Managing local PPC at scale is paradoxical in nature. On one hand, SMB’s and franchisees represent a massive, underserved market. On the other hand, the margins are thin, the churn is high, and the manual labor required to manage a $500/month account can be nearly as high as a $5,000 one.
For agencies to truly grow their local PPC revenue, they have to stop treating local accounts like “mini” enterprise accounts. Success in the local PPC market requires a shift in strategy, specialized reporting, and—most importantly—automation. Below you’ll find Adplorer’s guide to overcoming the common hurdles of local PPC and turning your agency into a true revenue engine.
The Foundation: Aligning Expectations with the Funnel
Before a single keyword is bid on, your clients must understand the Marketing Funnel. NO EXCEPTIONS whether they like it or not. Misaligned expectations are the number one killer of agency-client relationships.
- Upper Funnel (Awareness): If a client is running a Video or Display campaign to build brand equity, they cannot judge success by “calls booked.” They need to value reach and impressions.
- Lower Funnel (Conversion): Conversely, a Search campaign targeting “plumber near me” will have a high Cost Per Click (CPC) and a high CPM, but that is the price of intent.
The Solution: Use your onboarding process to explicitly state which part of the funnel a campaign covers. A client expecting leads from a 15-second YouTube awareness ad will churn in 30 days. By educating them that $CPM$ is the metric for awareness and $CPA$/CPL is the metric for search, you build a foundation of trust.
Problem 1: The Churning Churn Monster
Local PPC clients (SMBs and franchisees) are notoriously skeptical and fickle. If they don’t see immediate “value,” they leave.Specialized PPC agencies typically face an annual churn rate of 45-55%, significantly higher than full-service agencies (25%), due to performance transparency and rapid “comparison shopping” by clients.
The Solution: Robust, Funnel-Appropriate Reporting
Standard KPIs are table stakes. To stop churn, you need to report on metrics that communicate success relative to the ad type. For video, highlight Watch-Through Rate and if possible set up baseline performance and bench mark success. For home services, understand that ad content affects KPIs—an ad that lists “Pricing starting at $99” might have a lower Click-Through Rate (CTR) than a generic ad, but it produces higher-quality leads.Similarly the inverse is true as the less informative the ad is the more likely it is to generate “leads” who are tirekicking and simply want basic pricing.
For large resellers, tracking churn is a management task. Adplorer offers specialized reports that track churn rates by individual Campaign Managers. This allows leadership to identify if a spike in churn is a market trend or a training opportunity within the team.
Problem 2: The Invoicing Nightmare
Billing 200 local clients manually is a recipe for administrative collapse. Agencies need a rigid methodology for billing—whether you bill in advance, in arrears, or whether the agency or the client pays Google directly.
The Solution: Standardize your financial workflow. Without a system that automates the reconciliation of ad spend versus management fees, your profit margins will be eaten by “accounting creep.”
Problem 3: Managing Grant Budgets & Co-op Funds
For agencies working with franchise brands, managing “National Ad Funds” or “Grant Budgets” is a logistical headache. How do you efficiently allocate matching incentive funds to 50 individual locations? Approximately 92% of high-performing franchises now use real-time platforms to track fund usage by location. Brands using continuous optimization cycles for co-op funds often maintain 18% lower customer acquisition costs (CAC).
The Solution: You need a platform built for multi-location structures. Adplorer allows agencies to seamlessly allocate national funds to individual accounts, making matching incentive programs easy to execute and transparent to report on.
Problem 4: The Budget Pacing Trap
Local budgets are often small (e.g., $500–$1,000). If a campaign starts mid-month, or a seasonal surge occurs, it is nearly impossible for a human to manually adjust daily caps across hundreds of accounts without overspending or underspending.
The Solution: Automation
Manual pacing is too costly for low-spend accounts. You must use automated pacing tools that adjust daily spend dynamically. This ensures that a client’s budget lasts exactly until the last day of the month, regardless of when the campaign launched.
Problem 5: Campaign Manager Burnout
When a Campaign Manager is responsible for 80+ local accounts, burnout isn’t a possibility—it’s an inevitability. Without organization, quality slips and clients leave.
The Solution: Workflow Prioritization
- Custom Alerts: Instead of checking every account daily, set up alerts to flag only the ones underperforming or overspending.
- Templates: Use campaign creation templates to expedite setup.
- Bulk Editing: When a franchise-wide promotion changes, don’t update 100 ads manually. Using Adplorer’s bulk editing tools allows you to push identical changes across an entire network in seconds.
Problem 6: The Need for Constant Sales
Because local PPC has a naturally higher churn rate than enterprise PPC, agencies must constantly fill the top of their own sales funnel.
The Solution: Self-Service Portals
Scaling sales for small clients requires removing the friction of a long sales cycle. Adplorer’s self-service tool simplifies this process, especially for franchise brands. When a franchisor introduces the tool to their network, individual franchisees can opt-in and launch pre-approved campaigns themselves, creating a hands-off revenue stream for the agency.
Final Thoughts
Growing local PPC revenue isn’t about working harder; it’s about building a “machine” that handles the minutiae of small-budget management. By aligning client expectations with the marketing funnel and leveraging tools like Adplorer for reporting, bulk editing, and budget pacing, your agency can scale from 10 to 1,000 locations without losing your mind—or your margins.
