by Gemma Dixon | Aug 21, 2024
OK time for a deep dive – the various approaches for handling Google ads setup and management fees.
Percentage of ad spend, fixed management fee, conversion-basis, fixed setup costs, no set up cost but higher fees… There are many ways that ad managers structure their process for handling the set up and management of clients’ Google ad campaigns. Let’s look at a few of the different options, and then we’ll explain how we do it and why.
Percentage of ad spend
With this option, the agency takes a % cut based on your monthly ad spend. So if you were spending $2,000 per month on ads and their cut is 25%, their monthly fee would be $500, and your monthly total would be $2,500. The reality is, from the agency’s perspective, this model really only works for clients with bigger budgets. If the client was only spending $500 a month, a $125 management fee is pretty light. The risks with this model are if your budget fluctuates a lot then you don’t have a fixed monthly fee or consistency; and if your budget is really large, then your monthly fee could be very big as well!
Monthly management fee
Some agencies just charge a fixed monthly fee for managing your campaigns. This will vary wildly between agencies. Generally, this should be directly related to the size of your campaigns and how many campaigns you are running. For example, if you are running one Google Display campaign with a $10 daily budget, the time it will take to manage this campaign is small, versus having 5 or 6 more complex campaigns, where the time would be significantly more. However, some agencies will charge the same flat rate regardless.
Hybrid model
Some agencies use a hybrid model of the above two. They will take a percentage cut based on the ad spend, and they also have a fixed monthly management fee. In this scenario, usually the agency is paying for the ad spend themselves, and then billing you for it. So the % cut almost acts like an “insurance” or fee just to have them manage your account. And then on top of this they also have a fixed management fee for the day-to-day running and optimisation of your campaigns. This is the most expensive option, and is generally not very feasible for smaller businesses.
Setup costs
As well as the monthly fees for managing your account, before you start, your campaigns have to actually be created. Depending on the type of campaign, how big it is, and how many campaigns you need, this can take some time if its done properly. After doing some looking around, there are 3 main options for how agencies charge for this:
- No set up costs, but they charge a % of ad spend – sounds too good to be true right? The risk here is that you may either be pushed into spending more than you need to be so they can get their cut; or the campaign setup will be a quick turn around to keep their cost down. Red flags either way.
- Fixed rate regardless – if you have a large, complex account and campaigns then this may be warranted. But for most everyday clients that don’t have complex needs you’ll end up paying more than you need to.
- Flexible rate depending on your campaign needs – the fairest in our books, as you pay for what you need and there’s nothing hidden.
So how do we do things at The New Black, and why?
We try to make Google Ads as simple and accessible as possible. We charge the setup based on the campaign complexity and how many campaigns there are, so you don’t pay more than you need to to get your campaigns up and running.
For monthly management, some agencies will charge a percentage of ad spend – we don’t do this. We want clients to feel confident that we’re squeezing everything out of their budget that we can by having properly targeted campaigns and using efficient monitoring techniques with your end goals and relevant conversions in mind, rather than just hiking ad spend to get more click through!
So, we charge a monthly management fee, which is dependent on the complexity and size of your campaigns and account – it’s not a “one size fits all”. What we charge is based on the actual time we think it will take to effectively manage your account within the constraints of what your budget may be. This approach works for us and our clients, and doesn’t reward us for simply increasing your ad spend (or penalise you for having a small budget). Your monthly fee also includes a report at the start of each month showing you how your campaign(s) performed, so you can track what’s going on.
We find this is the simplest and fairest approach, and it works for our clients because they have certainty about what they’re spending each month, with less moving variables.
We also don’t lock people into contracts – once your campaigns are set up and running, you can stop them at any time, or move them elsewhere if you wish. This makes sure we constantly strive to get good results. And we work with you to achieve this.
