How to Audit Your Digital Marketing Agency

HOW TO AUDIT
YOUR DIGITAL
MARKETING AGENCY
Presented by
Janet Driscoll Miller
President and CEO
Tad Miller
Vice President, Accounts

@marketingmojo | #mojowebinar | marketing-mojo.com

TODAY’S PRESENTERS
JANET DRISCOLL MILLER
President and CEO
Marketing Mojo
@janetdmiller

+ Janet Driscoll Miller

TAD MILLER
Vice President of Accounts
Marketing Mojo
@jstatad

+ Tad Miller

ABOUT MARKETING MOJO
•

Originally founded as Search Mojo

•

Demand generation marketing firm founded in 2005
›

Search engine optimization (SEO)

›

Paid media management
»

Pay-per-click advertising management (PPC)

»

Social media advertising

›
›

Marketing automation

›
•

Content marketing

Analytics consulting

Headquartered in Charlottesville, VA
›

Office in Charleston, SC

•

Featured in the Washington Post, B2B Magazine,
MarketingSherpa, Visibility Magazine and many blogs

•

Speakers at SMX Advanced, MarketingProfs, PubCon and more


OUR CLIENTS


THE SEO BUYER’S
CONUNDRUM


WHAT IS THE CONUNDRUM?
• SEO changes EVERY DAY
• How can buyer’s stay on top of the right
questions to ask?


QUESTION 1:
HOW DO YOU MEASURE RESULTS?
• Rankings aren’t always indicative of success
› Rankings are highly personalized,
geographically focused

• Ask yourself:
What do YOU want SEO to do for your
company?
• Are goals set up in Google Analytics?


QUESTION 2:
HOW OFTEN DO YOU RECEIVE REPORTS?
• Should be monthly at minimum in
most cases
• Need some sort of interval measurement


QUESTION 3:
HOW MUCH SHOULD YOUR AGENCY
BE DOING?

• Consulting
› Most likely to give advice
› Client expected to execute

• Full service
› Advice + execution
› Level of execution varies

QUESTION 4:
WHAT IS THE LINK BUILDING STRATEGY?
• Tread lightly
here!
• Check
Google
Webmaster
Tools for
“unnatural
link”
notifications

QUESTION 5:
WHAT ABOUT RICH SNIPPETS
AND SCHEMA?
• Authorship
• Rich Snippets
• Schema/Structured Markup


QUESTION 6:
HAVE THEY DISCUSSED A
MOBILE STRATEGY?
YouTube Percent of Traffic from Mobile
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
2011

2012

2013


A FEW QUESTIONABLE SEO TACTICS…
• Content
› Duplicate content

• Linking
› Links in press releases
› Article marketing


WE INHERIT PPC MESSES


EVER BUY A FORECLOSED HOUSE?
• Many times taking over a PPC Account from another agency or in-house
department is the equivalent of inheriting a trashed foreclosed house…You
have to gut it and start over from scratch


SAME MISTAKES – DIFFERENT AGENCY
• We have taken over for massive well-known agencies and “my
brother in-law Steve”
• We see the same lack of diligence, misguided strategy and
ignorance displayed in almost all of them.

=
Steve!


EVER HEARD OF CONVERSION TRACKING?
• Believe it or not we still inherit Accounts that
never ever bothered to install some form of
conversion tracking…for years
› Some never installed it correctly

• Oh yeah, ever heard of Analytics?


WHAT DO YOU MEAN “THERE’S NO REPORT” ?

• We have seen large and supposedly reputable
agencies offer NOTHING in the way of
reporting

• Yes, Really…


BROAD MATCH EXCLUSIVITY
• The biggest turnaround success stories we
have for taking over PPC accounts are the
ones where they previously only used
broad match keywords


BROAD MATCH IS THE DEFAULT
• Google tells advertisers to ‘just let them do the heavy lifting’
with broad match technology
• Problem is that it’s incredibly broad to the point of frequently
being irrelevant
• It’s lazy. If you are paying an agency for just broad matching
you deserve better
• Max out Exact Matches
› Higher CTR
› Lower CPC
› More Clicks for less money


CHECK FOR NEGATIVE KEYWORDS
• This is easily the most neglected
tactic in PPC and it’s one of the
most important

You should see
negatives and
additions here


TOO MANY ADS WATER DOWN CTR
• Best practice is to test 2 ad search
ad copies per AdGroup (3
Maximum).
• We frequently take over Accounts
that use anywhere from 7 to 10
active search ads in the same
AdGroup

CTR

CPC

• This lowers CTR. Raises CPC and
as a result lowers the number of
clicks you can afford


MIXING SEARCH & DISPLAY IN THE
SAME CAMPAIGN
• Search and Display don’t perform the same and
shouldn’t be in the same campaign together
› Share the same budget but not performance
› Allows for more granularity and better performance
› Allows for better bidding by keyword on Display


BIGGER ISN’T BETTER FOR CAMPAIGNS
• It’s common for us to take over Accounts that just have 2 or 3
Giant Campaigns that should really be 5 or 6 smaller
Campaigns
• Too many AdGroups with wide variation in performance
• Need to separate the great from the not-so-great so budget for
the great can be maximized
• Need to separate Brand from Non-Brand


