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Google Ads and SEO: Better Processes = Better Results

Our proven, process-focused services provide our customers with the most affordable, effective Google Ads and SEO.

Read below to learn more about how Third Marble's approach to getting results differs from most other full service digital agencies...

"Process-Based" Service vs. "Custom-Based" Agency

Most full-service digital marketing agencies adopt a "custom-based" approach to marketing management. It requires a team of people, perhaps each one is an expensive specialist, that meets regularly to figure out what custom plan is needed to achieve your marketing goals. These excessive meetings take time and cost money. This approach means that every client is a "project". These agencies have project management tools and software and require a project manager to lead the team. By definition, a "Project" has a beginning and end, but the steps between the beginning and end are not yet defined. As their client, you have to pay their team to create all the steps in the project to achieve your goals.

A "process-based" service doesn't need all the overhead. By definition, a "Process" has a beginning and end, and all the steps between the beginning and end are already defined. A process saves time and energy by not re-inventing the wheel with every new customer. Companies that provide a process-based service are more efficient and can deliver a more repeatable, predictable result for a lower price.

When most businesses hire a company for Google Ads Management or SEO, they most likely have the same goal - GET YOUR BUSINESS MORE LEADS AND SALES.

If that's not your goal, then Third Marble's process-based service is probably not for you.

If that is your goal, why risk it on a team that needs to start a project to re-invent the road map to success? We already know the way and have built a process around it.

How Does Your Process Help Me Get More Customers for My Business?

A well-defined and time-tested process delivers repeatable results efficiently. Third Marble has been perfecting our Google Ads and SEO processes since we started the business in 2009. Our founder, Chris Fawcett, is an industrial engineer with degrees in Operations Research and Industrial Systems Engineering. "Continuous Improvement" is in our company's DNA. We know the process to get more leads with Google Ads and SEO because that's all we do - all day long.

Google Ads and SEO are both data-intensive marketing strategies that work best with a knowledge of statistical concepts. Managing the results from these strategies is very similar to an industrial process. For example, when a campaign is in control, you need to make minor adjustments to the system. When a campaign is out of control (i.e., not meeting the campaign goals), then corrective actions need to be taken.

The process of corrective actions is relatively predictable and straightforward. We know what actions to take next based on a series of "if/then" conditions. Like adjusting the flavor of a soup - IF it needs salt, THEN add salt. IF it needs pepper, THEN add pepper. A custom-based service would require meetings and discussion to figure out what the soup needs - that takes time and costs money. In a process-based service, salt and pepper get added if needed without expensive internal meetings.

Here's a great expression that many custom-based services use - "think outside the box." That's great if you're trying to create a custom and layered marketing plan. But not so great if you are looking for consistent and predictable results. You could be paying an agency's team to brainstorm marketing plans that might get your business leads without knowing if it will get results. So basically, you're paying to be the subject in someone else's marketing experiment. Do you want to waste your business's resources on "thinking outside the box?"

If so, then Third Marble probably isn't the best service for you. Any number of custom-based marketing agencies can help you with that.

The bottom line, a process-based marketing service like Third Marble can get you to your goal faster and affordably without excessive, time-wasting meetings with you.

Some Examples of Process-Focused vs. Custom-Focused Services

Chain vs. an Independent Restaurant

At McDonald's, you know what you're going to get, and you'll get it quickly. They have a repeatable, well-defined process for preparing a hamburger. A typical independent restaurant may have 100 items on its menu. If you order a hamburger, the chef will prepare the meal from scratch, and the results depend on which chef is working that day. It may take 20 minutes to get your meal. With the McDonald's hamburger, there's an efficient process in place. You get it fast, and for a fraction of the price, an independent restaurant would be able to charge. A chain restaurant won't have to change the types of food they need to buy like a typical independent restaurant would need to buy for a custom menu. So they can streamline their food costs and pass those savings on to their customers.

Yes, the independent restaurant hamburger might have nicer garnishes, but a chain restaurant's burger would also cure your hunger. The Result: Fast food at an affordable price.

Jiffy Lube vs. a Mechanic

Jiffy Lube has a process for changing oil quickly, so you don't have to wait, and they can change your oil for a fraction of what a typical mechanic might charge. A mechanic shop does hundreds of different repairs, so they typically don't have a well-defined process for changing oil. The car in front of you might be getting a major repair, so they can't get to your car as quickly. Since an oil change is relatively quick, Jiffy Lube doesn't need to worry about scheduling lengthy repairs. They also don't need to own all the tools or carry much in parts inventory - further savings that they can pass on to their customers.

