White Shark Media pricing is typical for large PPC agencies. They base price almost solely on your monthly budget – it’s rigid, with no customization to your business or needs. It is also higher than most smaller companies and freelancers.
As with most larger PPC agencies, it is necessary for White Shark Media to charge higher fees for their PPC services so they can be a profitable agency. Nothing wrong with that.
But, you don’t need to pay those higher fees to get excellent PPC management services. Read the rest of this White Shark Media review to learn why.
Why Is White Shark Media Pricing Higher Than Some Smaller PPC Companies?
Much of the answer to this boils down to the higher costs it takes to run their agency. Like with most bigger companies in any industry, it costs more to keep them afloat. They also need to turn a profit (just like any other business). This all leads to higher fees for you and your business.
What Type Of Costs Lead To These Higher Fees?
Overhead costs – All of those indirect costs needed to run a larger company are higher, relative to smaller companies. Consider rent, for example. Commercial space does not come cheap.
Employees – As with any business, employees are some of the biggest expenses on the “books”. White Shark Media employs dozens and dozens of employees. Some of which are not even U.S.-based employees (More on that towards the end of this post).
High marketing costs – As with any large PPC agency, White Shark Media has a dedicated team of inside sales reps who cold call prospects in hopes of turning them into clients. That does not come cheap. Due to the higher costs to run their business, it is necessary for them to have a descent-sized team in place to keep those clients rolling in.
Because of this they have to, in part, morph into a quasi-sales company. Some agencies are a sales company as much as they are a PPC management company.
White Shark Media Complaints
Let me start by saying customer complaints do not inherently means a company is bad. Almost every business is going to get at least a few customer complaints. You can’t please everyone. When reviewing a company, you want to see if there is a pattern in the complaints and the amount. I think most good companies have at least a 4 out of 5 star rating. Once a company drops below that mark, it is worth digging into to see if you find any “red flags” that give you some hesitation.
Remember how I previously mentioned how large agencies have to morph into sales companies to stay afloat? White Shark Media reviews on Yelp are 2.5 out of 5. One of the main complaints customers give are their sales tactics. Read here
According to many of these reviews, White Shark Media employs some sales tactics that many people do not appreciate.
As far as employee reviews go, they have reviews from Indeed which has them at a 3.7 out of 5 and from Glassdoor which as them at a 4.3 out of 5. Here is a link to the reviews on Indeed. You may want to turn on Google’s Spanish translator as many of their Google Ads specialists are based out of Nicaragua and a few have left reviews in Spanish.
So, What Exactly Are You Paying For?
Note
A good “chunk” of the fee you pay to these larger PPC agencies does NOT go to managing your PPC account. Part of the management fee you would pay them goes to cover the costs of running their business. Those costs include rent, marketing and sales, overhead costs, etc. Are you okay with that?
White Shark Media Review of Pricing
The pricing above shows what you would pay if you had an ad spend budget of $6,000 per month.
Notice the difference between the ‘Recurring Management Fee’ and the ‘First Month Total’. That difference is their initial setup fee, which they charge to new clients. Although some accounts do require some extensive, initial restructuring (or complete setup for new accounts), it is not necessary for every account.
So, according to the pricing on their website, you would be forking over $1,500 in month one! What if you only had to pay $500 a month and no setup fee? That would leave you with an extra $1,000 a month to spend on advertising (or to use for other business needs).
Once you start spending just a little bit more, those fees start creeping up. Those fees are not custom to your business and are based purely on how much you spend. Increase your budget and you’ll spend more in management fees. Does that make sense to you? The below screenshot shows how Whiteshark Media’s pricing works.
Note: they require that you have a minimum monthly ad spend of $2,000. We don’t have that kind of a minimum and work with clients who have a lower monthly ad spend budget.
We also don’t require a setup fee for every single account we take on. In fact, many new clients we take on simply don’t need it, and we don’t charge for it!
Note
We do custom pricing for each client and consider many factors; not simply budget. Compared to White Shark Media pricing, we are up to 70% less expensive!
Benefits Of Using A Smaller PPC Company
You’ll get the same (if not better) value and service for a lower cost. To run our business, we don’t require the same level of costs that the big agencies do. We don’t have large marketing and sales budgets. We don’t employ dozens of employees. We don’t have extensive infrastructure to run our business, which can be costly.
Communication tends to be better with smaller PPC companies. This has been my experience and has been echoed by some of our clients who use to work with larger agencies. With us, you are not restricted to talking with us only during a scheduled meeting. You don’t have to always setup a time to talk. You can contact me directly via phone, email and even text message if you want. It is common for clients to call me directly without notice and have a quick chat.
Simply put, we are in a position to run a successfully lean business. As a result, we don’t need to cover a ton of overhead costs and charge our clients more for our services. We can also offer better customer service than most larger PPC agencies.
Who Is Working On Your Account?
With large PPC firms like White Shark Media, the people who do the day-to-day work in your account don’t have vast years of PPC experience.
This is the nature of most large PPC companies. They have account managers (typically don’t do the actual work in the account) who oversee dozens and dozens of accounts. They have specialists who will report to them – these specialists do the actual work. These specialists are typically entry level employees and only need minimal PPC experience to be employed at these agencies.
I have been in the “trenches” managing PPC campaigns for well over 9 years now. I do the analysis, testing, creation and brainstorming that is required to effectively manage PPC campaigns. In fact, there are a growing number of highly qualified PPC managers with years of experience, running there own small companies and doing high quality freelance work. And, they are typically less expensive than the big PPC firms.
If you choose to hire one of the larger PPC agencies like White Shark Media, it is highly likely that the employee who does the actual work on your account is not going to have nearly a decade of experience working on PPC accounts.
Employees with almost a decade of PPC experience typically don’t stay in entry level positions; as is the case with most businesses. They get promotions, move to higher positions in a company or they start their own companies.
Offices In Nicaragua
Something you may not know about White Shark Media is the fact that they have offices in Miami and Nicaragua. So, you may have people from either the United States or Nicaragua working on your account. For some people, that is a non-issue. For others, having someone who is US-based is important.
Why do they employe people from Nicaragua? My guess (and this is just a guess) is that it is purely a cost play. It could be to keep overall costs down. Why else would you go all the way to Nicaragua to set up an agency and run Google Ads for businesses in the US?
Let’s Sum It Up
I’m not trying to “bash” White Shark Media or any other large PPC firm. They have built large companies over several years and have some happy clients, so they have to be doing something right. Right?
Ok, the point?
Bigger Does Not = Better
It simply is not necessary to pay some of the higher fees that larger PPC agencies charge.
Additionally, being a big PPC company does not inherently equate to higher quality service. So, don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because they are large, the quality of service is better. Being a large agency simply means they are large. Some are better than others, and some are simply too large to effectively help you grow your business.
You can get access to high quality PPC help from smaller companies and freelancers at a fraction of the cost. In essence, you can get more value for your money. Why not save on those fees and use those funds for something else?
If you are interested in getting a free Google Ads audit, or chatting with us about PPC management, then just fill out this form and we’ll get back to you ASAP.
