Should I hire an Adwords Manager?

If you currently run an Adwords campaign yourself, or are considering one in the future, why should you hire an Adwords consultant to manage the account on your behalf?

The most common reason quoted for not using a manager is cost, but is this a valid reason? Adwords is very easy to set up and even with only a little knowledge you may well be able to run an account that appears to work well for your business. However, like many things that have a simple side, getting the very best out of Adwords almost always requires the use of more advanced features, more experience and more expertise in other areas such as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), website design and, in all cases, general advertising principles and an understanding of how people use Google and the Internet.

Getting the best out of Adwords also requires an investment of time. The Internet is not a static advertising platform. Trends come and go, interests change, new companies appear and others fade. A well run Adwords account needs constant monitoring to ensure that nothing has changed that will affect the performance of the campaign(s). The larger the budget, the more complex the account, the greater the frequency of this monitoring and the more time will be required. The Adwords system itself also changes frequently as features change and new ones are added. Even knowing about these changes - let alone understanding their impact on your account - requires regular reading of Google Blogs and announcements, and in many cases, discussing the changes on support forums.

As an individual it's also almost impossible to know how well your account is working. If you spend $500 a month on Adwords and the program returns a net profit (ROI) of $200 a month you may be very happy, but you don't really know whether that same monthly spend should be returning an ROI of $400 or $4000! Experienced Adwords managers will know areas of the account or your website that could offer an improvement; they may even be managing accounts in the same business category and may be able to compare your results with others.

The issue of cost is therefore relative. You'll have to consider whether the application of expertise, time and experience can improve the performance of your account and whether that improvement in performance will cover the costs of that managed expertise. A well managed campaign can perform significantly better than one not optimally configured, perhaps by a quite surprising degree.

If you've not thought about using a manager before, or have done so but dismissed the idea, perhaps it's worth reconsidering.