Search Engine Marketing Firm vs an Ad Agency

Starting at Digital Brand Expressions back in October of 2006 as a marketing assistant, I was new to search engine marketing and didn’t quite know what to expect. On one hand, I thought that working here might be similar to the traditional marketing and advertising agencies where I’ve worked in the past. On the other hand, I knew that the work DBE does is so focused on a core set of services, that maybe it would be a more ordered and temperate environment than some of the agencies I had worked in before. It turns out that it’s a little of both.

Working in marketing and advertising agencies taught me how to manage several types of projects for a number of clients all at the same time. The deadlines were always tight, there were always several resources to manage for any given project, and there was always an element of controlled chaos in the day-to-day operations. Everybody had their own expertise and specific interests. There were strategists, copywriters, artists, production managers, media buyers, etc., who were each one piece in a big puzzle. That’s the big difference between a traditional advertising agency and a search engine marketing agency: the SEM agency is composed of one team who all have the same focus and area of expertise.

Devoting all resources to search engine marketing enables the staff to become definitive experts in the SEM field and keep abreast of new trends and strategies as they develop. This in turn builds a strong, smart team who are all working and thinking together to get the best possible results for the clients. While the pace may be similar to a traditional marketing agency, with work being done for many different clients at once, the way the team pulls together to seamlessly deliver analysis, reports, research and recommendations is a much smoother process than having to pull in different resources for each type of project.

Working at a search engine marketing agency encompasses many of the aspects I love about marketing. There’s always something new to learn, a new web site and brand to delve into and new industries to discover. But most importantly, there’s the satisfaction of knowing that I’m part of a team that is genuinely great at what they do.