By Martin Murray
CEO, Interactive Return
A visit by myself and some colleagues to this month's Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York City provided us with a vision of the future of Search Marketing. The future looks bright for Search.
There are three key reasons why advertisers and marketing executives are shifting their budgets from traditional media and investing in Search.
- Return on Investment
Contributors to the conference from across all sectors indicated that for the purposes of brand building, lead generation and sales completions, search marketing radically outperformed offline advertising, traditional direct marketing, outbound telesales and banner advertising.
- Measurability
Everyone knows that half of their marketing budget is wasted but they don't know which half, unless they are using search marketing. Advertisers unfamiliar with the medium are shocked at the measurability, trackability and granularity of reporting associated with a search marketing campaign.
- Targeting Capabilities
Search marketing brings pre-qualified sales prospects to your website. These are people who found your website because they were searching for your products or services. Increasingly, search engines such as Yahoo and Google provide the capability to target searchers based on geography so you know that your advertising budget is not been wasted in markets where you do not operate.
Hot Topics at the conference included the generation of Yahoo's new Site Match offering, improving your organic rankings and link building as a way to drive traffic to your website.
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