G-Cloud 4 Framework Google AdWords / Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising Management Service Definition
1. Overview of the Service 1.1. Overview Clare Associates Ltd can provide consultancy and management services to departments and organisations looking to run Google AdWords and other online Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns. 1.2. About Pay-Per-Click Advertising Pay-Per-Click (or PPC ) advertising is any form of online advertising where the advertiser pays a sum to the seller of advertising (Google, Microsoft etc) every time an end user clicks on the on-screen advert. By far the most important PPC advertising is Google s AdWords service. 1.3. About Google AdWords When you run a search using Google, Google uses its algorithms to return the search results that it thinks are most appropriate to your search. If you are the manager of a website and you want your site to appear on the results page for a search for say recycling services london, then you could try optimising your website to make it more relevant to this search. That is called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. Clare Associates can also help you with that. However, sometimes SEO will only help you so much, especially if the search term you want to appear for is a highly competitive one. There are lots of recycling services in London. The answer in some cases will be AdWords.
When you run some searches, you will notice that the first three search results appear in a cream-coloured box under the small print heading Ads related to [search term]. These are paid adverts created using the AdWords system. You may also get an extra column of search results on the right of the page. These are also AdWords ads. The companies and other organisations whose ads appear in these two places will be paying Google every time someone clicks on their ad and is taken through to their website. Sometimes you ll be looking at a website and you ll see an advert on that website. Quite often that advert will be somehow connected to the website s subject matter. For example, you might be reading through the latest news stories from the world of recycling, and you ll see an image advert for an upcoming trade show. There s a good chance that this advert is also an AdWords ad. You might also see video adverts before the next video you watch on YouTube or text ads appearing at the bottom of the video, and often these ads seem to have some connection to video you clicked on, or perhaps appeal to the same sort of person who would these are also AdWords ads. 2. Product Features - How Clare Associates can help Creating, optimising and maintaining an AdWords campaign that reaches its target audience is not simple. It is all too easy to create a campaign that attracts clicks from people who ran completely irrelevant searches. The AdWords interface is confusing for the beginner. Advertisers who fail to optimise their campaigns end up paying far more for each click than advertisers who have properly optimised campaigns with relevant ads and relevant landing pages. Clare Associates is accredited by Google as an AdWords Certified Partner. This accreditation is only awarded to agencies with professionally qualified staff and who manage a minimum of US$10,000 of advertising spend every quarter. We offer a full range of AdWords and PPC services, including consultancy, campaign creation, optimisation and full campaign management. We can apply our AdWords and Analytics expertise to your existing campaigns or we can create entirely new campaigns. 2.1. How we typically work 2.1.1. Initial assessment and campaign setup Where a client has one or more existing campaigns (perhaps campaigns that are not performing as well as they could), our first step is to review those existing campaigns. We look at campaign efficiency, the structure of the account, the keywords in each ad group, ad copy and negative keywords and then we consider what initial steps should be taken.
Our own experience (and Google s advice) suggests that it may take up to a month to gather enough data to properly reach conclusions on campaign performance. This means that when we create new campaigns or make significant adjustments to an existing campaign, we monitor and optimise for a further 30 days as part of our initial review before coming to firm conclusions. We therefore issue two reports an initial report and a 30 day follow-up report. 2.1.2. On-going management We can manage your AdWords campaigns, whether we created them or someone else did, on an on-going basis. This management service includes continuing optimisation of keywords and bidding strategies. We create new ads for each ad group and monitor performance. Overall campaign performance is therefore improved by pausing poorly performing ads, while creating variants of better performing ads. Our management service is provided at a simple hourly rate or, for high-traffic campaigns, payment based on a percentage of your PPC advertising spend.
3. Information Assurance 3.1. Information Security Accreditation This is a service suitable for IL0. All datacentres are provided and managed by the advertising provider Google, Microsoft etc and all data is stored by those parties, not by Clare Associates. 3.2. Connectivity Available All connectivity is via the internet. 4. Backup / Restore and Disaster Recovery AdWords data, including campaigns, is stored on Google s servers. Similar arrangements exist for other providers of PPC advertising. If this protection is not considered enough, then local backups (backed up in turn to cloud-based backup solutions) can be implemented. 5. On-Boarding and Off-Boarding Process New customers with existing campaigns will usually be transferred within five working days of the order. New Accounts will usually be created within five working days of the order. It is important to note that even when we manage your PPC account for you, you will still have full administrator access to your account. Off-boarding can be processed immediately, at your request. Transferring access to the account to another agency is a simple process. It is also simple to pause individual campaigns.
