The New Role for Outsourced SEM

Within the SEM industry a trend can be noticed towards the internalization of search; the formation of in-house SEO and SEM teams to handle search. With the costs of reputable outsourcing agents continuing to rise, the justification to hire within and develop an in-house team becomes justifiable, or at least appears to on the books. Return on investment with a team working full time on bid management and organic strategies should be able to deliver the same value as does an outsourced company, not working nearly as many hours.The simple ROI calculation cannot factor in the intangible factors associated with outsourcing to a reputable SEM company (I'm saying reputable because the industry is littered with the living room-based self proclaimed SEO firms who are anything but reputable and whose services can be easily internalized.)  However, having worked with internal departments it is apparent that the value justification of an outsourcing is apparent.

Similar to an accounting department hiring an external company to perform audits, an outsourced SEO firm can act as an independent auditor for your entire SEM campaign. Being once removed from the business is not a disadvantage, in fact in many cases, being external to the company allows the SEO firm to understand the business problems and strategic goals without losing site of the main objective due to corporate pressures. An outsourced company needs to not only understand the business objectives and resource allocation limitations of their clients, but act to ensure the SEO efforts remain on track to achieve the corporate goals.

Furthermore, an external company does not become involved in the political environment of the company. The politics are understood by the outsourced company, however, an outsourced company does not become directly involved. When recommendations are made from an external company auditing the current SEM campaigns, the recommendations will be results-focused and should be relatively free of political motivations. A significant time-savings can be realized by externalizing certain SEM elements such as bid management. An outsourced search partner consistently trains and educates themselves in the latest industry best practices, maintains its position on the leading forefront of knowledge and explores new alternative marketing tactics. Moreover, a strategic search partner will have already made the contacts within the industry there by ensuring new campaign tactics are quickly implemented. Outsourcing to a SEM solutions provider does not mean externalizing your entire SEM department, but rather accessing an entire knowledge database for strategic insight.  An SEO firm should not be used to perform the basics; quite frankly anyone can write an optimized Meta tag and can be paid significantly less than what you would pay and outsourced firm to do the same. However, the SEM firm should be able to provide the training, best practices documentation, and support to the in-house team. Where the value of an outsourced SEM company truly does show its value is through the advanced, higher level strategic planning and execution.

For example (and at the risk of trivializing strategic planning), when I had set out to write this article I had an idea of what I wanted to achieve; however, half way through I seemed to have gotten off track and needed a colleague, external to the situation, to help put me back on track to achieve my desired results. Now I do know that most of you reading this are probably saying big deal it's only an article; however, in a metaphorical sense, this does describe many of the situations with designing a complex e-marketing campaign we deal with on a daily basis. Many business systems, and even our own government structure, are based on a series of checks and balances; an SEM firm should serve as that strategic check and ensure your total campaign remains in balance with your objectives.The argument for in-house SEM is extremely apparent with Pay Per Click campaigns. Although the argument can be made that bid management can be automated, the simple fact is that no computer can optimize a campaign to respond to competitive pressures or respond to a change in quality score. Moreover, a computer cannot determine the most effective advertising mix for a specific campaign nor can it determine what language the user is using to more effectively market to them.  Total reliance on an automated bid management system will simply maintain the status quo (maintain return on investment or your position on the Search Engine Results page), but will not allow for strategic improvement. Computer programs can only sustain a campaign and it is up to a strategic search partner to work with you to grow your business. A computer program also can not determine how to increase conversions from a particular campaign nor can it determine which elements are the most effective and what the most effective communications mix (language, images, and calls-to-action) will work the best. Tools are on the market to aid in the testing of page features to aid in increasing conversions, such as the Google Website Optimizer; however the information these tools provide are only as good as the initial set of data entered into them. Automated bid tools for PPC are one of the major reasons that the costs of campaigns are driving smaller advertisers out of the industry. With the implementation of any campaign a SEM company can help to establish limits on the campaign, implement the proper tracking, and ensure that ROI is constantly measured. Outsourcing to SEM companies can provide significant opportunities to build upon the in-house team and provide real value through strategic insight. Anyone can be taught the basics of SEO, but a true SEM solutions provider will act as the extension to your strategic planning team, implementing the complex solutions and working with you to achieve your business goals. Stay tuned for part two…