Agency vs. In-House - How To Strike The Perfect Balance | Benchmark Search Conference 2016
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From Click Consult's Benchmark Search Conference 2016, Bridgewater Hall, 12th July. Presented by Alan Reeves, Click Consult - Agency vs. In-House - How To Strike The Perfect Balance. #benchmarkconf2016
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Agency vs. In-House - How To Strike The Perfect Balance | Benchmark Search Conference 2016
- 1. Agency vs. In-House How to Strike the Perfect Balance Date: 12/07/16 Alan Reeves Director of Search www.click.co.uk alan.reeves@click.co.uk
- 2. Available to download www.click.co.uk/documents www.click.co.uk
- 3. Available to download www.click.co.uk/documents www.click.co.uk
- 4. Assumptions - No half measures - Agencies have greater scale - Success is equally possible in-house or agency - So you can find the right people - Limited to SEO www.click.co.uk
- 5. Objectives - What does success look like? www.click.co.uk
- 8. Objectives - What does success look like? - Try to be SMART - Use KPIs like Sessions, Revenue, ROI, Gross Profit - Can be led from client or agency side - Who will be accountable? - Agencies can use additional resource www.click.co.uk
- 9. Cost - Time is money - Agency fee or finding, paying, training and keeping staff - How many specialists? www.click.co.uk
- 10. SEO Strategy Technical Content Outreach Social PPC Strategy Optimisation Feed Management Support Account Management Analytics Creative UX / CRO Web Development
- 11. SEO Strategy Technical Content Outreach Social PPC Strategy Optimisation Feed Management Support Account Management Analytics Creative UX / CRO Web Development
- 12. Cost - Time is money - Agency fee or finding, paying, training and keeping staff - How many specialists? - Time taken to find and manage an agency - Agility and scalability www.click.co.uk
- 13. Expertise - Are they an expert? www.click.co.uk
- 14. 8% 11% 12% 29% 19% 18% 32% 43% 29% 22% 18% 27% 9% 10% 14% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Data Analysis and Analytics Paid Search Organic Search Level of knowledge None– A Little– Some– Thorough– Expert–
- 15. Expertise - Are they an expert? - Ongoing training and development - Search, Digital or Marketing experience - Meet the whole agency team www.click.co.uk
- 16. Tools - What tools are needed? www.click.co.uk
- 18. Tools - What tools are needed? - Increase efficiency - Provide data and insights - Multiple tools needed for best results - Cost and knowledge to utilise tools www.click.co.uk
- 19. Efficiency - Strategically prioritise work www.click.co.uk
- 21. Efficiency - Strategically prioritise work - Transparency and trust is needed - Reporting must add value - Agencies focus on efficiency www.click.co.uk
- 22. Detail - Efficient doesn’t mean less detail www.click.co.uk
- 23. www.click.co.uk
- 24. Detail - Efficient doesn’t mean less detail - Most agencies use templates - Peer review all work? - Review strategy ‘often’ - In-house you have just the 1 ‘client’ www.click.co.uk
- 25. Creativity - Needs to be part of culture - More ideas the better - Provide an example - Review previous work - Agencies draw on what has worked for other clients www.click.co.uk
- 26. www.click.co.uk
- 27. Strategy - In-house integrated with wider business strategy - Agency focus on specific tactics and workflow - Collaboration is best in line with expertise - Comes back to accountability www.click.co.uk
- 28. Technical - Access permitting - Security and version control - Most agencies want to audit - Regular health checks www.click.co.uk
- 29. Content - Complex subject or complicated product? - Know your audience - Specific tone of voice and brand guidelines - Need Content plan based on keywords and themes - Agency train and review www.click.co.uk
- 30. Outreach - Agencies leverage existing relationships - Content created for third-party audience - Not guaranteed to work - Must be organic - Best to be strategic www.click.co.uk
- 31. www.click.co.uk Available to download www.click.co.uk/documents
- 32. www.click.co.uk
- 33. Expectations - Objectives and targets need to be SMART - Priorities have to be aligned - Specify workflow, timescales and deliverables - Ensure cover for leave, sickness and growth www.click.co.uk
- 34. Communication - Build trust and understanding - Be open, honest and transparent - Micro-management rarely most efficient - Agree involvement of key people - Set communication plan www.click.co.uk
- 35. Thank you www.click.co.uk/documents Alan Reeves Director of Search DDI 0845 205 0270 Email alan.reeves@click.co.uk Website www.click.co.uk uk.linkedin.com/in/alanreeves1
Editor's Notes
- Talk about outsourcing to an agency versus hiring an in-house team As you may have noticed I work at agency, but haven’t always Promise tried my best to be non-bias Spoken to current and former clients, friend in-house, staff that worked in-house when I hired them Show of hands – how many agency, then in-house In-house – keep hand up if use an agency for search
- Scorecard – 13 questions 7 areas To find your priorities and success factors
- Your scores multiplied by these numbers Multipliers are based on relative strengths of agency vs in-house Now its important to note that while none of the 7 area have same multiplier total are equal Even playing field no favouritism
- Going to do it – do it right Not necessarily enterprise level large in-house teams Ability to find the people to do the job
- All starts with your objectives
- I don’t mean being position 1 for everything
- This one is for you James
- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound Not ranking – rank in what location or device The one responsible should lead objectives Don’t force objectives onto someone with limited resource or budget If below objectives agencies have flexibility to add resource to campaign. So very important with high multipliers but slightly in favour of agency
- At the end of the day time is money Both at agencies or client side you pay their staff to work for certain hours More hours and resources = higher the cost Consider not just home many people but home many need to be a specialist in a particular field
- This represents the structure within our company Other large agencies will have same or similar with dedicated specialists in each area
- In-house won’t need an AM Although may need someone to project manage May not need orange depending on type of campaign and maturity Still leaves 6 specialism's that an in-house team will need to have for SEO alone
- On flip side it takes time to manage an agency – communication will be key Consider how agile and flexible you want to be Taking advantage in short term opportunity maybe easier with agency If you don’t over resource or spend too much on tools it should be cheaper to do in-house Otherwise the agency will making no money In-house has a considerably higher multiplier for cost
- First things first are they an expert?
