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RSSI frankly don't know why this silly debate goes on and on. I've been doing SEM for more than 10 years, and I've never, not once, seen a search campaign created by an in-house team outperform one crafted by a competent SEM agency. But because this issue, like some grotesque zombie from the Land of the Undead, refuses to go away quietly, and because last week SEMPO (the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) hosted a public debate on the issue, I'll use this column to put an end to this fruitless discussion.
Didn't Corporate America Settle This Debate A Long Time Ago?
Every major corporation in America figured out a long time ago that it often makes sense to call in outside expertise, especially when said corporation must face down a major challenge whose outcome will have a material effect on the future of its business. Do you think that CSX, Exxon Mobile, or Microsoft relies exclusively on its in-house legal team when facing down a major lawsuit or anti-trust challenge? Of course not, and any CEO arguing that its in-house accounting, legal, or PR team is "good enough" to execute on such mission-critical tasks deserves to be drawn and quartered. And yet the "we're good enough" ideology persists when it comes to search, and one must wonder what keeps it going. Here are a few factors that come to mind:
Possibility 1: Maybe SEM agencies really don't have a clue. The most likely reason that so many companies continue to eschew outsourcing in favor of in-house teams is that their experiences with SEM agencies have been so lousy. Companies don't like to admit that they've been burned by a SEM agency because it makes them look foolish, but anecdotal evidence of SEM agency incompetence is strong. For example, many of the search campaigns that my firm has taken over from other agencies have shown serious flaws, including inappropriate keyword lists, poor ad group and/or campaign structure, bad ad creative, missing engines, and terrible landing pages. If these accounts are typical of the work done by SEM agencies today, it's no wonder why CEOs believe that their in-house teams - even if it's just a receptionist buying keywords while she isn't answering phones -- can't do much worse.
Possibility 2: Maybe search budgets are too small to care about. Because PPC media spend typically constitutes a small share of most companies' marketing budgets, it's often viewed an experimental marketing medium by senior managers. If search only represents 1% of overall spend, who cares if this 1% is totally screwed up? Why sweat "the small stuff"? Viewing search this way makes no sense at all, but this attitude clearly explains the not so benign neglect that search receives compared to other media channels comprising a larger share of overall marketing spend.
Possibility 3: Maybe everybody in the business has drunk too much Google Kool-Aid. One of the most oft-repeated elements in the search engines' business pitch is that using their self-serve ad consoles is easier than falling off a log. "Just give us your credit card," they say, "and we'll handle the rest." I continue to be amazed by the number of CEOs and CMOs who have told me - with a straight face -- that "Google is doing a great job running my campaign." Obviously, it never occurred to these people that Google's objectives are only partly aligned with their own, and that they're both overpaying for clicks and leaving major opportunities on the table. There's very little that can be done to persuade these people: they've drunk the Kool-Aid and nothing, least of all reality, is capable of rousing them from their delusional stupor.
Possibility 4: Maybe it's impossible to evaluate search performance. Perhaps companies choose in-house mediocrity over outsourced excellence because, unlike other more established professions such as law, accounting, or advertising, where it's almost immediately clear whether the practitioner is brilliant or clueless, SEM practitioners aren't certified in any meaningful way. Today, senior managers not only lack the objective criteria required to distinguish competent from incompetent search managers; most don't even know the right questions to ask job candidates. Nor do many conduct A/B tests wherein the in-house team's performance is compared to that provided by an external SEM agency. Who was it that said "ignorance is bliss"?
I think I've explained why this ridiculous debate goes on. The real question is why people -- and I'm talking about CEOs, CMOs, and otherwise bright people who should know better -- still buy into its wrong-headed premise, which is that deep experience, specialized knowledge, and state-of-the-art technology don't matter at all when it comes to search. As I've said before, the only thing that an in-house search team should ever be doing is SEO, because it's a relatively trivial task that is hardly "rocket science." Anything beyond this requires a specialist firm to take your search objectives forward.
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My initial response is here - http://www.justindavy.com/the-one-size-fits-all-model-in-sem-isnt-for-everyone-especially-me/
If Dave had simply said that there are a lot of bad in-house SEM people, I would have totally agreed. However, since he's made a definitive statement that pretty much translates into "all in-house managed campaigns suck and all agency managed accounts are awesome", he's made Did-It look like a ship of fools (since he's their captain) ...which is sad because I once considered them one of the top agencies in terms of quality. Quality that has, unfortunately, made their leadership arrogant and contemptuous.
