Why do some Adwords agencies insist on setting up Adwords in their own account?
-
I'm an online marketing consultant and I work with a variety of agencies who handle Adwords. I keep running into an issue where agencies want to set up Adwords in a proprietary account for my clients rather than in the client's account and manage it through MCC. I have just run into again and this time the agency claims they are protecting their Adwords "secret sauce" but that the client will still have full access to keywords, negative keywords, Ad copy, etc. It just doesn't pass the sniff test with me.
Can anyone tell me if there are some legitimate reasons for an agency to do this other than to simply try to hold data hostage so that clients can't leave them without loss? I am inclined to tell my client they should run away screaming, but thought I would bounce it off you smart people first.
Thanks!
-
Really good point Paul. I hadn't thought about the build up of quality score, that is a biggy. Thanks for your contribution!
-
Fully agree with Brett Here. The other aspect that a lot of clients don't realise until too late is that an account builds up Quality Score value as it ages. If that account is held by the agency and the client decides they no longer wish to do business with that agency, they can hopefully at least obtain a download of the campaigns, keywords etc, but by switching to a new account, they'll lose ALL the quality score that has been built up. They'll be starting again from scratch.
In addition, they'll have lost a great deal of the historical data that would be essential to optimising the new account from scratch.
The MCC system was built by Google to help advertisers avoid getting screwed in exactly this way. Agencies that don't use MCC for clients are clearly saying they're more interested in their own convenience and profit than in what's best for their client.
My $0.02.
Paul
-
This is exactly how I feel. It is absurd. Thanks for your response.
-
good point about the antsy clients, but most of my clients have no interest in even touching it. Thanks!
-
As far as i'm concerned there is no legitimate reason. I've taken on clients that have previously had this scenario and it's absurd. The client, i.e. the ADVERTISER owns the data in that account so agencies should access a clients adwords account via an MCC, that's what an MCC is for!
In EVERY case where i've seen agencies use their own accounts, the client has received flaky reporting and had no real understanding of ROI. If an agency knows what it is doing, it should have no problem doing it properly.
-
The only real reason I would avoid setting it up in a clients account is to protect myself from antsy clients that like to tweak stuff without knowing what they're doing.
When we set accounts up for clients we use their acounts and manage everything from our MCC, but there might be something we're missing in the sense of reasons to not use an MCC.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do IP and/or DNS changes impact Paid search (Adwords, Bing, etc.)
What impact (if any) does IP or DNS changes, have on paid search campaigns? We recently performed an upgrade to our sites that required a datacenter change (but within the same region East US) and DNS change. We believe there may have been an impact to our ad campaigns in the form of suppression of our ads following the change, specifically - Google Adwords. Is there any information regarding this issue or has anyone experienced this before? Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | MWM37721 -
AdWords Match rule for "&" and "and"
Howdy, folks 🙂 Here is a question - is there way to have an AdWords matching rule, which would cover both "&" and "and"? Here is an example - rule to match both "B & B" and "B and B". Any help appreciated 🙂
Paid Search Marketing | | DmitriiK0 -
Adwords Conversions - Trying to track button clicks that fire when Bootstrap modal contact form clicked/opened
Hi there, I'm trying to implement google adwords conversions on a particular client's website. They have used bootstrap as the framework for their site and mainly open up contact forms within a bootstrap modal, after a button is clicked. See here: http://www.gtwstorage.co.uk/ I thought I had successfully implemented the adwords conversion tracking however it has been a week now, and my conversions still say they are "unverified". I wonder if anyone else has encountered this before and knows what I might be doing wrong. Thank you in advance, Darren
Paid Search Marketing | | SEODarren0 -
AdWords quality score of landing pages and subdomains popularity
Hello, I have an AdWords account whose landing pages point to (i.e.) http://www.domain.com/landing01.php I've been using this account for ages, it has a good score and history, so I want to keep it. The first question is: may I use landing pages on different subdomains within the same AdWords account (and in the same root domain)? I.E. (http://cheese.domain.com/landing01.php and http://wine.domain.com/landing02.php) 2nd question: the www subdomain has good subdomain metrics (authority /trust and, generally, links) while the "cheese" subdomain has not (no backlinks at all). Do I get any benefit in Adwords (like quality score or other) if I publish my landing pages under a subdomain with better subdomain metrics (or number of links)? Or should I just go with http://cheese.domain.com even it has no authority at all? Thank you, DoMiSoL Rossini
Paid Search Marketing | | DoMiSoL0 -
Adwords Keyword Research - Impressions, CTR
Hello, In my Adwords Keyword Research (spending $300 to find out any keywords I'm missing using mostly exact match keywords) am I looking for impressions or Click Through Rate, or both? Please explain.
Paid Search Marketing | | BobGW0 -
How to set up Adwords Account for Keyword Research
Hello, At the advice of some knowledgable people around here, we are setting up a $200-$300 Adwords campaign to determine keyword research. Our site is already doing well but we want to make sure we are targeting all the appropriate terms. What do we need to keep in mind in setting up this campaign. I assume we would do some broad match terms with a bunch of negative matching. Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | BobGW0 -
Tools to Discover the Keywords Competitors are Buying in Adwords
Is there a tool that you can use to find out what words a competitor is using for google adwords?
Paid Search Marketing | | jaredspencer1