Deciding Between Growing Inhouse or Outsourcing

[amc78]

My company is currently deciding between whether to keep our SEM (just paid listings) in house or to farm them out to our advertising agency. What are the main points we shoudl conisder in making this decision?

[nuttakorn]

I have ever outsourced to SEM company, it is not much effective. I have spent more than 2500 USD but there is no any changes for rankings or generate more traffic. I have stopped to spend that and try to hire some professional to do in-house instead.

[ewc21]

There is a difficulty in deciding which agency to work with for an SEM project especially if you knew them not through referals. But when you work with a brilliant person or agency, the rewards are great.

1) Do some background check by searching these companies and their works online. Expensive SEM companies usually does the job done very well but it's not always the case.

2) Unless your advertising agency knows what to do with keyword research, popularity, measurement of ROI, it will be good to outsource your SEM campaign (to the right agency).

3) Ask reliable people on what agencies they employed and they could probably give you an idea of which companies to work with.

4) Do not rely much on word of mouth or salesy e-mails. While PPC effectiveness is more difficult to prove than natural search rankings there should be a way to find out an agency's efficiency and by listening to their approach and understanding every step. If you think they don't know what they're talking about, back off asap.

5) I think there is little less accountability when work is outsourced compared to when it's done in-house. Hiring an employee to work full time in your office gets more responsibility in his/her hands to perform the job better than chasing someone far away for explanation or justification.

[vipjun]

PPC effectiveness is more difficult to prove than natural search rankings


PPC is probably one of the most measurable mediums in advertising if not the most and the work you do is seen much quicker than natural search.

One of the most important things you should look at while outsourcing is the experience of the firm in your field. This will definetly be the difference between an average marketing campaign and a good one. You wouldn't use a divorce lawyer to fight your traffic tickets.

[seomike]

If you have the budget to hire an inhouse specialist that's worth his salt then you can afford a good SEO/SEM agency. You'll have a team instead of a one man show.

If you are in a competitive market get ready to bust out your wallet eitherway you go.

[dazzlindonna]

Why is it that every time I read the title of this thread, "Deciding Between Growing Inhouse or Outsourcing", I think of grow lights? :)

[bcombs]

I'll admit to a bias, but IMHO most advertising agencies aren't very skilled at managing paid search (I'm sure there are exceptions to this). Most ad agencies are used to purchasing advertising in very large chunks, not the discrete, per click basis of paid search.

If you go with an agency, make sure they truly understand online marketing metrics. If they have people with backgrounds in direct marketing, that would be good as well.

If paid search is a critical to your company, find someone to do it in-house. Competant search marketing people are not cheap, however.

[ContentWorth]

I'll admit to a bias, but IMHO most advertising agencies aren't very skilled at managing paid search (I'm sure there are exceptions to this). Most ad agencies are used to purchasing advertising in very large chunks, not the discrete, per click basis of paid search.

This is true in that most advertising agencies are NOT SEM companies and are not qualified in performing SEM services.

Outsourcing SEM to a reputible company, or one you feel comfortable with and can communicate with, is often better than "inhouse" SEM. I only say this because most "inhouse" SEM I've seen has been adding projects to unqualified employees who have no knowledge, skill, or interest in SEM but are put on the job because they're already getting paid to work there.

If you can afford a qualified SEM or team inhouse, go for it. They'll work directly for you, under you, in your presence, and only with your account. If not, researching companies to outsource even aspects of your project will be better time and money spent in the long run. "Suzy (or Sam)-the-sectretary" may be able to plug in a few basic words into a keyword builder tool, but s/he won't dig deeper to find the actual words to work best for your campaign.

For a successful campaign you need people with know-how. If this means you need to do a little research to see what companies are better prospects it should be worth the investment. Otherwise you can have unskilled employees build and run your campaign at a loss without even knowing why there's such a drain on the budget (hint: most non-SEM/SEOs won't use analytics to tell you where your money is going).

It's a tough choice and does require some work on your -- or a trusted coworker's -- part.

In the long run it'll do you better to pay a little more for expert work since it won't continually drain your budget click by click...

[kallestie]

Just be aware that it is a buyer beware market. I don't know if you've seen it, but Google put put a great article that I reccommend to all of my clients to read. I feel that it is important for all to understand before they make a decision on such a large scale. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291

[bcombs]

From that article:

"Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do."

Gotta love that, coming from Google. :D

Still, it's a good article.



Brian