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Picking up where someone else has started is rarely a great experience. Yet, it is a reality that many PPC managers face.
The scenario is easy to imagine. A new client approaches you about running their campaigns. They tell you that they had someone working on the project before, but it didn’t work out.
They tell you this with a certain amount of excitement in their voice, as if they are doing you a great favor. In their mind, it means that part of your job has already been done for you.
What a treat, right?
Unfortunately, this is rarely what a PPC manager wants to hear from a new client. If anything, it creates more work and confusion.
Every PPC manager has created a new campaign, but taking over an existing one presents unique challenges.
It’s a bit like trying to start a movie from the middle. You’re going to have many questions and it may take some serious sleuthing before you can find the answers.
In this discussion, we’ll look at how to run Google Ads for clients when they have pre-existing campaigns. You’ll learn how to establish that crucial background knowledge that you need to revive the client’s stagnant campaigns.
Let’s take a look.
Before lifting the hood of the campaigns to see what’s happening, you first want to establish a good relationship with the client. After all, this is a new partnership. You want to start on the right foot!
Here are some tips to get you started.
The most successful client relationships are the ones built on trust and respect. The more trust there is, the more the client will share about their brand, goals, expectations and concerns.
All of this information is extremely valuable to you as a marketer!
Your priority should be trying to build this trust. You want to be communicative, relatable and straightforward. When possible, communicate concepts using simple terms. The client is not as familiar with PPC marketing and terminology as you are!
Trust isn’t always easy to obtain, which means you may need a certain level of patience. The client may have been burned by the previous PPC marketer who left them high and dry.
It may take some time for them to regain their trust in advertisers.
Some PPC marketers may incorrectly assume that the client only cares about results. Sure, they don’t need to hear about every minor update, but don’t keep them entirely in the dark.
Plus, the client is an expert at their business. They may be able to provide helpful insight into how to perfect ad messages!
You also want to be sure that any critical updates reach the client. You don’t want to be in a situation where the client notices a significant drop in performance or another issue on their own.
This will damage the trust. It’s better to acknowledge the problem and let the client know that you’re working on resolving it.
One of the best ways to stop the client from feeling left out is to offer weekly updates and reports. This will demonstrate that you are reliable and trustworthy. The client will know when they can expect the next update.
A weekly update gives them a little check-in and explanation of what’s happening. It doesn’t have to be much, just enough to show that you care about the client’s involvement in the process.
If they have any follow-up questions, you should answer them promptly. Then, use these questions to improve future reports.
For instance, if a client’s questions are focused on the budget, then, in future reports, you want to include how ad spend is being allocated across campaigns.
Weekly performance Reports are a great way to keep clients in the know. That said, you should also offer them full access to any tool or service you use. This includes site analytics, PPC accounts and more.
Full transparency is a great trust builder! It shows that you are not hiding anything from them or not trusting them with the tools you use.
The client may even explore these tools for themselves to answer their questions or further their understanding.
No one expects an unending supply of positive news. Even your clients understand that slight downturns in performance are expected and mistakes can happen.
The client deserves to know when problems occur. This is not always easy because it can feel like you’re doing a lousy job as a marketer.
However, your client will respect your ability to be upfront about these issues, rather than trying to cover them up.
After all, your service is just one aspect of their marketing. The client needs the good news and the bad news to inform the rest of their strategies.
When you highlight your own shortcomings, it creates valuable learning opportunities. Failures show you what is not working, which creates the chance to improve upon these weak areas.
You and the client should openly discuss and set goals together. Listen to their expectations and then explain their paid search account’s capabilities.
This needs to be an honest conversation. If you promise the client the world and only deliver a small island, they’ll be disappointed. It’s okay if you have to lower their expectations.
It is infinitely easier to push back on the client during goal setting than to answer to campaign performance that falls below what was agreed on. So, don’t get locked into unrealistically high goals!
Since this is a new client, it’s also crucial that you give yourself some leeway with the timing. Explain to the client the process of investigating the account, researching the business and so on.
The client may have the presumption that you can just pick up where the previous marketer left off, but it’s not that simple.
