Question of the Week: How do you quote for Google Ads marketing i.e. campaign?

community_manager
community_manager Administrator, Moderator Posts: 297 Duda Staff
edited March 2022 in Ask a Question

Welcome to the Question of the Week! Every week we select an interesting Q&A in the community. This week, @Raj_Zavery asked:

How do you quote for Google ads marketing i.e. campaign to include a custom landing page?

We usually charge £150/m to manage the account. One-off custom landing page creation inc domain and SSL £699. We DO NOT charge a seperate website care plan as we do for our stand alone websites of 45/m. If they cancel GA but wanted to retain the website we would charge £45/m. FYI typical ad spend is around £150 (goes direct to Google). 

If they increase their spend I was thinking of adding 10% of the increase to our management fee. Eg client decides to spend £100/m more so we bill an extra £10/m to manage - is that good/bad? Are these figures high / low about right? Do you have a “formula” you can share?

Here’s what the community had to say:

@Thomas_Sonnenschein

If the spend is 150 then these are simple localized campaigns, right? One campaign with one or two ad groups and 1 or two ads per adgroup? Managing these accounts is very simple. Once the campaign runs and all is set up, it takes little time per month to manage them. Obviously your target are small companies with little budget. Managing the expectations can be an issue though. For small budgets under 3.000€ we charge 99€ + 15% of budget plus a 400€ setup. As the budget increases the complexity of the campaign will too, so you will spend more time on it.

@irez

Percentage of ad spend is quite common in most advertisers but more so for those that specialise in advertising on higher budgets. "It depends on the budget" but in short wasn't charging a % on anything less than 4 figures.

@Stavros_Varsamakis

Small accounts that spend less than 2 minimum salaries (given we are in a country where converting to £ would be ridiculously low! I am keeping it at min salary equivalent) we charge per ad not campaign. Price depends on type of ad i.e. discovery, search etc. And it's true what Thomas mentioned above, typically these ads have low maintenance once set up. Between 2-5 min salaries we charge a fee equal to 10% as if they would invest 5 min salaries. For ad spend above the 5 min salaries threshold we charge 10% on ad spend (depending on the size of the client we may charge 15% if we think it will be heavy on graphic design or video editing). In the latter two cases we may create as many ads as we consider necessary to achieve the goals. 


In any case I prefer 30 small, low maintenance customers rather than one very big one that I will need to come up with 6-10 new ads every month. Landing page cost would be apart.

I would love to be able to charge a high min fee like Patrick Malone suggests, because he is right the expertise and analytical skills + talent in design /copywriting it takes needs to be paid well, but:

- a lot of my customers are small

- local market has a lot of competition from cheap freelancers (bad service but who is reviewing them)

- small customers underestimate the skillset it takes to do it right

- big customers normally are well covered and only when their current agencies mess up we have an opening)

So we devised the above tiered plan. But the mixed approach of cost based pricing + result-driven bonus is a good idea. All types of pricing are ok actually as long as they allow your business to grow, keep you motivated and don't drive clients away. Whatever suits you and your clients best!

@JamesLilley

I charge a flat fee . I haven’t had a budget large enough to warrant charging percentages. I just ensure we get what we deserve. The charge is for strategy, creative, copywriting, scripts, design, development and more. It depends what team the company has and what can be done in house, do they have graphics designers or developers who can assist with landing pages and creative, do they have copy writers in house? Or maybe they want us to produce a campaign that they will manage themselves. Also, I don’t strictly work alone. I work with a small handful of contractors that I trust and have relationships with. Just to add, we charge monthly. Clients sign up for a number of months. Hope that helps.

What's your go-to strategy for pricing Google Ads campaigns? Tell us in the comments!

Comments

  • Raj_Zavery
    Raj_Zavery Member Posts: 16

    For those that say ad spend of £150 is too low.

    FYI each conversion worth £100 (profit £60)


  • Shane_Hodge
    Shane_Hodge Member Posts: 122 MVP
    edited March 2022

    Whatever we can get @Raj_Zavery LOL its a tough question mate in all honesty as its being asked of a global audience so what works for Thomas or James might be totally out of the ballgame for Australia or Alaska. Its like how can can Chef Ramsey get $70 for a steak when the local Pub can only get $10? Its still a cow. But, its the reputation, the quality all sorts of things but really its still a cow and the Pub Steak would most likely be a good feed.

  • Aj_Cre8
    Aj_Cre8 Member Posts: 628 MVP

    We do Ad Spends that the Clients can afford. Sometimes its only $50 dollars. If that is all they have, and they are willing to invest, we will make it work for them.

    A lot of agencies out there will turn small clients away because they want the 6 and 7 figure agency.

    We want the small business that NEEDS HELPS so we can help.

    So, to answer, if the Ad Spend is below $100 its a flat monthly fee, then after that its a percentage of the ad spend because the larger the spend, the more work it requires.

  • irez
    irez Member Posts: 12

    mate who goes to the pub for a steak? It's all about the chicken palmy washed down with a beer 🤣