Outsourcing of SEO, PPC, and Social Media is on the Rise

According to a report produced by Econsultancy and SEMPO, the non-profit organisation for the search marketing industry, the number of companies outsourcing SEO, PPC and social media has increased in the past year.  

The results of the 2011 State of Search Marketing Report are surprising, considering the growing importance of these disciplines to companies wishing to succeed online.  The assumption would be that organisations would be keen to bring SEO, PPC and social media in-house, but it seems that the opposite is true.

The report shows that the number of companies handling SEO in-house dropped from 51% to 44% from 2010 to 2011, and the number managing PPC internally fell from 47% to 38%.  Similarly social media outsourcing has also increased with only 55% of companies keeping this in-house compared to 62% in 2010.

The report, which was based on a survey of 900 client-side advertisers and agencies, found a number of key reasons for the increase in outsourcing of search engine marketing; a lack of in-house skills and time and a lack of tools and technology.  The economic benefits were also mentioned, and the main driver for outsourcing social media was found to be that it is too time consuming to manage internally.

Although many businesses do not seem to be able to find the time or resources to manage their search marketing and social media in house, if they are to succeed with external agencies they need to ensure there is some internal understanding of these practices.  Without some knowledge of what tasks need to be performed and why, companies will never be able to effectively manage these agencies or their online campaigns.