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 I just got back from our Fall Marketing Boot Camp, and it was at least as good as I had hoped it would be.

We had a room full of dealers, as well as a couple of OEM reps and that made for some really good back and forth during the sessions. Don’t take my word for it though, head over to www.powersportsmarketingreviews.com to see what the attendees thought. You can see reviews of previous Boot Camps there as well. 

If you haven’t been to one, keep on the lookout because we’re doing it again in March and you won’t want to miss it.

As I mentioned last month, the search marketing (AdWords) session is always pretty popular and there tends to be a TON of questions every time I lead it – both during the session and after. 

AdWords is an interesting marketing method because the IDEA is very simple, but the EXECUTION is extremely complex. 

There are so many variables to take into consideration, from keyword match types, bidding strategies, geography, time of day, day of week, conversion strategies, and a host of other things, that in a dealership environment it just makes sense to find an outside company to partner up with to handle it. Not doing so can be very expensive.

Trouble is, as one attendee said to me, “This stuff is like black hat and magic wand kind of stuff, I don’t really understand it and it’s hard to get good explanations.”

So how do you find that partner you can trust with a form of advertising that is difficult to understand? Interestingly enough, this is how many people feel when choosing a mechanic.

One of the things we do in our dealerships to show potential customers that we are qualified is to hang our mechanics certifications on the wall in the service department for people to see. It’s always good to have a wall full of certificates, right? Look for those certifications with potential AdWords partners as well. You can look up Google certifications through the Google Partners Program. If the company you are considering is not a Google Partner, cross them off your list. They have not exhibited the skills necessary to successfully understand and set up Google AdWords.

See how many Google certifications they have. It gets really easy to see who is working in their mom’s basement. 

Also, take a look at other certifications they have, this speaks to how seriously they take staying current in an environment that is constantly changing. Ask how much they spend annually on training and how much they manage in Google ad spend. This can be very telling as well. How many clients do they have? How many of those clients are in the powersports business – remember that this is a niche industry, and not everyone understands the lingo and culture.

If you research Powersports Marketing, you’ll find that we currently hold 13 Google certifications (they have to be re-tested every 12 months), and at least twice that many certifications from SEMPO (Search Marketing Professionals Organization) and Cardinal Path (the only company to be officially endorsed by Google for AdWords and Analytics training in the world). We spend tens of thousands of dollars per year on classroom training, and manage over a million dollars per year in ad spend for hundreds of clients in powersports. It also helps that all of our leadership either ran dealerships or came from OEMs.

Additionally, it’s a little difficult to reach our digital marketing team on Thursdays between 3:00-4:00 EST. That’s when we have our weekly conference call with Google to discuss new strategies, features, and tactics. We began them after Google paid to have two of our team members fly out to Mountain View and visit the Googleplex.

Once you have established that the company you are considering is qualified, you then need to make sure they are a good fit. What I mean is, you need to work together on a month-to-month basis to monitor your results, start new initiatives, and stop ineffective ones.

To do this, there are a couple of foundational elements that need to be in place.

First, your partner has to be transparent. They have to help you understand what they are doing. Too many AdWords management companies allow clients to believe that campaign management is black magic. If you get the vibe that your AdWords company has an attitude of, “you wouldn’t understand” or, “just trust me”…don’t. Cross them off your list.

A good partner will take the time to make sure you understand the logic of what they are doing – and sometimes why they don’t want to do what you might think is a good idea. They have to be able to explain the WHY of what they are advising – you are paying them for the HOW. Going back to our mechanic illustration, when my check engine light is on, I want my mechanic to be able to explain that it’s because of a vacuum leak in my emissions system, and that he can take care of it for me. I am paying for his expertise.

Another trait of a good partner is that they pursue you to discuss results. Accountability. There are an awful lot of companies who are happy to send you a monthly report with lots of charts and graphs that look really important, but often simply hide lukewarm performance, who are happy to never speak with you. I guess the idea is that you are supposed to look at the reporting with your eyes glazing over, think it must be working, and just keep signing the checks. I call B.S. on that.

What you want is a partner who will contact you monthly (something we work hard to do each month with clients – if we don’t talk to them it wasn’t because they weren’t called) and walk you through any part of the campaign you have questions about. This is simple month-to-month accountability. It’s a “here’s what we talked about doing in our meeting last month, here’s how that went, and here’s what I recommend this month” kind of meeting, much like you might have with any of your in-house management team. Your partner has to be an extended member of your team, who you work with on initiatives and who you trust to carry them out for you.

There is no black magic involved in AdWords, just a lot of hard work. In the spirit of total transparency and maybe a little bit of a shameless plug, I’d like for us to be that partner, give us a call – but if not, you know what to look for. 

Talk soon.