The link between display and SEM. By Even Aas-Eng

Online marketers can be divided into three categories:

1) Those who believe the display ad is dead and think SEM will solve all your problems
2) Those who believe the display ad is everything
3) Those who believe that the world is not black or white and that it might be interesting to look at marketing across media channels and platforms and that different companies might need different strategies.

Of these three categories it’s my feeling that unfortunately nr 1 is growing, luckily nr 2 is declining and nr 3 is growing but not fast enough.

Aegis owned SEM agency Iprospect recently released a survey that concluded that display advertising has a positive effect on your SEA campaigns and that display advertising could work even though people don’t click on your ad. Revolutionary stuff…
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that Iprospect did the survey, I hope many people read it and I hope we will see more surveys like this in the near future, but it scares me that we are not more advanced in how we utilize new media.

I think it’s funny how SEM fanatic’s have trashed the display ad for years while their favorite company Google in the same period have invested BILLIONS to build the largest display ad network in the world. As mentioned before on this blog, the display ad isn’t dead it has just been revitalized.

I have been a SEM evangelist in the Norwegian market since 2003 but I never meant that display advertising don’t work. If you compare display and SEA by looking at CTR, CPC and conversion rates you are looking at two different planets, that doesn’t mean that one of the planets are about the be blasted out of the solar system. The role of advertising is to create demand and that is possible to achieve trough a social media concept, a display ad, a SEA campaign, a newsletter, a viral movie, a TV commercial, a social media ad, a web site, a DM, or a combination of all or some of the above.

Why box yourself in by just having faith in one type of advertising?

Iprospect survey: http://www.iprospect.com/about/researchstudy_2009_searchanddisplay.htm

The next pot of gold for the agency industry. By Even Aas-Eng

The SMB´s of the world have always been a key driver in online advertising growth. Google’s success being the prime example of how “uninteresting” companies suddenly became the backbone of their business model.

SMB´s are spending more and more dollars online and their perspective on what is “advertising” is getting broader and broader. Their web site is often their only communication platform towards their clients and it’s easy to understand its importance. This study that I stumbled upon shows that 2/3 of the marketing professionals in these companies wants to spend more money next year in the “media” channel “my own web site”. The next wave of new corporate web sites is a huge opportunity for marketers. Finally the market will approach the job wanting to create value for users and not only show off the new fancy logo and the CEO!

The blurring lines of what is advertising is critical to understand if you are in the agency business today. One side of the coin is a huge opportunity the other a big threat…

The report is here: http://www.borrellassociates.com/report_details.aspx?prodID=173