We often come across AdWords accounts that are managed ‘in-house’ by a Marketing Director with very little experience or time on their hands to dedicate to their account. Managing AdWords campaigns is something that should be handled by a specialist, and in companies without huge marketing teams that means finding an agency to partner with.

Here are 5 reasons why your Marketing Director should not manage your AdWords campaigns:

1. Lack of resources - This is a big one. Managing any digital marketing campaign, especially AdWords will require at least several hours a week of oversight, and that increases depending on the amount of budget under management. It’s easy to underestimate the demand that managing a campaign requires. Sure you might start off highly motivated and interested, but that will wane quickly as you realize how much work is required. All of a sudden you realize you haven’t looked at your campaigns in 6 months and Google has suspended your account.

2. Wrong skillset - Most Marketing Directors have a generalized marketing skill set (as they should). It is more important that they are managing from a macro level than at a micro level. It can take years to become an expert at AdWords and most AdWords experts are not looking for Marketing Director roles (i.e transitioning from PPC Strategist to Marketing Director).

3. The need to stay up to date with industry changes - Google is constantly changing the rules for marketing through their platform. Without knowing exactly how to pivot and react to changes, you will find yourself losing money and falling behind competitors.

4. Specialized software - Agencies usually pay for software to do research and competitive analysis before launching campaigns. They also usually pay for software to manage, optimize and report on campaigns. This can get expensive, but agencies find it worthwhile because they are usually managing several accounts.

5. Easy to waste money - Google makes it very easy for anyone to set up an account and be spending on ads in a matter of hours. The downside is that without the right know-how you will waste all of your budget on the wrong things. Something as simple as using the wrong keyword match type, campaign setting, or bid in AdWords can cost you big time.

Potential customers are going to Google and searching all of the time. Whether your business is there to capture the traffic depends on you being set up for success with an experienced team managing your campaigns.