In a recent post at eMagine's B2B Web Strategy blog, Matt Roche warns about the dangers of outsourcing your PPC campaigns—and then washing your hands of them. Oftentimes, when B2B marketers choose to turn things over to outsiders, he says, "they feel they never need to worry about [PPC] ever again."

The danger, Roche says, is that no outside expert can "ever understand your business as well as you do." He offers examples of what consultants might miss. "It could be a … search phrase that's active, but … not … on target for your market," or "it could be a sentence in your ad copy concerning a product feature … that's not really accurate."

Roche cites a PPC blog post, by Todd Miechiels at SOWGRO, that offered "a couple of things you should feel comfortable asking for and reviewing with your agency":

• A report that contains all of your ad creatives. "Just scan through them, and make sure they're accurate," Miechiels advises.
• A report that contains all of your search phrases, the money spent on each, and either the conversion rate and/or the time [spent] on your site.

"The moral here is that the right model is more of a partnership," Roche says. While your consulting firm contributes their technical PPC know-how, you offer your in-depth understanding of the "nuances" of your business.

The Po!nt: You know best. While it's great to find the perfect consultant to run your PPC campaigns, don't forget how valuable your input is to keep them on track.

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