"Hiring For Search (Marketing)"

Digital Media - a magazine for the Asian market by BrandRepublic - interviewed me a couple of months back for a piece they were doing on Search Marketing. Here's the piece:

(Continued below)

My exact answers to the questions were:
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Q1. When it comes to hiring a search agency, what are the advantages and disadvantages of hiring a specialist over a general media agency?

PPC is easy set up and run, so the general media agencies can compete with the specialists. However, to really optimise the return-on-ad-spend or ROI, you need a specialist who understands the ins and outs and knows the "tricks". Over the last few years, general media agencies have hired specialists to run their PPC campaigns. So this is more balanced. But as a
client, I want direct access to that specialist and not through an Account Manager. This is because even specialists would not have experience in my industry, and industry input is needed to optimise.

SEO is still such a hazy field, maybe a large part is due to the fact thatthe search engines keep everyone guessing at their algorithms. Specialists are in a better position to keep up to date with the search engines and have the necessary tools and knowledge to do this effectively. General media agencies will claim to perform SEO, but they really do not understand this
field. Many focus mostly on search engine submissions and basic meta tagging, but do not understand the need content optimise based on keyword popularity.


Q2. In general, do you think the extra revenue gained from a specialist's expertise is worth the extra management and research it may require on the part of the advertiser?

For my PPC campaigns, I use both a specialist and a general media agency. I learn a lot from the specialist and at the same time can work with them to test out ideas and tweak my campaigns further. I then try to implement these learnings into my other campaigns with the general media agency. This is the same approach I take to regular reports in order to establish
consistency across campaigns. If the advertiser does not have the domain knowledge or the resource dedicated to PPC, then it should engage a specialist. It is worth the money if the terms are correctly defined - especially for "pay for performance" contracts.

For SEO, I have not encountered a general media agency that I would feel comfortable giving my account to.

Q3. Do you need to understand the technical side of search to go with
a specialist?

You go with the specialist to get that experience. As an advertiser, you need to understand and develop the right key performance indices (KPIs) for your SEO and PPC marketing. You do not need to get "technical" but you should understand the basics of what search engines do and how SEO and PPC works. This knowledge must be integrated with your knowledge of your
industry and business. The KPIs are specific for you because even specialist do not understand your business as well as you do.

Q4. Using a general media agency usually means better integration with the rest of your media strategy. How important do you think this is?

The general media agency should be able to understand your industry and business better than the specialists because they have had a long relationship with you. For a specific integrated campaign with online, print, TV etc (with specific campaign periods), general media agencies are in a better position to understand integrated marketing. It takes more time to get the specialists involved in such a campaign.

For a hotel group, over 90% of our PPC and SEO activities are constant and on-going, rather than fixed-period "campaigns". I have been promoting internally the concept of "PPC As A Sales Channel". So this "edge" that the general media agencies have are really for a minor part of the search engine marketing portfolio.

Q5. How can advertisers best choose which option (specialist or generalist) is best for them? How important is the pitch process in doing so?

It depends on how knowledgeable the advertiser is and how much resources the advertiser can put into it. If you know your KPIs and are comfortable with steering from a strategic direction standpoint (or only have resources to do so), then engage a good general media agency. If you do not have the time and resources, or need to understand more in order to establish KPIs, or
want to get deeply involve in tacticals and new developments, then look for a specialist.

With the pitch, you want to talk to the specialist within the general media agency. You need to establish that the person doing the work understands your needs and KPIs. If you have a good AM or AD that can facilitate this, this is good, but you still want to meet the brains.
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I don't have a link, but I will find it.....