Clients aren’t always willing to try something new. But it’s up to your agency to help them find the best marketing option to help their business grow.

And in many cases, PPC is the best way to sell.

This article is for you if your agency just started giving PPC services or if you want to get more clients in this area. I’ll share some of our best tips for selling Google Ads and getting new PPC clients.

Use these tried-and-true strategies to sell more PPC services to your clients.

1. Follow Up With Every Lead

Unless you have a dedicated sales team or you are a salesperson at heart who loves to prospect for leads, I think that making the first contact with a prospect is a big challenge for most. I think you should have a strong follow-up method for all inbound leads if you have a sales team or the time.

If you don’t, it’s all about making the most of chances you might not even know are chances.

Before you can close a sale for your PPC services, you may also need to develop leads through the marketing funnel.

2. Go After Low-hanging Fruit

This includes people who are already paying you but aren’t using Google Ads. If you already know how they run their business and how much money they have, you should have a good idea if PPC will work for them, what PPC tactics will work, and what the best ad platform will be for them.

From there, you can make a proposal that shows how PPC will fit in with their current approach and what kind of results they can expect.

3. Talk the Talk

PPC should be a part of ALL your new business ideas and marketing materials. Don’t talk about marketing channels like organic search or email marketing without talking about how paid search marketing supports these channels.

4. Create a Referral Program

We found that one of the main ways agencies get new clients is when customers tell their friends. To sell more PPC, you can make a recommendation program that pays your current clients to tell other businesses about your PPC services. This can help you grow your business and show your current customers that you appreciate them and their business.

5. Partner With Complementary Agencies or Businesses

If your agency focuses on pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and/or a small number of digital marketing services, you can work with an agency that offers services that match yours. This could be a PR business, a company that makes websites, etc. By partnering with a complementary firm, you can market your PPC services to their clients and they can market their services to your clients. This helps you get more clients and sell Google Ads to more people overall.

6. Understand the Importance of the First Outreach Attempt

Your reps’ best chance to reach a prospect is on the first try, because hit rates drop by 33% after the first try. Make sure your salespeople get the most out of these calls by having their pitch ready and setting aside the right amount of time. Teach them to keep following up on accounts when they know how to get in touch with the decision-maker and to stop with weaker accounts after 6 or more hits. When they have time or when there aren’t many leads coming in, they can always go back to these weaker accounts that have some promise.

7. Don’t Lose the Art of the Follow-up

Many salespeople think that if they don’t connect with a customer by the fourth or fifth time, they never will. But our data told a different story: Even after 10 tries, almost 5% of the time, reps were able to connect with their leads. Connect rate drops quickly at first, but then stays the same after the sixth dial. This means that there are a lot of talks buried in prospects that seem impossible to reach.

8. Develop a Plan That Optimizes Your Reps’ Time

How many times your sales reps should call each prospect varies on how many leads you get. If your sales reps have too many leads, it makes more sense for them to focus on first calls, where the chance of connecting is much higher.

On the other hand, if they aren’t getting any new leads, don’t be afraid to have them look into some old leads they haven’t followed up on yet. Even if it takes them 20 calls to reach one possibility, that’s one more conversation than if they just gave up.

When you do talk to your prospects, keep in mind that you shouldn’t talk about paid search. Instead, you should talk about their business and how they can grow it. PPC is just a way for them to get what they want.

9. Know How to Respond to Common Objections

You know that when you try to sell PPC to your clients, they will have questions and possibly some objections as well. You and your sales reps will need to be ready to answer these questions in a way that makes your clients feel good about continuing to spend in PPC. Here are some common complaints about PPC advertising and how to answer them.

“My SEO work is good enough!”

It’s crazy to get all of your leads from organic search. Organic results aren’t accurate, and, especially on mobile, they take up less space on the SERP.

Also, we’ve found that people who are really ready to buy are more likely to click on paid results than organic results, even if they found your site organically while they were doing the study. Plus, a lot of studies show that adding PPC on top of SEO brings in more traffic:

So saying “I’m already doing SEO” is not a good reason not to use PPC.

“It’s way too expensive.”

SEO isn’t free (it takes both technical and artistic resources), but PPC is only “expensive” if you don’t look at what you’re getting in return. PPC gives you a lot of ways to control your spending so that you only pay for the hits that are most likely to lead to a sale. This is the key to getting a good return on your investment.

“Clicks don’t turn into sales!”

If Your Client Says That PPC Hasn’t Worked for Them in the Past, It Could Be One of the Following:

• They aren’t keeping track of changes the right way. If it’s a business that gets a lot of calls, make sure they use call tracking so that calls can be linked to the ads that brought them.
• Their offer isn’t very interesting. If that’s the case, conversions won’t come from any source.
• Problems on the landing page. Leads might be lost because ads link back to the home page, or because the landing page isn’t focused. This can be fixed by making the home page work better.
• They aren’t using tracking. Not every first try is a charm. Most of the time, you have to take your date to dinner a few times before you can sleep with them. The same is true in sales. If a person doesn’t turn into a customer right away, all is not lost. Remarketing is a great CRO tool because it lets you keep in touch with people who have already shown interest in your website and keep them interested.

For example, I had my first taste of Jeni’s gourmet ice cream at a friend’s house last summer. It tastes delicious, but at $12 a pint, I didn’t want to fill my fridge with it. I did, however, check their website pretty often to see what new types they had. The next thing I know, remarketing ads are all over me! After seeing a few, I was able to hold out, but I gave in pretty fast.

One Last Note Before You Go Forth and Sell Ppc to Clients…

We’ve been talking about how to get new PPC clients, but I want to add one more thing: it’s also important to know when to turn down a new customer. Check out my list of the top ten warning signs that you’re working with a client who is going to be a pain or will leave. Just say no, because it’s not worth your time.

Here Are 9 Ways to Sell More Clients on PPC:

• Follow up with EVERY lead
• Go after low-hanging fruit
• Talk about how PPC complements other marketing strategies
• Create a referral program
• Partner with complementary agencies or businesses
• Understand the importance of the first outreach attempt
• Don’t lose the art of the follow-up
• Develop a plan that optimizes your reps’ time
• Know how to respond to common objections

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