URGENT- Advice for SEM marketer with First Client

[FBinDC]

Good evening all-

I've been voraciously reading your posts, and I'm enjoying it all! I have a number of months experience working in an agency setting exclusively doing PPC for multiple clients. I didn't enjoy the atmosphere and decided to leave. I've just been offered some part-time work handling PPC for an indpendent marketing consultant's clients (software companies).

I'm hoping that some of you would be willing to provide me with some guidance, before I accept this project. I want to do a good job, and I don't want to bite off more than I can chew, at the expense of my reputation, or at the expense of this marketing consultant's reputation (FYI-she has no PPC experience). So here are my main questions:


1. Software to track return on ROI, average CPC, conversions, conversion rates, etc.

I used an inhouse proprietary software program developed by my last employer to handle all of this. Now that I'm on my own, what software would you recommend (I don't have a lot of money to invest hundreds of dollars, and I'm a MAC user). Do I even need tracking software for a small-time gig like this, or is this something I can do in Excel? (FYI-already signed up for Google Analytics, but too many people have already signed up, so I'm still waiting.)


2. Who pays for funding the PPC campaigns?

At my last company, they had a company credit card that I charged everything to. Who should pay upfront, me or the consultant? I would think the consultant should...


3. Should I create some type of monthly report with analysis of campaign and keyword performance?


4. What is a good billing structure (bill by project, or by hours worked, or both)? Please take into consideration that I'm relatively new to this field, but have a number of intense months of PPC experience under my belt.


5. Do you have any other advice or suggestions, before I accept this job and jump in with both feet?

Many thanks in advance!

FBINDC

[Marketing Guy]

I don't have a great deal of PPC experience, so just some general thoughts:

> Software

It depends on the size of the campaign and what you need to provide your client with (in terms of reports), but if you are reasonably proficient with Excel that would be sufficient for small / medium clients. PPC management software (IMO) is most useful when you are working with a lot of campaigns or with larger clients.

> Who pays?

Can you afford to bite the bullet initially and just pay yourself then bill the client at the end of the month?

If not, it's just as acceptable to have the client or the consultant pay up front. You could setup the account in the client's name and have them authorise you as a user after they setup billing themselves.

> Monthly report

Yes - if you are charging the client for a management service then most would expect to see some sort of tangible evidence of what you are doing. A breakdown of how the budgets are being spent would be useful, and perhaps a summary of changes you've made in the past month.

If you want to go a step further, you could have regular meetings with the client to looking at how their traffic is coverting into sales and then look at adjusting the spend on areas that are performing better, etc.

> Billing

Agencies usually take a percentage of the monthly budget (15% is fairly normal), sometimes with an initial setup fee.

> Advice

Keeping the client happy for the first few months is very important - it can make or break a long term relationship.

Don't let high maintenance clients eat up your time and resources at the expense of other clients - monitor how much time (account management, meetings, etc) each client is taking up and track profitability.

Stuff inevitably goes wrong - don't let it stress you out. :)

Best of luck!
MG

[Chris Boggs]

Hi FB...nice answer by MG, but here is another thread that discussed this topic in detail: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?p=60974

[cellconversion]

1. Software to track return on ROI, average CPC, conversions, conversion rates, etc.

I used an inhouse proprietary software program developed by my last employer to handle all of this. Now that I'm on my own, what software would you recommend (I don't have a lot of money to invest hundreds of dollars, and I'm a MAC user). Do I even need tracking software for a small-time gig like this, or is this something I can do in Excel? (FYI-already signed up for Google Analytics, but too many people have already signed up, so I'm still waiting.)

<b>average CPC, conversion, conversion rates and ROI is provided by google Adwords interface. I believe you already have an account there so you can track these variables via there REPORT TAB. You might need to collate some data with your clients existing data (from metrics) to "funnel" down on abandonments and stuff.</b>


2. Who pays for funding the PPC campaigns?

At my last company, they had a company credit card that I charged everything to. Who should pay upfront, me or the consultant? I would think the consultant should...

<b>You can do it both ways. You can have your client subscribe or register to which PPC campaign he/she wishes to utilize using her credit card account. Second is you can use your own credit card account - the one your using on your current adwords or overture campaign and charge the client for the cost of the campaign. The cost will be generate by the report generating application provided by the ppc medium you have subscribed to.</b>


3. Should I create some type of monthly report with analysis of campaign and keyword performance?

<b>Yes these reports are basically your basis for charging and defining your works worth.The reports will be very helpful if you have a/b testings for your adwords, landing pages, and keywords. A progression analysis based on these test will also be very useful to your client.

Make your report as easy to read as possible. Google and Overture have application for Report Generation so might use them as well.</b>

4. What is a good billing structure (bill by project, or by hours worked, or both)? Please take into consideration that I'm relatively new to this field, but have a number of intense months of PPC experience under my belt.

You can choose from these:
1) Pay per performance - clients may pay depending on the variables that you intend to define as conversion. Like number of visitors who actually click thru to there landing page or even actual conversion. Say you charge $2.00 for each conversion made.

2) Fixed rate - regardless of what level of job you do to the campaign you get an hourly rate. But watch for the number of words the client wishes to target as they may also affect the amount of work you would need to do.

3)Project base - if the client already has an objective in sight and he/she just needs the results of the campaign made.


5. Do you have any other advice or suggestions, before I accept this job and jump in with both feet?

First try to understand how to do keyword research methodolically so you can easily sell the concept to your client. Learn how to crunch numbers specially on collating and analyzing figures from your report. A/B testing for keywords and adwords will benefit you and your client well. Always remember the 4 Ps in marketing.

Btw if you would need to "outsource" some of your services ...<removed by moderator>