Understanding the Increasingly Sophisticated Search Marketer
By Kevin Heisler, Analyst - Jupiter Research
The US search market has continued its strong growth during the past year, but marketers are still struggling to maximize return on investment (ROI) as the landscape matures and competing search marketers increase in sophistication.
In fact this problem is the result of a strong and competitive marketplace, as it is true that in 2006, search marketing had come of age. For instance, as a focus of business it now has mind share among senior executives with advertisers reporting over 40% of chief executive officers receive regular reports on search marketing campaigns, surpassing even directors of marketing as the most frequent recipients of reports.
These signs of an increasingly competitive landscape fueled the zero-sum game of search advertising that has made advertisers dissatisfied. Rising keyword prices plague about two-thirds of overall marketers, while effective tracking and complex campaign management across multiple engines exasperate over 40% of overall advertisers.
Consequently concerns about ROI are surfacing and just like bad old traditional advertising the extra competition isn’t making it easier to get back the returns of previous years. The rising dissatisfaction with ROI has not stripped all value from search marketing as advertisers overwhelmingly (over 85%) still say search marketing delivers results.
To beat the competition in these circumstances, the vast majority of marketers will increase spending in 2007, with more than half of marketers in companies with annual revenues of USD $50 million or more planning double-digit percentage increases in search marketing budgets.
An astounding 26% of advertisers in these companies plan to increase spending by more than 25% in 2007, while nearly a third plan to double their spending. In this environment, expect a lot more hassled executives trying to achieve more effective campaigns.
(Note: This is a key extract from a 22 page report)
About the Jupiter SEM Executive Survey: In February 2007, JupiterResearch conducted a formal survey of search marketers and agencies. Respondents were screened by familiarity with their company’s search marketing efforts and involvement with marketing their company’s products or those of clients. A total of 794 qualified search marketers and 272 qualified search agencies completed the survey.
For further information about this report and other Jupiter Research,
please contact Corporate Market Intelligence, exclusive distributors of Jupiter Research.
Guy Cranswick - guy at cmintelligence.com.au 0425 230 983
Whilst this is a US based report, I would like to find out the opinions of the Australian Industry to this, do we feel the same pain? I think we do, please feel free to post your thoughts to this contribution below.
