When it comes to getting serious about your PPC strategies, should you opt for an in-house manager or a PPC agency? Many companies opt to manage their own PPC initially. But as campaigns gain momentum, it usually becomes clear that they need to dedicate more resources to their advertising efforts.

Deciding whether you should hire someone to join your company full-time to manage PPC or work with an agency can be a challenging decision to make. Having a dedicated, in-house PPC manager may seem like the ideal solution. But for many companies, opting to work with an agency can be a better resource for optimizing PPC campaigns. If you’re weighing your options and considering whether you should hire an in-house PPC manager or use an agency, here are a few key things to keep in mind.

1. PPC Campaigns Don’t End After Office Hours

The major perceived benefit of having an in-house PPC employee is that the person managing your campaigns will be available at all times. In reality, this assumption doesn’t always hold true. Employees often have set hours and don’t work weekends, even if your campaigns continue to run after hours. Additionally, even the most dedicated employee will eventually need to take vacation days or sick days. If you’ve focused all your PPC management in a single person, your campaigns will have to adhere to that person’s schedule.

With an agency you don’t need to worry about these things. Agency representatives can be on-call around the clock, giving you all the attention that an in-house employee would give. While it can be cheaper to hire a PPC manager in-house, the amount of experience and expertise you gain from working with a PPC agency far outstrips the value of a single employee.

2. Exposure to New Ideas Breeds Better Campaigns

On one hand, being able to focus in on a single company’s campaigns can seem like the ideal approach for optimal results.  However, it’s easy to get stuck in a creative and strategic rut when you’re managing your own. By not managing multiple accounts, PPC managers aren’t exposed to new ideas as easily. Even if they are exposed to new ideas, they don’t know if they work or not until they try them on your own campaigns. Many organizations lose valuable ad spend experimenting with new ideas on their own. 

At an agency, we try new products and features from Google on one or two accounts first and see how they perform. This allows us to adequately test new features before we advise our clients on how to use them. Because of the volume of campaigns we manage, we have a large bank of experience to draw from and can bring a fresh perspective to your campaigns on a continual basis.

3. A Safety Net Against Change

In-house PPC managers can hold a lot of important knowledge about your particular PPC processes and needs. But what happens if they quit tomorrow? Even planned, relatively short-term absences can have an impact on your campaigns.  Who will manage your campaigns if your sole in-house PPC manager is out sick or on an extended vacation? 

At an agency, you’ll always have someone else ready who is sourced, trained and prepared to take over. With many accounts at Webrageous we crosstrain our account managers on multiple accounts. In general, we have two people working on the account and are familiar with the account’s particular needs. That way when one person leaves on vacation, someone else can take over. If your agency account manager quits tomorrow, your accounts will go through a seamless transition to their new manager.

4. Tap the Insider Knowledge of a PPC Agency

If you’re considering hiring a dedicated PPC manager, chances are you don’t have expert-level knowledge of the PPC industry. But without being an insider to the world of digital advertising, it is very hard to know the questions to ask of a candidate. It can be very easy to hire the wrong person in-house. Hiring someone who doesn’t have the required experience to be successful can spell disaster for your PPC strategy at worst, and cause delays or wasted money at best.

PPC agency professionals can dedicate much more time and resources to staying up to date on the latest PPC strategies and trends. Because of our intensive work with platforms like AdWords, PPC agencies are often able to optimize campaigns more quickly and effectively. When you work with an agency, you’re working with a team of experts with a proven track record of success.

The Benefits of Webrageous

Convinced that a PPC agency might be a good fit for your advertising needs? Webrageous has an experienced team of PPC managers ready to help you transform your campaigns’ conversion rate. For qualified clients, Webrageous offers a 60-day, risk-free trial of our PPC services. If you’re ready to start getting the most out of your PPC campaigns, contact Webrageous today and we’ll walk you through our process and show you how big of an impact we can have on your advertising strategy.