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After working in the agency world for the last 10 years, I did something I thought I would never do: move to an in-house position.

My agency experience was quite varied, from a small local agency to working with one of the largest ad agencies in the world. Although I loved my time in the agency world, it was time for a change. I wanted to experience working for an actual client instead of working through an agency. And I figured — Hey, it can’t be that hard to go from doing paid search in an agency to doing paid search in-house, right?

Wrong. It was a much bigger adjustment than I thought. And it has required me to step back and rethink tactics and recommendations; different waters to navigate, to say the least! As I learn more every day, I realize it’s a whole new world being in-house.

Below are five major differences working onsite with a client as opposed to an agency, and suggestions on how to manage these changes. 

Moving from the agency to the in-house world

1. Managing multiple clients to just one

I have always had to juggle multiple clients at one time — managing different spends, ROI goals and strategies. Focusing on one client was one of the bigger adjustments for me because I was used to bouncing from one client to the next.

Recommendation: This is not a bad thing! It helps to really get to know the client’s accounts, and understand them at a much deeper level. It also allows you to provide more focused and strategic recommendations because, you are, more focused. Understanding a client’s business intimately will help you provide solid PPC strategies.

2. Being onsite

Instead of talking with the client on the phone or having occasional face-to-face meetings, you are there every day. Front and center. Getting asked a lot of questions, being in lots of meetings. Your routine is now very different.

Recommendation: Learn, listen and observe. Do a holistic audit of the client’s PPC accounts to see what is working and what isn’t.

Coming in, you have a unique perspective — your “fresh eyes” will see things that others may not have noticed. And those insights can be very valuable for the client, and helping to improve the client's campaigns and processes. Your knowledge will also help educate others on things such as best practices and insights. You bring a lot of experience coming from an agency, and that knowledge can greatly help your client.

3. Learning about the company structure

This has been, by far, my biggest challenge — with a company like Cisco, it’s huge — and learning the different organizations, reporting structures and who does what is something that is going to be ongoing. There are a lot of people involved, not just one or two contact people you worked with before.

Recommendation: Relax, and be patient. It takes time, especially in a larger company.

Get an organizational chart and learn who the key players are. And, get to know everyone on your team as well as your external teams. The more people you know, the easier it will be to know who to reach out to.

4. Working with an outside agency to manage the client’s PPC account

Instead of being the one responsible for updates, reporting and optimizations, an agency now handles that. Although you don’t have the level of responsibility that you once did, you are still involved because you represent the client’s paid search internally to the company.

Recommendation: We are all on the same team, with the client’s goals and objectives being our main focus. Spend time with the agency, and get the history of the account. Learn how you can help the agency because you have “been there, done that.” Provide them with insights and experiences that you have seen, so they can in turn use that knowledge to improve the client’s account performance.

5. Not being hands-on anymore

This has been my second biggest adjustment. For so long, I have been in my client’s accounts, making daily changes. Since we have an agency that does all of the changes now, I can’t just go in and adjust something that I see needs to be changed.

Recommendation: Use this as an opportunity to help the agency look good. If you find something that should be changed, point this out, and back it up with the benefits the client will gain from this change.

Conclusion

Being on the client side has been a great experience so far. Having previous agency experience has helped me be a catalyst for change, and also helped me make the client’s paid search campaigns improve and grow.

At the end of the day — whether you work for an agency or are onsite — amazing and delighting the client is the top priority.

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