In an increasingly fragmented and multichannel world, sometimes it’s better to live and breathe together as group

Digital marketing today is more challenging than ever before. There are, of course, plenty of third-party firms that can help but the big question is this: should you outsource or should you keep it in house?

There are more pros than cons, it seems, to keeping it in the family.

1. In a fragmented, multichannel digital world, an in-house team can be more pro-active

“In the past you would invest in one channel, such as search engine marketing, and then you would analyse how that channel was performing in a fairly isolated way,” says Matteo Cellini, head of search at Venere.

But that’s not a wise approach today as many users may start on the mobile brand website, then move to a desktop or tablet; they may then search an OTA, before doing their final check on metasearch.

By keeping its digital marketing activity in-house, UK-based chain Shire Hotels says it is able to be proactive rather than reactive. “We can also reposition or build on it at anytime,” says Sam Wilson, e-Commerce Marketing Manager, Shire Hotels

2. Sticking to your core means you can run a tighter ship  

Everything today is more tightly integrated than in the past, so making different channels work together is challenging at the best of times, and can be complicated by outsourcing to a third party.

“In my experience, if you outsource any aspect of your digital marketing efforts, it only moves it further from the core of the business, and the pulse of complimentary activities,” says Cellini.

Clearly, the nature of digital marketing has changed and today all aspects from SEO to SEM, brand marketing on social media, email, PR and so on, need to work together more closely.

As Cellini points out, search engine optimisation used to be more straightforward.

“In the past we did a lot of technical audits, and engaged in popular activities like link building to establish if we were ranking for certain terms or whether we had a presence on news sites and whether they were linking back,” explains Cellini. 

However, since the agencies that bought and sold links have now been tackled by the likes of Google, link earning has become more important than link building. What this means is that the industry has to work harder to earn references, and gain popularity. That’s meant brands have had to work harder to produce content that people actually want to read.

“If you are doing it externally it’s more complicated to get buy in to take forward,” says Cellini.

So having everybody under the same roof means that teams can talk to each other more easily.

4. It’s more cost effective and easier to get people round the table  

For organisations trying to keep costs down outsourcing can be pricey.

“Agencies typically charge between £70 - £150 per hour (non London prices) depending on what you need executing and they charge for account handling in addition to that,” says Wilson.

Having said that Wilson would “never rule an agency out purely on a cost basis, because you generally get what you pay for”. 

Having people in-house also means that you can schedule meetings with the team and juggle tasks accordingly. “It’s very useful having developers, community coordinators, designers and search engine marketers on hand to implement innovation and changes,” he adds.

5. There are always exceptions, so what to look for? 

In an ideal world all activity would be done internally although outsourcing allows firms to expand their in-house capabilities. 

Of course, when a particular skillset doesn’t exist within a team, working with an external supplier may be necessary.

Wilson’s approach is to treat an agency as an extension of his team and to stay very involved in the process.

This enables his department to reduce costs, while ensuring that he has clear understanding of how everything is built and that it is built to specification.

When looking for partners, Wilson looks for firms “large enough to get the job done but small enough to care and listen”.

Other points to consider are creativity, vision and technical ability.