Searching for Searchers

As the search engine ­marketing manager at Overstock.com, Doug Sundahl is the type of seasoned professional web retailers can`t seem to find and hire fast enough. Sundahl, who started Overstock`s search engine ­marketing program from scratch four years ago, ­routinely receives phone calls from recruiters with openings at other retailing companies and interactive advertising agencies.

"Having a background in search engine marketing is definitely a stepping stone to career advancement," says Sundahl, who isn`t looking for a new job. For now, he`s happy at Overstock, where he manages a search engine marketing program with four full-time employees, a multi-million dollar advertising budget and several hundred thousand keywords and phrases. "Search is becoming more prominent within our organization and there is opportunity for search engine marketing professionals to grow into bigger roles at Overstock," says Sundahl, director of internal marketing.

Scouring trade shows

Overstock knows full well the value of keeping its search engine professionals motivated and well ­compensated. And that`s a lesson other retailers and search engine marketing firms are learning as well.

These days it`s a seller`s ­market for experienced search engine marketing professionals. As a result, retailers and agencies are scouring trade shows and online job boards for candidates, ­luring talent away from the ­competition or building search programs from scratch with ­promising workers and ­managers from all types of professional backgrounds, including advertising sales reps, warehouse managers and even professional dog handlers. "For search engine marketing professionals, especially in retailing, the job environment is wide open," says Kevin Lee, chairman of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization and executive chairman of search-marketing company Did-It.com.

In the early days of Internet retailing, experienced programmers, web developers and e-commerce managers were the object of ­bidding wars as retailers and Internet start-up companies competed for their ­services. Now recruiters see a similar hot job market in search engine ­marketing. In particularly high demand are marketing ­managers, account executives, pay-per-click specialists and organic-search ­specialists with a retailing background. "With the right background, a candidate with retailing experience, a proven track record and management ability can pretty much write their own ticket," Lee says.

Top dollar

Today web retailers and interactive marketing agencies are paying top dollar for search engine marketing professionals. The starting annual base pay for mid-level search engine professionals is $45,000 to $60,000 and it goes up to $80,000 to $100,000 for program or ­department managers. "A good professional with an excellent record can easily receive a job offer with a six-figure base and a lucrative bonus based on performance," says Dana Todd, SEMPO president and principal of SiteLab International Inc. "The big challenge is finding enough qualified candidates and ­giving them enough incentives to make them want to come and stay."

Given the relatively new status of search as a digital marketing and advertising channel, recruiters can`t pinpoint the number of available search engine marketing jobs in retailing. But it`s clear that many retailers with online operations are in a hiring mode. For instance, Amazon.com has three openings for marketing ­managers and specialists who will work on search projects, while Benchmark Brands, which operates FootSmart.com, is ­looking for five e-commerce employees with search-related skills. Other ­retailers in need of search marketing professionals include Bellacor.com Inc., an online retailer of ­lighting and home products, which is looking for an online marketing coordinator with search responsibilities; AllPosters.com Inc., which is in need of a ­pay-per-click ­specialist; and Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp., looking for an online ­marketing manager with search engine ­responsibilities.

The need for managers, account executives and specialists at firms that provide search engine ­marketing services to web retailers is even more acute. Avenue A|Razorfish, an interactive services agency, has multiple regional openings for search engine marketing professionals. Icrossing Inc., another interactive services provider, is expecting to hire as many as 35 search professionals in the next several months and has openings for account executives, optimization specialists and search intelligence specialists. "Marketing managers are realizing that search is growing because it`s an advertising vehicle that gets results," says Sara Holoubek, chief strategy officer, corporate development, for ­icrossing. "Companies, including retailers, are reallocating resources to search and adding search engine ­marketing as a dedicated category in their ­advertising budgets."

Both sides of the brain

For search marketing department mangers, most web retailers are looking for applicants with hands-on experience building and ­optimizing campaigns on Google, Yahoo and other search engines, a good understanding of online and offline consumer behavior and the ability to analyze large sets of data and manage an advertising budget. Their specific job responsibilities include developing and maintaining customer acquisition programs for paid and organic listings, creating keyword bid ­management and optimization strategies, maintaining and expanding a keyword inventory, and analyzing customer traffic using web analytics.

