Our Top Tips For Taking Over a Google Ads Account From Another Agency
Introducing the number one “Golden Rule” that’s critical but oft ignored…. Thou Shalt Not Rush In And Rebuild Straight Away! Unless the account is a complete dumpster fire, spend the first month getting to know the account, specifically looking for what’s already working and what isn’t. Tread carefully and you can almost guarantee yourself a smooth transition.
Of course, it’s likely that you will want to rebuild some or all of the accounts over time. While it does happen, the fact remains that clients rarely move an account if they’re delighted with its performance 🤷🏻♀️.
So, here are our tips for a successful transition of search accounts from one agency to another.
Phase 1 — AKA the tread-lightly phase
1. Avoid the rebuild
As mentioned — light tweaks only if possible!
2. Check the brand campaigns
Are search terms triggering here that really don’t belong?
It’s important to have a clean search term report for Brand campaigns, so you can accurately track things like competitor activity against your brand terms, spend on brand vs general terms etc. Adding negatives here to tidy up brand traffic is a great tread lightly activity!
3. Competitor campaigns are often poor performers
Watch these closely to look for trends on what’s working or wasting.
If the campaigns aren’t working, consider adding keywords that specifically target people who are obviously looking for a solution and exclude existing users of the competitor’s service. For example, you may need to target competitor keywords that include an intent qualifier (acme alternatives, acme reviews, acme complaints etc) or exclude the word ‘log-on’ etc.
Another alternative — add the competitor term as phrase match keywords, and add an exact match negative for the same term. This way you will effectively exclude people who just type in the exact competitor name (likely looking to log in) but catch everyone else who is using your competitor in a proper phrase. Don’t forget to add the login negatives though!
4. Download a historical list
Download a historical list of the best-performing search terms.
When you start to replace the original campaigns, adgroups or keywords with your new ones, watch for any major changes in impressions on those search terms over the coming weeks. It’s not uncommon for a rebuild to inadvertently choke traffic on some search terms.
5. Check negatives
Check negative keywords and negative keyword lists to understand why those were added.
Also, look at search terms that are now blocked by those negatives to understand how those searches used to perform. It’s common to find search terms that previously performed well but are now blocked by a negative that was added (presumably) inadvertently.
6. Pause ad copy that clearly isn’t working; easy win here!
7. Pause expensive keywords that aren’t driving appropriate ROI
8. Does your client run promotions?
Ask your client for previous sale dates so you can look back over the last 12 months and create performance benchmarks for “sale” and “business as usual” periods. Check with the client that these are in line with expectations.
9. Set up reporting
What data points are important for the client to see? Create a report (Data Studio, free and flexible… aka “Looker Studio” 🙄) that gives your client the information they need. Often this is just an executive summary/one-pager.
10. Check conversion tracking
Ensure you’re getting credit for your hard work by making sure that all relevant conversion points are being tracked, including revenue if appropriate.
11. Check budgets
Are there any top-performing campaigns that are losing impressions due to budget? If so, transfer some budget from the worst performers.
12. Check bid strategies
Are any top-performing campaigns limited by rank? This is an opportunity to increase bids as long as there is enough budget to do so.
Use our bid strategy flowchart to determine the best bid strategy for the situation, overlay that with the knowledge of the client’s business goals and then update bid strategies to get the most out of the available budget.
Phase 2 — The post-new-campaign-launch phase:
1. Don’t launch all new campaigns all at once
Better to sneak up on it slowly, launching one replacement at a time. This also avoids shocking the smart bidding algorithms
2. Watch for search terms that start triggering and have interesting impression volume
It’s the best way to make sure that your new build hasn’t accidentally opened up irrelevant traffic that was previously blocked by a negative keyword in the old campaign.
Continue to check your list of previously high-performing search terms, specifically looking for traffic drops.
3. Monitor performance to watch for drops in ROAS or increases in CPA
Here’s a helpful infographic to help you troubleshoot the root cause of a drop in ROAS (a further article to come on this soon..stay glued to your inbox!). This is an example using ROAS but similar logic applies for finding the root cause of CPA increases.
4. Monitor budget pacing
New campaigns can take a while to fire up, or if your keywords are too loose they may spend too quickly.
5. Watch that client dashboard you built for your client
….I guarantee they are! You need to be alert in case your rebuild doesn’t go the way you had planned (and we’ve all been there!). Make sure you know before they do.
Summary:
The number one rule is to move slowly. Be careful of automatically assuming everything in the account is 💩, and make sure you really dig in to understand what works and what doesn’t… and why. From there, be strategic and data-driven in your decision-making, with a strong test-and-measure ethos backing each decision. You’ll be well placed then to defend any losses or celebrate any wins you make in the early stages; remember, you’re usually still building your trust capital with the new client.
Unless you have a time machine, you can’t undo a poor first impression. But you can absolutely smash it if you work strategically!
Want to chat more about how Adpulse can help?
We love talking PPC and spend most of our time chatting to agencies, so if you have a question please do drop us a line!
