Managing Outside Vendors

I have participated in a few conversations recently about hiring outside people to perform marketing functions such as pay per click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimization (SEO). The experience that most seem to have is that the agency they hire does not perform or live up to expectation. Some have a vendor that performs well initially, then efforts seem to decline as time goes on. The result is that the client often feels taken advantage of and sometimes even soured to the field of search engine marketing (SEM).

So what is a small, or medium-sized business to do? Many organizations can't afford a full-time marketer, let alone one that is dedicated to SEM. At the same time it is extremely important to participate in online marketing to stay competitive. What steps can you take to make sure you aren't taken advantage of?

Here are a few steps to make your SEM experience a good one:

1. Learn - Develop a basic understanding of SEM and best practices. When you know the basics of SEM it will be much easier to know what you are looking for in a vendor, how to measure their success, and what you want them to do.
2. Set Goals - Know what you want your vendor to achieve, not overall long-range goals, but measurable short-term goals. This can be anything from the amount of increased traffic to the number of blog posts, or both.
3. Hire for Specific Actions - This will take more of your time to manage, but it will make you more involved, and less likely to be taken advantage of. So hire a separate vendor to work with your web developers in on-page optimization, a separate person for link building, and a separate person to run your PPC campaigns. 

These steps will make you better prepared to manage the SEM efforts of your vendors and help to ensure your aren't being taken advantage of.