PPC Management Software or a Managed Service? A Guide for Australian Small Businesses
PPC management software can adjust bids, apply rules and produce reports, but it can’t set up conversion tracking for your business, write a landing page or tell a good enquiry from a poor one. A small advertiser has three routes: Google’s built-in automation, third-party PPC software, or a managed service where a person runs the account.
PPC (pay-per-click) is advertising where you pay each time someone clicks your ad, most commonly through Google Ads, Google’s advertising platform. This guide sets out what each route does well, what it can’t do and when it makes sense.
Star Digital Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency in Spring Hill, Brisbane, that works as an outsourced marketing department for small and medium businesses across Australia. We offer managed PPC as one of seven services, so we’ve taken care to say where a tool is the better choice.
What is PPC management software?
PPC management software is any tool that automates part of running pay-per-click ads, mainly bids, budgets, alerts and reporting. Some of it is built into the ad platform at no extra cost, and some is sold separately by subscription.
Third-party PPC management software falls into four broad categories:
- Bid and budget tools apply rules you set, such as pausing a keyword once it has spent a set amount without producing an enquiry.
- Reporting dashboards pull figures from Google Ads and Meta Ads into one view.
- Audit tools scan an account and flag likely waste.
- Writing and keyword assistants suggest keywords and draft ad text.
We describe categories here and don’t rank products. Products change quickly, and the trade-offs between the categories don’t.
Small business PPC management in Australia: three routes compared
Small business PPC management, sometimes called SME PPC management, comes down to who makes the decisions: the ad platform, a tool you operate, or a person you pay. Each route is a fair choice for some businesses.
Route | What it does well | What it can’t do | Tends to make sense when |
Google’s built-in automation | Sets bids for each auction and assembles ads from the headlines you supply, at no extra cost | Check that your tracking is right, or question its own recommendations | Your spend is small, you run one or two campaigns, and you can check the account weekly |
Third-party PPC software | Applies rules across campaigns, sends alerts and combines platforms in one report | Choose the rules, set up tracking or write your pages. Someone still has to operate it | You run several campaigns or platforms and have someone with the hours and skill to use it |
A managed service | Tracking setup, strategy, ad and page writing, weekly judgement and a plain report | Fix an offer or website that doesn’t convert, or deliver results overnight | The waste removed and enquiries added are worth more than the fee, and your own time is scarce |
Route 1: Google’s built-in automation
Google’s built-in automation sets your bids and assembles your ads for you, at no extra cost. Automated bidding uses your conversion data to decide how much to bid in each auction. A conversion is an action you care about, such as a call, a form submission or a booking. At the time of writing, Google Ads Help describes the automated bidding strategies and ad formats on offer.
The limit is that automation works toward whatever you tell it to count. If tracking is missing or counts the wrong thing, the bidding gets better at the wrong goal.
Route 2: Third-party PPC software
Third-party PPC software saves time on repetitive work, once an account is big enough to have repetitive work. It suits a business with several campaigns, or ads on more than one platform, and someone on staff who can act on what the tool reports.
For an owner doing the marketing after hours, the catch is that PPC management software is one more thing to operate. It adds a subscription and still needs your evenings.
Route 3: A managed service
A managed service puts a person in charge of the account, from tracking setup through to the monthly report, for a management fee on top of your ad spend. It has limits too. No manager can fix an offer or a website that doesn’t convert, and ad campaigns still take weeks to optimise.
Using a tool now and not sure it’s earning its keep? Call 1300 859 066 or email sales@stardigitalmarketing.com.au and tell us what you’re running. We’ll say whether we’d change it.
Can software replace a PPC agency?
Software can replace the repetitive parts of what a PPC agency does, but not the setup, the writing or the judgement. Those three are the parts a small account depends on most.
What can PPC software not do?
PPC management software can’t do five things that decide whether a small account pays for itself.
- Set up conversion tracking for your business. Conversion tracking records which clicks led to an enquiry. Someone has to decide what counts and test that it works. Tracking collects visitor data, so privacy obligations may apply, and the OAIC’s Australian Privacy Principles are the place to start.
- Write for your customers. A tool can draft ad text. It doesn’t know your offer, your customers or what you can honestly claim, which is why our copywriting team writes the ads and landing pages. A landing page is the page someone arrives on after clicking your ad.
- Judge lead quality. Software counts a form submission. It can’t tell that the enquiry came from outside your service area, or from someone selling to you, unless a person feeds that back.
- Decide what an enquiry is allowed to cost. That figure comes from your margins and from how many enquiries become customers. We ask for both before we suggest what to spend.
- Tell you not to advertise. A tool is built to run ads. It won’t say that your money would do more somewhere else.
Is PPC management worth paying for on a small budget?
PPC management is worth paying for on a small budget only when the fee is small next to the waste it removes and the enquiries it adds. The smaller the ad spend, the larger the fee looms.
A worked example, purely to show the arithmetic: if a management fee were $600 a month, it would add 60% to a $1,000 ad budget and 12% to a $5,000 one. Those figures are illustrative, not a price or a market rate. Our guide to what PPC management includes and costs explains how fees are set.
[INSERT: the monthly ad spend below which Star usually advises a business to stay on built-in automation, as one sentence with an AUD figure or range. The brief asks for the spend level where each route makes sense, and only Star can give its own threshold.]
If your budget is too small for ads and management together, there are two sensible options. You can run one simple campaign on Google’s built-in automation and check the tracking yourself. Or you can put the money into SEO, the work of improving your website so it appears in unpaid search results. SEO takes months, but it isn’t billed by the click.
We say so when something isn’t worth doing, and that includes our own management.
Want to know which route your numbers support? Book a free strategy call and quote, or call 1300 859 066. The call runs 30 minutes with no obligation, and you get a written action plan to keep whether or not you go ahead.
When should a small business outsource its PPC?
A small business should outsource its PPC when the account needs judgement that the owner doesn’t have the time or skill to supply. In practice, that is when one or more of these is true:
- You can’t say what an enquiry costs you.
- You accept the platform’s recommendations without being able to assess them.
- Enquiries arrive, but too few are the right kind.
- Your spend has grown to the point where waste would cost more than a fee.
- The ads are taking your evenings.
If you’ve outsourced before and regretted it, two things lower the risk on any route. Keep the ad account in your own name, so you can change route without losing its history. And ask for reporting in enquiries and dollars.
That is how we work. You own your accounts, the monthly report is a short plain-English summary, and the work is tailored instead of sold as bronze, silver and gold packages. Compared with a marketing hire or separate freelancers, our specialists are already assembled, with one point of contact and one monthly invoice. We’d also sooner tell a small advertiser to stay on automation for now than sell management it doesn’t need.
Not sure which route fits your business?
The first conversation is diagnostic. We ask what a customer is worth, how many more you can handle and where your enquiries come from now. Then we tell you which route we’d choose in your position: built-in automation, PPC management software or a managed service.
Book a free strategy call and quote, call 1300 859 066, or email sales@stardigitalmarketing.com.au. It’s 30 minutes with no obligation, followed by a written, plain-English action plan that’s yours to keep whether or not you proceed.