6. Pricing We believe in transparent pricing. Below are the fees we charge for a) reports and 30 days of optimisation of existing campaigns, b) setup of new accounts, c) on-going management for accounts with fewer than 400 clicks per day and d) on-going management for accounts with more than 400 clicks per day. By being based in Cornwall, we are able to save on office costs savings that we can pass on to our customers. All prices are exclusive of VAT. 6.1. Reports and first month optimisation on existing campaigns The combined charge for initial and follow-up reports on existing campaigns is determined by the size and complexity of the account, as shown in the table below. If any one of the number of ads, the number of campaigns or the number of ad groups falls into a higher complexity band, then that is the fee charged. For example, an account with three campaigns, six ad groups and 35 ads would be considered Moderate in complexity, and we would charge 2,000 for an initial report, one month of optimisation and a follow-up report after 30 days. Account complexity Number of ads Number of campaigns Number of ad groups Combined fee for initial report, 30 days optimisation and 30 day follow-up report Simple 1-20 1-3 1-10 1,000 Moderate 21-40 4-6 11-20 2,000 Complex 41-100 7-10 21-40 4,000 Highly complex 101+ 11+ 41+ 9,000 6.2. New account setup The charge for creation of a new account, with campaigns, ad groups and ad copy, is also based on the complexity of the account. Again, if any one of the number of ads, the number of campaigns or the number of ad groups falls into a higher complexity band, then that is the fee charged. For example, a new account with three campaigns, six ad groups and 35 ads would be considered Moderate, and we would charge 3,000 to create that account, optimise it for 30 days and produce a report at the end of that period with our recommendations for future management of the campaign.
Account complexity Number of ads Number of campaigns Number of ad groups Combined fee for account creation, 30 days optimisation and 30 day follow-up report Simple 1-20 1-3 1-10 1,500 Moderate 21-40 4-6 11-20 3,000 Complex 41-100 7-10 21-40 6,000 Highly complex 101+ 11+ 41+ 14,000 6.3. On-going account management - accounts with fewer than 400 clicks per day For accounts with fewer than 400 clicks per day, we charge management at our standard rate of 60 per hour. We agree with you how many hours we should work each month. The table below indicates how long it takes to accomplish typical PPC management tasks. Hours spent each month Typical work performed 1 ( 60 per month) Monthly written report showing key statistics and analytics for the previous month for your AdWords campaigns and traffic from natural search results. or We carry out minor optimisations as we see fit and leave you to check the statistics. 4 ( 240 per month) Monthly report as above. We review all AdWords campaigns every week (keywords, ads, bids etc.) and carry out minor optimisation as we see fit. Or Develop a single new campaign with a new set of targeted keywords, new ad text and recommend new website content (which will also help with natural search engine optimisation). 10 ( 600 per month) Monthly report as above. Weekly AdWords review as above, but with more extensive optimisation as we see fit. Develop a single new campaign with a new set of targeted keywords and new ad text and recommend new website content. 16 ( 960 per month) Monthly report as above. Weekly AdWords review as above. Develop new campaign as above, except that we create content (write copy, edit images etc) rather than simply recommend. Design new display ad for each available resolution.
6.4. Ongoing management - accounts with more than 400 clicks per day Where traffic for an account is very high (more than 400 clicks per day, on average), we do not charge management by the hour, but as a percentage of your monthly spend on Pay- Per-Click according to the table below. All accounts at this level receive a weekly written report, continual optimisation (including a daily review by us of all campaigns), unlimited new campaigns and unlimited new ads, including display ads, at your discretion. Total number of clicks per day (on average) from all of your PPC campaigns Up to 400 Pricing structure for on-going management 60 per hour, as shown in table above. 401-500 25% of your PPC spend, subject to a minimum fee to us of 1,000 per month. (So if you pay Google 2,500 a month, you would pay us 1,000, and if you pay Google 5,000 a month, you would pay us 1,250.) 501-700 20% of your PPC spend, subject to a minimum fee to us of 1,250 per month. 701-1,200 15% of your PPC spend, subject to a minimum fee to us of 1,500 per month. 1,201+ 10% of your PPC spend, subject to a minimum fee to us of 2,000 per month. 7. Product / Service Options As described above, Clare Associates can help with your AdWords and other PPC campaigns in a number of different ways: Review and optimisation of existing campaigns Creation of new campaigns and advice on how best to use PPC advertising to meet your goals On-going management of PPC campaigns 8. Service Constraints No service constraints exist, beyond those imposed by Google and other PPC advertising providers. Google s AdWords terms and conditions are located at https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/tsandcsfinder.
