An increasingly common Search Engine Marketing problem faced by many large corporations is that of Sponsored/PPC keyword management.

While many large companies have a centralized marketing department that all their divisions market through, others have decentralized marketing. With decentralized marketing, different divisions of the same company (who each have their own website) can find themselves bidding against each other for the same keyword on the same Search Engine – a very costly practice for the corporation and one that drives up the cost of prime keywords.

When you consider that there are basically only three major Search Engines that account for over 96% of all searches done in North America – it is easy to see why the divisions find themselves bidding for the same phrases on the same pieces of Search Engine real estate.

To address this problem, corporations need to reassess their view of sponsored keywords and Search Engine Marketing. Sponsored keywords need to be seen as a limited resource that must be effectively allocated to the correct division(s) to ensure optimal corporate profit and to meet corporate goals. Corporations need to establish set sponsored keyword controls and review mechanisms that ensure that over-all corporate objectives are being placed before those of individual divisions.

For those corporations with affiliates it is essential that the affiliates be a part of the overall corporate keyword assignment process. At the very least, affiliates should be included in the control process for those brand terms that they are going to be allowed to bid upon.

There is no one simple solution to this problem, each corporation must find the method that best suits their organizations. Whether it is assigning the entire task to a centralized Marketing Department, setting up keyword review boards, or seeking assistance from external consultants – each corporation must find the method that works best for it.

Perspective

To put this matter into the whole Search Engine Marketing control picture – it must be remembered that the above discussion is about Sponsored keywords – Organic keywords have a different set of corporate issues. In general, Organic keywords should be left open to all divisions to work on – as having several of divisions from a corporation in the top 10 organic listings is usually a good thing for the corporation as a whole. Healthy competition between division websites for Organic placement will benefit the corporation as a whole – as well as raise division understanding of the importance of Search Engines in marketing.