The PPC offer guide
There are as many pricing methods, as there are freelancers – of course, depending on the industry, the complexity, the timing of the project and the campaign itself. But how can a PPC specialist’s offer be suspicious, what are the red flags indicating that something is limping in the story? The scope of the task itself can sometimes be difficult to define, especially for a non-professional. Furthermore, it is not often clear that besides setting up an advertising account, there are a number of daily operational tasks that need to be constantly monitored and adjusted to achieve the desired results.
So approximately how much will you pay for a search engine specialist?
What are the elements of a PPC offer?
1. Expert fee (monthly, project-based, etc.) - as in all areas, there is a basic fee, which includes the price of the skills and expertise added to the project, strategy development and, in some cases, operational work as well.
2. Keyword research - the starting point of all work, as this creates the base for setting up the strategy, writing the content, and it is useful to intertwine it with SEO, because if a site is just being built, it is worth consulting PPC in addition to the SEO specialist about the keywords in the content. It is helpful to clarify with the freelance candidate whether it is included in the offer or not, as there may be a surcharge. Also, you need to come to an agreement with the freelancer if it is included in the price to hand over the data to you or the expert can further use it without you claiming it. Sometimes, it can be an extra cost if you would like to own the list, and it is smarter to come to an agreement on this before you start working together.
3. Setup fee – connection between different analytics systems, creation of remarketing lists for future remarketing campaigns, creation of audiences, and the placement of metrics. Usually, your target audience is ready by this step, however the uploading of written ads and creative content should start at this stage. So, setting up ad accounts is a critical point, as whether you can target your audience well and measure your conversions depends on it.
4. Writing and creating ads - Does the freelancer charge for writing and creating creative content (visual content) or not? It is also crucial to clarify this during the bidding phase. In most cases, PPC professionals know how to write effective ad text using the right keywords, and if we’re lucky and choose a good freelancer, this person can easily brief the graphic designer to create the visual content. It is important to note here, that the majority of PPC professionals are not graphic designers, so it is worth counting on a creative professional as an extra charge, or if we solve it in-house, allocate a significant capacity to it. It is a great relief, however, that PPC specialists tend to know exactly what sizes will be needed during the campaigns.
Let the facts speak for themselves!
Is it possible that the pricing of the PPC expert is more than what we spend on the ads?
Indeed, it is! The PPC expert has to put the same amount of work in starting a 50 000 HUF worth advertisement as in a 200 000 HUF worth ad, as the above-mentioned steps must be made in both cases. Of course, there might be big differences in the amount of work later.
In the western region, for example, the ads themselves are becoming more and more expensive nowadays - not surprisingly, as the market is more saturated and it is harder to stand out from the huge advertising noise. Not to mention the effects of COVID, which has also significantly increased the cost of impressions as more people are online and more ads are running due to increased online sales.
As we started the article: there are as many pricings, as much professionals and projects, however, there is one secret pricing rate — which is also used by agencies — within the PPC profession as well: the professional’s fee is usually about 15% of the ad spend. Just think of the real estate market and you will think that this pricing method is not so bad after all!
The monthly fee is also influenced by knowledge – and there can be a huge gap in this:
1-2 years of experience is a junior, around 30-50 0000 HUF/month, 3-5 years of experience is a medior, around a maximum of 150 000 HUF/month, which can be a very good compensation for a professional, followed by the range of seniors up to 25,000 HUF per hour.
There is a big gap in the profession right now, as there are many beginners and there are plenty of seniors, but most clients - based on Viktorina’s experience - would also need a medior in terms of knowledge and prices, but they are the smallest group of professionals currently on the market. It’s good to clarify that knowledge is not based on your time in the industry, but rather on how many and what types of clients you’ve worked on previously. The basics are easy to master, however, the knowledge is coming from a wide range of projects, the problem-solving skills and on what size budget’s they’ve managed before.
PRO TIP: If someone chooses a medior or junior professional and wants to spend hundreds of thousands of forints during the campaign, it's worth checking out if that professional has already "used" similar amounts for advertising, can surely manage, distribute it, and can plan the expenses in an effective way. Both small and large budgeted projects can be a challenge. The difficulty with a small budget is that every penny has to be carefully distributed, and with a large one is that there can be a lot of small unnecessary expenses along the way if not done right. So, you should make sure before the campaign that the PPC manager will be able to handle your budget.
Let’s see some interesting facts about PPC! #BrieflyFunFacts
Nothing new on the horizon, but we have to mention that there are risky areas in the ads department, as the line on what Facebook and Google allows and PPC bans is thin.
Advertising for dental, medical services, clinics, nutritional supplements, and veterinary medicine is a particularly sensitive field, where our future campaigns can be validated according to certain very strict rules. If we do not follow its rules, our campaign will be shut down and no need to say, unsuccessful.
This raises the question of where do I have higher CPC (average cost-per-click) costs? In what areas? Where are they lower and why?
For example, in private clinics a dental implant costs 3 million forints, a click can easily cost 3,000 HUF. We would be terrified of this CPC in the case of a cheaper product, but here it is a completely realistic cost, given the total value and how much competition there is in the advertising market. If the click-through is bringing in only one buyer, it was worth the price!
On the other hand, small businesses that want to advertise and sell cakes, juices and candles online can have a click cost of 70 forints, which is considered very high in this industry.
However, it is not possible to separate the categories so strictly, as the regulation of food is highly observed. As an example, one of our specialists, Viktorina faced a ban on an advertisement which was caused by the promotion of a protein-containing food supplement. Before planning the campaign, it is definitely worth checking whether the product or service in question is subject to any stricter regulations.
Storybook vs. selling a live animal? How on earth are these two related? An ad for a storybook, for example, had been paused by Facebook because of the drawing of a horse on the cover was classified as an animal sale. No worries! A hard-working, unstoppable professional can handle this too - if they are persistent enough to reach and persuade customer service!
Briefly's suggestion: That's the exact reason why it's worth contacting an expert, because they know exactly what's causing the problem, they can alert us in advance, and if there is a problem, they can handle the blocking quickly. Furthermore, they know the way to handle the problem and how to talk to customer service. It can give a client a great deal of peace if the professional handles problems on their own.
Do you have a webshop dealing with clothing and fashion? No worries, you can relax! Here you will run into the least problems - of course, only by properly following the rules!
Oh, there are cases, where ads are a waste of money!
Just think of redirecting to a poorly structured website, where essentially the strategy you have built up so far “crashes” in the last stage, because the website is not user-friendly and our potential buyer is turning back immediately, losing interest and not purchasing anything.
But let's get to our last advice, and it is better to remember this one!
Have you ever come across this saying? “He doesn’t spend enough,” so there are no results.
We should be critical of the above-mentioned sentence if, at some point, the specialist justifies the failure of the campaigns with it. While unrealistically low spending can be a problem indeed, unfortunately it is usually found elsewhere. This can especially happen if the person bases his/her fee on a percentage of the money spent on ads, therefore, the more the client spends, the higher the wage is. In this case, it is understandable that the expert will direct the client to spend in a certain way during their campaigns…
If in doubt of the expert’s methods, instead of taking an immediate offensive approach, we should test our campaigns with a higher budget for a short period of time, so it will immediately show that there was a product or website error, or we actually have spent too little and they were right, and, if they were indeed, it is worth renegotiating things with the PPC professional.
No need to be unsure of hiring a professional, as Briefly is full of skilled and reliable PPC experts like Viktorina! Summit your Brief or contact us with any questions at hello@briefly.work and we will help you find the right professional for you to achieve your goals!
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