Is VCCP Search really the first agency to let clients see PPC keywords?

At Efficient Frontier we’ve always let clients retain their search engine accounts. We’ve always seen the accounts as the client’s property to begin with, and never ours. Been doing this since the company started in 2002.

But to add a bit of detail to the debate, I don’t think VCCP were not letting their clients see the keywords at all. Presumably even if their clients couldn’t access the accounts, they could see detailed enough reports to know what keywords were being purchased.

The big issue is allowing clients to keep the same accounts if they wish to change agencies. With click-through rate and quality score history being so essential, starting a new account can cost thousands as you try to build that history back up.

Many agencies allow their clients to retain the accounts, you will get several respondents to this thread. There are some notable players that don’t, or at least kick up a hell of a fuss, both SEM specialists and larger network media agencies.

Finally, it’s a rather curious article in Marketing Week as this is described as an ‘effort to retain clients’. Seems like this kind of change makes it easier for the clients to leave!

My advice to any advertiser is that you should:
- have access to your SE accounts (not just get reports, but have logins so you can see what’s going on)
- have the right to retain the SE account should you wish to move agency
- own the billing relationship with Google

I may get such a slap for this tomorrow – but in the heat of the moment on Friday when I first read this – here’s the record of my diatribute.

* Bring me the head of Marketing Week
* Nonsense
* Calling out to journalists
* … and more
* planning a response
* Latitude and Efficient Frontier want to see the ‘crime’

Lazy. lazy. lazy. Someone, somewhere didn’t do much research at all.

Here at iCrossing we’ve always allowed clients to retain their data.

I actually wrote about best practice guidelines on the very subject a little while ago…

it was vccp on the panel at ses where they asked the room if agencies granted access to clients and a bunch of people put there hands up and said yes, if i’m not severely mistaken?!?

Kelvin, yes that’s exactly what happened. That’s why I thought Marketing Week may have misinterpreted quotes from VCCP at SES, does seem to be a very odd claim otherwise.

Not anything new from our perspective, all logins, keywords etc rest with the client tends to avoid any problems later on.

Guys, sorry its taken a while to get out there and respond. A morning packed with client meetings! Great debate been sparked by this one, and I welcome all these comments from agencies who say they’re already doing this. When we talked to Marketing Week about the story, the idea was that it would spark the debate and get comments from other agencies and clients on what is a really important issue, especially with the number of pitches going on.

To be clear, this is not about logins or access to a Google account which should be standard (even though in some cases its not!); its about ownership and the right of an advertiser to do what it wants with that Google account. We all know there are agencies out there who don’t play ball, and have a contractual set up which causes serious issues when an advertiser wants to move.

The idea behind this is to find out where everyone stands and get some real clarity on this issue. Hopefully will be some good follow up pieces, I’ve just posted about this in more detail on our site and if anyone wants to give me a buzz directly fee free!

Our website

Cheers Patrick.

Absolutely and I think that is a key point in the post-BPF world. What’s the benefit of a client billing via an agency? The benefit to the agency is the ‘turnover’ or ‘billings’ figures which can then be released. What’s the benefit from an advertisers point of view? From our perspective a client should own the account. As far as the account is concerned, changing agency should be as simple as the client logging into their account, disabling the old agency’s login and setting up a login for the new agency.

It’s been great to see the reaction from around the industry to what is a really important issue for advertisers in search and thanks to everyone for all the calls and emails.

I think we have clarified that this move goes beyond ‘transparency’ in terms of logins or ‘allowing clients the right to retain the rights to their search keywords’. It also cuts through all the talk of best practice in terms of how agencies should behave when transferring a client’s account to a new partner.

In future, I think we’ll start to see clients insist that Google accounts are set up in their name. They will own the billing relationship and their account will simply sit in their agencies MCC. Right now, that’s just not the way that the major search or media agencies are set up. Agencies may well be transparent and allow their clients the rights to their own keywords, but that doesn’t go far enough and the only way for a client to be sure of this is to own the billing relationship. It’s a fundamental power shift in PPC from agencies to clients.

We have made that move and I’d be interested to hear if anyone else shares this view, has this set up or is planning to offer their clients this option.

To repeat my earlier comment above, at Efficient Frontier our clients have always owned their accounts and billed direct with Google. We don’t like to have it any other way, so that’s the way we’ve done since 2002.

It’s good that VCCP is moving over to what we’ve considered best practice for the last seven years. Agencies that don’t give clients complete transparency will wither on the vine.

Hi guys,

Glad to see that the conversation is on-going. For very many years now we’ve been signing papers, legal foo, etc, to ensure that all the data/IP/structure belongs to the clients (although that’s not always been necessary).

I’ll happily agree that many agencies don’t do this. Equally, I can happily prove that many agencies have been at this level for years.

VCCP aren’t the first but hopefully all this drama will shine the spotlight brightly and force everyone else to keep up!

Wow what a statement!!! Why would agencies keep hold of this info, what use is it hiding from the guys that pay their wages?? At Vertical-Leap we mangage clients accounts for them on their behalf so here is no confusion and complete transparency, and we have been going since 2000. Maybe we should have mentioned this earlier ?!!