3 Frightening Reasons Why A Business Must Own Their AdWords Account

Once in a while, I sit back and take stock of the challenges that our prospective clients are dealing with when they approach Oracle Digital for marketing help.

In recent times, the most prevalent and dangerous scenario for business owners relates to the ownership and control of their Google AdWords accounts.

Google AdWords can be a powerful marketing engine for your business, however, if managed incorrectly, can become a vacuum of wasted dollars down the drain.

Get it right and you have an essential platform moving forward that can help you make the most of your advertising investment.

Get it wrong and you will lose access to years and years of your hard earned market intelligence, intellectual property and thus see real dollars fly out of your pocket.

Reason 1: Account Ownership

The Google AdWords software platform is free to use for any business owner who wants to promote their business online.

Create an account, build your campaigns and off you go.

It really is that easy.

What They Do To Lock You In

Many of the prominent Google AdWords management providers across Australia will build your marketing and lead generation campaigns from within their own Google AdWords centre – essentially controlling your IP.

The ownership and control of those marketing campaigns belongs to the managing agency – not your business!

So, if you decide that you want to move on for whatever reason, you will be leaving without access to your Google Analytics data.

Result: You have to start gathering data from scratch which will put a big dent in your future marketing success.

Reason 2: Account History

Your Google AdWords account history means many things to Google, and even more to your business.

For Google, your campaign history is a legacy of customer loyalty and ongoing performance. This does not go unrewarded!

Google rewards its customers for positive campaign performance and continued loyal spending with significant reductions in your overall monthly clicks/marketing costs.

If you do not own your Google AdWords account, the financial benefits that you might be currently enjoying are not yours for the keeping!

So, if you decide that you want to move on for whatever reason, you may be paying more for the same level of advertising in future.

Result: You will pay more to get the same results.

Reason 3: Billing & Cash Flow

With the help of a professional agency, there are two ongoing costs to a business when running a Google AdWords account.

1. Your monthly click budget, payable to Google, and
2. A “fee for service” management cost, paid to an agency of choice.

Typically, businesses will pay one lump sum payment to their agency, which accounts for both their monthly click budget and management fee.

How Does This Agency Practice Negatively Effect Your Cash Flow?

The two inherent problems with this scenario are –

• Cash Flow management – finding one lump sum payment, often in the thousands, can be a challenge to any business.
• Billing Transparency – businesses are paying thousands of dollars in lump sum payments to their agencies, each and every month, for Google click costs. Often, they never receive a monthly statement that accounts for those monthly costs.

Does this really need to be the case?

Can your cash flow really support this unnecessary burden?

Do you have thousands of dollars in unspent marketing funds, sitting in the hands of your AdWords management agency?

How Many Businesses Are Locked In To This Negative Situation

Unfortunately the above situation often prevails in our industry.

Locking your business in so you cannot easily move to another supplier in future may be seen by some as a sound business practice which protects the intellectual property that they contribute to your online marketing success.

The fact is that agencies are paid a management fee to deliver results for your business so contributing their intellectual property to deliver results is simply a service you are paying for already.

Understanding where your money is being spent and monitoring the return you are getting from how that money is spent is simply good business practice and anyone that gets in the way of that knowledge simply does not help your business maximise its potential.

How Can My Business Escape This Negative Situation?

If you are stuck in a situation as described above and you are considering moving Adwords providers then the earlier you move the quicker your situation will improve.

Make your decision now!

Find an Adwords provider who has a proven track record of success, provides regular simple to understand reporting and recommendations for improvement, allows you to own your own Intellectual Property and allows you to make your own payments direct to Google (apart from the agency’s management fee of course).

Whilst we would love for you to give us a call and join the many clients who are removing the shackles of their previous uneven relationships and coming over to Oracle Digital we know there are also many more capable Adwords agencies out there who will treat your business with respect and let their results be the prime reason you will always want to stay with them.

In conclusion, I can honestly say, with hand over heart, that Oracle Digital is deeply passionate about handing the control and financial rewards for successful marketing campaigns back to business owners.