Every business should be using marketing. I don’t think that’s a super out-there statement to make. However, there are so many facets of marketing ranging from free to paid that you might not know what’s best for you.
In this post, I am to help you answer the following question: should you be using the digital marketing services of a paid ads agency? Now, as a paid ads agency owner myself, you may think I’m slightly biased. And who knows – maybe I am. But the truth is that paid ads aren’t for everyone. If it’s an option for you, it can be great . . . but the problem lies in knowing whether or not it’s a good move for your business.
I turn down about half the people wanting to work with us. It sounds harsh – but if I take on someone who isn’t a good fit for paid advertising, it will be a costly and pointless endeavour on both ends.
I say things how I see them, so I won’t sugarcoat things. Don’t believe me? Check out this video about the same topic where I share all my honest thoughts.
Three reasons not to hire a paid ads agency
See, I told you I’d be brutally honest! Yes, I run a paid ads agency, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to try to convince you to spend thousands on paid advertising campaigns if it’s not a smart move for your business. Because the truth is that there are some scenarios where running paid ads can be a disaster.
1. You don't have a good product market fit
If you’re wondering what a product market fit is, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Your product needs to have a market, and more than that, it needs to meet this market’s needs. People need to be receiving your business well, and you need to have at least a few sales under your belt.
If your business is still trying to find its groove, diving into paid advertising campaigns is a bit of a shot in the dark. Your new business is like a newborn foal – unable to properly walk on its legs. Trying to add paid ads to the mix is like expecting this foal to run a race a day after it was born.
Some people start running ads before they’ve even launched their business. This isn’t always a bad idea, but it does mean you’re going to be spending a lot more money than if you started ads a bit later. Also keep in mind that, if you don’t know anything about what works, making any type of ad work for you will be really hard.
I recommend making sure that your business has good reception before you unleash the ad dragon from its cage. Until you have a good product market fit, you should hold off on hiring a digital marketing agency to run Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or ads on any other major search engines.
2. Budget blues: less than £3k need not apply
Money, money, money! Did anyone else sing that to the tune of Abba? No? Just me? Okay. Let’s move on. Money is a big factor in paid advertising. After all, it is paid advertising. However, you shouldn’t just have money to spend – you need to have enough money in your ad spend.
People are going to try to convince you that you can run successful ads on a tiny budget, but the simple truth is they’re lying. If you don’t believe me, you can try it out for yourself. I’d be willing to bet that you won’t get the results you want.
You’re trying to build an ad machine here, not host a garage sale. So if you can’t afford to spend at least £3k a month on your ads, you should wait until your business is more profitable. If you want your ads to see any type of success, you need to invest enough money in them.
Besides, algorithms love to play hard to get when you don’t have a high enough budget. The higher your ad spend, the more data you get, and the better the algorithm gets at helping you spend that money better. For those with a smaller budget, organic marketing strategies like search engine marketing might be a better fit.
You should also remember that you’re paying for someone’s expertise. I have what I believe to be some of the best paid ads guys working for me, and to keep them, I need to pay them a decent salary. This means that we don’t have each person managing fifty clients at one point – instead, they can have a handful of clients and give them the care and attention that they’re paying for.
3. Your target audience pool is too small
Exclusivity is great, but having a super exclusive audience does bring its own problems. If your audience is small enough to fit into a teacup, then paid advertising might not be your cup of tea.
For example, if you are in a very niche industry, you might not have a lot of people interested in your product. The same goes for super high-end, luxury products – having such a high price point means you’ll likely minimise your pool of potential customers a lot. Of course, this is also true for brick-and-mortar companies that only operate in a specific location and thus have a drastically limited customer pool in terms of geography, making online advertising a bit trickier.
The entire point of paid advertising is to scale your business, and a microscopic audience pool doesn’t necessarily scream “billboard-worthy”. Paid advertising campaigns might be magic in some cases, but here, it just isn’t the right potion for your ailment.
Three cheers for the ad agency!
So, I’ve walked you through some reasons why you shouldn’t hire a paid media agency, so now it’s time to talk about why you should at least consider this. Again, I run my own paid ads agency, but I’ll try to remain as objective as possible!
1. You fast-track your learning
Imagine if you could learn everything you learnt throughout school, except instead of spending over a decade of your life doing it, you did it in a year. That’s essentially what paid ads offer you: the chance to boost your learning and help you implement a solid marketing strategy.
As mentioned earlier, the more money you spend, the more data you get. And the more data you get, the more you learn about your audience and your ads. With paid advertising campaigns, you can easily test different ads to see which ones work and which ones don’t. I’m not saying there won’t still be some trial and error; there will always be a learning curve, but I am saying that you’ll learn a lot more, a lot quicker. In a world where it constantly feels like we have too little time to be doing everything we want, that’s a great thing.
An added bonus is that you have experts on your side. For example, I’ve been doing this for six years, so I have a relatively good idea of where to start, which means you don’t need to spend ages figuring that out (but we’ll get to more detail on that later!)
2. Scaling dreams: climbing up the beanstalk of PPC campaigns
Pay-per-click campaigns (or PPC campaigns) can help you go from making hundreds to making thousands and eventually making hundreds of thousands. Scaling ads can be a bit like juggling flaming torches – tricky, but thrilling.
Again, if you have a super niche audience pool, scaling your ads isn’t going to be a great option. But if you have a large audience pool, you need to scale! Go big or go home, am I right?
Of course, you don’t want to scale too much too fast. There is a bit of a balancing act to it, but a good Google paid ads agency can help you grow your ads and your income.
3. Time is money
Remember what I said earlier, about having too little time and too much to do? That comes into play here as well. Paid advertising is a complex world. It takes years of learning, and setting up and managing your campaigns doesn’t happen in the snap of a finger, either.
If you don’t have the time or knowledge to manage your paid ads, get someone else to do it for you. Not everyone has the luxury of learning to do things from scratch, so if you feel like you’re drawing in tasks, outsourcing might be the answer to your problems.
Curtain call
If you’re a business, you should at least consider hiring a paid advertising agency. It might not be for you, but it could also be the thing that takes your business to the next level. Hopefully, this post gave you some idea of whether or not hiring a paid ads agency is the right move for your business. If you’re ready to take the next step, or simply interested in learning more, get in touch with my ad agency via the form below.