Honestly... MediaPost should be embarrassed to have this kind of biased and unscientific opinion representing them.
No doubt about it, Dave is absolutely Correct. We at Advantix Media (www.advantixmedia.com) get calls from companies all the time to take over their PPC Campaigns. They are always a mess and it is so obvious that they have no idea of how to properly run a PPC campaign. Even with our fee, they increase sales and Return on Investment. Well Done Dave.
i work on probably 20 clients websites a week.. what i learn on each client's website gets passed on to the next one.. i may spend like 4 hours on one client's website figuring out the google tide for that day... and that info gets utilized on 10 other clients' websites that day... at the end of the day when i put in my time.. that 4 hours gets spread out across the other clients..
also.. when i have to update EVERY page of a website.. i can work on another client's website staistical review while downloading that first client's website. if i could only work on one client then i would be billing for download time.. and sitting on my hands while i download and billing for the time it takes to download.. ick..
lawyers call you for 5 mins. and bill an hour.. i telnet into a website change an ALT tag and a title tag, it takes me 15 mins. and client gets billed for .25 of an hour.
then at the end of the day the 4 hours i spent researches the google tide that day gets split among the clients i applied that work to. i like my clients, they trust me.. it's my WORD that i must be fair. and THANK GOD! the pricinpals at the company i work for think the same way.. of course that's alos probably part of the reason they have been in business for 20+ years.
so yes virginia.. there is a santa claus.
Paying an agency $10k per month to manage your campaign vs. hiring a quality candidate for the same $10k per month?
Which option will get you the most hours per month spent on your campaign?
Agencies have multiple clients and I would prefer to get what I pay for. How about an agency only charge me for the TIME they spend on my campaign each month - like a lawyer?
If this was a ridiculous and fruitless discussion, why was Kevin Lee one of the debaters? Last I checked he is Did-It’s Founder & Executive Chairman and one of SEMPO’s Board members.
Because you weren’t there, check out this clip from the debate -- http://www.youtube.com/user/DBESEM -- that covers just how non-trivial link building is to SEO success. Oh, be sure to catch Kevin’s comment that link building difficulty is “one of the reasons [Did-It] doesn’t do SEO anymore.�
And finally, unfortunately for agencies like mine, maybe some people prefer keeping search in-house because of insulting and self-serving columns like this…
but i still think Brad said it best, with or without the example...
“This Dave guy is annoying and he’s full of sh*t�.
Bottom line is this - a company, big or small, should rely on both in-house and agency experts (when needed) for search related initiatives. Why limit yourself to one or the other?
Of course tossing out an insult "...the only thing that an in-house search team should ever be doing is SEO, because it's a relatively trivial task..." is bound to stir up those of us that provide SEO services as well as manage PPC campaigns with yearly budgets over $1M. Sure, you can edit a few meta tags as easily as creating some ad campaigns, but those that know both sides of SEO/SEM know that neither can be done WELL if they are done "easily". Research, strategy, and experience all come into play with both to provide a professional service. The main difference that I tell people is that SEO is like taking a bitter medicine that provides a cure, and SEM is like taking Crack. SEM is more powerful, but it comes with a cost. :-)
On the one hand I tend to agree that SEO is not that hard, but doing it well is not easy. Part of the problem is that most of those providing SEO services still use "ranking" as a metric for sucess, which is like using the number of hits by two baseball teams to determine who won.
I think a dedicated in-house staff could easily out-perform a SEM company, given the right cercumstances. SEM staff may be called to work with many clients on different projects and lack the continual focus of an in-house SEM effort. While in-house SEM may lack some of the tools available to a SEM company, I feel that real SEM success is largely a matter of meaurement and refinement and inhouse staff may be able to better provide the concentrated focus that is needed. But I think all other things being equal the real difference will be seen as cost.
The inhouse SEM is probably not aware of the larger pay scale available when working for a SEM company. In some firms this is made possible by the SEM firm not only charging for services, but also by being an affiliate or partner of the search provider they recommend to the client. Yes, that's some additional revenue that is not easily available with SEO. Of course, I guess it would be possible for an inhouse person to position themselves that way also, but I have not heard about that occuring.
