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Head of E-Commerce at BEN SHERMAN GROUP LTD
19 August 2008 16:57pm
I am looking into PPC agencies at present and amazed at the amount of companies out there who take a % of the ad spend as their fee - so effectively, the more of my money they spend the more they get paid. Obviously, considering the measurability of the online arena, a more performance based model would be far more successful.
I have previously worked with an American company who charge a minimum account fee but once x amount of sales have been achieved they get a percentage of revenue generated. This encourages them to work harder because regardless of my ad spend, they are working to get more revenue.
Are there any UK agencies out there, confident enough in their abilities to adopt this model?
Technical Project Manager (MBA, MBCS, CITP, CEng) at Naxtech.com
19 August 2008 23:32pm
This is certainly something that I'd be willing to discuss. Let' talk in a couple of weeks when I'm back in the UK.
regards,
Denis
www.naxtech.com
Freelance SEO at SEO Freelance
20 August 2008 15:57pm
Hi Kevin
I'm a freelance SEM (Adwords qualified) happy to discuss alternative payment methods with you. Definitely lower cost than any agency!
Regards Drew
www.seo-freelance.co.uk
drew@seo-freelance.co.uk
CEO at Conversion Rate Experts
21 August 2008 08:50am
Hi Kevin,
My company 'Conversion Rate Experts' works on a performance-bases. We don't do PPC management... but instead take responsibility for optimising your webpages to extract the maximum profit from the clicks (using technologies such as multivariate testing).
Once you've got the best conversion rate in your market... you can afford to out-spend your competitors on PPC (and traffic generation in general). At this point traffic suddenly becomes the easy part of web marketing.
Read more here: www.conversion-rate-experts.com, or send an email to info@conversion-rate-experts.com - and I'd be happy to tell you more.
Warmest wishes,
Ben
Managing Director at Shine Marketing
21 August 2008 13:01pm
Let us know what the site is you're looking t promote and I'd be glad to have a look.
We do offer PPC management on this basis buut only if we have some confidence that there is enough demand for your product/service, and that your site is likely to convert to sales.
Publisher Services Director at Affiliate Window
22 August 2008 09:28am
Hi Kevin
Depending on your business, it may be worth considering working with an affiliate network on this activity. To reward on conversion, you'll need a method to reliably track sales driven by the party you use for search and an affiliate network's tracking is specifically designed for conversion reporting. You can also combine the integration costs with launching an affiliate programme, if this is something that would suit your business model.
Your network can then help you perform a pitch process to select a single paid search affiliate company who act in the same fashion (and with the same resource and expertise) as an agency. The company is rewarded by commission so is paid directly in relation to performance. This may not work for all companies, as commission must be sufficient to outweigh spend and campaigns must be focused on ROI, but it is a model we are seeing adopted more and more by UK advertisers.
If you would like any more details please drop me a line to julia.stent@affiliatewindow.com
Thanks
Julia
On 16:57:10 19 August 2008 KevinBarnes2 wrote:
ECommerce Manager at Suttons Consumer Products
23 August 2008 10:07am
Hi Kevin,
I've used an affiliate basis for PPC management in the past, and found that it works well. But in my view, PPC is no different to any other form of marketing in that you need to be sure that it's generating a return on investment. Regardless of how you pay your agency you need to ensure that they have proper tracking in place, because this is how you will judge their success. For tracking, I've found Google Adwords Conversion Tracker to be better than Google Analytics. It's easier & more reliable.
On 16:57:10 19 August 2008 KevinBarnes2 wrote:
Managing Director at n3w media
23 August 2008 13:47pm
Hello Kevin,
You are absoluetly right it is a crazy model and it does rather scream that some of these SEO / M 'experts' perhaps lack confidence in their ability to actually achieve results.
Have you explored the PPA model (Pay Per Action) rather than PPC (Pay Per Click) ? That might move you closer to actually getting some kind of tangible return!
If you do fnd an agency that is willing to work on a % of success model in the UK then I would be very interested in hiring their services too!
In reality this should not be that big an issue to resolve - after all traditional 'salesmen' have always been paid on a commission basis, and I can't see that this is that different.
Kind Regards
Ed
www.n3wmedia.com
Account Manager at British Airways Holidays
26 August 2008 11:17am
Hi Kevin
In defence of agencies the reason the majority of them probably don't work on a commission basis is because their fees would then be reliant on how well your website converts ... that is outside of their control. They could be doing a great job driving quality traffic to your site but if your site has poor usability, high prices etc. then it is very unlikely it will convert and thus the agency don't get paid.
I would think you will get more joy from agencies if you agree a deal that is based on a % of ad spend but with a view to moving on to commission type of deal after 3-6 months. That way the agency have a period of seeing how well your site converts and will be more inclined to agree to that type of deal.
Maybe even a combination of both types of deals would work i.e. % of ad spend (but one which is lower than normal) topped up on a commission basis. That way you can be sure the agency are incentivised to perform well but at the same time the agency can be sure they are not working for nothing.
Good luck finding a deal that works for you.
Head of E-Commerce at BEN SHERMAN GROUP LTD
26 August 2008 11:29am
Thanks for all comments. I think that the best resolution is that you pay a minimum monthly charge which is based on spend and then you incentivise for sales above a certain point. This means that a good agency will make your money work harder because they get more, and a poor one will take the monthly minimum. Not that you'd stay with them for long....