1. You are steadily building internal capabilities in a number of areas (search, social media, PR). What’s behind that decision and what are your long term plans for balancing in-house with outsourced services?

We are expanding our in-house capabilities to align with continually increasing growth objectives. Five years ago when we first engaged Serengeti as a partner, we were a young, start-up company and were working toward establishing a successful marketing strategy. Since then, we have matured significantly as an organization and have invested in a deeper and broader team of in-house talent to oversee, manage and execute our growth initiatives. Even so, we maintain relationships with a team of partners who are experts in various aspects of marketing and who can infuse new perspectives and industry ideas as well as efficiently complement in-house skills and capacity. Looking to the future, I expect us to continue to deepen our in-house competencies while maintaining and expanding key partnerships that we view as critical to our success.

2. Describe your in-house PPC program, how it is organized, etc.

Our PPC program is essentially managed by one individual. As context, we run thousands of keyword campaigns on Google, Yahoo and MSN, and the PPC program generates a significant portion of our leads. In other words, the success of this program is critical to our growth objectives. On a quarterly basis, Serengeti provides a detailed audit for us, along with recommendations for optimizing leads and efficiencies.

3. Why did you take PPC in-house?

We wanted to focus Serengeti on new initiatives (social engagement/viral opportunities, analytics, etc.) and recognized that having in-house talent with an “institutional ear to the ground” would give us a greater ability to incorporate organizational news/positioning and leverage other marketing initiatives within this critical channel.

4. What were/are the biggest issues/challenges of taking PPC in-house; how did you overcome?

As previously mentioned, the PPC program is critical to us. Our biggest concern was that the effectiveness of the current program would be compromised during the transition process. Fortunately, our worst fear was not realized; in fact, the transition was extremely smooth.

5. What were/are the biggest benefits of taking PPC in-house?

For one, adjustments are able to be done more quickly, because we can make them directly and our team is exclusively dedicated to our brand. We also experienced some cost savings by doing this in-house, both directly and in opportunity cost. Finally, as mentioned before, the ability for dedicated, in-house personnel to directly leverage institutional knowledge helped us more quickly expand and deepen our PPC program.

6. How do you stay current with industry trends, etc.

Attending conferences/webinars; reading industry news (e.g.,tools.SEO.book.com, SEOpros.org). Look for tips on the search engines, and good SEM vendors will share trends and article/new application ideas with you on a regular basis.

7. Is ROI of PPC improving?

Yes, but that’s a tricky question since our PPC program is more mature now. We have exploited many of the high-yield efficiencies, but we are still uncovering incremental efficiencies all the time. Ultimately – and more importantly for us, we’re maintaining our ROI while generating a steady increase in leads by utilizing new PPC channels and expanding current aspects of the program.

8. What kind of training/skills updates do you use to keep your staff current?

We give our staff open communication channels with our partners to brainstorm and exchange ideas; we offer opportunities to attend local and national industry conferences and skills training seminars; and we give them access to cross-train with in-house staff in other areas of the organization.

9. What advice would you give to a company that is considering taking PPC (or any other marketing channel) in-house?

1. Weigh carefully the short-term and long-term benefits of your current setup versus making any change.
2. Obtain buy- in from management/partners and think carefully about your time horizon and other operational or market conditions that could or should impact your transition/timing.
3. If you decide to make a change, establish a thoughtful transition plan with your vendor and work together to establish success milestones and clear expectations and benchmarks for measuring results.