Outsourcing your online marketing effort is always a bit of a gamble.
If you pick the right company, your business will soar like never
before and you and your staff will celebrate with Champaign at the
holiday party. Conversely, if you pick the wrong company, you and your
staff may not have a holiday party because by then you might be out of
business or had to cut back on your employment budget so severely that
you may not have any staff left.

Here are the top three dangers of outsourcing online marketing you
must be aware of:

First and foremost is fraud. Sure, you will have an agreement, a
contract, and a clear understanding of the damages to which you are
entitled if the company defrauds you, but what will happen if it is
not the company that defrauds you but simply one employee assigned to
your account? If the company permits this individual in good faith to
work on your behalf, it will most likely be found blameless in court
because it could not have known that this individual was going to
commit fraud. While a criminal prosecution may restore the
outsourcer’s and also your reputation, it cannot restore any financial
damage you may have suffered or still will suffer, especially if the
general public has a hard time letting go of the negative image that
is now associated with your company name. Fraud in online marketing is
easily done, and while it may not always affect the consumer, the
times that it will are quite serious.

Secondly, you face the danger of becoming a victim of industrial
espionage. If a dishonest company or even just one individual within
the employ of the outsourcer works for a competitor, then your trade
secrets and up and coming advertising campaigns will become known to
your competition well in advance, enabling them to take steps to
either counter your efforts or minimize them with the help of their
own well planned promotions. Remember that any time you outsource any
aspect of your company’s activities you are permitting a third party a
glimpse into places that you would not let anyone else peek into. You
may be able to mitigate some of the risk if you specify this in your
service agreement; however, if the act of the industrial espionage
does not become known, you have no way to understand why even the best
planned campaign is not working.

Last but not least, do not underestimate the danger gaining a bad
reputation. While you can specify, to a certain extent, how your ad
campaign will be handled, the fact that you are outsourcing online
marketing completely could spell disaster for your company. Even
though larger advertising firms will be careful in their placement of
your promotional materials, others may underestimate the direction a
certain website will head for when posting your ads. Thus, you may
become associated with generally held to be negative activities, such
as spamming, gambling, or other shady business practices.