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How Much Does B2B PPC Management Cost in 2025?
Ready to see how our B2B PPC strategies can boost your ROI?
B2B Performance Marketing Guide For 2025
December 18, 2024
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Summary: B2B Pay-per-click management costs $500 - $10,000 per month on average. Cost can go higher or lower depending on your budget, business goals, and the agency’s pricing model.
Pay-per-click advertising has become a go-to marketing strategy for B2B brands because of the high yield-to-investment ratio. According to a stat from Google Economic Impact, businesses gain approximately $2 for every $1 invested in Google ads.
Moz’s report also shows that traffic from PPC ads converts 50% more than those from organic traffic. So, it’s a strategy worth the money.
But before investing, it's crucial to know how much you will spend on managing your PPC, whether you’re outsourcing to a third-party agency or doing it in-house.
In this article, we will break down the costs involved and factors to consider when choosing a B2B PPC management agency for your brand.
B2B PPC management refers to creating, monitoring, and optimizing a brand’s pay-per-click advertising strategy, including the ad spend and total budget. And this can be done by an in-house consultant or outsourced to a third-party specialist (freelancers, agencies, etc.).
Let’s be honest, B2B PPC management is a lot of work, especially if you’re working with a broad target audience and cross-border markets. To understand better, a PPC manager has to at least do the following:
You can actually do these things in-house, so why still outsource them to a PPC management brand like TripleDart?
First off, to effectively handle all the tasks listed above, you will need a PPC Specialist/Manager, Digital Marketing Analyst, Copywriter, Web Designer, UX/UI Specialist for landing pages, Data Analyst, Competitor Analyst, A/B Testing Specialist, Finance Manager, Audience Segmentation Specialist, and Remarketing Specialist.
According to Glassdoor’s review, an average in-house copywriter earns $71,000 per year. That’s more or less $6000 monthly without including full-time benefits such as paid leaves and vacations, medical fees, training costs, company shares, and so on.
In the same range, an intermediate-level PPC specialist receives around $64,000 salary per year or $5300 monthly, outside other bonuses and work benefits. If we include other roles, you will likely be spending $1 million besides your ad budget.
Heck no!
Instead of breaking your bank for an in-house management team that might not necessarily add value, it’s better to outsource and get everything done at a fraction of the cost.
PPC costs and PPC management costs are often used interchangeably, but they are way different.
PPC costs refer to the amount advertising platforms like Google, Facebook, Bing, Microsoft advertising network, and Amazon charge per click. That’s called ad spend or cost-per-click (the amount paid to networks), and there’s a predetermined range per platform.
Businesses can decide how many clicks or how much ad budget they are willing to commit monthly. For instance, if you want to generate around 10,000 clicks monthly via Google ads, then your ad spend will be between $500 and $2000, depending on your quality score.
In contrast, PPC management costs involve the fees charged by agencies or specialists for helping you manage your ad campaigns regardless of the platform. Note that this does not include your ad spend or budget but covers everything else, such as:
That’s similar to how much you pay a hygiene technician or professional house cleaners to keep your surroundings clean — which has nothing to do with how much you bought the house in the first place.
Unlike PPC costs, there are no near-definite or fixed B2B PPC management costs, and how much you spend depends primarily on a number of factors addressed below.
36% of small and medium-sized businesses pay around $501 – $3000 per month for PPC management from an agency, while another 26% of businesses pay $1001 – $3000 per month for the services of a freelance specialist. B2B organizations are naturally larger and cater to cross-border audiences. More audience means more work to do, and that naturally translates to higher management costs.
The larger your campaign, the more nuances B2B PPC managers have to handle to ensure your ads yield the expected results. That includes managing more keywords, ads, platforms, and targeting options, which increases the complexity and time required for effective management. There’s also a need for more extensive reporting and monitoring.
Take the B2B SaaS industry as an example. You have the big guys like Hubspot, Salesforce, Microsoft, and even Google to compete with. If you’re in a keyword tussle with any of these brands, you need to pay a higher bid price and build a good quality score to steal their spot.
This, in turn, increases your ad budget and overall campaign difficulty. Your PPC campaign manager also has to spend more time and resources creating a unique campaign strategy that will bring in results.
Ad creatives include campaign copies, flyers, illustrations, videos, and any other content that conveys your message. PPC managers or agencies handle all these with their own team, and they have to account for the costs in the total management fee. They also optimize and update these creatives frequently to ensure relevance and boost ad quality scores.