If you’re keen to get started with Google Ads, get in touch and we can work through the options for you.
by Gemma Dixon | Dec 5, 2023
The short answer is YES! Email marketing is a low-cost, simple way of connecting with your customers that has been around for years, and is still a highly relevant digital marketing technique. It’s an excellent tool for getting your brand, product or service out to people who are already engaged with you or interested in what you offer. They have either already purchased from you or chosen to receive your content, which makes them more receptive to what you have to say. Sending regular emails to your subscribers has multiple benefits, including customer retention, improving brand recognition, driving traffic to your website, generating sales, and keeping your customers up to date.
There are quite a few email marketing platforms out there now, some of which have free plans, so it doesn’t have to cost a lot. The main thing it will cost you is time, but even this doesn’t have to be a lot. Sending one email a month is a great place to start, and only needs to take an hour.
Another reason why giving email marketing a go is a good idea is because you shouldn’t rely solely on social media to connect with your audience – not everyone is active on social platforms, and your accounts can get shut down in an instant. There are too many stories out there about accounts being hacked and then shut down permanently, or Facebook disliking something and shutting your account down. So, if you put all your eggs into the Facebook basket you could come away with nothing and no way to get in touch with those loyal followers.
When you maintain an email list, you own those contacts and can move them from platform to platform, which means you never lose them.
You can also do some pretty fancy stuff with automations and customer journeys, depending on which platform you use and the type of plan you’re on. These can be very effective at nurturing existing customers, or helping convert new customers.
We have a number of clients that use email marketing very effectively and who have built up a large database of subscribers over time. And these regular emails, especially when done well, generate easy sales – it really is low-lying fruit!
The key takeaway from all this is that yes email marketing is worth it, as you have a captive audience at your fingertips who are ready to hear what you have to offer. You don’t have much to lose, so give it a go!
by Gemma Dixon | Oct 17, 2023
If you’ve worked with an agency before, you may have heard them refer to a 301 redirect. If you nodded along like you knew what they were talking about, but secretly had no idea, then this is the article for you!
So, what IS a 301 redirect? In a nutshell, it’s a permanent redirect from one page to another, essentially telling search engines and users that the URL (or web address) for your page/content has moved. The number refers to a code that the web page sends to the server when it loads. There are a bunch of different numbers which all mean different things – one of the others you might be familiar with is 404 – this means the page couldn’t be found or does not exist.
These 2 codes are interlinked. Ideally, you don’t want a visitor to your website to encounter a 404 error – it means they can’t find the content they’re looking for on your website, and this can be detrimental to their user experience.
There are three main reasons why someone may encounter a 404 error:
- The person visiting the website has typed the URL in incorrectly.
- The URL of the page has been changed for some reason (e.g. you may have noticed a spelling mistake and corrected it, or perhaps for SEO reasons you changed it to something more keyword rich).
- The page was no longer relevant, so you deleted (or hid) the page.
All these scenarios would result in a 404 error, as the page could not be loaded using that particular URL. The first one you can’t do much about as you do not have control over user error. However, the second two you can control.
When to use 301 redirects
If the URL for a page is changed, or a page is removed, you can use a 301 redirect. This tells the server that the old URL doesn’t exist anymore (i.e. its web address has changed), but here is the new page that the person should visit instead. This means the visitor can still access the content they were trying to find.
There are some general rules around 301 redirects – you shouldn’t just redirect people to the home page of your website if there is content that is more relevant to the original page on your website.
Redirects also play a big role in website redesigns. If as part of the rebuild process all the URLs on your website change, you need to make sure you tell people how to find the new pages. For example, if on your old website you had a page called www.mywebsite.co.nz/about/ and on the new website you change the URL to www.mywebsite.co.nz/about-us/. If someone tries to visit the old page it would return a 404 error as that page does not exist anymore, but you still want that person to find the right content. So, you would enter in a 301 redirect that tells the server (and search engines) that a new page exists instead, and it would automatically send the visitor to the new page.
What about SEO?
