Lloyd-Martin Goes to WebSourced

Search marketing celeb Heather Lloyd-Martin has left her president’s post at SuccessWorks to lead a new consulting practice for competing SEM firm WebSourced. As director of search strategies, she’ll head up training initiatives for companies that have their own in-house search marketing teams.

Lloyd-Martin ranks among the most visible pioneers of search marketing and optimization. She has spoken extensively on writing search-optimized ads and site copy at conferences including Ad:Tech, DM Days and Search Engine Strategies.

“It offers the opportunity to do exactly what I want to do, and have really great people to do the back-end,” she said of the new post.

Lloyd-Martin believes offering training and consulting services is a trend among search marketing firms. “There are a large number of enterprise-level firms that want to have some training; they have the resources to handle [search marketing] in-house,” she said. “A lot of them aren’t really sure what they’re doing. This’ll really help close that loop.”

Jupiter Research last week released findings that SEM firms dominate search spending. But while its report found agencies control 51 percent of all spending, it also reported that 69 percent of firms do not use an agency to manage search advertising. WebSourced’s move into training is an attempt to get its foot in the door with the ones that don’t employ agencies.

WebSourced is among the biggest search marketing firms. Its approximately 1,300 clients include Lowe’s Home Improvement, NBC, Alaska Airlines and Experian.

SuccessWorks hasn’t yet named a successor.