WHERE TO LOOK


TAKE A LOOK UNDER THE HOOD
• You just have to know where to look


YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN TROUBLE WHEN…
• If you go to the change history and find it
blank. This Account is on “Set it & Forget it”
mode

Activity Should Be Here…


THAT’S ONE BUSY ROBOT
• If the only change history in your account happens in
tight clusters at the same time everyday at an
incredibly fast ratio, chances are its an automated bid
management system running things
• This isn’t bad in and of itself, but their needs to be a
human being also looking after things occasionally
• Algorithmic formulas can work really well (the
opposite is true as well), but they still need human
judgment and occasional intervention
• Ask what role human account management plays


BIDS ARE UP! NEVER DOWN
• Check out the keyword bidding. Are bids only being increased?
• Not all keywords are created equal. Is bidding performance
based?
• Agencies paid by percentage of media spend can be more
interested in getting the budget spent than on improving
account performance


DAILY SPEND MAKES A FURIOUS END OF
THE MONTH COMEBACK
• Spend and performance always looks weak for the first 3 weeks
• Activity logs indicate much more aggressive attempts to spend
it before the end of the month…but conversion performance in
that last week doesn’t improve
• The pattern keeps repeating itself with no conversion
improvements


HOW ABOUT SOME NEW KEYWORDS?
• When is the last time they added
any keywords?
• They should regularly be adding new
relevant keywords or new negative
keywords

Look for these


EVER HEARD OF BUDGET ALLOCATION?
•
•
•
•

Do all the campaigns have exactly the same budget?
Or are they budgeted by performance
Are the best performing campaigns under funded?
When is the last time budget allocations were
changed?
85% of Conversions Come From This
Campaign and it Needs More $


BID MANAGEMENT FROM ON HIGH
• Not all keywords are
created equal
• Are your accounts only using
AdGroup level bids?

• Are there any keyword
level bids?
• AdGroup bidding is “Cruise Control”
Bidding. It won’t max out
performance


WHAT ARE YOU SPENDING
MY MONEY ON?


SPENDING MORE TO LOSE
• Go to the keywords tab and do this filter:


WHAT ARE THEY DOING WITH
THOSE LOSERS…
• Are Average Positions high for nonconverting keywords?
› Do they ever decline?

• Do clicks on non-converting keywords keep
increasing?
› Have they ever decreased?


SPENDING MORE TO KEEP LOSING
• Are your costs per click on non-converting
keywords going up?
• Do they ever go down?
• Why pay more to keep failing?


IT WORKS IN REVERSE TOO
• Analyze performance on what converts
with this filter
• Is the average position on converting
keywords too low?
• Is CTR on converting keywords improving


WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’RE OUT
OF BUDGET?
•
•
•
•

Is all the budget being spent before 3:00 AM?
What hours of the day convert best?
Check out the Dimensions Tab
Should your budget be saved for when it
converts?


WHY AM I ADVERTISING ON
CELEBITCHY.COM ?
• If you advertise on the Display Network
you need to watch it and exclude
placements that don’t convert or have
questionable content
• Check out what placements you are
spending budget on here:


ARE YOU STAYING OUT OF BAD
NEIGHBORHOODS?
• Check to see if category and placement
exclusions are being used


E-COMMERCE SHOULD MAKE $
• First question: Are you making more money
than you are spending?
• Is your agency measuring ROI?


PRODUCTS FIRST. CATEGORIES SECOND.
• Emphasis first on product specific ads and
Product Listing Ads (PLAs)
• Secondary emphasis on non-branded
category keywords


HERE’S WHERE YOU CAN PUT YOUR
“AWARENESS”
• Do your agencies reports emphasize
concrete results like conversions, sales,
leads, etc.
• Or is the emphasis on Impressions,
“Awareness”, “Engagement” or “Building a
Brand” ?


VANILLA IS OK…BUT
• There are so many great new features to
use now.
› What are they doing with mobile, tablets,
geographies, age, gender, history visiting your
site, etc.

• You shouldn’t have to ask why not


UPCOMING WEBINAR
The Secrets of Landing
Page Success:
Optimization Best
Practices and Case Studies
Jenny DeGraff
Design Optimization Manager
Marketing Mojo

March 13, 2014
2:00 p.m. ET

REGISTER TODAY AT
www.marketing-mojo.com/LPSuccess


CONTACT
JANET DRISCOLL MILLER
President and CEO
Marketing Mojo
@janetdmiller

+ Janet Driscoll Miller

TAD MILLER
Vice President of Accounts
Marketing Mojo
@jstatad

+ Tad Miller

LOOKING FOR HELP?
Contact Marketing Mojo
Sean McCusty
800-939-5938 ext. 116
smccusty@marketing-mojo.com
MARKETING MOJO
Twitter: @MarketingMojo
Facebook: facebook.com/MarketingMojoAgency
Google+: +Marketing Mojo

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