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PPC Management Fees & Rates
If you talk to a number of pay per click management companies or agencies, there is a good chance each of their PPC billing models are different for similar pay per click services. The number of different billing models leads us to conclude one thing: there is no perfect way to charge and pay for PPC services. Frankly, that's why we're happy to provide a number of flexible options.
Terrakon Pay Per Click Service Rates
Terrakon's pay per click pricing depends upon a number of factors and really comes down to client preference. We're happy to quote percentage-of-spend, hourly, flat fee and even performance-based billing models for our pay per click management and PPC optimization or consulting services.
Examples of the factors that influence our billing model for each client include:
- PPC service provided – consulting, management or both.
- Stage of your PPC campaign – new or current.
- Level of Terrakon and client involvement.
- Our mutual needs, availability, timeline, etc.
- Current state of your ad campaign.
- Your goals and objectives.
- Other services you may need from Terrakon.
- Duration of agreement.
- And more.
A breakdown of Terrakon's starting points for pay per click service pricing includes:
- PPC consulting service project fees start as low as $795 for a pay per click optimization report and have gone upwards of $25,000 for extensive pay per click optimization projects.
- Pay per click management fees start as low as $750 per month and go upwards of $7,500 for larger clients; our percentage spend fees for pay per click management follow a tiered structure ranging from 15% to 9.5% of total monthly pay per click spend.
If your company or agency meets the following criteria, we can design a pay for performance fee-based model:
- Existing Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing program active for at least one year.
- Average PPC ad spend of at least $10,000 per month.
- Accurate web analytics mechanism in place to provide at least one year of historical data to compare before and after performance data.
- Willingness to share data and reports critical to developing and accurately tracking a pay-for-performance model.
If our pricing seems to be in your "ballpark," please contact Terrakon Marketing today to chat with Rob Reed, Terrakon's president, about your pay per click consulting or PPC advertising management needs.
If you're not familiar with the various ways to pay for cost per click services, a few different pay per click models include:
Per Keyword Phrase Bid Per PPC Account
In this model, the PPC management firm or company charges you a monthly fee based on the number of keywords managed for each of your pay per click accounts.
For instance, if the company charges $15 per month per keyword bid per account and manages 100 keywords in Google Adwords and 75 keywords in Yahoo! Search Marketing, the management fee is $2,625 (100 keywords + 75 keywords x $15 per month).
This seems to be a pretty equitable model. One downside is your costs increase as you add more keyword phrases. The additional costs may prevent some companies from seeking "long-tail" keywords that may not generate a lot of traffic, but may convert very well. A number of low-traffic, high-conversion keyword phrases can add significant profits to your ad click campaign.
Percentage Spend
This is the traditional advertising agency model. Pay per click management fees are assessed based on how much you spend in your PPC accounts. Most PPC agencies or companies charge fees that range between 15%-30% of your total PPC ad spends.
If you spend $10,000 each month with Google Adwords and Microsoft adCenter and the pay per click advertising agency charges 25% of your total ad spend, their fee would be $2,500.
The major drawback to the percentage spend model is that it may not encourage your PPC provider to manage your ad budget effectively.In fact, the model may encourage some pay per click providers to spend more as their management fee is tied to the ad spend – not performance.
Hourly Rate
The hourly rate model is used in many professional service firms and has been around a long time. The pay per click campaign management company charges you based on the amount of time they spend managing your account each month.
If they charge an hourly rate of $100 per hour and work 15 hours on managing your click campaign, you are billed $1,500.
The age-old flaw in the hourly rate model is that it encourages "less-than-honest" PPC management companies to be inefficient – more hours for them equals more costs for you.
Pay for Performance
In a pay for performance model, you pay the PPC management company a pre-determined fee per established metric. For instance, you may pay the company $5.00 for each phone call or email you receive from the campaign. Or, you could pay them 5% of each sale generated from the PPC campaign they manage for you. There are numerous options available under this model.
The biggest downside to the pay for performance model is thedifficulty in determining a metric that can be easily and accurately tracked and one the PPC campaign management company has total, or at least significant, control over.
For instance, one metric could be a fixed fee per conversion. One critical piece of a conversion, though, is the landing page copy, design and call to action. If the click management company cannot control this aspect of the conversion, the metric cannot be used for billing purposes.
Flat Fee
A flat fee model is usually straightforward for both parties. Once the scope of a PPC consulting service or advertising management has been defined, a project or monthly-based fee is assessed.
One of the drawbacks with the flat fee model occurs when the scope of PPC management activities is not clearly defined and questions arise whether a specific activity is included within the fee or not.
Again, Terrakon is happy to structure a pay per click proposal with flexible pay options that best meet your needs. Please call or contact Terrakon right now.
