Phonebook Company PPC Management

Posted on December 13, 2016 Mary Merritt

The phonebook companies like Dex know that search engines & smartphones are playing a central role in killing the traditional phonebook. Because of this, they've been adapting to the new landscape and selling "click package" advertising (pay-per-click) to their customers for the past few years.

Companies like Dex are constantly focused on sales and they have created easy pay-per-click packages that promise big returns, quickly forgetting the customer after they've secured the sale. In general, they over-promise and under-deliver. These packages are often over-priced, homogenized, and not a good value for the customer when compared to a professionally & strategically planned paid search campaign. Well managed PPC campaigns can be more effective, much more unique and targeted, and cheaper.

Here are 3 specific reasons to avoid phonebook company click packages:

Ownership of your PPC Account

You will not own your PPC account. Most businesses understandably prefer that an outside party manage their paid search campaigns, but when paying a phonebook company like DexKnows for PPC advertising, you really are given no control over your account.

For example, it won't be possible for you to switch management companies, directly view impression, click, or keyword metrics, review campaign structure or target keywords, or make any changes yourself - the account is effectively owned by Dex. If at any point you are no longer paying them for their services, your campaigns are lost.

When managed professionally, your business will own your PPC account directly and if necessary have full control over changes, who has access, and how much money is being spent.

Metrics

You will not have access to important in-depth reporting. With Dex, you will be given access to a control panel with ad impressions, clicks, and a few other big-picture metrics, but not much more. while this kind of reporting may be sufficient to measure a rudimentary return on investment, it is not nearly the level of granular data that you would have access to if your account was setup and managed properly. Even if you aren't interested in the details, any internet marketing agency you hire in the future will be looking for any detailed metrics & conversion data they can get their hands on, and it's always good to have a detailed web metrics history available.

Without proper metrics data, a PPC campaign cannot be refined and actively optimized over time, which is essential for a successful campaign; it is likely that a big percentage of your ad dollars would be spent inefficiently and not bring you a significant return.

Unique Ads & Creative Campaigns

Your ad campaigns will not be unique or creative. The screen capture to the right shows ads for the search phrase, "tooth extraction Denver CO" - as you'll see if you click for the full image, every single paid ad on the page follows the exact same template; all of these ads lead to DexKnows landing pages, and have been created by Dex for their click package customers. Would you rather pay a premium to Dex for an ad that follows the exact same template that is being sold to all of your competitors, or get a customized and always evolving campaign from a paid search professional?

Using this example it is easy to see that click package services from phonebook companies are mostly cookie-cutter campaign templates that are guaranteed to give mediocre results, and never change after the initial setup.

Instead of paying for a service that takes advantage of vague metrics and business owners who are too busy to measure advertisement ROI, we recommend spending the time to find a reputable and professional agency who can help you manage your PPC efforts and bring you a measurable ROI for your money.