Know-How Exchange : SEO/SEM

1) If the agency has multiple clients who use AdWords, it is likely that they have one log in for the multiple accounts, so they may not be lying.

2) You are the client and the agency is doing the work for you. There is nothing wrong with you contacting Google directly (that said, Google is not an easy company to get personal service from).

3) unless the Agency also hosts your web page, you should be able to easily get all the information from your web host about the number of people who land on your page.

4) go to Google.com and search on adwords. They have a lot of documentation online, though I can't vouch for how understandable it is.

Kathy,

Here are the best answers I can give you, but unfortunately they are dependent on some other information we don't have.

1. This depends on what your contract says. First, it sounds like your agency has made a huge mistake. If the AdWords account login is SHARED between clients, then they are NOT managing your account correctly to begin with.

Agencies (and individuals) can set up a "Client Center" with AdWords (https://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=7725). It's like an "umbrella" account that they would log in to to reach each individual client account.

As for who owns the individual client account, that's tough for a few reasons. First, if the agency CREATED the account for you, they may claim ownership. Second, if the account is set up for "invoicing" with Google (not credit card billing), then it can be tough to move an existing account to you.

At minimum, the agency likely should give you a Google AdWords Editor file that you could take with you, but again, it depends on your original contract and the state's laws on "work for hire".

2. You will likely get a random person. Even if you spend $25k or more per month, Google doesn't always assign you a dedicated account manager. Google SHOULD NOT disclose, however, that you are thinking of changing agencies.

3. Actually, all of that data is available in Google. Google provides conversion tracking numbers, also available directly in AdWords. If the reports themselves, the printed documents, are proprietary, it again may depend on the "work for hire" law and your contract in your state. But conversions are not proprietary and are directly available within Google.

4. They clearly are not experts given the setup of your account as mentioned in point 1. However, they think they can pull the wool over your eyes. I had trouble finding Google's help on selecting an agency, unfortunately. Looks like they redesigned the Help recently and there's not much data there.

5. Hire us! Well, and that aside, make sure your vendor is AdWords certified (https://support.google.com/adwords/certification/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...). I think you mostly know what to ask... about reporting, ownership of account, references, etc.

Let me know if I can be of further help. Good luck!!

Janet Driscoll Miller
Search Mojo

Kathy, use Google Analytics to check what keywords worked well. Let the old agency run the campaign for another month so you get some insight in what works and what not.

The agency actually should provide you with a report about the ads and keywords they target anyway.

The agency may very well "own" the login information if the account is set up as you described; however if it is set up that way, it seems they obviously did it intentionally in order to maintain control, though ease of use may have also been a factor. That is not the best way to set up multiple AdWords accounts for separate companies.

Now, if they have things set up within AdWords so that each company has a separate campaign, then they can transfer access of a campaign to another user then the new user can revoke access. You can look up the more pertinent "how tos" on the internet. I also found a basic explanation here: https://www.lessannoyingcrm.com/blog/2011/01/242/Transfer+an+existing+Googl....

With regard to not being an AdWords expert, I recently posted a basic tutorial on AdWords bidding that you can find here: https://marketingmeans.blogspot.com/2011/12/google-adwords-bidding-basics.h....

Hope these help.

you can use tolls such as spyfu to spy on the ads which you are running and evaluate the strong ones this way you can keep the good ad copy. that together with installing an analytics program on your site should give you all the information you need to move to a different agency or do it in house either way youll be back in control

Just another piece of information that I remembered and was able to confirm...if your client agency set up your account through a Client Manager Account, they CAN unlink it. Here's a direct quote from Google: "Like clients, a client manager can unlink a client account from his/her account at any time." And all reports are associated with the account and are not proprietary unless you signed paperwork to the effect that your Client Manager will hold on to them. But even if you did, once the account is unlinked, you should have access to most of the reports anyway, as they'll be generated by AdWords or whatever analytics application is attached to the website.