Yes, your mechanic might know more about how a transmission works, but an oil change is an oil change—the Result: Less waiting, lower cost for the customer.

Netflix vs. Blockbuster

Netflix created a process that achieved what Blockbuster failed to provide - unlimited copies of the movies people wanted, plus made it easier to rent them.

Netflix's process allowed people to get the movies they wanted; without driving to the store, finding an empty shelf, or paying late and rewind fees - for a lower price. Even with the added postage cost, Netflix's movie renting process was still less expensive and more convenient for the customer.

Yes, you had to wait for your movies in the mail, but it was still easier than driving to the store. The Result: Blockbuster's not around anymore, are they?

Coach vs. First Class

Both coach and first-class tickets follow almost the same process for getting you to your destination. The only real difference in the process is the additional staff required to cater to your needs in first-class. You get a more "custom-focused" experience since you get served what you want when you want it.

For a slightly better meal, a few drinks, and about 3 square feet of extra space, the airline will charge you $2400 for first-class vs. $400 for a coach ticket on the same flight.

Yes, both seats arrive at their destination simultaneously, and the flight takes just as long. The Result: You just paid $2000 for freshly squeezed orange juice.

Our Process is Based on the Henry Ford's Manufacturing Method

(and We Want to Help America Grow Too)

At Third Marble, we're trying to help the average business owner like Henry Ford helped the average American back in the early 1900s.

Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile. He invented a better way to make the automobile, which lowered the price of the car so the average American could then afford to own one. This process improved the lives of millions of Americans.

Before Henry Ford, cars traditionally were built with the car sitting in the middle of a room. A team of people would run around it and get the parts and tools they needed to piece the car together in stages. (Just like a custom-based service would.) You could get whatever customizations you wanted on the car, and the team would figure out how to build you the car the way you wanted it. Every car was a "project."

Henry Ford put the car on an assembly line, so the car passed from one specialized person to the next. Each person had exactly the tools and parts needed for their role in building the car - and did it well. The process was defined and repetitive, so the results were repeatable. With Henry Ford's efficient process, they could build an entire car in under an hour, at a fraction of the price of their competitors. However, the process lacked the ability for customization, so as Henry Ford put it, "You can have any color car you want as long as it's black."

Yes, certain people still wanted a customized car. Still, by 1920, 50% of all cars on the road in the USA were the Model T, proving that most people didn't want to waste their hard-earned money on custom solutions. They want to get to where they want to go.

Third Marble is doing the same thing - providing an affordable, predictable, and efficient marketing service for the average business owner. We want to help you get to where you're going as affordably and efficiently as we can.

A Good Process Eliminates Waste

(Who Pays for Waste? You do.)

So if our mission is to create one of the most affordable ways for a small business to grow, then we have to ask the question, "How do you deliver great results at a minimal cost to the client?"

The answer is to create efficient processes.

Custom marketing projects typically have distinct phases, loaded with plenty of expensive meetings that the client (you) pays for:

Initiation Phase - Meetings to determine who is going to be on the team, identify the scope, schedule more meetings.
Definition Phase - Meetings to define the project, the goal of the project, and what the finished project looks like.
Design Phase - Meetings to figure out the individual steps to achieve the goal.
Development Phase - Meetings to figure out the details and tasks of each step - who, how much, when, etc.
Implementation Phase - Begin executing the tasks.
Feedback/Rework Phase - Did it work? If not, rework it. Schedule a meeting and charge the client to do it all over again.

Most of this work is to determine the client's goal, then figure out how to meet the goal.

But almost all businesses have the exact same goal when it comes to any form of advertising - get more leads, more customers, and more sales.

So if the goal is predefined, then all that's left is to create a process that's repeatable and scalable that can be easily implemented. You can skip the Initiation Phase, the Definition Phase, the Design Phase, and the Development Phase. We skip all the meetings and jump right to the Implementation Phase. Because our predefined tasks and processes have been proven to work over and over again, you rarely have to worry about the Rework Phase.

So if you've ever wondered why other Google Ads and SEO companies charge so much for setup fees, now you know.

A Good Process is Measurable

(And You Can't Manage What You Can't Measure.)

