Why I Fired My PPC Firm - And What It Taught Me About Good Marketing
Long before I became a digital marketing consultant, I was the client hiring one.
I started an ecommerce business in 2001 selling printable games for baby showers, bridal showers, birthdays, holidays and just about any other party you could think of. Over the next 14 years, that company grew to more than 950 games and sold over 10 million games in 110 countries.
As the business grew, so did the number of things that needed attention. I couldn't do everything myself, and I shouldn't have been trying to. So, like many small business owners, I hired experts to help with some of our digital marketing.
One of those was a firm to manage our pay-per-click advertising.
It made sense. They were the PPC experts. They would write the ads, manage our budget and monitor the campaigns while we concentrated on running the business.
Except it didn't quite work out that way.
The Ads Weren't the Only Problem
The obvious problem was that our ads weren't performing as well as I thought they should.
But that wasn't the only reason I became frustrated.
First, I didn't really understand their billing system, and it was confusing enough that I wasn't always sure exactly what I was paying for.
Do I think they were doing something deceptive? No.
Did it sometimes feel that way because I didn't understand it? Yes.
There's a lesson in there that I've carried into my own business: If your client doesn't understand what they're paying for or what you're doing, you have a communication problem. It doesn't matter if everything is technically correct. Confusion can quickly turn into distrust.
But my bigger frustration was communication.
I Couldn't Talk to the Person Writing My Ads
When I had a question about an ad or wanted something changed, I couldn't simply talk to the person managing the campaign.
I talked to an account representative.
The account representative talked to the PPC person.
Then the information came back through the account representative to me.
Sometimes a change would take at least three days.
That might sound like a small inconvenience, but I knew things about our customers that the person writing our ads needed to know.
I knew what customers were asking our customer service team.
I knew what frustrated them.
I read their product reviews.
I knew why they chose one game over another, what questions they had before buying and what they loved after they purchased.
I didn't want to tell the PPC specialist how to do their job. I wanted to help them understand mine.
And I couldn't.
Eventually, between ads that weren't performing, billing I wasn't comfortable with, slow changes and the frustration of feeling disconnected from my own marketing, I cancelled the management service.
I took our PPC campaigns back over myself.
And Then Something Interesting Happened
Our advertising improved.
I don't tell this story because I think I was a better PPC expert than everyone working at that firm. I wasn't.
I had something they didn't have.
I knew my customers.
I could take something I heard from our customer support team and use it to improve an ad. I could read reviews and recognize the words customers repeatedly used to describe our products. If something wasn't working, I could make a change without waiting three days.
The technical side of marketing matters. Experience matters. Data matters.
But so does knowing the person you're trying to reach.
That Experience Changed the Way I Work With Clients Today
Years later, when I began consulting with other small businesses, I knew I wanted to do things differently.
When you work with me, you work with me.
I want to know why you started your business. I want to know who your favorite customers are and why they choose you. I want to hear the questions they ask before they buy and the objections that keep them from taking the next step.
And I want you to understand what we're doing with your marketing and why we're doing it.
That doesn't mean my clients need to become SEO experts or learn how to manage their own Google Ads. That's why they hired me.
But their knowledge of their business is incredibly valuable to me.
One of my clients, Christina, described why she wanted a different experience after working with other SEO providers. She felt like they were doing things in the background while she paid them every month without really knowing what was happening.
She wanted someone who would communicate, keep her updated and work with her as a team.
I understand that because I've been that client.
Today, Christina says the majority of her leads tell her they found her through Google.
That's what I want a marketing relationship to look like.
Good Marketing Takes Two Kinds of Expertise
A good digital marketer should bring knowledge, strategy, technical experience, data and an understanding of what's changing in the industry.
But the business owner brings something equally important.
You know your customers. You know your industry. You know the stories behind your business. You know what customers ask, what they worry about and what makes them choose you instead of someone else.
Good marketing brings those two kinds of expertise together.
More than 20 years after I hired that PPC firm, that experience still influences how I work with my clients.
Because I don't just want to generate traffic.
I want to understand your business well enough to help you connect with the people you want to turn into customers.
Feel Disconnected From Your Marketing?
If you're paying for SEO, Google Ads or other digital marketing but don't really understand what's being done - or you're simply not getting the results you expected - let's talk.
My free 30-minute consultation isn't about selling you the biggest marketing package I can. It's a chance for me to learn about your business, what you've tried, what's working and where you're trying to go.
Then we can figure out what actually makes sense for your business.