"You can hire a specialist to run the mechanics of a program, but a good search engine manager, the kind of manager this industry needs to develop more of, needs to think out of both sides of the brain," says Gordon Magee, Internet ­marketing and analysis manager for pets supply retailer Drs. Foster & Smith Inc., which uses three staffers to ­manage paid and organic search engine marketing campaigns. "What`s really in demand is someone who can read the data, draw conclusions and make marketing changes that deliver results. You can teach someone the mechanics, but not to be an intuitive thinker."

In general, web retailers are eager to hire search engine ­marketing employees with a minimum of three years of experience in search marketing. But given the limited pool of employees with both search and retailing experience, a growing number of web merchants and agencies are filling positions by ­promoting from within.

For instance, eBags Inc. is ­developing a unit of three to four full-time employees, all found within the company, who will concentrate on generating ­better natural search results for eBags.com and several other e-commerce sites. They all already have experience working on eBags` interactive marketing programs or have marketing and data analysis backgrounds that can be applied to natural search.

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Quick change

With a new natural-search unit, eBags will have a full-time manager, who used to spend half-time on search and who will concentrate on drafting and implementing new strategies; a specialist promoted from within who will write search copy and track keyword density and site optimization; and a web developer who can work with the IT department to make changes to the home page and product pages based on natural search results.

EBags went inside because it is putting its new natural-search program on a development fast track and didn`t want to spend time conducting a national search or hiring an outside agency. "Search is changing so fast that the best employees to bring to the new natural search unit were people we already had ­in-house," says Christopher Seahorn, eBags senior director of marketing. "We found the right people internally and that`s important because they can grow as the new unit grows and they already know the ins and outs of how we operate."

Today if retailers can`t find enough seasoned search engine marketing professionals or aren`t able to promote internally, they look to another alternative: hiring ­promising, but inexperienced, employees and training them from the ground up. Oneupweb, a search engine optimization company, frequently hires ­talented newcomers and trains them to be account executives and ­marketing managers with good results, says director of marketing Rachel North. "A year ago we hired an ­advertising sales representative, trained him on our system and paired him with someone who is experienced," North says. "Today that employee is a search engine marketing manager who is responsible for several accounts and doing very well."

Drs. Foster & Smith is also filling all of its search positions internally. It has three full-time employees working on search engine marketing, including a reports ­manager, a search analyst and a pay-per-click ­specialist who also functions as an e-mail campaign manager. And not all came from search--or even marketing--backgrounds. Matt Stelter, paid-search coordinator, who conducts the company`s pay-per-click campaigns and maintains the inventory of keywords, used to work in Drs. Foster & Smith`s warehouse and is a professional dog handler. "The fact that he worked in distribution gave him an excellent working knowledge of our company and who better than a dog ­handler, who shows dogs professionally, would know how to bid on keywords and phrases that would pique the interest of pet ­owners," Magee says.

The right general traits

Drs. Foster & Smith hired its search unit based on an employee`s skills and interests. For instance, the employee who coordinates and puts together search-related reports using ­various database and spreadsheet tools already had a background in writing and researching catalog codes. The e-mail coordinator also works on search-related analysis based on her knowledge and use of web analytics and customer segmentation. "With search engine marketing you can train people for new positions, but the trick is looking for employees with the right general characteristics who are up for a new challenge," Magee says.

Search engine marketing is expected to change at a dynamic pace in the years to come and that means web retailers and interactive marketing firms will continue to hire professionals at a brisk pace. "There are constant changes happening with language, algorithms, vertical search and tools," says Robert Murray, president of search marketing company iProspect.com Inc. "There is a good opportunity for those who want to learn and keep learning these new skills to advance to higher positions."

IProspect plans to hire at least 10 search engine marketing professionals in the short term, including paid and natural search specialists, and as many as 30 in the next year. Most of the openings for specialists will go to general candidates with good customer service and business backgrounds who want to learn search engine marketing.

New specialists receive about a week`s training on search engine marketing basics and spend about three months learning and working on iProspect`s proprietary search engine bidding and campaign tracking technology platform. "The hardest part of the program is recruiting," Murray says.

A huge rush

Attracting search engine talent with more money and other perks is one way to find qualified ­professionals. Overstock, for instance, uses ­performance-based bonuses and stock options to keep its search engine marketing professionals content.

But search engine marketing is also a developing profession that`s attracting more ­specialists and managers who want to be a part of a new and evolving ­marketing channel. "Whether you are a search engine marketer or an account executive, there is a great sense of satisfaction in being able to quantify your contribution to a company," Sundahl says. "There is a huge rush in ­looking at the quarterly financials and knowing that you had an impact."

mark@verticalwebmedia.com