Agency vs in-house PPC team: Which is best?

You’re all set to bring in an expert to create and manage PPC campaigns for your brand. Perhaps you’ve seen the brilliant results other companies have found from investing in their digital marketing campaigns, but who do you trust to take your advertising to the next level?

An agency, or an in-house PPC team?

This is a vital decision for you to consider when approaching levelling up your digital advertising. It can be difficult to know where to begin, so let’s go through the pros and cons of each arrangement, leaving you with the knowledge you need to make the right decision for you and your brand.

• Pros of in-house PPC management
• Cons of in-house PPC management
• Pros of PPC agencies
• Cons of PPC agencies
• What’s the right choice for me?
• FAQs on in-house vs. PPC agency

Pros of in-house PPC management

In-house PPC management means you have a member of your team taking on PPC responsibilities. An in-house PPC manager is available whenever you need to collaborate with your existing team. Naturally, this speeds up communication. Having someone in-house means they’ve got immediate access to any updates, small changes, and developments in your business.

Cons of in-house PPC management

The problem with in-house PPC management is that managers are often overloaded with too many responsibilities, frequently having to work on email marketing, SEO, and all forms of digital communication alongside their PPC campaign management role.

Any PPC campaign deserves more than a basic check-up once in a while. You get the best results when your campaigns are being tested every day, with a gradual evolution to become the very best campaign for your business. Specialist, nuanced management just isn’t possible if your PPC manager is spinning a lot of plates at once.

Training is an important part of the process and takes time if done properly, which an in-house manager may not have. There are also far less opportunities to learn from a team of agency specialists at the cutting edge of PPC developments.

Pros of PPC agencies

1. Highly skilled and ahead of trends

Put simply, PPC agencies are full of experts. These managers live and breathe PPC, staying ahead of the curve at every step, and learning from each other. The only way to stay competitive as a PPC Manager in an agency is to be highly skilled and up-to-date with all the latest developments in an ever-changing industry. So you can expect the same high levels of expertise with your PPC agency.

2. Cost-effective

Something that isn’t always acknowledged is how cost-effective this option is. You only pay for specialised work on your campaign; any time spent managing your accounts is hyper-focused and streamlined to get you results. Why pay for the time it takes to get someone new up to speed, when you could have a specialist discover the pressure points and curate a newly improved campaign for you in half the time?

3. Flexible

 Along with this experienced management comes flexibility. Your campaigns are scalable, with campaign specificity going up and down according to your requirements. This way, you’re only paying for what works.

4. Experienced

PPC managers from agencies come loaded with pre-existing knowledge from their previous work with various platforms, giving them a developed overview of the industry, so they can make the most informed decisions for your campaign. Over the years, they will have learned from working with other clients. Now it’s your opportunity to benefit from this experience.

Cons of PPC agencies

If we’re being honest, communication seems to be the place where some agencies can fall short. This differs from agency to agency, so take your time to understand their communication strategies before signing with anyone.

Once you’ve found the agency for you, ensure you don’t lose touch with campaign developments. Take a moment to establish the most effective way for them to keep in touch with you. We suggest sticking with what you know will work best for you!

At Evo, we contact our clients in all sorts of ways; email, video calls, phone calls, and in-person whenever we can. It’s different for each client. We like to adapt to be as useful and relevant to the client as possible.

What’s the right choice for me?

Take a look at your existing team and the options at your disposal for any in-house PPC management. This may be enough for what you need right now.

But keep in mind the usefulness and cost-efficiency of hiring a PPC specialist from an agency. When the time comes to take your marketing to the next level, to expand and grow, having a dedicated specialist can make all the difference in your results.

This also frees up your digital marketers in-house to focus on the countless other marketing tasks that need work!

Frequently asked questions on agency vs an in-house team

Q: Is it better to work with a PPC agency than in-house?

There’s no right or wrong answer to whether it is better to work with a PPC agency or have an in-house resource. It comes down to the amount of budget you have and how flexible you need to be. To have an in-house resource you need to have enough work.

Q: What’s the difference between a PPC agency and an in-house team?

Having a team in-house means you employ full or part-time staff to work on your PPC accounts for you. Using a PPC agency means you get to outsource this work. You then only pay for the amount of hours or budget agreed upon. Depending on your contract, you can then scale that up and down as you need it. Whereas with an in-house team, you can’t be as flexible as quickly.

Summary of agency vs. in-house PPC team

It’s an important decision for any business, so take your time. Hopefully, this article has helped you better understand some of the benefits of each option. You’ll know when you’ve found the right choice for you because you’ll feel you can trust them to take your digital advertising to the next level.

If you’d like to talk to us about your PPC campaigns, we offer a free account review. No obligation. Get in touch to book one.

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