With commercial search budgets increasing, advertisers and their respective search agencies are facing pressure over the performance of the channel.

On one end, search agencies are challenged to maintain operating margins given the increased resource required to manage increasingly complex PPC campaigns. On the other hand, advertisers are demanding higher return on investment from their PPC investments.

If you outsource your commercial search to a third party take a note of the following ten questions. Sit down with your agency and ask them these ten questions. If anything, these questions will help you understand the challenges faced by your agency every day.  

1. How many non brand keywords make up 50% of 1) total expenditure, 2) total traffic and 3) total revenue? These metrics will allow you to understand if your agency is “living off” your brand terms. Ask your agency to provide you with an ROI figure which does not include brand terms – you might be surpised! Furthermore, it will help you understand the degree of “search tail” exploitation undertaken by your agency. The reality is that some search agencies fail to proactively grow the “search tail” as it is a labour intensive endeavour. 

2. How many different sets of copy are currently running through my commercial search program? It is not a question of more copy being more effective than less copy. It is more about understanding how hard your search agency is working at increasing performance through optimising copy, taking in consideration seasonality, context and consumer sentiment.

3. What is the average share of voice held across the top 20 performing keywords on Google, MSN and Yahoo? Understand the potential for investment growth across your best performing keywords. A useful exercise when deciding where to allocate your marketing budget!

4. On a monthly basis what percent of my keywords are deactivated by Google? Google deactivates keywords on a regular basis if they don’t meet certain editorial and copy requirements. However and more important, the deactivation can be driven by the ads lacking enough clicks. This is an important way of gauging how good is your agency at “farming keywords” and identifying optimal copy.

5. What is the impact on total ROI from increasing click rates by 10% and click to book by 10%? Your search agency should be able to provide you with “scenario planning” ” which should help you understand where you should allocate your marketing resources. For example an investment of £5,000 on a landing page optimisation program could have a dramatic impact on your click to book and return on investment.

6. When developing copy in foreign languages do you use freelance or full time resource? Furthermore, are those individuals’ native speakers residing in that country? The importance of local native speaking resource cannot be underestimated with PPC. Make sure your agency has the calibre of resource you require for your international campaigns.

7. If you are part of Google European Third Party Programme, what percentage of the total discount is attributed to my spending? Last year Google took the bold move to do away with agency commission. Google replaced agency commission with a Best Practice Funding scheme, which grants rebates based on overall spend and accreditation. If your agency is receiving a discount from Google, you should know what your agency is doing with the money.

8. What is the contracted cost per click rate you have with your third party ad-serving supplier? It is likely your search agency will have a contract with a tracking platform or third party ad-server such as ATLAS or Doubleclick. Ask your search agency to provide you with a copy of the contract, to ensure you are not being overcharged for measurement and tracking of clicks.

9. What is the length of the click conversion tag and why you believe this is the optimal length of attribution? When optimising and tracking your PPC campaigns through a third party ad-server such as Doubleclick or ATLAS the tag responsible for tracking conversions is assigned a click and impression window. This “post click” window measures the delayed impact of a click on a conversion. For example if your post click window is set at 30 days, clicks generated 29 days ago will still be attributed a conversion. Obviously the “length of attribution” will vary by product or service ” however it is an important consideration when reviewing the performance of your agency. If in doubt, ask your agency to deploy a Time to Conversion Study. This study will plot the percentage of conversions generated after each minute, hour or day following a click.

10. What percentage of all clicks generated through my Google Ad Words programs are considered fraud clicks? Google now provides advertisers with open click fraud figures. Although there is much discussion on the industry about the average click fraud rate, companies such as Click Forensics provide an overall click fraud measurement platform. The Click Fraud Index monitors and reports on data gathered from the Click Fraud Network(TM), which more than 3,000 online advertisers and their agencies have joined. Click Forensics claims the overall industry average click fraud rate was 14.2 percent versus 13.8 percent for Q3, 14.1 percent for Q2 and 13.7 percent for Q1.

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