Should You Outsource Your PPC Marketing?

Choose in-house or outsourced PPC marketing depending on your goals and budget.

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing can offer your business a slew of benefits. Its results are easy to measure, and it provides useful data that can inform future campaigns. It’s also simple to set up, all while keeping you in control of how much you spend, the keywords you target, and how long your ads run.

But to a small-business leader looking to step up your digital advertising efforts, it’s not a question of if you’ll develop a PPC marketing strategy, but rather how you’ll approach it.

Or, in other words, will you decide to keep it in-house or outsource it to a third-party agency?

Both of these options have their advantages and disadvantages, depending on your business size, goals, and budget.

What is PPC outsourcing?

When you outsource your PPC marketing, this means you hire an external third-party PPC agency to manage your advertising campaigns. These agencies can also help you create landing pages and research keywords you should target based on SEO search volume. 

Conversely, an in-house PPC approach means that you have dedicated marketing staff that plans, manages, and analyzes advertising campaigns. 

Pros and cons of in-house vs. outsourced marketing plans

Both in-house and outsourced marketing plans have their benefits and drawbacks. Whichever you choose will depend on your budget, your employees’ bandwidth, and the goals you’d like to achieve with PPC marketing.

With an in-house PPC approach, you’d have either one dedicated full-time employee or a team of employees running the show. They would already be familiar with your brand and, since it's in-house, you’d enjoy complete oversight over the process and direct communication about how things are performing.

“In-house PPC is like keeping the reins in your hands. Your internal team manages the campaigns, giving you complete control and flexibility.”

Kiran Mehra [1]

Co-founder and president of Goldspot Pens

However, an in-house approach may be difficult to scale, especially if you have a small team who is already juggling many other responsibilities. By outsourcing, you can hire a professional with the expertise that matches your business’s needs, which can expand your PPC marketing strategy.

“I would say that outsourcing PPC efforts can be compared to placing a master chess player in charge of your strategic moves on the digital board. This decision facilitates the business by allowing its leaders to concentrate on what they do best: the core operations.”

Duy Vo [2]

Founder of Sandjes

Depending on your budget, outsourcing may end up being less costly than hiring a full-time employee and investing in analytics tools. 

If you decide to outsource, you’re not alone: 44% of small businesses outsource responsibilities from marketing to finance to service providers, even if they have in-house expertise. They simply don’t have the bandwidth. 

And businesses spend the most on marketing services: $78,700 on average.*

Sophia Tang, founder of Nako Cosmetics, has tried both approaches to PPC marketing. First, she and her team tried in-house marketing, relying on her internal team’s capabilities. “But despite our passionate efforts, we faced challenges in keyword optimization and campaign scalability,” Tang said.

So, they tried something different and outsourced their next campaign. The difference was astounding.

“The external agency’s expertise led to a 50% rise in click-through rates and a 40% reduction in our cost per acquisition,” Tang said. “Therefore, outsourcing PPC may be more appropriate for a small business like ours.”

Because small businesses typically don’t have a large full-time marketing team on staff, outsourcing PPC marketing campaigns can help them achieve their marketing goals without overextending their employees.

What to ask a PPC advertising agency before hiring them

If you think that outsourcing your PPC marketing is the right choice for your business, take the time to shop around for different agencies. Each one will offer something different, and you want to make sure the agency you hire understands and can help you achieve your goals.

Be sure to ask:

• How long have you been leading PPC marketing campaigns?

• How do you approach PPC campaigns?

• What PPC campaigns have you worked on recently? 

• Can you tell me about a PPC campaign you worked on that was successful? 

• Can you tell me about a PPC campaign you worked on that failed? How did you know it wasn’t working, and what did you do about it? 

• How often and in what format will you provide campaign updates and reports?

• What kind of reporting do you provide?

• How much do you charge for your services?

• How much do you recommend for my monthly ad spend, and why?

• What metrics can I expect to see (e.g., click-through-rate, cost-per-click, cost-per-lead, etc.)?

Shop around for the right PPC marketing agency  

Outsourcing your PPC marketing can help you reach your marketing goals, especially if you’re working with a small staff already spread thin on other responsibilities or that might lack the expertise to plan successful PPC campaigns.

Make sure the PPC agency you decide to hire fits your business’s needs, goals, and budget. Take the time to communicate your expectations about your own involvement and how you expect ads to perform. Don’t settle for an agency you don’t think will be a good fit.