- March sent out a survey to over 300,0000 people within marketing roles Asked to rate their level of knowledge 41% said Thorough or Expert in Organic Search Only 31% in data analysis Bare in mind only 21% of respondents described their role as entry level, the rest were management or senior management
- How do they stay an expert in their field, or how much will that cost you Different types of experience can all help Only chose an agency if their teams combined expertise would outweigh any you could afford in-house So Agency edges this one
- What tools are needed for a successful SEO campaign?
- A selection of tools we use for SEO All would add value to an in-house team
- There is no tools that truly does SEO for you. It’s not as easy as getting 1 tool that does each job, multiple tools are needed for the best decisions e.g. when doing a link analysis we pull data from Open Site Explorer, Majestic, ahrefs and Google Search Console Agencies invest a lot into having the best tools and technology, an amount that couldn’t be cost effective for a small in-house team As such Agency takes this one
- Need to prioritise work into an order that is going to have the greatest benefit So not what we fondly refer to as ... HIPPO
- Not HIPPO e.g. when MD is annoyed the site is slow getting 100/100 on Google PageSpeed insights isn’t the priority when you have no content and a load of toxic links
- Takes transparency and trust Keep communication open between teams and agencies You can’t expect any team to maximise your profit if you are unwilling to share margins On the flip side a team cannot expect trust if they don’t show you what they are working on But please don’t over report, must add valu These things are equally challenging in-house and with an agency Will have tasks they are only required once, Every blue moon in-house but agencies do for every client – they will be faster at this As such agency has slightly higher multiplier
- Being efficient does not mean going into less detail or cutting corners As they say the devil is in the detail
- So can anyone spot the devil
- Most agencies will use templates, good ensuring no area is missed But you don’t want the same generic audit their last 5 clients got Think what work will need peer reviewed – build into your capacity Often = full analysis at least every 3-4 months However never get around the fact that in-house have 1 clients where an agency will have many As such in-house edges this area
- Final area is creativity More ideas the better, although not bad ideas When hiring agency or in-house you ideal want to see an example bespoke to you and their previous work Find agencies tend to draw on what has proven to be successful for other clients and not want to go too outrageous – play it safe a little In-house teams less likely to do this so they edge creativity
- Great based on how you score those 7 areas the scorecard will recommend you to outsource or build in-house However you could split SEO into these 4 specialisms and it be better to outsource any combination of them.
- Typically in-house responsibility to ensure integration or at least all the information is provided for an agency to do it If an agency is involved they will typically want to focus on the specific tactics and quantities Basically take recommendation from where the expertise lies to make decisions Comes back to accountability, Can’t force an agency to follow your strategy and then hold them accountable if it doesn’t work
- Technical SEO this is one of the most common completed in-house Often full access is not provided to avoid security issues and conflicting changes However most agencies will want to performance technical audits even if they can’t make changes, need to be sure nothing is going to hinder success and check that nothing has changed
- We work with several clients that complete content in-house particularly web copy Often preferred with complex subjects or products But you need to know your audience and understand how to communicate with them May be better written in laymen terms than the technical jargon used by the business
- Outreach is the specialism that has the greatest economies of scale Leveraging relationships built across multiple clients and campaign is much more cost-effective than building new ones Often find that clients will struggle to understand outreach content is not PR or advertisement of their business It is content that needs to appeal to audiences of bloggers, influencers and online publications Agency can guarantee deliverable (min number of links) Remember its an area that has the most severe consequences for doing wrong – must be organic Proven it is also best to be strategic in what type, quality and quantity of links you target
- Based on those considerations the scorecard will take your answers and times them by slightly differently multipliers for each area Then recommend what is best to do in each As promised it isn’t bias to always pick agency
- So there you have the right balance. Download it and have a go If you are going to work with an agency though I just want to reiterate 2 things that I believe are most important to get right
- Make sure all parties understand and agree with what is expected of them No excuses and no scapegoats Ensure your priorities are aligned, don’t expect the priority treatment for a low fee, or to see huge volumes of outreach if the priority is content Don’t leave yourself short on resource when you need it most
- You have to build trust and understanding. How often have you asked yourself – does this agency really understand our business? But have you made every effort to help them, invited them in, shown them your operation and shared your values Do your due diligence but if you hire an expert to perform, let them do it If you buy into certain key people in a pitch agree their ongoing involvement if they won’t be the ones doing the ongoing work Set a communication plan to meet and speak including how often, who attends, what is discussed Do these 2 things and you’ll give yourself the best chance of success.