Search engine marketing has revolutionized the way businesses and customers connect. According to the sources, approximately 63 percent of business-to-business buyers use search engines as the first source of information when making purchasing decisions.
According to MarketingSherpa, search advertising, including pay-per-click (PPC) and pay-per-call, accounts for the majority of the total spend on SEM. JupiterResearch estimates that search advertising will reach nearly $9 billion by 2007, up from $7 billion in 2006.
What’s more efficient? Is it partnering with an experienced search agency or is it keeping things inhouse? In relation to a paid search campaign, it comes down to three things: The amount of time and money there is to spend, how many keywords are going to be targetted, and the amount of sleep you have got used to.
If you’re a small company only going after a few keywords, then its totally feasible to keep everything inhouse. Put someone in charge of running your search marketing campaign, lead them to the appropriate resources and then turn them loose. There’s no better way to learn about or get an appreciation for the industry then to jump in feet first and learn.
When the campaign gets bigger and more competitive, is when things start to get a bit more complicated. Most search marketers know that once you start collecting more and more keywords, the battle becomes much harder. This isn’t five years ago when you could just buy your way into the results. Its not about how much you can afford to pay, but who has the most relevant ad. And there are any number of variables that all go into determine how relevant your ad is deemed to be, things like ad copy and landing page content. This is where the expertise and experience of a search agency really becomes invaluable.