Seeing a demonstration would be interesting, but prove nothing. It would be like talking to a SEO company and asking to see what they got a client to rank for. The SEO company does a bunch of searches and then provides a few top rankings for the person that asked. Wow, these guys are good! If someone asked me to "prove" what I did was good, I could put some extra effort or even hire someone to make sure I could "prove" I was good. No, any "proof" needs to come from a track records of client results and from the clients. Sales or conversions, not rankings or traffic numbers and none of those damn "percentages" that companies always provide. "Traffic increased 160% and conversions increased 200%!". Yes, unique visitors went from 100 a month to 160 a month and sales conversions went from 2 to 4...
I think a far more interesting "debate" would be the one of SEM and SEO. Talk about your linkbait and getting people stirred up...!
Care to put your money where your mouth is?
How about you let someone bring in your wonderful company, give a campaign 3 or 4 months, then we show the results to the world. At that point we can either say "Wow, this Dave guy may be annoying but he sure is right" or we'll say "This Dave guy is annoying and he's full of sh*t".
You game?
Robert Pettee from LendingTree, LLC says: "I’ve been doing this for a long time as well, managing tens of millions annually in the space. I’d often agree with you, but your blanket approach stagnates what little progression the SEM talent pool is making already. "
Andrew Miller from Your Search Advisor says: "Nice generalization, Dave. Way to bait the audience into another self serving conversation. "
David Berkowitz from 360i says: "Well done, Dave - slam one spurious debate (which is an important decision for marketers but not necessarily one that can be easily debated) with even more spurious claims about SEO. "
Victoria White from Sallie Mae says: "not once have I seen the agency outperform the in-house campaign." (i like her point.. i imagine it could go either way depending on the person's committment.)
Marc Moore from Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina says: "I’m not sure if the intent of this posting is to be merely provactive, or is born out of pure contempt. "
Scott Brinker from ion interactive, inc. says: "relegating SEO/SEM only to the domain of outsourced agencies seems both unrealistic and undesirable in the grand scheme. "
And post a question: Why is this JERK, still writing for MediaPost? Is it to warn valuble clients like Lending Tree, Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Sallie Mae that BEWARE, PEOPLE in the SEM SPACE are self-serving and will say anything to make a sale? regardless of the facts?
If that is the intent.. then Clients.. beware... and MediaPost, good job and thanks for the warning of what to expect of vendors in the SEM/PPC space.
Maybe not for every business to the same degree, or at the same time in the industry evolution curve. I'm quite certain that there will be a thriving business of SEO/SEM specialists and outsourcers for many years to come.
But relegating SEO/SEM only to the domain of outsourced agencies seems both unrealistic and undesirable in the grand scheme.
The main reason we haven't looked to outsource is purely financial. With the additional fees that an agency would charge it would cost us around an additional $100k annually to outsource, and I don't think we would get that much value in return. We wouldn't necessarily reduce headcount to offset the new fees (I myself am part PPC, part SEO, part LPO, and part web usability) so the money would have to come from the search budget itself, and with the great results we are getting from SEM I'd hate to cut its budget one dollar.
Even though Corporate America does turn to outside help with "a major challenge", we don't see SEM as a major challenge. At its core is basic, fundamental direct response advertising which has been around longer than any of us. Maybe if Google goes completely "evil" and cuts off all attempts at transparency and refuses to help the poor and defenseless, we will call in the "rocket scientists".
As an SEO consultant and former in-house search engine marketer, I have worked with several clients whose in-house PPC teams have demonstrably outperformed their previous attempts at outsourcing PPC to some of the top-tier PPC agencies. This includes medium sized business as well as Fortune 500 clients. I know this because I used to work in-house with one of these talented PPC teams before going out on my own. As with anything else, it comes down to the knowledge and experience of the people running the program.
I give it a few more years, Dave, before the PPC industry becomes a commodity that can be managed by just about anybody using yet-to-be-developed tools and resources. We will see more companies building and recruiting in-house teams as they begin to realize that there are few, if any, PPC agencies that can generate 5-15% increased efficiency year over year to continue to justify their management fees.
Having worked on both sides of the fence, I'd say there's greater opportunity for collaboration and development with colleagues on the agency side, but don't completely discount the role that in-house SEMs have in managing their own campaigns. In the end, I'd agree that agencies win; they provide holistic approaches to campaign management, and your account manager will liaise regularly with clients in order to make your in-house campaign work better.
I've been doing this for a long time as well, managing tens of millions annually in the space. I'd often agree with you, but your blanket approach stagnates what little progression the SEM talent pool is making already.