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How We're Different

The Credo vetting process


Results

A company can be polished and professional and still not deliver great results, so we specifically ask each network applicant about their clients and results they have driven.

We ask every applicant for:

  • Two projects for each marketing channel they offer
  • Description of the work they did and results they achieved
  • Client contact information so Credo can contact the client and ask for a recommendation
  • Analytics or other corroborating evidence of work done well

Professionalism

Quality of work delivered is extremely important to us and extremely important to you.

Our professional vetting involves the following:

  • Review of two deliverables sent to clients
  • Review of applicant's website to see professional design, clarity of writing and thinking, and more
  • Review of other profiles, such as LinkedIn and social media

Culture

Every network applicant must also pass our culture screening to make sure they're aligned with our standards.

This involves a 30 minute call covering:

  • Their professionalism on the phone
  • Promptness to the call
  • Clarity of thinking and speech in delivery
  • How their agency delivers work

Best PPC Companies

All PPC companies on Credo have passed our initial three step and 28-point vetting process before joining, and are continuously vetted via client feedback. When you speak with PPC companies from our network, you can trust they're the best we can find.

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The industry trusts Credo

"GetCredo.com is one of the few trustworthy places to find a good SEO."
Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin

"After working with a number of clients who had been burned by illicit consultants, industry veteran John Doherty was inspired to create [a company] that would help companies find reputable search marketing and SEO professionals."
Marketing Land logo
Marketing Land
"I don't know of anyone who puts as much care and attention into properly vetting and matching SEO projects with vendors than Credo."
Tom Critchlow
Tom Critchclow

How to hire PPC companies


Hire agency with channel experience

Find agencies who have experience with the channel and your type of business

Prioritize agencies who have experience with the channel or channels you need help with. If you have multiple needs, we recommend prioritizing a full service firm who can do all channels as opposed to hiring individual agencies or contractors for each channel. This will reduce the number of providers you have to contact as well as the management overhead once they are hired.

Note - at Credo we match you with providers from our network who both fit your marketing channel needs and have experience with your type of business (SaaS, Ecommerce, etc). Where possible, we also match you with providers who have experience in your industry.


Agency discovery calls

Conduct discovery calls with all and strategy calls with a few

We recommend speaking with multiple agencies to verify that they have the experience you require and that you like speaking with them. Culture fit between you and your agency is the unspoken factor we find that determines if an engagement will be successful. We then recommend that you conduct longer strategy sessions (about an hour) with 2-4 agencies to dive deeper on your needs with their team.

Note - Credo schedules the initial discovery calls for you with agencies from our network.


Agency project proposals

Receive proposals and negotiate

Once you’ve gone deeper with 2-4 agencies, ask for proposals that you can review that include scope, timeline, cost, and terms. We recommend that you use our Agency Reviewer resource to make it easier. Some agencies may have a separate contract with terms and conditions, which is fine.

Once you receive proposals, you can negotiate back with agencies. The most common things to negotiate back on are scope and timeline. If ideal budget is above your ability to pay, see if you can reduce the scope to get the project within budget while understanding the tradeoffs.


Work with digital agency

Commit to one for a period of time

Finally, make a decision about who to work with and commit for a period of time that is long enough to know if you’re able to get results but not so long that it traps you into something that isn’t working. We recommend that you agree to at minimum a 3 month contract, and ideally a 6 month contract with a three month out.

Make sure healthy expectations are set and your agency fully understands your objectives. The best results are created when you have alignment with your agency around your business goals.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who's in Credo's network?
Credo's network includes pre-vetted digital marketing agencies and consultants with digital marketing expertise specific to your business needs. From SEO to Amazon marketing services, SaaS to the healthcare industry, to any B2B, enterprise, or B2C business, we match you with the right marketing partner for your business. Since 2013, we have helped over 6,500 businesses streamline their hiring process and execute marketing strategies. We put in the work to help you get back to what matters most - your business.
How does Credo determine who the right Pro is for my project?
We've matched over $125,000,000 in projects to agencies and have over a decade of experience as marketers ourselves. We know how to identify the right match for your needs based on our proprietary matching algorithm as well as a review of your marketing channel needs, your industry, your business model, your budget, and more. The entire process is 100% free of charge.
What is the difference between Credo and Upwork/Fiverr/etc?
Credo is a fundamentally different type of marketing matchmaking company. Instead of listing any marketing company or consultant who wants to offer marketing services, we offer a strictly vetted network of agencies that we know can deliver industry-best results to clients like you.
Do I still have to interview firms within Credo?
Yes. After we match you with 2-3 digital agencies that match your needs, you are scheduled with them for initial calls. We believe that you should know and trust the marketing team doing your work. Ultimately, it is your decision who to hire.
How is Credo involved after I sign a project?
Once you decide on the firm to hire, you sign contracts with them directly and pay them directly for the work they do. We are not involved beyond this point, though we appreciate honest reviews on your firm's Credo profile if your marketing match is everything you have been looking for!

