with the folks doing hourly because it short changes the client.

The company gets paid for the time I spend on managing the campaign. period - the ramp-up is a set fee based on the proposal agreed to by the client.
this is based on keyword targeting, competitors, pricing (of the PPC), the customers willingness to exclude downstream (ClickFraud management), How much reporting the client wants, how much they are tracking actual closings on their site, how much they wish to spend on a daily basis.

easier... just do organic.. Organic is done to alleviate the short term need for PPC.

[texxs]

The reason why most of us chose not to discuss this topic is because it's illegal to do so. It called price fixing even if no agreement on pricing is reached. discussing how much you cahrge with others in the same profession (that have input on pricing), in public or private pens us, our companies and even this message board wide open to prosecution from the FTC.

Given the current admin favoritism to business over the law we probably don't have to worry, but still, discussing this in a public forum where a permanent record is made is quite foolish and should be avoided at all costs.

Under American law, exchanging prices among competitors can also violate the antitrust laws. This includes exchanging prices with either the intent to fix prices or if the exchange affects the prices individual competitors set. Proof that competitors have shared prices can be used as part of the evidence of an illegal price fixing agreement. [3] Experts generally advise that competitors avoid even the appearance of agreeing on price. [4]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by texxs

The reason why most of us chose not to discuss this topic is because it's illegal to do so.

I dont agree. Did you read this to?

I did not start this thread to try and tempt any sort of collusion and I sure none that have commented here would have as well. Simply sharing of pricing models is perfectly fine and in no way has to do with "price fixing". Maybe the information shared here can actual help not only the proprietor of the services, but the buyer as well?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by texxs

The reason why most of us chose not to discuss this topic is because it's illegal to do so. It called price fixing even if no agreement on pricing is reached. discussing how much you cahrge with others in the same profession (that have input on pricing), in public or private pens us, our companies and even this message board wide open to prosecution from the FTC.

Given the current admin favoritism to business over the law we probably don't have to worry, but still, discussing this in a public forum where a permanent record is made is quite foolish and should be avoided at all costs.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing

1) As assembled here, we here are NOT COMPETITORS;

2) Do NOT believe everything that you find at Wikipedia.

In short, you are dead wrong.

[loki]

forum rule #47

do not believe everything you read.

too much disinformation.

:)

[billwhedon]

I charge my clients a flat per-hour rate based on task. How much money my client has, or stands to make, has no bearing on my fee. Any other stance means you're ripping the client off based on "ability to pay" and is, to my way of thinking, a sort of extortion. A given unit of work is a given unit of work, whether the client stands to make a thousand dollars, or a million. Ethics enter into this stance very strongly, as well as the knowledge on my part that if I do a good job and don't take advantage of my clients' financial position and need to further enrich myself beyond what I could reasonably expect to make at a salaried job, I will have more jobs from this same client, and recommendations from him/her as well as an honest and ethical service provider.
Bill Whedon
Serpent Systems
Dalton GA
bill@serpentsystems.com

[texxs]

Maybe the information shared here can actual help not only the proprietor of the services, but the buyer as well?

- he he nice try. Just be careful ya'll. We need this forum and we don't need any trouble with the man.

BTW we ARE competitors.

And I chose to quote the Wikipedia artixcle because it wa the easiest to read. I got the actual info from the US Gov's site. Why don't you look it up yourselves before calling me wrong.

I'm no "Buster" I don't really care about the law so much but I love you all and if I see someone I know walking down the street smoking a doobie in some player-hating town like Cincinnati I'm going to say something to them.. Not because I care that they're smoking a doobie, just that it's likely that they are going to get busted, beaten and perhaps killed by the man.

So this whole thing is just a heads up to you. This is clearly illegal and clearly public. Anfd you all know the man is watching. Lijke I said before though given this admin's disposition (he's looking for anti-war protesters, price fixers are probably ok in thier book), it's not likely there will be any trouble. But what if some angry client viewed that topic? What about when the admin changes? etc. etc.

[SEOforGoogle]

I think if we were listing the client names and talking about which keywords were getting bid on and how muc heach one cost, and everyone who posted here all agreed to price the same way, we would all be in trouble - but based on the responses so far, there is a wide range and various methods to arrive at the price we charge our clients.

of course, I could be wrong on this...

[NameCritic]

I need to FIX some prices. After reading this thread I find mine are broken.

[Irishjim]

Since we are all barons of this industry, I'm sure the top cops in the world are more than interested in our "price fixing."

I'm not sure what grand sum we arrived at but I base mine on what I charge for normal SEO.

If we all do this, we can corner the market, don't you think?

By the way, what IS the market?

[khurramali]

The argument that there can be price fixing in this industry is a little difficult to justify.

One reason is that not all seo are providing the same service, quality, results.

for an example, all accountants basically do the same thing, their principles, practices and procedures; infact even their salaries and payscales is more or less fixed in brackets and celings. You will not accuse them of price fixing or will you?

for example: someone like danny sullivan might charge US $ 500 for seo consultancy, while other seo with different experiences might charge differently.

IMO, demand and supply controls the prices. So if i have 3 clients now and i am charging US $ 100 a month. If i get 15 inquires from potential clients then i will have to raise my prices, to correct the demand and supply chain, that is how things are supposed to work in an open market.