What is behind successful PPC management on Magento ecommerce stores?
There are several factors which might be important:
- A system which automatically publishes your products onto AdWords (or Yahoo and Bing CPC) as product based ad groups
- A bid management system which automatically updates your bids
- An experienced PPC manager who has passed the AdWords exam
- A PPC agency who have built and managed Magento ecommerce stores and have the technical knowledge to understand what is possible
The first factor sounds great for a store with many thousands of products. And if and when you advertise at the product level for several thousand items such a system will be used. But this sounds better than it is as it only deals with products. What about categories or generic terms? What about company brand name? The product itself is not always the most important part of the campaign, and relying on an automated product system has the danger of this being forgotten.
The second factor sounds great too; a system which can update bidding all the time, based on rules. But there is a catch. Experienced PPC managers love it when competitor campaigns use these bidding tools; discover the rules and you can beat them. In fact you can drive your competitors campaigns. The rules can get changed on a monthly basis, so discover your competitors review dates and work around these. Looking at it from the other side therefore highlights a danger with this approach.
The third factor sounds great. But there are two provisos. Will this experienced manager be looking after your account or will it be delegated to a trainee? And what happens when they are on holiday skiing or scuba diving? A single AdWords professional, however experienced is not sufficient.
The fourth factor is surprisingly often neglected. The best racing drivers understand how the engine works, and they work with the mechanics to get the best performance. It is a team effort which works best if both driver and engineer understand each other. The most effective PPC agency for our Magento PPC management will be one who develops and maintains Magento stores. This gives them the expertise to know what is possible ‘beneath the bonnet’. It enables tailored system for semi automatic upload of products to be used when beneficial.
So in conclusion, what should you look for when searching for a PPC agency for your Magento store?
The most important factors are:
- More than one experienced PPC manager actually managing your account
- In house agency experience and knowledge of building and maintaining Magento stores
- An agency who understand the huge risks of automated bidding tools
- An agency who can use product level ad groups semi automatically uploaded from Magento when these are appropriate, but able to initially setup more varied campaign structures to develop the campaign in an optimum manner.
eXtraSearch have managed successful Magento PPC campaigns using a variety of different management techniques.