Adword campaign management fees

[caravan]

I have been asked to put some budgets and costs together for an adwords campaign. I've only really dealt with adwords on occasions in the past and I was wondering what is the best way of charging out a management fee for running it.

Is it best to charge based on an estimated weekly amount of time or as a percentage of the budget? I have heard people say 15% of the budget but I also know of companies who charge substantial fees. My concern is an option based on time for a campaign that may not have a big budget will end up spending more on the management of the campaign than the adword budget itself, while a percentage option isn't going to be very cost effective to run. In this case would a middle ground be a setup fee with a monthly percentage based charge?

Would be interested to hear peoples views and experiences of this.

[feiman]

15-20% of your spend is a pretty standard range for PPC campaign management.

[PoisonJam]

I've never worked by the %-of-spend fee system and I've never understood it for self employed PPC managers. Sometimes medium budgets require just as much work to build an effective campaign as truly massive budgets.

I estimate how much of my time they will need based on how much work I think the campaign will need - how many products/services, number of keywords & adgroups, the market, how needy I think the client will be and budget (+ reporting time based on how much detail they'll want to see and how often). I'll tell them how many days I would recommend on the account and and the price and go from there. Obviously I'm not going to suggest a budget of a few thousand a year justifies 5 days per month work, but you get the idea. If we find they need more or less of my time then we can address it. I will often agree some sort of incentive (a lot of client like this) where I receive a small commission on sales/profit from the campaign.

Admittedly though, if you're inexperienced though this would be difficult to work out for you. If you are so inexperienced and you're not telling them this then that's fraud, quite simply. If you say you're inexperienced but will get up-to-speed fast and you're willing to work for cheap while they do and they like it then go for it.

I do hope you're not underestimating PPC. I have worked in SEO as long as I have worked in PPC and I frequently see SEOs underestimate the effort running an effective PPC campaign requires. Big mistakes are easily made and can end up being very costly.

[SnerdeyWebs]

If ya don't know what you're doing it's a total crap shot and a total waste of funds.

Move forward with caution.. use the sand box within AdWords to test out the campaigns. Learn from mistakes, what works best before you spend a dime :)

[rgazzola]

agreed, it is more work to do correctly than people imagine.

ove, 'Regarding this comment abI will often agree some sort of incentive (a lot of client like this) where I receive a small commission on sales/profit from the campaign.' How do you confirm the sales/profits? Is this for e-commerce clients? I generally do new patient/client lead gen so curious how your structured this.

thx

[sheisg]

charging based on budget a client has is totally wrong. provider is incentivised to spend more to earn more??
you should calculate your rate based on the kind of services/products the client is selling as well as the time needed to manage the campaigns.

[planetjeffy]

I charge $300 to $2500 a month to manage an Adwords campaign, with set up costs - $300 to $1000. The $300 fee is for clients that run $500 to $1000 and covers several several campaigns with 10 - 15 ad groups and about 5000 keywords. The $2500 a month covers campaigns that run $10,000 to $15,000, have 20 campaigns and 20,000 keywords. There are additional charges for landing page optimization, which nearly every client needs. Make sure they have a good landing page with measurable conversion, or both of you will not be happy.

I also charge extra for difficult Analytics set up - multiple or cross domain tracking, action tracking or multiple conversions. Don't bother running Adwords without Analytics. Even after all this - I always feel short changed for the amount of work involved.

[internet marketing tools]

I am no expert in PPC myself .. just hinking more so you possibly seekign to offer an attractive PPC service to your clients.
I think I might come down on the side of Sheisg above.
As a site owner paying someone to manage PPC for me I might feel uneasy about the base concept of % addwords cost as a fee. eg the site owner may be seeking to optimise PPC and get monthly cost down whilst still retaining max positive impact. His addwords bloke however will be motivated to keep spending more and more. The two interests are not aligned.

That key thinking may put off some possible clients.

Stepping into a PPC professionals shoes for just a second I don't think spend always equates to effort on their part.
Happy days for a % spend PPC manager for example might be a big budget client who insists on being #1 on a $10 per click on high search volume keyword. In other areas you could work a lot harder to spend less.

As a merchant site owner with a few sites focussed on selling stuff what might appeal to me personally is a deal where the PPC professional is rewarded out of net profits. That would get their focuss on providing net value.

A ppc manager might go for such a deal if the believed the end site could convert etc.

It would be a more difficult arrangement to run for a non sales focussed site of course.
Some potential perhaps to measure free registrations etc and put a value on them.

Another quick train of thought for you is to just ditch the idea for yourself personally and instead
refer them to a specialist you trust will do a fair and honest job for them.
Take a referral commission and do little work yourself freeing up time to focuss on what you do best.

Cheers
Mick

[SemAdvance]

I would agree with those who wrote if you have no real learning in Adwords you ethically should advise the client of such and let them make a choice.

A percentage of spend for monthly management will not work if you do nothing, however if you grow the business then the adspend usually grows and hence your earnings increase.

Often in life peoples view stops at the end of their nose, when you should look miles ahead.....

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