9. Service Levels Service availability is dependent upon the uptime of AdWords and other PPC advertising services. Clare Associates is not responsible for the service level of those services we advise on or manage. 10. Financial Recompense Model Clare Associates accepts no responsibility if, for reasons beyond our control, PPC advertising services that we manage for you are unavailable. If our service to you falls below the agreed amount, that is fewer hours per month than agreed, due to factors reasonably expected to be within our control, you will be eligible for service credits equal to the shortfall. 11. Training For clients wishing to delegate responsibility for PPC campaigns entirely to us, training is likely to be limited to education of basic concepts, sufficient for your staff to understand what we are doing. For clients who wish to retain some involvement in the management of PPC campaigns, we can provide training sessions covering subjects such as ad creation, basic optimisation, campaign structure and basic monitoring. For clients wishing to fully manage their own campaigns, we would recommend full online training and qualification for relevant staff. This is generally provided by the PPC providers using online distance learning. More details about Google s AdWords Individual Qualification are provided here: http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwords/professionals/individual.html. 12. Ordering and Invoicing Process Where we review existing campaigns or create new accounts, we will invoice half the combined fee after issuing our initial report and the remaining half after issuing our 30 day follow-up report. For on-going management, we invoice monthly. Credit terms are 30 days from invoice date. Payment can be made by cheque or BACS.
13. Termination You may terminate your contract with us at any time. We will issue a final invoice covering any work done since the last invoice. There are no termination administration fees. Conversely, we may also terminate the contract at any time. However, we will provide a minimum of 30 days notice. 14. Data Restoration / Service Migration You will have administrator-level access to your PPC account at all times (subject to availability of the service see section 9 above). For Google AdWords, tools are available to extract information contained in your account campaign structure, ad copy, keyword lists etc. This service may not be available for other PPC providers. It is not usually possible to copy campaigns from one PPC provider to another without extensive manual input. 15. Customer Responsibilities You are responsible for: Setting the daily budget of how much you want to spend on clicks. (We will of course advise you on appropriate budget levels, but the final decision is always yours.) Informing us of the ultimate purpose of all campaigns so that we can best advise you. Any other aspects of PPC management you decide to retain. 16. Technical Requirements Where you retain some involvement in management of your account, individual users will require internet access in order to access the web-based interface for AdWords / other PPC systems. 17. Details of Any Trial Service Available A trial period is not available for our service. Use of AdWords and other PPC systems is usually available direct to the advertiser, without the need for third party agencies to manage. However, poorly set up accounts generally lead to unnecessary costs and can continue to be detrimental to the success of the campaign for a long time after, so we do not recommend that departments and organisations try out PPC advertising for themselves without knowing what they are doing.
18. About Clare Associates Clare Associates Ltd is based in Cornwall, but our client portfolio is national. Founded in 2002, we have considerable experience of business, internet technologies and online marketing, and are Google AdWords Certified Partners. We can come up with ideas and solutions for your problems in a clear, easy to understand way that avoids jargon. Our approach is to work with you to discover what your organisation needs, and use our experience to work out a solution that fits both your needs and your budget. Clare Associates Ltd provides solutions that can help you achieve more than you expected, whether by building a website or a pay per click Adwords campaign, by helping you use website visitor statistics to understand how people use your organisation s website, or by reporting on business risks and competitor strategy. We are committed to helping and partnering your organisation in the long term. We are very proud of our diverse client list, with clients in the private, public and voluntary sectors. We have worked for organisations as small as single schools and as large as major multinationals. Public sector clients have included Plymouth City Council, Devon Renaissance, the North Devon Enterprise Agency, Saltash Town Council, Launceston Town Council, Holsworthy Town Council, Torridge District Council, Estover Community College and Newcastle University. 18.1. Our full list of services http://www.clareassoc.co.uk/services/ Web Development - Making Your Website Work Website Design & Creation Website Management Writing Copy and Content Hosting & Domain Management 21 st Century Marketing 21 st Century Marketing for 20 th Century Marketers Google AdWords / PPC Consultancy and Management Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Social Media Newsletters and Mailing Lists Business Development Business Development for Small Organisations Business Simulations Business Strategy Coaching and Mentoring Employee Surveys Financial Operation and Control Financial Training for Non-Financial Managers Innovation Programmes Leadership and Team Management Training Making an Impact Personal Effectiveness and Time Management Presentation and Impact for Students Presentation Skills Real Team Building Recruitment Services Staff Appraisal Systems that Work Talent Identification Writing Skills