Another essential creative for your PPC campaigns is landing pages. That’s where most leads get a thorough “first” impression of your brand after clicking your ads. The PPC management team in charge, such as the UI/UX team, web developer, and copywriter, prioritizes creating attention-grabbing and valuable landing pages for 100% conversion.
This is notable if you’re working with an in-house PPC management team (which we strongly advise against due to cost and efficiency). It can range from $500 to $5000 per month, depending on the software programs you use. Third-party management teams only include a fraction of this in the overall management fee.
If you’re outsourcing to a third party, then you need to consider cost variation between freelancers and agencies. On average, freelance PPC specialists charge $80 per hour. So, if you need the service of a PPC specialist for at least 20 hours monthly, that’s around $1600. Keep in mind this cost does not include ad creatives and additional expenses. You will have to cover that yourself.
In contrast, some agencies charge as little as $600 per month to handle campaign development, strategy, testing, and ad creatives. Higher subscriptions might sometimes cover commercials and creative sets depending on your agency’s pricing model.
B2B PPC management pricing models refer to the methods that agencies or specialists consider when charging your business for the PPC services provided. Each PPC management pricing model technically determines how costs are calculated and includes the following:
The Percentage of Ad Spend model involves taking an agreed percentage — usually 10% to 20% — of your ad spend. Let's say you want to spend a total of $10,000 monthly on Google ads (via google display network ). Then, the management cost will be 10 or 20% of $10,000, which equals $1000 or $2000, respectively.
Pros: You only pay as much as you spend. The lesser your ad spend or budget, the lesser you pay for management. Besides, most agencies give robust discounted management fees the higher your ad spend gets.
Cons: There is cost uncertainty, as your bills can fluctuate significantly with changes in monthly ad spending. A few untrustworthy agencies might also decide to increase your ad spending just to get more management pay.
Best For: Small and medium-sized businesses that need a scalable bill as they grow.
The Retainer or Flat-rate structure charges a fixed amount regardless of your ad spend. That means your ad spend can change from as little as $1000 to as high as $10,000 monthly, but you will be paying the same management fee regardless.
Pros: Flat rates are 100% predictable. No hidden fees or surprise fluctuations unless there’s a protracted heads-up.
Cons: Flat-rate PPC management model is inflexible and inappropriate for your ad spend. If your ad spend is limited, you might end up spending almost half of your total budget on management.
Best For: Large B2B organizations investing as little as $20,000 in monthly ad spend.
This model is often used by freelance specialists that offer PPC management services and involves calculating the number of hours spent on a project to determine the management cost. Remember, the average cost for a freelance specialist is around $80 per hour, but that also depends on expertise. If the number of billable hours per project or per month is 40, then the management cost will be $3200.
Pros: Allows for transparency and you only pay for the time dedicated to your project.
Cons: A few freelancers might purposely protract working time and bill more hours, though this is rare if you choose right. The amount billed is also highly unpredictable, as hours can vary monthly.
Best For: Small and medium-sized businesses with limited budgets.
The performance-based model is directly tied to specific results, such as the number of sales or conversions made from a campaign. You will rarely come across this model, but some agencies offer a cash-back guarantee as a modified form.
Pros: You only pay for results, not just leads. This helps you circumvent agencies or freelance specialists who pride themselves on generating low-quality leads.
Cons: Management expenses can skyrocket if performance is beyond expectations. Moreover, it’s quite difficult to reach a consensus on the defining metric for performance—sales, form filling, clicks, etc.
Best For: Budget-robust brands interested in B2B performance marketing regardless of the cost.
NB: A milestone-based model is similar to a performance-based model, but it is more specific and deals with attainable objectives. For instance, an objective could be to generate 1000 sales from one campaign. If that is not met, you might agree to pay a below-average management cost or none at all. It is not a favorite for agencies.
We surveyed quite a number of other PPC agencies and noticed most of them combine two or more models for maximum efficiency. This includes using a flat-rate model for ad spending less than $5000 monthly and switching to the percentage model once ad spending exceeds $10,000 monthly.
And it could be a mix of flat-rate, percentage of ad spend, and performance-based model.
Pros: Offers flexibility and compensates for the standalone disadvantages of each model.
