Trada marketplace: Outsource your SEM and have multiple search experts compete for yo

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I just had a chat with the guys from Trada and wanted to share some of my insights with you as I think this could be a very interesting way of managing search for advertisers and even some agencies.

Trada is basically a marketplace that allows search experts from around the world to compete against each other on search campaigns. Instead of one or two search experts optimising a campaign in the standard agency model you now have multiple resources optimising an account all trying to outdo each other. More brains is always good and I think it's definitely a cool idea but there's pros and cons.

The model itself is quite attractive as it allows you to set a target CPC or CPA and the search experts only get paid if they can do better than that target, i.e. they can keep the difference between the real cost and the target you set them so there's a clear incentive. You can brief and communicate with the search experts that have decided to work on your account and change the target CPC or CPA daily if you want, but you have to commit to a minium monthly spend of USD 3,000 and an optimisation period of 3 months which is only fair I think.

Now here comes the catch, you cannot import existing accounts into Trada but have to create new ones for Google, Bing and Yahoo through the Trada platform which means you will use your quality score for existing campaigns. This might be a big deal for some people and less for others, I think it's not the end of the world but definitely has to be considered. Also, the search experts don't compete per keyword but on an ad group level which has potential for overlap and I'm not entirely sure what happens if one of the guys decides to stop working on an ad group or entire account. Finally, the way the model is set-up it leads to an initial burst of optimisation and set-up of ad groups similar to a normal agency relationship which peters off after a while when the search experts are looking to cash in on their initial time investment. That's not a bad thing, it's just normal and means even if you decide to give Trada a go you will have to keep in mind that you are working with humans that have to be managed and motivated, how you do that is up to you.

All in all, I think the Trada platform is pretty cool and I can only recommend to look into it and decide for yourself if it might help you business or agency, watching the below video might be a good start. I definitely see potential for small to medium size businesses to get access to some top international search optimisation talent and for agencies to basically grow their capacity over night.

http://www.trada.com/



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