Publishers Note: This is the first in a series of Technology and Marketing Product Reviews that we will be publishing as part of Real Estate Industry Watch. We will provide equal space to those having opposing views. The views in each of these reviews are those of the author and not neccessarily those of Real Estate Industry Watch.
This summary is by no means a slam on any one PPC (Pay Per Click) company, but a discussion on the consequences of hiring a company to manage your paid search (PPC) campaigns.
We recently completed a relationship with TigerLeads and have no complaints with TigerLeads, and in fact, we can positively recommend them as lead generation company if you do not want to manage PPC, or AdWords campaigns. Like Market Leader, TigerLeads charges on average $2,000 – $3,000 per month and promises a certain number of leads per month. Of course, the monthly charge varies from plan to plan, and from market to market. The problem lies in the departure or termination of the service (when you decide paying $2,000 – $3,000 per month is not working for you). When hiring a company like TigerLeads or Market Leader (or similar companies), the leads are in their database. Although the leads are YOUR leads, what to do with the leads in the system becomes an issue when deciding to cease using the service. The backend of these types of lead generation companies is the company’s property, so the potential of losing clients that might take another 3 months to 3 years (for example) are lost when the backend you have been paying for is no longer available.
The Other Danger – Your Account, Their Data
Aside from hiring a company like TigerLeads or Market Leader, another option for REALTORS is to hire a person or company to manage YOUR Adwords account. This can bring up another danger, depending on who you hirie to manage your AdWords campaigns. The problem is who owns the analytics.
In other words, who owns the history of your AdWords account when you terminate a relationship with a PPC company. Unlike the TigerLeads and Market Leader scenarios previously discussed, you own the backend and will not lose clients (leads) when terminating the relationship, but what about all the history and insight gained from months or years of accumulated data? Who owns the account? An important issue, as you will pay Google less money on a seasoned successful AdWords account than a new account with no history of success.
My Conclusion – Be Your Own Manager
Be your own AdWords manager. Learning the in and outs of paid search is a tough road, but a very rewarding one. Very similar to renting a home versus owning a home. One requires payment with not equity in the end, whereas the other requires payment, hard work, but equity in the end.