A well-known management principle - "you can't manage what you can't measure."

When every client is a project, then the steps in the management of the project have custom tasks which make it difficult to measure the progress or efficiency of each task. You won't be able to compare one project to another, which isn't ideal if you're trying to measure and control costs. For a customized marketing plan that an agency created just for your business, then how can they benchmark the results of that unique task combination against other clients? They can't - but they'll invoice you the hours it took them to complete that tasks regardless of their efficiency or incompetency.

When a process has the same tasks for each client, you can measure the costs and results of each task, benchmark the costs against other clients, identify issues faster and correct them to reduce costs. Since we're able to better identify and control wasted efforts and wasted tasks with a well-oiled process, we are able to keep our costs as low as possible and pass those savings onto our customers.

The advertising industry has called Google Ads "the most measurable form of adverting ever invented." SEO is very measurable as well.

So when you hire Third Marble for Google Ads management and/or SEO services, you get one of the most measurable forms of advertising being managed by one of the most measurable processes, which is the most cost effective for your business.

Controlling Cost & Improving Results with "Statistical Quality Control"

(Our DEFCON Process)

Statistical Quality Control is the science of measuring and controlling a process to ensure quality results consistently.

For example, if we were manufacturing widgets on an assembly line, the quality control department might take a sample off the assembly line every 100 units or so to test the widget to make sure it meets their quality standards. If the sampled widget did not meet standards, then the quality control team might increase the sampling from 1 in every 100 widgets to 1 in 25. If quality standards are still not met, then the assembly line would be stopped, and inspections would take place until the issue was corrected. This process is designed to ensure that a very high percentage of the widgets sent to customers are of the highest quality.

Our processes at Third Marble also include a system to meet and monitor quality standards. We call it the DEFCON score. DEFCON is a military term meaning "Defense Readiness Condition." DEFCON "5" means that all is clear and there are no immediate dangers. DEFCON "1" means that war is imminent - all hands on deck!

At Third Marble, we set a goal for each account. An example might be "Get leads at $100 per lead or better." If that account is getting leads at $60 per lead, then we know that the Google Ads are running well, and the process is "in control." We would set your DEFCON score to a 4 or 5.

If suddenly, three new competitors in your area start advertising on Google Ads as well, that likely would drastically change your results, and your cost per lead could shoot up to $200. The process is now "out of control." Your DEFCON score would be increased to a 2 or 3. If after several weeks we can't get the cost per lead down near $100, then we might move the account to DEFCON 1.

This is our internal statistical quality control plan. For accounts that have a DEFCON 4 or 5, our team will review the accounts less frequently and make fewer changes to the account with each optimization. The idea is more of a "don't fix what isn't broken." These optimizations take less effort and help us keep our costs low.

If an account reaches a DEFCON 2 or 3, then we need to optimize these accounts more frequently and aggressively. If something isn't working, we drill down deeper into the account to find the cause of the issues. We have our senior, and experienced team members work on these accounts until they are back in control and meeting the goals. This takes more time and costs more money.

If an account reaches a DEFCON 1 status, then our top team members and management team optimize and review the account frequently - in some cases daily. This takes even more time and costs even more money.

This DEFCON process is our way of ensuring all of our client's accounts are delivering the best results possible. Since your monthly fees don't change based on the number of hours we work and we never lock anyone into any sort of long-term contract, if your account isn't delivering its goal, then we put in the extra effort until the account is back in control (with no additional cost to you). It's in our best interest (and yours) to keep the account performing well. It's a "win-win."

By contrast, a typical custom-based agency doesn't have a process for monitoring and adjusting resources based on the quality of your results. They might manage your Google Ads or SEO on a fixed schedule - so you might pay for someone to look at your account once a week for 2 hours regardless of the status of the account. If your account is in control, you're wasting your money on over-optimization. If it's out of control, then they may not have enough time in their week or the experience needed to fix whatever is causing the issues, and you're paying for the account to be under-optimized.

Training & Staffing Advantages of a Process

(Even More Savings Passed to You)

Another advantage of being a process-based company is the ability to hire and train new staff quickly and effectively.

Using the Henry Ford assembly line as an example, it doesn't take long to train a person on how to install a tire on a car. And once trained, that person would do that one job repeatedly and build muscle memory on how to do that job efficiently. Then that person can be trained to install steering wheels, do that job until they are proficient. Then get trained on building engines, and so on.

