Three agencies, three titles: 'PPC agency', 'performance agency', 'ad specialist' — what is a PPC agency really?

Agency titles are mostly cooked up to inflate pricing. 'Performance agency' sounds more corporate, so they slap a high flat retainer on it, but the actual work is handled by the exact same junior-to-mid operational staff behind the scenes. When your budget is under $10,000, skip the complicated funnels; a straightforward PPC approach focused purely on high-intent search queries will save your money.

Last year we paid a performance agency a $1,000 flat retainer on a $3,000 monthly ad budget. We burned through $12,000 in three months and our gross revenue was barely $8,400. Then we hired a search specialist at $45/hr; he clocked 10 hours a month, pruned the wasted search terms, and bumped our ROAS to 1.8x.

Don't buy into the whole 'we only care about sales and conversions' pitch from performance agencies. They set up the campaigns so that people searching for your brand name get credited to the ads, and then they claim a cut of the success. Strip out branded search and you'll see how good their PPC management actually is.

Ask these three questions before deciding: 1) Will the ad account be under our name or kept inside your MCC? 2) Are negative keywords updated weekly? 3) Do you provide landing page conversion rate recommendations? Never sign with anyone who refuses to hand over account ownership.

we went through something similar. as soon as big agencies see a $2,500 spend, they dump the account on interns and just show you automated dashboard charts on the monthly call. at your volume, working one-on-one with a specialist who actually gives a damn yields way better results.

if your monthly spend is under 5k don't obsess over fancy titles. a ppc agency handles search engines a performance shop tries every channel and splits your budget a freelancer talks directly to the founder. starting with someone specialized in a single channel is way less risky so your money doesn't get spread thin.

Are your technical tracking and abandoned cart events properly configured? If your conversion tracking is broken before paying an agency or specialist, nobody can accurately tell which keyword actually drove the sale from that $2,500. Do any of the people you talked to include the technical setup in their fee?

Saved.

Following.

I feel the same way. If it's your first time, start small; scaling comes later.

i agree.

I'm in the same situation, that's why I'm asking. Internal linking is the cheapest and most neglected task.

Solutions that work at a small scale collapse when you grow; I learned this late. That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

Quick summary for newcomers: A page that answers one question works better than one touching on five topics.

If you have questions, write them; I'll answer as best I can.

Great work. Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently.

Let me summarize what's been said so far. Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's right.

Start with a small trial; don't commit to everything at once. If you post the result here, it will help others too.

I partly agree, partly disagree. I mean discussing numbers without verifying the measurement setup is a waste of time.

Just leaving this note, it might be useful.

I have a question. The real issue isnt the number but what its based on.

If you dont write this down from the start it leads to arguments later.

The discussion got scattered, let me summarize. A competitor's ranking might come from years of accumulation, not just their content.

Map listings bring more business than blog posts for most local businesses. Im also curious if anyone does it differently.