3 Reasons For/Against Using Software For Your SEM

If you are reading this article it means that, most likely, you are manning your own Google search engine marketing or you want to step into this world. You’ve wondered if you are getting everything you expected.  You’ve questioned the ROI of the wonderful world of Google Adwords.  There are many moving pieces to Google marketing and that’s not even taking into account Yahoo and Bing.

Below are three reasons for outsourcing to a software platform.  We’ll also look at three reasons to not go with a consultant to manage your digital marketing.

Three Reasons For:

• Time
•  This is a business persons most valuable resource.  Time management is paramount when running a business, department or your marketing.  Everyone needs to be able to budget their time in a way that they get the most out of their day.  The goal is to get as much done is as little time possible so you can go home and spend the rest of your valuable time with your family.
• 1 hour
• This is the amount of time you should allow each day to manage your online search engine marketing.
• There are lots of moving pieces to check.
• Bids
• Ads
• Landing pages
• Conversions
• Competition
• Click Thru Rates
• Etc.
• How much is your time worth?
• If you are a local Philadelphia small business person that makes $100k a year, then on average that hour is worth $48.
• With that in mind, you should be checking it each day and once on the weekend.  Search engine campaigns can run 24/7.
• Each month, that adds up to almost $1,200 of time.  This is on top of what you are spending for the marketing.
• Using software, like ReachLocal, will enable you to use that time to build your company and give you back 24 hours each month.
• Expertise
• Most small to medium sized businesses in the Philadelphia area are experts in their line of service and they dabble in finance, marketing, HR and legal.
• For instance, I am an expert in search engine marketing but not in 401ks and business law.  This is why I outsource to the experts in those areas.
• Software can help streamline and manage the components of Google Adwords so you can look at the big picture.
• Software will track and monitor what keyword, at what price, is driving the right type of conversion.
• Then when you work with a digital marketing consultant, they can game plan with you to determine the areas of success and areas of weakness in the campaigns.
• Scope
• When running digital and mobile marketing, there are a number of platforms that you need to be active on.
• Google
• Yahoo 
• Bing
• Each platform has a desk top and mobile program that needs to be managed and tracked.
• With a software program like ReachLocal, you can seamlessly run you ads on each area and make sure that you are moving budget to the areas that are successful.
• One of the biggest mistakes I see local Philly businesses make is not taking advantage of traffic from Yahoo and Bing.
• Google accounts for  67%, and this number is falling as Yahoo and Bing make strategic partnerships to increase their market share.
• Can you afford to not go after 33% of your potential new customers?  Your competition is most likely hoping you do not.

Three Reasons Against:

• Budget
• If you are a small one person operation and/or have annual revenues under $250k a year, I typically recommend that you run a Google only campaign yourself.
• Typically we recommend that you plan for 5% of your revenue to go toward your marketing budget.  With a monthly budget of $12,500 for all marketing, this means that $6250 toward digital marketing.  We always suggest that you have half of your marketing in traditional forms of advertising and half in online marketing.
• If you are investing $500 a month toward digital marketing a month, you need all of those funds to compete against the big boys.  One of the main reasons small businesses fail at search engine marketing is that they don’t invest enough and they don’t monitor that investment.
• Keywords
• If you are a locksmith, there are only so many ways to say that you are a locksmith.
• Most of the clients, that we work with, have many profit centers and many ways to have potential clients look for them.
• Example:
• Retirement Community
• I work with a number of retirement and assisted living facilities.  Each has a number of profit centers and we have keywords and text ads for all of them.
• Retirement living
• Assisted Living
• Personal Care
• Dementia Assistance
• In Home Care
• Etc.
• It would be near impossible for a local retirement community to manage each of these ad groups and text ads.
• Hands On
• If you are someone that loves technology and has a passion for numbers, then outsourcing PPC to a consultant doesn’t make sense.  Running Google Adwords can be a lot of fun, if you have the time to crunch numbers and monitor it every day.
• I’ve worked with some clients that want to be able to manage the minutia.  When it comes to software running PPC campaigns, this is typically not how software works.  The software is doing that for you so you can achieve maximum return.

In conclusion, it’s important to weigh each side of the equation. Always balance the pluses and minuses so that you can make an informed decision.

Feel free to email me with any additional questions.

Eric Laylon
Senior Internet Marketing Consultant
610-667-4595