This also has big implications for SEO. If you had a well-performing web page that was indexed by Google and sent a lot of traffic to your website, and you then remove that page or change the URL, you essentially lose all the SEO value (and possibly traffic!) that the page offered your website, because Google can no longer find it. But if you put in a 301 redirect to the new version of the page, or the closest equivalent, you can usually pass that SEO value to the new page. You are basically telling Google that the content you used to rank for is now located on a new page, so visit/crawl that page instead (word of warning though – you can still lose this SEO value overtime if the new page isn’t as optimised for SEO as the previous one).
If you have a URL (i.e. web page) that is indexed by Google, and you remove that page or change the URL, the old URL can still remain in Google’s index for quite a while. So, if a potential customer searched for “best organic moisturiser nz” and your old web page ranks well for this term, but the URL no longer works, when this customer clicks the link in search results they will land on a 404 error page. What are they likely to do? Hit the back button and find a new web page that actually works? Highly likely! So, you’ve potentially lost a sale. However, if you had put in a 301 redirect, instead of the customer finding a 404 error, they would have automatically been redirected to the new correct version of the page and they will have received the content they were looking for.
What about user error or if I forget?
Setting up a custom 404 page is a good catchall if you miss a redirect, or a user types your URL incorrectly. These can direct people to the right information. For example, adding a search box so they can re-search for what they were looking for, adding some highly visited links etc.
Some CMSs can also determine what the person was looking for – if they type one letter incorrectly, smart systems can determine that they were actually trying to find page XYZ and send them there anyway.
Pattern redirects and wildcards can also work well if you have URLs with a lot in common.
In summary
Think of it like Google maps. If your business used to be at address A, but then you move to address B, you need to tell your customers you have moved so they can find you, otherwise they’ll turn up at address A trying to find you (hello 404!). This is frustrating for everyone and could result in a lost sale. But if you had updated your address online to address B, when that same customer Googled you, they would find the right address and end up in the correct location (thanks 301!).
Therefore, 301 redirects are important for both SEO as well as user experience. By not paying attention to these you have the potential to lose SEO value, and also lose customers.
by Gemma Dixon | Oct 6, 2023
Do you ever find yourself asking “Why aren’t my ads converting?”. Unfortunately, there is no one right answer! There are many factors that contribute to high converting ads. But the following are a few things you can check that might be having an impact on your ads’ performance:
1. Are your keywords too broad or too specific? As an example, if you are bidding on the broad match keyword “pizza”, and you are promoting home-delivery takeaway pizza in Christchurch, you are going to get a lot of irrelevant search terms showing your ad (e.g. “at home pizza recipes”, “pizza delivery Auckland”, “how to make pizza dairy free”, “how to make pizza dough at home” etc. – you don’t want to be paying for clicks for these search terms as they are not relevant). On the flip side, if you make your keywords too specific by only using exact match terms, you are potentially missing out on hundreds of relevant search queries.
2. Are your keywords geared up for driving action, and have the right intent for that desired action? For example, if you want someone to buy your shoes online, but you are targeting keywords such as “the top 10 shoe brands in nz”, that person’s intent is probably not buying a pair of shoes online today. So, think about the intent behind a search query and think “is that person likely to perform this action if they are search for it?”.
3. How relevant/connected are your ads to the keywords you are targeting? It is best practice to use the keywords you are targeting in the ad copy – if the search term the person is using appears in the ad, they are much more likely to click the ad. Breaking up your keywords into smaller groups based around one topic or theme means you can make your ads a lot more relevant to the keywords.
4. How relevant is your website’s landing page? Are your keywords and ad copy mentioned on the web page, to tie the ad and landing page together? Is the content on the page directly relevant to your ad? If your ad is for promoting a particular moisturiser, but the landing page the ads click through to is the home page, you are making it much harder for that visitor to find the product they were interested in and purchase it.
5. Are there any barriers to conversion on your landing page or website? It’s important to make sure your website has a streamlined process for a visitor performing your desired action – don’t make it too difficult for them! Sometimes setting up a dedicated landing page specifically for your campaign can work really well, so you can move the customer through the purchase process all on one page.
