Don’t DIY PPC, You Are Losing Money

Many small and medium-sized businesses may feel the urge to handle their advertising on their own. This is because many popular platforms such as Amazon, Google, and Meta often promote their advertising services as easy to use, with some even offering "smart" recommendations or automatic campaign building. However, the question remains: is hiring an expert for advertising essential?

Google, Meta, and Amazon want you to spend as much as possible

The spending recommendations provided by Google/Meta/Amazon often suggest increasing your budget, even if it means cutting your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) by 50%; it also won't tell you to spend in a cheaper channel. Successfully managing a platform to maintain a set ROAS while growing revenue requires a lot of skill and expertise; you'll likely fail without direct experience or, worse, succeed without knowing why.

For those unfamiliar with the platforms, it can be challenging to understand when to cut losses on a campaign that won't improve. An experienced ad buyer will create new campaigns, audiences, and ads to shift ROAS positively. A skilled expert can do so with little thought, but it can be challenging for those new to managing ads to make a channel profitable or get stuck.

When you hire an expert to work on your campaigns, you can task them with maximizing profits, but as a novice, you can't rely on the platform's recommendations to guide you in that direction. Inexperienced ad managers are slow and end up costing just as much.

If you try to save money by compromising on the quality of marketing talent or by handling the work yourself, you may spend more time and effort. Moreover, you may need to save money since your time has some cost. Hiring an experienced ad manager or platform specialist will save you time and reduce errors and rework, resulting in lower overall costs for operating the channel.

Strategic Decisions and Cross-Channel Opportunities

Understanding the complexities of all the available digital marketing channels takes more than five years. Identifying the best marketing channel and method for a new product on the first attempt is a skill only digital marketing possesses. For instance, Amazon is unlikely to inform you that their PPC cost is thrice as high as Google's and advise you to allocate your budget to the cheaper channel. With someone evaluating the product and its marketing and sales channel fit, you can identify new acquisition channels.

Expert marketers will naturally find incremental opportunities faster

If you create Google Shopping Feeds (not required to advertise on Google), you will gain access to the "Popular Products" widget, significantly increasing your catalog's organic visibility. An expert can help you improve this feed regularly and achieve better results. As a DIY marketer, you may need help to improve conversion rates and overlook some best practices, such as optimizing landing pages.

DIYers frequently make costly errors and miss them

I've reviewed many Google Ads accounts that don't have conversion tracking set up, and this means that any money spent on advertising will likely be wasted. Similarly, I've also reviewed numerous Amazon accounts where the primary keyword is not included in the title, yet money is being spent on ads for that keyword. When it comes to advertising, if you need to include some essential best practices, spending a large amount of money on ads without an optimized campaign could sink your advertising strategy.

It has never been easier to find marketing talent

With the advent of LinkedIn, numerous specialized job boards, and remote work opportunities, businesses now have access to a broader pool of top talent than ever before. It's now more accessible and more affordable to find skilled professionals who can provide valuable insights to help grow your business. Additionally, the increasing retail media spending over the past few years has made finding such talent all the more important.