I'm at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose covering the conference on the Advertiser Blog and Twitter - http://twitter.com/adCenterBlog
There's no better way to kick off a convention than with an industry update from experts in the know, so we're in the ballroom at the Marriott and are promised an in-depth dive into the latest research and trends in the search engine marketing industry.
As with any marketing channel, the economic climate dictates who spends what and where and although Universal McCann forecasted figures for Internet advertising see a healthy 9% of the global ad spend in 2010 of $722 billion, the order of the day is very much one of caution and increased efficiency in how you manage your search campaigns.
Heather Dougherty, Research Director at Hitwise, provided some insight into different verticals. 30% of retailers traffic in the US came from paid search in August, with the automotive industry paying for just 25%. One figure that stood out was how little food and beverage companies were utilizing PPC - just 15% - she wondered if that area were missing an opportunity to be creative in their online marketing tactics.
The key to promoting online AND offline is to look at what people are searching for. The way that people search often gives you an indication of not only what they want but how they want it. Including different sorts of keywords in your campaigns is important to capturing all the relevant searchers at the time they may be looking for your products or services. Don't just use your search data for your search campaigns either.
The data gleaned can often help drive your offline campaigns as well, informing and complimenting your other marketing channels. Share the data with other departments in your company and don't just keep it within the online marketing division. That data can be very useful in helping your company keep abreast of how the market views you.
Kevin Lee, Executive Chairman & Co-founder of Didit, said that although these are lean times, according to a survey by SEMPO, over 60% of online marketers said they could afford to pay more online. This indicates that people have kept a little budget back for a rainy day.
One way of saving money would be to increase the efficiency of your search campaigns. Re-visit the campaign structure, check all the ad copy and keywords to make sure they're having the maximum effect. Not being in search is a huge opportunity cost. Essentially search engine marketing harvests demand. Demand may be created somewhere else in the buying cycle and search picks those users up, driven by ability to attract attention right when it's most valuable.
He admits there is a challenge for brand advertisers but cited a great example about Coke. There may not be too many folk typing in to a search engine that they're thirsty but they have the possibility to be creative and leverage other assets at their disposal. So being the sponsor of American Idol might be one. Coke could create some really compelling content about the contestants and bid on their names creating a brand association effect. Olympic games sponsors could do the same thing with athletes names for example.
Segmentation was another one of Kevin's tips, not having a national campaign, but breaking it down into geo-targeted groups of keywords and ads and watching the ROI for each campaign by state for example.
So it's not all doom and gloom!
There may be some belt-tightening going on in marketing departments around the world, but online marketing and especially search is a great way to spend those advertising $$$ (or £££) because of its inherently accountable nature and also because using Heather and Kevin's tips, you can have that much more control over your campaigns.