Start your search today!

Ready to finally find the right marketing partner to help your business grow?

Drive results for your marketing needs with the Credo network. Get started today (it's free and there is no obligation)!


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History of PPC

The history of PPC is a fascinating portion of the internet marketing saga. This post provides a few significant dates in PPC’s inception and uses key facts and a few figures to show the size and prevalence of the PPC internet marketing sales technique.

Important internet moments.

The internet is so ubiquitous in our lives today that it’s hard to believe what we know as the world wide web is only about 40 years old. Assembling the networks that provided the infrastructure for navigating the internet began in the 1980s. Then on August 6, 1991, computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee opened the World Wide Web to the public and ISPs began to populate the internet.

Businesses soon realized the internet’s power to connect internet users with their products and services through internet advertising. Less than 20 years after the first networks were created, Bill Gross, founder of GoTo.com, introduced pay-per-click marketing to the world.

What is Pay-Per-Click (PPC)?

In 1998, PPC marketing was a novel idea. In the beginning, PPC meant that advertisers paid the internet browser company for advertising their products only if and when users actually clicked on an ad. Clicking on the ad took the user to the company’s website, or showed the user a video, or engaged the user on-site.

Advertisers submitted bids on their choice of search terms related to their products/services. The higher the bid, the higher an ad would appear in the listed search results. (The general wisdom is that the ads need to appear within the first ten search results in order for users to bother to click on the ad.)

Soon advertisers started bidding up the price of search terms that had no relation to their products so that their ads appeared higher than other bidders on the list of search results related to the terms they chose. This practice was based on the theory that the ad appearing in the search results might entice users to click on it even though they weren’t searching for that product in the first place. (We’ve all probably had the frustrating experience of conducting a search and seeing unrelated items popping up in the search results. Now you know why.)

Why did PPC become so popular?

Because it works. PPC gives advertisers the opportunity to track the success of their ads – and whole ad campaigns  – by tracking the number of users who click on it. PPC’s appeal is that advertisers only pay for successful clicks. This is very different from print ads where advertisers pay publishers for every ad they run – even those to which no one pays any attention. And advertisers can not track the success or failure of print ads in real time. PPC is a game-changer.

Google ups the ante.

In 2000, Google entered the PPC arena with its Google AdWords (now Google Ads) marketing tool. Advertisers pay Google when users click on their ads. Google makes its primary income from PPC to the tune of $70 billion in 2015. All the rest of its business lines only accounted for $7 billion in 2015 (10% of its PPC income). In 2017, AdWords accounted for 96% of Google’s annual revenue, or $43.7 billion. Google Search and AdWords make their 1.5 million advertisers/publishers/non-profits about “$283 billion in economic activity” in the US alone. Google search engine claims a 78.01% market share in 2018.

Are there other search engines that provide PPC platforms?

Yes.

  • Microsoft has Bing Ads which, according to its 2017 market share report, has 33% of the PPC market in the US and 9% of the worldwide market.
  • Yahoo has a native advertising and search platform for mobile devices called Gemini that launched in 2014. Yahoo search engine has 3.63% share of the search engine market in 2018.
  • AdRoll is an online, digital marketing tool that helps convert clicks to actual customers. AdRoll works by helping advertisers collect and analyze customer information so they can improve their advertising campaigns to turn surfers into buying customers.
  • Many social media sites also have PPC advertising, such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, to name a few.

What is Pay Per Lead (PPL)?

You may have heard the phrase Pay Per Lead in relation to internet advertising. This type of advertising is more expensive because advertisers get more information. They pay for the click-through if the user:

  • views a particular landing page, or
  • provides enough contact information that advertisers can trigger further user interest in products/services and eventually convert them to buying customers, or
  • purchases a product or signs up for a new service.

What’s the biggest trend on PPC marketing in 2018? Two words: Machine Learning. Harnessing machine learning promises advertisers a greater ability to:

  • create messages that resonate with potential customers,
  • target ads to specific audiences, and
  • refine the bidding process toward targeted word search terms that reflect a new understanding of how potential customers think and act.

In addition, Google Home and Amazon Echo will change the way customers buy – via voice command. PPC marketers will seek advantages from such active searchers, to gather insights on how to provide them a customized, more personal shopping experience.

To Use or Not To Use PPC?

For advertisers, that is the question and, before they can answer it, they must know two things:

  • What is the (affordable) budget for PPC? (The average cost of a Google Ads click is $1.00; however, some AdWords charge up to $50 per click.)
  • What is the expectation with respect to a return on investment?

Knowing how much a potential advertiser is willing to pay per click is an important part of deciding whether to use PPC. In determining a company’s magic number, potential PPC advertisers should consider:

  • the revenue they receive per customer,
  • the number of deals they usually close compared to the number of presentations they make, and
  • their historical conversion rates.

To learn more about PPC, read the searchenginejournal.com article titled “5 Surprising Ways Great Content & PPC Can Help Each Other.

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