What is the best structure for a Paid Search Marketing team?
How have you defined the roles within your teams?
Have you split your team into specialists or generalists?
Are you outsourcing some of your responsibilities?
Clarification added February 9, 2008:
I am particularly interested in what your experiences are in structuring a large Paid Search Marketing team within an agency.
This could be either a specialist SEM or full service media agency.
Answers (7)
Kent L.
President & Founder of Anvil & Formic Media - SEM & social media marketing agencies
Best Answers in: Search Marketing (17), Internet Marketing (13), Public Relations (5), Advertising (2), Offshoring and Outsourcing (1), Direct Marketing (1), Guerrilla Marketing (1), Viral Marketing (1), Business Analytics (1), Career Management (1), Web Development (1)
While my experience has been agency side as the outsourced SEM/PPC vendor, I can offer some insights from our experience. When determining whether or not to build a team or outsource, the first step is assessing the size and scope of your need (or your PPC program potential). For example, if you plan to spend hundreds or millions, but not in between, it's fairly easy to make an in-house decision, as small monthly spends are difficult to outsource effectively, and large spends are easier to justify building an in-house team. If I were building an in-house team for a relatively large spend, I would start with a PPC specialist...someone that can manage the bids and analytics on a daily basis. The overall strategy is best developed by you and an SEM agency or seasoned PPC consultant, as you'll avoid spending additional cash on a bigger salary for a strategist in-house when it's not really needed. If the account continues to grow beyond what 1 specialist and bid management software can manage, then I'd look at rolling out an additional specialist before bringing in a seasoned manager/strategist. As an agency guy, I have to say that research indicates agency professionals outperform in-house specialists 9 out of 10 times...for a variety of reasons. I've provided a few resources below, including an article about selecting the right SEM vendor, should you decide to outsource the entire PPC program.
Links:
The resource requirements for effecient and effective delivery of Search Marketing services
has shifted significantly in a relatively short period of time. Largely driven by the rapid
emergence of a growing number of vendors within this sector, giving existing and would-be clients
greater level of choice. In reaction to these market forces the provision of these services has led
to more efficient management of client budgets and more effective delivery of Search campaigns.
In a time gone by, but not too distant past, are the days where one account manager would manage
mulitple accounts, and this account manager would be the only person working on these accounts.
Relationship manager and campaign manager are a couple of hats this single point of contact would wear.
One other reason for this shift is intelligence-led campaign management/optimization. In all effort to
deliver a more effective campaign, more data is being sought and analyzed - from click weighting (or assisting keywords) to on-site and off-site analytics.
On the whole there has been a significant shift in the amount of time that is spent with clients in an effort to add incremental value. More resource is being assigned to relationship building and management, more time in reporting and presentation of results, and more time in gathering, sharing, and application of intelligence through analytics. These are all specialist areas.
I plan adwords campaigns for many different clients, I have one assistant who does ad placement and one research assistant. I would structure a skeleton team then grow as demand grows - SEM isn't overly complicated. The initial work into keyword research and buying your initial phrases, eventually moving into exact vs broad match - is where the most time is spent, after that - it's simply watching seasonal changes and making adjustments.
Anand K.
Regional Director, Ad Operations, General Motors Team at Carat Asiapacific
Feedback from Singapore Full service media agency
For aggressive b2b campaigns we used the following structure
- Adgroup/Bucket Planning : by Media Manager/Account Manager
- forecasts/Analytics/Optimisation/Reporting : Digital Planner / Media Manager
- Trafficking / vendor & client co-ordination : Traffic/Account exec
Hi Rian
I've worked in Search for a while and to be honest I think agencies can have too many people for search campaigns. Probably not want you want to hear; but i would have the following:
- Account Manager, responsible to client relationship in regular contact with them discussing all aspects of their marketing strategy on and offline.
- Keyword Researcher, talks to Editorial, Stats and AM and comparative analysis
- Editorial, creating and uploading the copy
- Stats/Tracking analyst person, Reports to all
- Google Account Manager; let's be honest you need them on your side. Their other responsibilities my include Yahoo and MSN :)
- Team Leader
The way the industry is going agency campaigns are coming under more pressure from the affiliate channels; so you really need to make sure you are always accountable and comparable when it comes to the bottom line revenues. If your client has an affiliate program, then get as deeply involved as possible to under how you are doing as an agency; so i'd potentially add an affiliate manager on to the team depending on your client.
My two bits. good luck with your team
Richard C.
Online Controller at Home Retail Group PLC
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (2), Computer Networking (1)
For me paid search is a integral part of our marketing mix. As a consequence a large focus is put on the area. In my career, I have used both agencies and led in-house teams.
I think the right approach differs per sector and the nature of the business. We have two internal experts within the business and then a team of people who work on specific areas. This allows us to manage based on product availability and variable pricing.
There's no right answer to this, but here are three things which I think are important:
1. The structure is not as important as the kind of people in it. Too many agencies still staff up with soft-skilled marketing-type people. I have nothing against those type of people, but paid search is all about maths and analysis. When I'm hiring, I always look for maths skills, not marketing ones.
2. I don't think paid search is complex enough to carve up all the different roles (keyword gen, bid mgmt, copy writing etc) to different people. If you've hired smart people, they will become all round experts in no time at all. If you try to de-skill the process by compartmentalising it, then the final output will be poor.
3. Don't let people do what a computer does better. Too many agencies hire bright graduates and then grind them into a pulp by using them as Excel monkeys. If you don't make a significant and continual investment in technology (and I don't just mean bid management!) then you won't be able to cope.
