How to Get AdWords Clients – A 10 Step System to Find and Close New Clients

Today we have a guest post by Ben Pate who shares with us the exact system he uses to find and close new Google AdWords clients.  These are BIG deals worth thousands to tens or hundreds of thousands to your bottom line.  But here is the kicker, most of my clients were completely new to PPC or AdWords.  He first revealed this system a year ago and was nice enough to share it with us here.  Quick Note: You can use this 10 step system to get new clients in ANY industry (not just PPC), you’ll just need to alter the steps slightly.

Step 1: Determine Niche

What industry are you going to target?

• Get ideas by looking at businesses advertising in your area
• Coupon magazines, phone books, newspapers
• What niches do you already have insider knowledge of?
• What niches are making money and have high customer value?

Step 2: Find businesses advertising with Google AdWords

Don’t try to educate them on something new, instead help them with something they’re already doing, but doing a bad job at.

• Determine relevant keywords from chosen niche
• Search Google for those keywords
• Search SEMRush or SpyFu for those keywords

Step 3: Pre-Qualify

Don’t waste your time with low dollar time suckers.

• Is your chosen niche spending a decent amount on Google AdWords?
  • If not, then consider another niche
  • Find with SpyFu or SEMRush
• Gather a list of prospects with an estimated ad spend > $1,000
• Gather a list of prospects with an estimated ad spend > $10,000
• Remember the low dollar clients are a bigger time suck
• Focus on the higher dollar clients as much as possible

Step 4: Complete Mini-Audit

Find the pain and agitate it. The more problems you find the bigger the opportunity.

• Find problems with their website and ads
• Are they split testing?
• Are they using a call to action in their ads?
• Are the Display URLs optimized?
• Do the top three ads contain Ad Extensions (Sitelinks, Call, Location)
• Mobile optimized website?

Step 5: Make Contact

It’s time to reach out to let them know, “Houston we have a problem” 🙂

• Research business to learn of the contact info and personnel
• Contact the prospect
• Start with email and then follow up with phone
• Get past the gatekeeper
  • Did I catch you at a bad time?
  • Who is the best person to speak to about some issues with the Google AdWords account?
  • I’m calling/emailing about your Google AdWords account and glaring issues that are costing you money
• Conversion action is a second appointment

Step 6: Retract and Qualify

You’re busy and can’t work with everyone, so make sure they’re a good fit.

• Once they are hooked let them know you can’t work with everyone
• Tell them you need to ask them a couple further questions to make sure they qualify
• Verify how much they are spending per month with Google
• Verify they have access to the AdWords account (some businesses that are working with agencies like ReachLocal don’t have access to their account)
• Set the second appointment to review your findings

Step 7: The Meeting

It’s time to show them what they’re doing wrong.

• Show up early
• Dress for the job you want
• Be prepared with a business card, notepad, pad and paper
• First, tell them a little about you and your company
• Present your mini-audit findings
• Integrate trial closes throughout the meeting
  • Does this make sense?
  • Do you see why this is important?
  • Did you learn something today?

Step 8: Close the Deal

Photo Credit: Nicola Corboy

You’ve demonstrated they could be doing better and you have the knowledge and the team to fix what’s wrong.

• After you’ve presented your findings sit quietly for a moment
• Give them a chance to speak up
• With any luck, THEY ask YOU “what’s next?”
• If they don’t speak up, simply ask, “do you want some help fixing these things?”
• If they want your help, you sell them the full-audit
  • Internal look into the account instead of external like the mini-audit
  • You are going to need to do this work anyways, so you might as well get paid
  • Gives them another hoop to jump through before the big commitment
  • If they want you to jump in right away and start fixing then, include the cost of full-audit in the setup fee

Step 9: What to Charge

Start high, it makes you look more valuable and you can always offer a discount.

• Mini-Audit – Free
• Full-Audit – $1,000 or more (roughly 5 – 10% of ad spend)
• Monthly Management – depends on ad spend but roughly 15 – 20% of monthly ad spend
• Cost should depend on work that needs to be performed
• Account setup
  • E-commerce site MORE depending on a number of products
  • Lead gen site LESS than e-commerce, cost depends on the number of services
• Don’t forget to charge for setting up the stats tracking
  • Google Analytics goal tracking
  • Google AdWords conversion tracking
  • Call tracking
  • Google Analytics E-Commerce tracking
• Increase value instead of decreasing price
• Discount for payment in advance (this works great towards the end of the year)
• Don’t be afraid to push back

Step 10: Contract/Agreement

Don’t forget this step, it’s one of the most important. A reliable e-signature tool can facilitate this process. You could consider various options like DocuSign, and HelloSign, or even explore some alternatives.

• A 12-month term with 90 days out if not happy
• Auto-renewal if not canceled
• Assignable
• Mostly boilerplate except for Statement of Work
• Statement of Work shows what you’re going to do
• Set expectations of meeting times, mediums (in-person, phone, email, skype) and frequency
• Show example of the monthly reporting template

Conclusion

If you follow these steps you should be well on way to landing your first AdWords client in no time.  Recently I helped a friend with this system who used only half of the steps to land a 10k per month client.  It was also the first PPC client he’s ever landed.

Any questions?  Leave them below and I’ll answer them!