Google Adwords Certified PPC Consultant
Many people search for a Google Adwords Certified PPC Consultant and then there are tons of other people who don’t have the required certification who are also managing many campaigns for clients and doing it successfully. To be honest I’ve been managing PPC campaigns for people way before I ever bothered becoming certified. However, eventually there comes a time where it makes sense to get the certificate and do things properly.
What happens when you get certified is you become a Google Partner and you get a certificate like the one below and you can officially tell people you are a Google Adwords certified PPC specialist and that may tick boxes for some people and not others.
It is probably the right thing to do getting certified it gives you some credibility. The test is not that easy, I actually know of many PPC guys who are decent that can’t seem to pass it. This can be because they don’t have the patience or simply won’t do the research that you need to do to make sure you give Google the answers that they want.
When I first started out many years ago I was the same as most others, I read up a bit about it and bluffed the rest of it. The fact that I was an SEO meant that I had the appropriate tools to do the keyword research so I could do enough to ensure the client was seeing some kind of ROI. Doing the correct keyword research is essential when doing PPC or SEO.
A common mistake some people make is bidding on keywords that are not that relevant and yes of course you don’t want to bid on keywords that don’t make sense but half of these people managing PPC really do stuff that’s really poor. So ensuring that the PPC specialist you decide to use is AdWords certified is going to help, as there is a lot of information that Google will provide you prior to doing the test and this will ensure the PPC expert does have the knowledge they need to set up and manage a good PPC campaign for you.
I’ve seen PPC consultants set up campaigns with everything on broad match, again a glaring mistake in some niches as if you do broad match on something like ” PPC Consultant Glasgow ” I’m going to come up for everything relating to consultant Glasgow, and PPC. It may be a financial consultant, it could be a health consultant, and I’m paying for clicks that may be someone looking for something completely different and in turn wasting my money on a click, on someone who has zero interest in my services. So its important to do the Google training so to speak to ensure you understand what Broad, Phrase and Exact match mean when it comes to PPC.
Below is a list to what the keyword matches actually mean , the come with some examples, this information can be found on the Google Support website.
There are many other minor things that you can learn when doing your Adwords Qualification which will help you eliminate the common mistakes that can make the difference between doing well on PPC or sitting with no leads at all from your marketing budget.
There are plenty of common mistakes made with PPC campaigns
- Using someone who doesn’t show you a report
- Not using the correct keywords
- Not using negative keywords
- Using too many keywords in 1 add group
- Not using the correct landing pages
- Using broad match only
- Allowing Google to auto bid using your daily budget
- Not measuring or tracking goals
Using someone who is Adwords certified and experienced in managing PPC campaigns is likely to result in many of the common mistakes being eliminated. Typically a PPC expert will charge you a monthly management fee which would need to be agreed prior to the work commencing. They can also charge an initial set up fee as it does take time to do research and take the time to set up a campaign.
But its best following this method rather than using PPC companies who are known to say they manage it FREE as they get special deals or work alongside Google. As all that happens with that type of setup is half of your budget goes into their pocket, and the other half is spent on PPC. So you will get results, but you may think your getting some great deal, but you will find that bids that should cost £2 are actually listed on your report at £4 so the figures are basically made up to make it look like all of your money was put into the PPC campaign.
Companies like ReachLocal have been known to do things like that, I done an article a few weeks back on their PPC campaigns which you can see here. So when looking for a Google Adwords certified PPC expert you are making the correct choice as you are likely to be dealing with someone who will give you value for money and know how to work AdWords and manage the bidding process and regularly refine the campaign to ensure that you get as many leads for your budget.
If you would like me to look after your PPC campaign for you, please do fill in the contact form and ill be more than happy to give you a FREE PPC review.
Craig Campbell
I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years.
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