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Working with a third party AdWords manager can save you a ton of time. And because time is money, the cost of doing business with a third party is often a better bargain than the Do-It-Yourself approach.

With that in mind, we would be remiss if we acted as though every third party vendor is worth the money. Bad deals certainly exist. And the last thing you want to do is spend a huge portion of your marketing budget on a failing campaign.

To help you avoid picking the wrong third party vendor, we built the following list of things you should look for in a Paid Search Manager. Go down the list and make sure that every point is met before signing your next contract.

Your Third Party Vendor Has Experience

Setting up AdWords campaigns is relatively easy. Managing, refining, and optimizing those campaigns is a different story. To ensure that you get the most out of your budget, it’s imperative that your AdWords manager has plenty of experience. Otherwise, you might as well take the DIY route.

Keep in mind that simply having experience running AdWords campaigns is not enough. Every industry is different. And because each of these different industries requires different tactics, you need to deal with a vendor that’s familiar with your niche. If you’re looking for PPC services for apartments, you don’t want to hire an e-commerce vendor that primarily sells shoes and garden tools.

Your Third Party Vendor Is Certified

Hiring an experienced AdWords manager is great, but that manager needs to be certified as well. It’s completely true that an experienced third party can know AdWords inside and out without ever officially taking a Google course, but certification erases any doubts about the qualifications of an experienced manager.

To verify that a third party vendor is certified, look for the Google Partner or Premier SMB Partners badge on the third party’s website. You can also use Google Partner Search or the Premier SMB Partners website to double-check for authenticity.

Your Third Party Vendor Is Transparent

Having the ability to measure results is the biggest advantage online advertising has over traditional media. When every single user interaction is meticulously tracked and recorded, you get a really great understanding of your campaigns’ performance. For this reason, it’s a big red flag if your third party vendor is reluctant to report results.

To guarantee that you’re getting a good return on your investment, make sure that your AdWords partner provides you with regular updates. An ideal vendor will provide you with access to a dashboard where you can see daily data. They’ll also be more than happy to talk with you about why a given metric matters, and how you can improve certain aspects of your campaign in order to accomplish your goals.

Transparency in terms of pricing is another factor you’ll want to consider. If a vendor charges you $1000 per month for AdWords services, be sure to ask them how those funds are distributed. A trustworthy vendor will disclose how much of that budget goes toward funding your campaign, as well as how much goes toward the cost of management fees.

Additional Tips

Although the three points identified above will help you pick the ideal AdWords manager for your apartment PPC campaign, educating yourself on AdWords basics will help you make the best decisions when working with your third party vendor. To learn more about how AdWords can help you drive leads and sign more leases, check out some of our other articles on apartment PPC strategies.