Cons: Increases budget complexity and cost uncertainty if you’re new to PPC advertising.
Best For: Businesses looking for predictability and cost-efficiency, especially during the growth phase.
Based on the factors and models we discussed above, the cost of B2B PPC management can range from $500 to $10,000 monthly.
Summary: $500 to $10,000 monthly.
This is a million-dollar question, and sure enough, there’s no fixed amount to spend on PPC—ad budget and management fee.
How much you invest, in total, fully depends on:
But here’s a minimum range template:
However, you can decide to spend less than $5000 or go higher than $30,000 on ad clicks monthly. No one-size-fits-all total budget for every B2B brand.
Just as SEO (search engine optimization) is crucial for organic traffic, PPC is likewise vital for paid traffic. And that’s why you can’t afford to let the wrong hands manage your campaigns. Before choosing a B2B PPC management agency, green-check the following:
Your goals are essential for formulating an effective PPC strategy. And they have to be SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Perfect example: Leverage social media PPC to generate 10,000 quality leads and double product sales within the next six months.
This gives the contracted PPC management and marketing agency an idea of what you wish to achieve and assists with formulating a working campaign strategy.
Also, you should know how much you want to invest in ad spend and management. This will determine the type of agencies you reach out to—whether they’re within your total marketing budget or not.
Once you have a list of B2B PPC agencies within your budget, review their websites for client reviews and testimonials. You can also check third-party review sites like Trustpilot, Softwaresuggest, and Glassdoor or local directories like Goodfirms.
Source: SoftwareSuggest
Alternatively, you can request previous case studies if it’s not on the agency’s main webpage. Relevant case studies highlighting similar problems to yours are much more helpful than those that are not.
Quite a number of agencies outline their approach to PPC management, from ad setup to monitoring and reporting, on the service page. Check it out to see how they plan to help you achieve your goals and whether it aligns with your objectives.
Review their communication practices as well—you definitely don’t want an agency that takes forever to reply. Learn about their reporting practices as well. This includes asking about tools used for analytics and reporting, such as Google analytics, ConvertIQ, adobe analytics, Hubspot, Moz, and so on.
As previously discussed, management costs can be determined via different PPC pricing models like flat-rate, percentage per ad spend, billable hours, performance-based model, and the hybrid structure. Some websites list the model used on their pricing page. For others, you might need to schedule a consultation for more info.
Benchmark their pricing model against your goals, growth stage, budget, and expectations. Small and medium-sized businesses can choose a hybrid model that combines percentage and flat-rate rates. Large B2B organizations or businesses investing more than $30,000 can choose a percentage per ad spend model.
This is the peak of your review. Get on a call with the sales team or agency founder to share your goals and hear how they plan to achieve them. You should also gauge each agency’s understanding of your industry.
Then, discuss your budget, the agency’s pricing model, expectations, and other details crucial to starting your PPC campaigns.
Finally, compare and contrast all the proposals you have received based on management expenses, experience, track records, niche relevance, and delivery time. This will help you choose an efficient B2B PPC agency that most aligns with your budget and goals.
PPC is a whole lot of work, and finding the right agency to manage your ads is even more work. I mean, everyone’s now a self-proclaimed PPC expert.
But that’s why we are here. At TripleDart, we prioritize your ad goals and ensure you get the best results from your PPC campaigns with proven management strategies. That’s how we helped Apty generate a 164% increase in the deal pipeline with paid search.
“TripleDart has been a dream partner. The team is intelligent and responsive and delivers what they promised. We have made huge progress in our growth marketing efforts with TripleDart.” – Drew Wallace, Head Performance Marketing at SpotDraft.
Ready to find out how we achieve jaw-dropping results for our partners? Schedule a call below.
PPC advertising generates approximately $2 for every $1 invested. That’s just a dollar less than email marketing ROI, but it’s more effective and fast. Besides, leads gotten from paid ads via PPC convert 50% times more than those from organic channels.
B2B Pay-per-click management refers to creating, monitoring, and optimizing a brand’s pay-per-click advertising strategy, including the ad spend and total budget. And this can be done by an in-house consultant or outsourced to a freelance specialist or an agency like TripleDart.
PPC management fee varies from agency to agency. However, the average cost is around $500 - $10,000 per month. Cost can be higher or lower depending on your budget, business goals, and the agency’s pricing model.
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