WAR of the PPC consultants...sure way to success.

5 people all waring on the same campaign is never going to work in a real world scenario. all 5 would be bidding against each other for position.

straight away your costs and return data would be floored, you could break a company or business down into 5 equal parts, then rotate those roles over a given time frame measuring results.

but pitted against each other on exactly the same stuff is full of problems, the display / destination URL being one of the first, only one can display and run at a time.

Here's how you do it.

You ask each consultant to build a campaign for 3 of your products. Give them the URLs, ask them to send back the keywords they would use and two ads.

I assume most keywords will be similar. But if you see unusual ones, ask why they used those. If the keywords are too broad, the consultant is probably not what you're looking for. Same if they use broad matches only. Extra points for negatives.

So that list of five consultants may be brought down to three or four just by their keyword list.

Next, run two of the ads against each other. You need 30 clicks to declare a winner. Then, drop the poorer performer and replace with ad from next consultant. Run test again. Just as if they were your own ads and split testing.

In the end, analyze the data from all consultants. Pick a winner. Things to look for: high CTR but also high conversion rate. Multiply the two. A lower CTR ad can beat a higher one if the conversion is higher.

The only problem is that many consultants will think you are trying to get free services and won't participate. Make it clear that the winner will get the job (I assume paying) with much more work. I also assume you will rate them on their sales pitch, ask questions to choose the four or five you will use for the final test. Feel free to include me on that list.

Well, if they consistently get a low CTR, that's not good, so I would eliminate them. That's why you test not on one product but a few. I could get a low CTR because I do not understand a product. But if I am the lowest on a few of them, that's no coincidence.

What you say about eliminating one which could turn out to be a winner because of high conversion rate is true. However, this is rarely the case. Most times, a high CTR ad will also have higher conversions. Rarely will it have a lower conversion rate than the average.

If you are worried about that, you will have to have a long term test. Why don't you hire all of them and assign each a portion of the account? Rotate after a few months and see if they can improve on the previous guy's results. Better yet, brainstorm on ideas. Putting a few heads together could produce fantastic results across the board. This would work of course only if you have dozens of products.

If every consultant gets the same advertising budget and you want a war so to speak, forget all the crap numbers and percentage figures, there is only one number that counts. the profit , the bottom line is the only number at the end of the day that talks the talk and walks the walk the rest of the numbers mean jack squat on a rainy day.