5 Reasons Why It's Not A Good Idea To Manage Your Own Paid Search Campaign
One disclaimer before you read this article: we're not saying it's impossible to start, learn, and manage a paid search campaign. It definitely can be done with the right amount of time, money and staffing.
What we are saying is that managing a paid search campaign on your own is not easy. In fact, it's hard! So hard that it's probably worth your time to hire a search engine marketing expert - someone who has successfully managed profitable paid search campaigns.
Based on our experience with search engine marketing, here are 5 reasons why it's not a good idea to try to manage a paid search campaign on your own:
1. The bottom line. Chances are if you are teaching yourself Google Adwords, you are losing money. Like anything else, there's a learning curve involved. This one is steep, which means it is expensive! We have prospective clients come to us all the time because they are frustrated with their campaign's lack of success. It's a shame that it took them losing thousands of dollars (in some cases tens of thousands) to figure that out.
2. Time. Here's a simple premise to keep in mind: the more time you spend managing your paid search campaign, the less time you spend growing your business. The biggest mistake self-starters make with paid search campaign management is underestimating how much time is required to get a return on your investment. As a general rule, profitable campaigns require daily attention. Some industries are so competitive that campaigns need to be maintained several times per day. Ask yourself this, can you afford to allocate at least 5 hours per week to your paid search campaign?
3. Keyword quality score. This is a fancy way of saying performance. Are you even aware how each of your keywords are performing? (Hint: their score is based on a scale of 1 to 10) Do you know that poorly performing words can drag down an entire campaign? Unless you know the ins-and-outs of key measurements like quality score (not to mention being able to make successful adjustments), you are fighting an uphill battle in something Google Adwords considers critically important.
4. You are probably competing against experts. Most profitable search campaigns are managed by professionals. So when you hear that your competition's paid search campaign is killing it, assume they have hired someone (either a search engine marketing company or an in-house SEM expert) to manage it for them.
5. Accessibility isn't a good enough reason. The fact that Google and Yahoo! allow you to manage your own search campaign is definitely a cool thing. But is that a good enough reason to do it on your own? Did you build your own house? Do you fix your own car? If you are like most people, you don't. You hire a professional. Just because it's simple to setup a paid search account with most of the search engines, that doesn't mean it's as easy to make it profitable.
You have two choices. Either be extremely patient and prepared to lose a bunch of money up-front while you learn, or shorten the curve and catch up with your competition and hire a paid search expert to ensure a return on your investment.
The author, Mark Faggiano, is the Founder and CEO of Brand5. Based in San Diego, Brand5 is a full-service website development firm committed to producing customized, leading-edge website design, development, Search Engine Optimization and e-commerce services to businesses and individuals.
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