Experiences with ReachLocal?

[AdoptionHelp]

In my job description PPC is just one of many beasts to tackle, and so I'm considering letting a 3rd party help manage my PPC accounts, specifically ReachLocal. Does anyone have experience with them that they'd like to share? Good or bad, I just want to know other mozzers thoughts.

Thanks!

[David_ODonnell]

Have used them locally (Australia) so my experience may differ from what you can expect over there.

In short, when they take over ppc management you lose all control and input into the setup / running of the account. If you or your client don't want to bid on brand keywords, too bad. A couple of clients (previous job) told us they thought they were too pushy and salesy.

Interested to hear how others have found them

I'm currently looking into solutions to help reduce ppc manual workload, such as Wordstream, Aquisio and Marin.

[IainReloadMedia]

Hi Ryan, It's a good question, and one many an in house all rounder will ask themselves at some point. Can't comment on specific companies, but it all come down to what you want. If you need a very custom service, for example you know certain keywords don't work for SEO & you want this transferred to your PPC campaign, you'll need a company that offers a bespoke PPC service. Thanks Reload Media

[DavidKonigsberg]

We just took over managing the ppc for a company that was using reach local and we are doing much better for the same spend - it seems reach local only gives reports and no adwords access so you really don"t know what you are paying per click etc - Any time this the case you need to worry about what is really going on under the hood.

[RobertFisher]

Ryan

ReachLocal and many that emulate it do so for the following reason IMO: If you are handling a PPC acct that is spending say $2,500 per month on a spend versus one spending $20,000 the actual work around it is not significantly different. So, at agency rates of even 18% handling PPC on the 1st is $450 which is not really profitable. 
These companies then decided the way to do it was to offer a package with SEO, SEM, etc. and not tell anything about keywords, costs, etc. but show a lot of metrics that IMO are mostly fluff. (think Impressions).
If a client leaves them they have no data that will carry forward to set up their own campaigns, etc. and I always tell a client to have them show them the data from Google or Bing.

Since most were not tracking GA or anything else, they have nothing to compare it to which allows those type companies to take credit for everything since the invention of the wheel. If you can find an agency that will take a fee to manage and still keep everything transparent, you will reap more benefits. One note here is that you should realize that agency is not going to last if you tell them of every Reach, etc. rep that called today or emailed stating that the site is not optimized, they can do better, etc. It is just too painful to keep explaining

I don't know what your spend is, but an example would be for the $2500: a fee of $750 to manage and spending the other all toward the PPC (assuming you have your own site, etc.) and doing so with good reporting where you can see what is going on in analytics, adwords, etc. would be good. As your spend increases, at around $5k to $7500 you should be able to have an agency handle for you for commission.

Note if your spend is lower: $1000 you are likely looking at $400 to $500 fee. But, they will do the work and my guess is you will get a better result.

Please notice how nice I was on a subject that I actually have some energy behind...

Hope this helps.

[stevefidelity]

Whenever you're dealing with a large company a la Reach Local, you just really need to know what you're getting into. You should also research your alternatives. The more information you have, the better, more informed decision you can ultimately make.

As some of those commenting here have said (who have more experience with Reach Local than me), they're not exactly laying out all of the raw data in front of you for your inspection. However, in my personal experience, I have had clients who have dealt with companies as large, or larger than Reach Local who seem to have violated some very basic Google Third Party Policies. The first point is that third parties should provide a monthly report containing AdWords click costs, total clicks and total impressions. In the past, I instructed prospective clients (who later became clients) to ask for this information from a very large AdWords Certified Partner. Even after repeated requests, the client was not provided with this basic information for which they were asking.

Now, if you really want to play 'lawyer', the wording in the policy does say that third parties should provide this information. They're not technically required to provide this information.

The way that many companies structure an SEM program for clients (I believe this is how Reach Local does it), is that the client pays the 3rd party directly for everything, i.e, you, as the client, are not paying the search engines directly for advertising. But if the 3rd party is not required to tell you how much they are spending on your behalf on search advertising, you don't know how much money is going to the search engines and how much money is going into their pockets. In my opinion, that's not right. If you agree with me, make sure you know this information before signing anything with a large SEM firm.

[RobertFisher]

Well put and I will add one important thing:

If they are so good at what they do, why do they need a long term contract? Please don't believe the massive investment they have made for you... BS.

We are an SEO firm and we have a long term commitment with our clients:  Each 30 days, decide if you want us to continue or not. If we have not done the job fire us.

SEOmoz has the same long term contract with all Pro and above members.

Yes, it is risky for something like SEO and you must set it up in a way that you do not do all the work for a monthly commitment in the beginning, etc. But, I have lost two clients in the last two years and both were on our lowest fee set. One still does other business with us and has referred business to us.

Ask Reach if they will do a three month or less contract!

[AdoptionHelp]

Thanks for the insights everyone. I wish I could mark them all good answers.

Based on the feedback I'm going to try a much more limited contract with them, giving them about 1/20th of my PPC budget to start with.

I'll report back when I see how they do with it.

[David_ODonnell]

Please do post a follow-up!

[RobertFisher]

Ryan,

A quick note based on something I saw the other day is to insure they are not just duplicating your content and then adding /reach-local/... to a url.

I have a potential client who had a page that I realized was duplicated by virtue of them simply pulling that entire page to use as a landing page and then adding the identifier in the url. This could impact your other marketing.

Best,

[AdoptionHelp]

Some people wanted a follow-up, so here's my impressions:

• They tried really hard to make our campaign successful, but were not able to do as well as we can in-house.

• Their software doesn't show you all the same details you'd get in Google Adwords, however they do have a nice web-based dashboard where you can see how your campaigns are doing. It notably doesn't include ad spend per keyword, ad, etc.

• My impression is that they are on the level, but had difficulty doing as well as we can in house because (a) our industry is adoption, and ad creatives in this industry are really difficult to get just right, and (b) our in-house team is actually pretty damn good at PPC.

Summary: Probably a good company to work with if you know enough to realize you need PPC in your marketing mix, but not enough to tackle adwords and similar platforms on at least a journeyman level yourself.

[AdoptionHelp]

They did in fact mirror our sites. Anyone who will be using them needs to ensure that before the campaign rolls out you implement Rel Canonical tags on your pages. Then ask them to no-index their mirrored copy of your site.