Every client is different. You may be hired by an organization with a dedicated marketing team that needs some extra work. You could also be working for a one-person operation that needs all the help they can get.
In either case, don’t neglect your own creativity and expertise as a marketer. You may have the campaign idea that the client needs to propel their marketing to the next level.
Coming with your own marketing strategies demonstrates initiative and creativity. Even if the idea isn’t accepted, it shows that you can join creative conversations.
Now that you’ve established the necessary foundation for a strong client relationship, it’s time to open up their Google Ads account and see what’s been happening.
This section will outline the steps you should follow when taking over a pre-existing account for a client.
There are a few options on how you want to access and use the existing Google Ads account. Your first option is to download the .CSV and import it into your own Google Ads account.
Alternatively, you can add yourself to the existing account and remove the previous agency’s permissions.
The second option is best because you lose the historical campaign data when you download the .CSV. This will make it hard to make optimization decisions and learn how well certain strategies have worked in the past.
When you add yourself to the existing account, make sure you have the highest permissions – at least enough to change campaign settings.
You should also request access to the client’s Google Analytics and website.
Now that you have access, your next step is to start figuring out what is happening in the account.
You’re picking up the story halfway through. You need to find out what happened since the beginning, why it happened and how you can make it better in the end.
This initial audit will take some time. You have to work through the entire account before you can really begin making improvements.
As you measure campaign performance, remember to look from all angles. Even though a keyword may have low impressions, it could be one of the best closers in the account.
While you’re investigating the account, keep in mind the client’s goals. This will help you focus on the most relevant metrics and highlight the most valuable keywords, ad groups and campaigns.
There are a few factors you should pay attention to as you audit the account:
Wasted Spend: How much money is being wasted? Costs are always critical, no matter the client. If you can make better use of their budget than the last agency, you’ll win huge favor. You can remove wasted spending by refining keyword targets to remove poor performers. This is eating into the budget. It’s money that you spend on other areas of the account! You can try wasted spend report online to check your account performance
Quality Score: This is one of the most crucial success factors to any campaign, no matter what goal you have. Quality Scores will influence your ad ranks, how much you need to bid on keywords and more. You can also look at this quality rating for what it is – Google grading your PPC work. It can be a great way to identify problematic areas in the account quickly.
Landing Page Optimization: Creating strategic PPC campaigns is only part of the process. Even the most compelling ad message can be made worthless if it leads to a poor landing page. The landing page is the place on your site where audiences are brought after clicking your ad. It’s the final gate between a click and a conversion. It’s so crucial to successful PPC that it is even one of the primary factors in calculating Quality Scores.
Mobile Advertising: Mobile has long surpassed desktop in terms of search volume. Everyone is using their smartphone and other mobile devices to access the Internet throughout the day. You don’t want to miss out on this massive audience because your ads are optimized poorly for mobile. While auditing the account, look for areas that perform poorly on mobile devices. This will help you assess how mobile-friendly the overall account is and what areas need attention.
You can try device performance report online to check the performance of mobile and other devices.
The Lin-Rodnitzky Ratio is a method of quickly and efficiently analyzing a PPC account. To use this method, conversion tracking needs to be correctly implemented. You need a fair amount of available conversion and CTR data.
The calculation itself is relatively straightforward. All you need to do is take your costs for all conversions and divide it by the cost of ad traffic that converts at least once.
The result should be somewhere between 1.0 and 2.5 (sometimes higher). This number can be used as a score for the overall health of your campaign. The ideal range is between 1.5 and 2.0.
If your calculations are lower than this range, it is a sign that you aren’t aggressive enough with your efforts. You should start adding new keywords and putting more effort into optimization.
Conversely, if your Lin-Rodnitzky score is on the high side, the opposite is true. You’re too aggressive with your efforts. You need to start acting more conservatively. Start by adding some keywords to your negative keyword list and lowering bids on keywords that aren’t producing results.
Keywords are the building blocks of your campaigns. While you likely examined keywords during your account audit, you should really spend extra time on this subject.
You want to know your top-performing keywords. These are the search terms that are generating the majority of your conversions and results. Thus, they need to be your primary concern.
