PPC request for proposal template

1. About your business

• Business name: ________________
• Website: ________________
• Locations and service areas: ________________
• Services you want to advertise: ________________
• Past paid advertising, and what you learned: ________________

2. Goals and budget

Keep the ad budget and the agency fee separate. They are different costs.

• What counts as a result (phone calls, form requests, bookings): ________________
• What a new customer is worth to you: ________________
• Monthly advertising budget (paid to the platform): ________________
• Budget for agency fees: ________________

3. Scope

• Search ads for your services and areas
• Local Services Ads or similar, where available
• Call tracking and conversion tracking
• Landing pages, or changes to existing pages
• Ad writing and testing
• Negative keywords and search-term reviews
• Reporting and a regular review call

4. Questions for each bidder

• Who manages the account day to day? Name the person.
• How will you set up tracking for calls and form requests before any money is spent?
• How often do you review search terms, and what do you do with what you find?
• How do you decide where the budget goes?
• What do you need approved by us before spend changes?
• Show two examples of similar accounts and give references.
• What results would you consider poor, and what would you do then?
• Do you work for competitors in our area?
• What will you not do?

5. Ownership, access and spend

• The ad accounts are in our name, with the agency added as a user.
• Ad spend is billed by the platform to us directly, not to the agency.
• We can see every setting, search term and cost at any time.
• Please describe how a handover works at the end of the contract.

6. Pricing: please itemise

• The management fee: a flat fee, a share of spend, or another model, and why
• Set-up fee
• Minimum ad spend, if any
• Tracking, call-tracking and tool costs, and who pays them
• Contract length, notice period and what happens if we leave early

7. Timeline

• RFP sent: ________________
• Questions due: ________________
• Proposals due: ________________
• Interviews: ________________
• Decision and start date: ________________

8. How we will compare proposals

• Understanding of our business and goals: weight ________________
• Tracking and reporting plan: weight ________________
• Account ownership and transparency: weight ________________
• Evidence and references: weight ________________
• Fees and contract terms: weight ________________

9. Warning signs in a proposal

• A promise of a particular number of leads, a cost per lead or a return before the account has run.
• The agency owns the ad account, or bills the ad spend through itself without showing the platform’s own reports.
• No plan for tracking calls and form requests.
• A long contract with no way out.
• Reports that show clicks and impressions but not calls or customers.