Using a platform to automate and optimize your PPC bidding can drive immense value when implemented well – many becoming indispensable parts of your SEM program.
However, what happens when your program faces an issue? When your data looks incorrect? When your program performance starts declining out of nowhere? When you just get stuck?
There is more to purchasing PPC bid management software than just the technology. One common mistake is forgetting to vet the subject-matter expertise and support quality of your vendor until it’s too late. Once inside this evaluative mindset, it deeply benefits the advertiser to invest in a partnership. It makes a difference at two levels: 1) urgent problem solving when issues arise, and 2) strategic planning and execution based on knowledge of your business and goals. With these advantages, advertisers find much more success running at-scale programs in SEM.
Customer Support Problems and PPC
You may have heard – or even experienced – horror stories of fear and anger from delayed responsiveness and limited help from the customer support teams in the PPC market. Paid Search is complex, it’s directly tied to your bottom line, and it has business-specific nuances. To succeed at scale with a platform, you need a partner who knows the scope of your programs; who’s been in and around your data; who is familiar with your business goals; and who syncs with you regularly about status, updates, performance, and future plans. To move to the next level, you’ll also want technical specialists in data analysis, data integrations, and campaign management to help troubleshoot performance and ensure your data makes sense. These benefits become a powerful advantage for your business.
Losing thousands of dollars within several hours can happen if you don’t have a customer support organization that is engaged and responsive. Imagine checking your dashboards in the morning to find an unacceptable performance drop, with no sign of turnaround. Bids were being adjusted and you can’t tell why. Your vendor isn’t responding to your calls and emails. Money is flying out the window. Without a Customer Success team standing with you as partners, the cost in lost opportunity can be immeasurable. PPC optimization is a technical game and you certainly want to select a technology leader in your bidding optimization solution; however, you shouldn’t accept mediocre customer support. SLAs about issue resolution, responses, and uptime concerns are only a piece of this puzzle. The majority of a Customer Success team’s value in SEM bidding automation comes from experience, involvement, and thoughtfulness.
70% of the time when I reached out to [our previous vendor], we wouldn’t even get a response and would have to follow up
– Search Advertister (Internet/Software)
Creating Partnerships
When purchasing a PPC bidding solution, you’re not just selecting a vendor, you’re selecting an extension of your team and a strategic partner. You’re buying software, yes, but you’re investing in a partnership that should come with a wealth of experience and expertise. Your best partners will be savvy in a number of key areas: in paid search and performance marketing; in your industry; in the technical complexities; and obviously in the product suite you’ve bought.
Partners take risks for you, provide recommendations that address your business needs, and put in effort to transform those recommendations into action and results. They work alongside you, digging deep and caring as much about your business as you do.
There are a few “litmus tests” to evaluate how well your PPC bidding optimization vendor is acting as a true partner:
- If you called up your provider now and asked them to explain your business to you, could they do it? Could they explain what business issues keep you up at night?
- In the most recent problems or performance drops you’ve seen, has your provider been available immediately to help diagnose the problem with you?
- Does your provider ever push back on your asks because they see better ways to drive value – and explain that reasoning to you?
In the current digital marketing age there are many advanced technology providers. However, it’s evident that complex business problems rarely have successful standalone software solutions that aren’t also serviced with a Customer Success organization. It’s a modern, complex business requirement.
Having an outside perspective is always extremely valuable and if we ever run into technical difficulties, the QuanticMind team are always able to sort the issue in a timely manner.
– Hot Topic (QuanticMind Customer)
QuanticMind’s Role Solving PPC Customer Support
As a company focused on Artificial Intelligence, stereotypical dogma positions QuanticMind as wanting to remove people from the equation. In reality, we’re working to get the best out of people and machines working together. AI and Machine Learning are powerful tools, but they need to be fed the right information and pointed in the right direction. That means partnering with subject matter experts to understand your business model, key goals and metrics, data structure and relevance, and people needs.
The Customer Success team at QuanticMind understands what sort of problems can arise when bidding technology companies don’t invest in their customers from a people and partnership standpoint. We have customers who have been burned by their past providers. The modern paid search program isn’t simply plug-in and go; tweaks, adjustments, and maintenance are required. Many times we find that speaking strategically about goals and direction adds the most value, but just as often the tactical lens is necessary to ensure operational execution is sound. In our organization, both happen regularly because we’re always aligned.
Investing in an expert partnership creates savings that are truly immense. Imagine hiring an expert to help consult on your SEM program daily, manage troubleshooting, and ensure success from a strategic and tactical point of view. That is an expensive hire! However, when you invest in a partner with a history of authority and involvement from the Customer Success organization, you’ve extended your team for a fraction of the cost of hiring internally. You’ve built a relationship that solves urgent problems quickly. You’ve generated an opportunity to advance your PPC campaigns.
I don’t think I would ever use a different platform knowing that a platform like QuanticMind exists. The partnership for me will last for a lifetime.
– Windstar Cruises (QuanticMind Customer)
