PPC snake oil?
Monday, March 30th, 2009After recently weighing in on what I feel are some deceitful practices in the world of SEO, I have decided to weigh in on an increasingly marketed approach to pay per click marketing that I’ve been presented with and asked questions about quite a bit recently.
The topic? “Guaranteed top Google listings for a flat fee.” I’ve seen faxes and emails touting this service, one such example being one my brother sent along in a fax called PageRank Global. Scouring some industry boards will show various other companies offering this same service as well. Reading through those boards I haven’t found a lot of people that say they have used these services, but I have seen a lot of discussion about questions receiving less than satisfactory answers. However, apparently some of these companies check out well with the Better Business Bureau.
To lay it out for you, here’s the basis of what these companies offer:
- Guaranteed top three listings each month on Google
- A flat fee for that whole month
Now, this strikes me as an odd business model, but I think it would be possible to do this on the up and up given a couple of circumstances:
- The company is willing to lose money, or have wildly varying margins per client month to month
- The budgets are managed EXTREMELY closely so as to pinch every penny imaginable
However, one claim that runs across several of these companies is that they can offer this pricing via a “special deal through Google”. This does not happen. Ever. No exceptions.
That, to me is a huge warning flag. If your marketing pitch begins with a blatant untruth, it should be an uphill battle to win anyone’s business. Beyond that, if someone were still truly interested in going down the road of using one of these services, here’s a short list of questions to ask them:
- How do they configure pricing?
- What is their anticipated margin on your project?
- What information is included in reporting? This should include impressions, clicks and most importantly cost per click and total cost.
- Will you have access to the AdWords account (now THAT is transparency).
- Will they setup or tie in your existing Google Analytics account for you to monitor the traffic from your PPC efforts (this will prevent them cooking the books in their reports)?
I could see someone saying “no” to number four, as some companies could fear tampering with the campaign. But beyond that, questions one and two should have simple straight forward answers, and two should be in a number form. If number three doesn’t include all of the requested information, request that it be included. If not, I would find another company, as you have no real idea what you’re getting charged for.
Any one else have experience with this type of thing that they’re willing to share?








