Usability Consultancy, Website Reviews, Website Optimisation

With so many Google Adwords Resellers coming out of the woodwork in the past couple of years, it is more and more important that you check out the company's credentials and, equally as important, what they will be doing for you, in detail, and, how they will be doing it.

Few will be very transparent, but without transparency, who do you trust.

If any company promises they can get you to the top of the Search - then they are being either really optimistic, really cunning (deceitful) or they will cheat. There is NO way to make such a guarantee.

Nobody can guarantee that your advert will appear at the top unless they are prepared to bid to an unlimited click value - and that would not make good business sense.

Unwanted phrases
However, it is most likely that they would only make such a guarantee of they target very specific phrases - less likely to be searched for - therefore completely unprofitable for you.

I suggest writing down, and asking them, all your questions and insist that they spell it out for you, exactly, on their company headed, paper, with their signature and date.

Most sales reps haven't got a clue
Because it is so easy to get Google Adwords Reseller status, the sales people at the reseller companies are not the actual 'authorised resellers' and, as such, have only the basic training. They are given enough information to go out there and sell the service, but can rarely fully explain what it is, how it works for you or how they do it.

Look how easy it is to get Google approval:
To become a Qualified Individual in the Google Advertising Professionals program, you'll need to accomplish the following:

1. Sign up for the program successfully and be in good standing. This means that you've accepted the Rules of Use and aren't in violation of them.
2. Manage at least one AdWords account (yours or someone else's) in My Client Center for 90 days.
3. Build and maintain at least US$1,000 (or your local currency equivalent) total spend for your or your team's My Client Center account during the 90-day period.
4. Pass the Google Advertising Professional Exam. We suggest that you take the exam after you meet the above requirements. However, you can take the exam at any time.

See, it's not about YOU or how successful your campaign is. It's all about Google's turnover - their revenue, their profits.

A couple of smart tips
There are plenty of scams around and I suspect most reseller companies unless they are completely transparent. Most are extremely good at selling but are somewhat less than perfectly honest and straightforward. Here's a comment form one of our customers:

"[nameless] from Lavora Marketing phoned me today but I think I upset her when I told her I was running a very successful Adwords campaign on Google (thanks to your advice by the way) and if she'd bothered to look she wouldn't be wasting my time. She very unpolitely and unprefessionally hung up on me!"

So get it all in writing and pay by a method that you control, for example: bank transfer or cheque - which you have complete not Direct Debit or credit card. Obviously they want you to pay by credit card, debit card or direct debit because then THEY are in control and it is very hard for you to stop or cancel future payments.