6. Mobile vs Desktop – Does your website perform equally well on both devices? You can review the data for device type and conversions in both your Google Ads and Analytics accounts to assess what is happening. If your conversions a lot higher on one device type, it could be worth either addressing the usability of your site on the lower-performing platform, or perhaps change your bid adjustments in favour of the one that does perform well.
by Gemma Dixon | Aug 24, 2023
The landscape of online business is forever changing and evolving, and a website’s visibility on search engines can make all the difference between meeting your business goals or being invisible to your customers. This is where Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes into play. It works together in harmony with web development choices to ensure your website not only functions flawlessly but also ranks well on search engine results pages (SERPs). Below we dive into the crucial connection between SEO and web development, and provide some steps to help you create a search engine-friendly website.
The Connection Between SEO and Web Development
Imagine a beautifully designed website that’s a winning combination of aesthetics and user experience. However, if it remains buried on the 10th page of Google’s search results, it might never be discovered. This is where the partnership between SEO and web development becomes crucial.
SEO is more than just keywords and backlinks. The structure, code, and user experience of your website play an important role in determining how search engines interpret and rank your content. By optimising the technical aspects of your website during the development phase, you set a solid foundation for higher search engine visibility. So it’s important that your web developer understands this, and does not take shortcuts.
Strategies for Creating Search Engine-Friendly Websites
1. Responsive Design: Mobile-First Approach
Google’s algorithms now prioritise mobile-friendly websites, making responsive design non-negotiable. A responsive website adapts to different screen sizes, offering a consistent user experience across devices. This not only enhances user satisfaction but also contributes to better search rankings.
2. Site Speed Optimisation
Website speed is an important factor in both user experience and SEO. No one likes a website that is sluggish and slow, and Google doesn’t either! Slow-loading websites lead to higher bounce rates and can lower search rankings. Optimise images, minimize HTTP requests, and leverage browser caching to help your website load as quickly as possible.
3. SEO-Friendly URL Structure
Use descriptive, concise URLs that provide a clear indication of the page’s content. Avoid long strings of numbers or irrelevant characters. An organised URL structure makes it easier for search engines and users to navigate your website. Using keywords in the URL is also key, but only if its not to the detriment of this point.
4. Properly Structured Heading Tags
Use heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to give your content structure and a hierarchy. Heading tags not only improve the accessibility and readability of your content, but also gives context to search engines about the importance of different sections on your pages. The H1 heading should always be the most important heading on the page, describing what the page is about while also utilising keywords.
5. Image Optimisation
Images can really take your website to the next level visually, but they can also slow down your website if not optimised properly. Resize images, compress them without compromising quality, give them SEO-friendly file names, add descriptive keyword-rich alt text, and consider using modern formats like WebP for better performance. Images formats such PNG generate larger file sizes.
6. Schema Markup
Implement schema markup to provide additional context to search engines about your content. Schema markup helps search engines display rich snippets in search results, enhancing your website’s visibility and attracting more clicks.
7. User Experience and Time on Site
Search engines take user behaviour into account when ranking websites. A positive user experience, including easy navigation, relevant content, and longer times spent on the site, indicates to search engines that your website is valuable and relevant.
What’s the take away?
The partnership between SEO and web development is important and should not be over-looked, making sure your website is set up for success right from the outset. Shortcuts to make the build process faster or simplify a CMS for the client, or a lack of awareness of on-page SEO factors, can often lead to parts of a website not being set up for SEO success. The technical aspects of your website’s construction can greatly impact its search engine ranking potential.
By incorporating SEO considerations into your web development process from the start, you not only improve user experience but also ensure that your digital asset is visible to those who are looking for it. Balancing aesthetics and functionality with the complexities of SEO is the key to creating a website that truly stands out in the digital crowd.
If you want to have a chat about how well your site is setup for SEO, get in touch with us.
