Deciding where to begin in terms of setting your search-related budget is no easy feat. To this day, multinational companies and industry veterans still struggle with the ever changing search engine "world" and its myriad of costly nuances. A good place to start is to look at the type of business you have and the market you cater to. Are you a B2B or B2C company? That alone will be able to help steer you through the search strategy budget maze. B to B's article "Stark contrast in use of new media between b-to-b, b-to-c companies" talks about their online new media survey and the differences between responses from b to b versus b to c companies. Additionaly, their article on "Survey: Search competition doesn't guarantee bigger budgets" also sheds light on how market competition affects or doesn't affect budgeting:
For most b-to-b search marketers, larger budgets follow solid results rather than simply reflecting the scale of the competitive challenge," said Ben Hanna, VP- marketing at Business.com, in a news release. "Being effective in b-to-b search marketing today means understanding the competition, making the right keyword choices and choosing the combination of general search engines and specialized business search sites that deliver the best return.
Where do you even start? According to Kevin Lee's post on "Setting a Search Marketing Budget", in the rush to set a figure around your SEM budget, you might make costlier mistakes. Here is what he says on avoiding this pitfall:
Before diving in, it's better to collect and analyze data regarding what kind of search listings, creative, and keywords work for you. This can be done while running more flexible deals on a variety of nonportal venues before committing to a portal deal. Both Google and Overture provide great levels of control with listings that are displayed on major portals.
At the end of the day the name of the game is allocation. How much of your marketing pie are you going to slice away for internet or search related programs? Al Diguido gives a good defense for strengthening your email strategy in Marketing Budget Allocation: Follow the Money.
You are the best judge of what would work for your company. Your budget is technically what you can afford that you hope can give you the highest returns possible. Spending on SEO or SEM may feel like a shot in the dark sometimes, but in the long run, if well planned out with the right people internally or externally guiding you, should give you your big gains.
