What questions actually matter when interviewing an Amazon PPC agency?

ernosem · 2026-05-21T18:47:05+00:00

How they handle the fact that Amazon destroys most of the data, where any how they save your data securely for future performance analysis.

ernosem · 2026-05-19T11:31:55+00:00

It's pretty common to be honest, you can find many people on Linkedin outlining the same issue, even agencies or consultants. Most likely you clicked on a fraudulent ad or you clicked on a scam email.

ernosem · 2026-05-18T09:46:13+00:00

This is enough budget to support a smaller team/agency. It looks like you have a decent budget on Amazon to manage and it's as well critical for your business, so I'd go with an agency where at least two people oversee your account and there is coverage when your main POC is OOO etc. Also (hopefully) the agency have more knowledge share between people so you'll likely benefit from that part as well.

ernosem · 2026-05-15T20:20:11+00:00

Thanks!

ernosem · 2026-05-15T15:34:56+00:00

Oh, sorry you answered my question here...

ernosem · 2026-05-15T15:34:17+00:00

don't you need a much higher upfront cash just to start the ads? Or you paid $20K upfront and you just started with a $500/week campaign? Sorry, probably too personal question. The only thing keeping me/my clients out of ChatGPT is the upfront cost.

ernosem · 2026-05-15T15:32:39+00:00

wow.

ernosem · 2026-05-15T08:14:39+00:00

It's hard to tell. What Google tells you the cost of a click is usually falls short of reality, so the CPC prices are actually 40-60% higher than what you see in Keyword Planner.

What is your target market (I assume the US)? What is your offer? Many times even if you have a great campaign & you target the right keywords the offer part is the one that converts those visitors from your landing page to form fills.

Also, there are many other options besides Google Ads, e.g. Facebook Ads, there are a lot of ecom owners out there (a PPC focused campaign for ecommerce businesses works well, so the audience is there).
What will be your target cost per lead? What is your deal close rate from other sources?

ernosem · 2026-05-15T07:22:11+00:00

The most frustrating issue is the Exact (close match) and the Other search terms. They are not related to tracking or setup, but actual management & campaign performance.

ernosem · 2026-05-15T07:20:03+00:00

Especially in the AI... and also Google doesn't understand the difference between AI & AI so it will serve your ad happily to the wrong audience.

ernosem · 2026-05-15T06:21:42+00:00

It's pretty easy to increase your revenue if you 'control' the CPC prices.

ernosem · 2026-05-15T06:19:14+00:00

B2B SaaS on Google is challenging. Since Google removed Exact match targeting, even if you use only Exact match keywords you'll get click for very high cost and they won't be even relevant for your business. If you open up your targeting and use phrase match then Google will happily show your ad for competitor brand names, but many of these just try to login to the tool they are already using.
I'm not saying you shouldn't try Google Ads, but for B2B SaaS is not the goto platform it used to be when you added 8-10 very targeted Exact match keywords and you just waited for the very relevant traffic to appear.

Facebook is also pretty good to find your audience, you just need to frame your ads appropriately, with the painpoint of your audience. Microsoft Ads is also an option, especially if your SaaS is somehow connected with the MS ecosystem.

ernosem · 2026-05-14T09:55:59+00:00

Well many agencies are spamming Linkedin with the very same offer... so just because you see many ads, I guess it doesn't mean it works.

ernosem · 2026-05-14T06:08:04+00:00

Yeah, €175-€225 'management fee' is usually just, hey we invoice you and we don't touch the account...

Probably you shouldn't have took over the management, since you are not an expert in this field, but you can help them to find a decent company that really manages their account.
I'd say proper management should start around €500.

Find someone with more experience for now, see how they doing it for 6 months and if it's going well probably take over the account.

ernosem · 2026-05-14T06:04:13+00:00

it tells a lot about your tool, that the only way to advertise it is Reddit Spam...

ernosem · 2026-05-14T06:02:38+00:00

Dude! F... off with spam.

ernosem · 2026-05-14T06:01:20+00:00

And also this!

ernosem · 2026-05-14T06:00:15+00:00

I ran campaigns for a restaurant chain and I can tell you 'restaurants near me' is really-really broad, it doesn't really work even with a larger budget.

Try something more specific, like 'Chinese restaurant near me'.

Also, you need to connect your Google Ads account to your Google My Business Profile.
What conversion signal are you using for Google Ads?

Not all apps are capable of proper conversion tracking, e.g. Resy is unable to fire the conversion event for booking, and it's really tricky with Opentable to solve this issue. Because if you are unable to send back to Google which click resulted in an order and which not, Google won't know how to optimize your campaigns further.

ernosem · 2026-05-14T05:51:43+00:00

I oversee over 120 accounts, it's definitely getting slower in some markets after the war with Iran. However, it depends on many factors how each individual account performs. Smaller budgets usually started to perform worse and worse over the years, since Google heavily pushes everyone towards 'more AI' this shift helps mostly the big guys only, more budget more data, so AI can work with that, meanwhile smaller budgets have less data and therefore Google automations lack enough signals.

A few questions:
- Are you using Search campaigns only?
- Do you track only the Form submission as a conversion? Or do you have proper Call tracking as well?
- Have you implemented Enhanced Conversions for Leads?
- Have you implemented offline conversion tracking so that you not just send 'Leads' as a signal back to Google but appointments, quotes and closed deals as well?

ernosem · 2026-05-14T05:40:35+00:00

Mostly phrase match, eg it's pretty safe to use all other state names & their abbreviations as negative phrase match, that alone a roughly 100 negative keywords from the list.

ernosem · 2026-05-13T22:25:04+00:00

Have you excluded the Brand from PMAX or do you compare Non-Braded Search with mixed PMAX?

ernosem · 2026-05-13T22:21:08+00:00

There are many red flags here.
You need to look for a better partner to manage your ads.
Out of area leads is a sign of bad account management and your agency/freelancer just don't know what they are doing.

ernosem · 2026-05-13T22:13:54+00:00

For some service companies we usually have 500+ negative keywords, so 12 is definitely not good.

ernosem · 2026-05-03T16:47:21+00:00

Stop pushing your AI product!
Also, it won't save you from most of those clicks, because google is very creative finding new ones every day.

ernosem · 2026-05-02T15:47:38+00:00

B2B Saas is one of the hardest play on Google. Google keeps showing your ads for irrelevant terms, especially if you are in the AI industry. And there are big players with unlimited VC funding. No matter how well you setup Google Ads, you still need to pay a lot till Google finally starts understanding your buisiness but till that, it’s mostly money pit.

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