However, it would take much longer to train someone how to build an entire car, like what Cadillac was doing in the early 1900s. Employees had to learn how to build almost an entire car, and the training costs were passed on to the consumer. They had to do it this way because each Cadillac was built to specs. The car built one day wouldn't be the same as the car that was built the day before. The Cadillac didn't have much more material cost than the Ford - but had more labor cost. A good portion of that labor cost was in training.

In the digital marketing industry, most custom-focused agencies have a team of players that have to multi-task. The training to bring someone onboard takes a long time and costs a lot of money. They may have to learn how that agency does everything - from website design to email marketing, to Google Ads, to SEO, to social media marketing. This training cost is baked into your invoices.

There are other possible inefficiencies with multi-tasking employees as well. For example, that person may only occasionally manage a Google Ads account, or build a website, or write content, or create a new graphic, etc. This means they don't develop the experience needed to be an expert in anything. They essentially become a "jack of all trades, master of none." The result for your business is predictable: average.

At Third Marble, we have processes for training all new employees. Our hiring process is designed to get new employees trained quickly on one or two specific tasks, then have them immediately put that new skill to work. Once they master one or two tasks, they are trained on a new task, and they quickly get to work gaining experience with those new skills. This helps us minimize the training overhead costs since new employees are typically contributing to the workload within a very short period of time.

These savings on overhead costs are passed on to our customers.

Set Up and On-Boarding Processes

(Even More Savings Passed to You)

A tell-tail sign of a Custom-Focused Agency is very expensive set up fees. Why? Because they don't have a well-defined process for getting started.

Our process-focus service includes well-defined processes for on-boarding and getting everything set up very quickly and efficiently. We don't need to schedule meetings with you and your team. We want to get the ads up and running as quickly as we can. This gets the data flowing faster.

With anything on the internet, everything can be changed quickly. The concept of "get it right the first time" is a unicorn. The concept of "get the data flowing quickly to make the best decisions quickly" is what today's artificial intelligence based world thrives on. So our processes are design to get the data flowing as soon as possible. The need for expensive, time-consuming meetings is really just a way for over-priced executives to think-outside-the-box at your expense. In reality, it's all just "educated guessing". Nothing is real until the data tells you it's real. And what if they're wrong? Is that custom-focused agency going to return that set up fee? Probably not.

Furthermore, if they had a crystal ball and they knew that their ideas were going to work, then why would they charge so much up front? There would be no reason. If their ideas were always so good, then you would be their client for a long time and they wouldn't need to charge so much up front. Their profit would come from years of doing business with you. Because they aren't confident that their outside-of -the-box thinking is going to work, they need to make their profit up-front because they don't know if you're going to fire them in a few months or not. (Side question - since they made all their money up front, why would they continue to do a good job for you?)

So there are really only two reasons for expensive set up fees:

The agency doesn't have a well-defined process for new accounts (and you pay for them to figure this out).
They aren't sure you're going to be a client in a few months (so they make all their money in the first month).

FAQs

- Does the same processes apply to different types of small businesses?

Our processes work on all types of industries - from non-profits to services to retail to e-commerce.

- What are the disadvantages of working with a process-driven company?

The main disadvantage is the lack of customization. Customization costs money. If you have goals for your company like "to be the most innovative advertiser," or "get more Facebook likes," or "be the funniest," then we are not a good fit for you. Our processes are designed to bring you quality leads, customers, and sales.

If you feel your company needs aa very customized Google Ads Management or SEO, then Third Marble may not be the best fit your business.

- Google is constantly changing - do you change your processes frequently?

Absolutely - we have to. Our processes change as needed to align ourselves with the constant changes in policies and systems at Google. It's nearly impossible for the average business owner to stay informed of the hundreds of changes that Google implements each year. That's our job. Since we specialize in just Google Ads and SEO, we aren't as distracted as a typical agency might be. We have the advantage of being nimble and can quickly change as needed.

Bottom Line:

A Process-Based Service is
more effective with better results
more affordable
doesn't take up much of your valuable time
not very customizable

If you want to spend more money to develop a custom process to manage your Google Ads and SEO, "think outside the box," and spend your valuable time in unnecessary strategy meetings, please contact a Custom-Focused Agency. Third Marble is not the right service for you.

If you simply want more customers and more sales without the astronomical fees, schedule a call with us.

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