Next, look for keywords that are hurting your overall performance. It may be best to add these terms to your negative keyword list.
Finally, conduct some keyword research of your own. There may be valuable targets that the old agency left alone or didn’t identify.
You can refine your PPC targeting by looking at specific locations and device types. This allows you to understand what factors influence performance.
As mentioned, device type is a critical factor because of mobile’s importance in today’s world.
Geo-locations are also crucial, especially if the client’s business has specific locations they want to target or operate locally.
You want to identify the areas with the most potential value.
At this stage, you’ve successfully audited the account. You have a good sense of what’s going on, what’s working and what still needs to be improved.
You’ve tackled the initial learning curve that comes with taking over an existing campaign. Now, you can shift into your normal management processes.
However, PPC management is complex in its own right, even if you’ve managed the account from day 1.
If you’re handling Google Ads accounts for multiple clients, you could easily be responsible for thousands of individual campaigns with tens of thousands of keywords.
That’s too much to handle on your own. Luckily, you can get help from PPC Signal. This PPC management solution uses AI to simplify the complex, day-to-day responsibilities of a marketer, while maximizing the results.
One of the most challenging aspects of PPC management is always knowing what to do next. Progress slows down when you have to stop and analyze your data.
Your Google Ads campaign data is constantly changing and you have to be quick to adapt. When progress becomes stagnant, it doesn’t just mean that you aren’t moving forward; you’re actually moving backwards.
PPC Signal acts as a GPS for your account. No matter how the landscape shifts, PPC Signal identifies the changes and helps you plot the best course to PPC success. It points out obstacles to avoid and opportunities to steer towards.
It works by automatically monitoring your account data for any anomalies or patterns, whether negative or positive. When a significant trend or shift is identified, PPC Signal alerts you.
With this system, you’re always aware of what’s happening and where you can make improvements.
PPC data is ever-changing and always being created, which makes manual analysis an impossibility.
PPC Signal removes the hassle and tedium of managing your data. When you access the tool, you’re immediately presented with the top active signals in your account.
Each signal is packed with all of the information you need to understand the change.
You can also filter signals by metric, location, campaign and many other options. These filtering settings enable you to get right to the changes that matter most to you and your goals.
When you click on a signal. You’re given the option to Explore further.
The Explore view zooms in on the data and presents you with a more detailed chart. You can also add metrics to the chart to see how the change is influencing other parts of your campaign.
One of the best features of this expanded view is the Take Action button at the top of the page. When you don’t know how to resolve a signal, PPC Signal can suggest an action.
This simple feature can drastically improve your efficiency. You don’t have to spend time analyzing the signal for yourself and deciding what to do next. PPC Signal does it for you!
When you take over a client’s account with existing campaigns, there’s typically a lull before the performance starts to improve.
This is because you have to establish that crucial foundational knowledge about each campaign through auditing and measuring past performance,
Without this background knowledge, it isn’t easy to know where to start and how to improve the client’s PPC strategies.
PPC Signal’s sophisticated AI engine can analyze and understand historical and present campaign data instantaneously. This allows it to present current opportunities to improve account performance.
As you’re auditing the account and learning what’s been going on over the past months, you can also take time to resolve the alerts that PPC Signal presents.
This enables you to begin improving the account immediately. You can report every step forward to the client and start building that relationship.
Plus, each alert will further your understanding of the account. You’ll start to identify the current risks that negatively affect performance, while also capturing valuable opportunities.
You can’t beat the power of learning and improving at the same time!
Every new PPC client is an exciting, fresh opportunity. Not only is it more business and revenue for your agency, but it’s also a unique learning experience for you as a marketer.
However, this excitement can be marred when you have to take over an existing campaign for a client.
Picking up where another PPC marketer left off can create a lot of headaches. It can also be a difficult beginning to a new client relationship.
PPC Signal is the perfect PPC management solution for all occasions.
It is especially useful for handling a client’s existing campaign. You can take your time to learn the account’s intricacies, while also resolving alerts to improve performance.
Getting that client relationship off on the right foot is crucial. PPC Signal helps you at every stage of running a Google Ads account for a client.
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