Matthew Stibbe is CEO at Articulate Marketing and Turbine. He also writes the Bad Language blog and the Forbes Aviator column.

Search engine advertising is half science and half art (and a quarter basic arithmetic). It takes a little time to learn and more time to get really good.

In my experience, Microsoft adCenter has an easier learning curve than, ahem, some other online advertising system.  In fact, I was able to set up an initial campaign for Turbine in under an hour when I started recruiting beta testers for the site.

 

But still. Sometimes you just need someone else to take the weight of your shoulders. I used a site called Elance.com to recruit a part-time search engine marketing guru to set up my campaigns and optimise them.

 

Based on that experience, this is what you should look for when you’re recruiting:

 

1.      Do they talk your language? Literally, do they speak English well enough to write ads and communicate with you? But also are you able to have a sensible business conversation with them without dropping into incomprehensible jargon?

2.      Did they read your request for proposals? If you use a site like Elance, you will get proposals based on your initial request (which, of course, will be clear and detailed!). Look for responses that show that they actually read it. Avoid providers who just spam out boilerplate responses.

3.      Did they look at your site? Does their initial response show that they actually looked at your site and understand your business? You may pay more for a good provider who does this but it’s generally worth it. (But not always. I had one UK-based company want to charge me £750 a month for managing my campaign but they completely missed the point of Turbine in their proposal. Not very impressive. )

4.      Is the effort estimate reasonable? The work will very depending on your campaign and the number of ads and their complexity. But does the total hours per month sound reasonable? This is where even a little bit of personal experience with adCenter helps because you can judge how long it would take you to do the same work.

5.      Is the price per hour reasonable? This is a much more basic business question. How much is it worth to have someone else do this for you. An expert may take an hour to do something that might take you three. Similarly, small changes in your campaign can save you a lot of money in wasted clicks. So price per hour isn’t the only factor. However, the price has to be reasonable in proportion to your overall ad spend, the expected value of sales and the cost of your own time. Spending about 10% of your ad budget on a consultant seems about right to me.

6.      Who, exactly, is going to do the work? Beware the experienced account manager who closes the deal and then instantly hands you over to the green intern. You should know who is going to do the work and talk to them before you give them the assignment.

7.      What reports will they provide? Sure, you can use the website to analyse performance but a good PPC consultant will give you a regular report with information that lets you make sensible business decisions about your campaign. Should we spend more?  Target different customers? Push different products? Online advertising is an endlessly evolving experiment and the best results come from testing combined with information.

8.      Do they ask sensible questions? Before you start, they should ask you practical business questions about your company and your goals and they should reflect this in the campaign design. If they don’t, you’re going to get a boilerplate campaign that may not meet your needs. As you go on, they should ask for decisions at a business level, giving you the right information to make the choice? For example, spend more or focus on better performing ads with the same budget?

9.      Can you talk to other happy customers? Even if their fees are modest, you are giving the consultant the ability to spend your (much larger) advertising budget. You need to get a couple of references before you start.

10.  Do they ‘get’ adCenter? You’ll find that most consultants will know all about G…, well you know who I mean. But are the experts on adCenter? You’ll probably want to run a campaign across multiple channels and you need a consultant who understands them all. From my experience, you can get significantly better positions, click-throughs and costs-per-click on adCenter so it’s important not to miss out because your consultants can’t use it.

 

If you are looking for a Microsoft Accredited Professional have a look at our membership directory. Signing up to adCenter to advertise on Bing is easy and can be done here. If you're new to PPC advertising you may also like this 'back to basic' series: PPC for SMB.

 

 

Search engine advertising is half science and half art (and a quarter basic arithmetic). It takes a little time to learn and more time to get really good.