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Digital marketing

Scaling a search platform from 250,000 to 5 million keywords

A young agency challenging larger, established media agencies. The industry still managed search engine marketing keywords largely by hand — the opportunity was to automate it and let one person manage far more than was thought possible.

Client
An award-winning UK digital marketing agency with turnover of over £58m, later part of a credit information group
My role
Technology lead — building the team and re-architecting the platform
When
Early-career engagement, in the first generation of paid search platforms

The numbers, as recorded

Keywords monitored
250,000 to 5 million
Increase
1900%, within five months
Client turnover
Over £58m

Only figures stated in the written engagement record appear here. Where an outcome was described without a number, it is described without one below.

The situation

The agency was young and new, competing against larger and more established media agencies. It was technology-aggressive by instinct but needed the systems and the team to make that real.

The established agencies were still moving away from traditional print and physical marketing. Search engine marketing keyword management was overwhelmingly manual across the industry — which made it the point where technology could create an advantage that competitors could not quickly copy.

What I did

I was brought in to establish and develop a team to evolve the agency's bespoke platform, and to set the protocols that would let the business lead on future technical advances in a fast-moving sector. That meant close relationships with internal stakeholders and with the search engines themselves.

We identified technology as a competitive accelerator and invested in it to reach economies of scale. Operational process was redefined around the new systems rather than bolted onto them, so a single person could monitor and manage far more keywords and campaigns than had previously been considered possible.

Underpinning the client service was a technology strategy focused on the control and management of data. The quality and availability of management information — to operations, to the board and to clients — was what allowed the agency to open conversations about campaign changes proactively instead of reacting to a client's complaint.

Outcomes from the engagement

  • Re-architected the in-house platform that interacted with the search engine APIs of the era, taking keyword monitoring from 250,000 terms to 5 million within five months — an increase of 1900%.

  • Designed and instigated enterprise systems that provided scalable, automated clients against Google, Overture, MIVA and other search engines.

  • Defined and implemented internal service levels to improve transparency and efficiency, evolving them as the business grew.

  • Adopted virtualisation early, ahead of the mainstream, alongside new development processes.

  • Acted as Microsoft technology lead and technical lead for new internet technologies and changes in search, defining the development strategy and policies set against a revenue target of +25%.

  • Designed and developed the key systems and applications, and instigated development and quality assurance best practice.

What made it work

Key to the success

  • Redefined and transformed how the agency operated internally
  • Technology used as a disruptor and accelerator for change
  • A review first, to understand the business and establish a baseline
  • Constant communication with the board, the operational team and users
  • Transparency and trust to the board and to the operational teams
  • Continual improvement in both technology and operational process
  • KPIs that supported performance and value goals together
  • Agile methodology, so tactical changes could be absorbed
  • Long-term relationships with key suppliers and vendors
  • Management information made available to clients through a portal

The specific search engines have changed. The judgement has not: find the part of the operation that is still manual at scale, prove the automation against real volume, and give the board and the client the same numbers at the same time.

How I work with founders now Board and advisory roles

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