How to choose a Google Ads Specialist
How to choose a Google Ads Specialist
If you are considering launching a Google advertising campaign, it’s important that you work with the right specialist or agency who can help you to ensure that your campaigns’ performance is optimised to reach your goals.
We discuss what measures you can take to ensure that you find the right Google ads specialist for your business.
Do I need to use a Google ads specialist or can I do it myself?
The truth is that Google ads are not an easy platform to master, and if campaigns are not set up correctly or fully managed, it can be very easy to burn through money with no or little return. The platform changes constantly, with new features being added, old ones being taken away, and policy changes that can affect not just performance, but your ability to use the platform full stop.
However, if you do wish to run Google ads yourself, it’s wise to do a lot of research and training before starting to run your ads. Google Skillshop offers completely free training via pre-recorded videos and can be a great place to start. However, it is worth bearing in mind that Google does want you to spend on the platform, and therefore will often make recommendations that, while may be beneficial for Google, may not be completely beneficial for you.
If you’re looking for something more tailored to help you to run Google ads yourself, why not check out our Google ads training - which is totally one to one and completely tailored to your business - so unlike ads academy, gives you the opportunity to dive deeper into what will work specifically for you.
Are they Google Partners?
For a Google ads specialist to be a Google Partner, they must have several employees who are certified in Google ads, meet Google’s performance standards, show a growth in client base and also manage a minimum amount of $10,000 per 90 days across their client accounts.
A premier partner will spend more and have a larger number of clients, or larger spending clients.
While it’s not vital that you choose a Google ads expert who is a partner, this can give you a little more confidence that the person or agency you are dealing with has good experience in managing Google ads and has been doing so for a reasonable amount of time, with reasonable results.
One thing to bear in mind is to look for the Google Partner badge on the website. This should be clickable (like the one below), if it is not, it’s highly likely that someone is trying to pass themselves off as a Partner without being certified, so if you see a badge that does link to the partner platform, we would suggest avoiding them.
What does Google ads certified mean?
Some Google ads experts may not meet the criteria for Google partners in terms of spend etc, but may still be Google certified. Google ads certification are professional accreditation that Google offers to individuals There are several certifications that an ads expert can hold, so check that their meet with your business.
Does your Google ads specialist understand your industry?
We would always recommend that you have a call or meeting with a few Google ads experts before committing to a single Google ads agency or freelancer as this gives you the opportunity to ask questions and even more importantly let your chosen expert ask some.
This is where you can work out whether they understand your industry, what types of campaigns may work (or not work) for you, and your target audience and potential keywords.
There are several types of Google Ads campaign types, including search campaigns, display, video and shopping ads. An agency should be able to advise you off the bat on which campaigns may be most effective for your business.
What other services do they offer?
If you’re looking solely for someone to manage Google ads for your business, then choosing a specialist PPC manager may be ideal. However, in some cases it can make them a little “biased” towards only using Google ads.
If you’re looking for a more objective look at your digital marketing strategy as a whole, it can be worth considering what other skills they bring to the table. For example, can they also offer SEO services? Or expertise in advertising on other platforms such as social media or other programmatic advertising platforms?
Additionally, if you are using display or Google ads video campaigns, will you be expected to provide the assets, or is this included (it’s usually not). So get a clear picture of what you can expect from your budget.
