This post was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, April 10, 2009

Earlier this week, eMarketer published its most recent view on the U.S. advertising space and the spending trends within it. The company noted the point gains being made year over year for digital marketing and explained the impact in its intro as such:

“Digital marketing offers compelling benefits, especially for cash-conscious companies in a recession, because marketers can more readily measure the results of Internet advertising than with most traditional media.  This produces more-efficient advertising and higher ROI, which in turn pushes traditional media to compete with lower pricing.”

So, advertisers are gravitating to more measurable forms of marketing and also looking to channels that produce higher ROI. Makes sense, but when you look at some recent findings from SEMPO’s annual search survey, you start to see a disconnect.

In their ‘08 study, SEMPO asked both advertisers and agencies what metrics they track and the findings were interesting. In the case of brand impact, the agencies surveyed said – by a wide margin (20%+) -  that they measured this more so than the direct advertisers. If marketers are moving dollars online because ROI is better, then why are their agencies worried so much about brand?

It leads to the obvious question. Can search build brands?
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Let’s save some time and get to the point: owning your brand – smart idea or a waste of valuable marketing dollars? Answer: Smart idea. And here’s why. Owning your brand terms in paid search allows control over the message and landing page, increased visibility on the search engine results page (SERP) and a low cost-per-conversion. This concept is, in theory, a no brainer; yet as planners and strategists, we are often asked to consider eliminating brand terms from our strategy and keyword list in an effort to conserve funds for other crucial keywords. Ranking well for your brand terms organically is the foundation of a successful website; the people (your potential customers, clients and advocates) have to be able to find you. Yet, many advertisers fall short of going the distance by leaving out brand terms in paid search to fully actualize the potential of their brand to their bottom line.

Recently, an automotive company made the decision to remove all brand terms from their paid search campaign which ranked well organically. The thought influencing this decision was, “We rank well organically already, let’s invest the dollars elsewhere (namely other media, GASP!).” To much dismay, the crucial brand terms were paused, however closer attention was then paid to the monitoring the overall performance of these key terms in the organic silo to track performance.

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There are a few misconceptions about search marketing one quickly realizes after spending some time entrenched in the industry. I started working in search two years ago. When I came across the listing for a position at a search marketing agency, I had a very vague, if any, idea of what search was. I skimmed the description: marketing experience, ability to work with account teams to plan and implement campaigns, computer skills, etc… Yes, yes and yes. Sounded good to me! (To be honest, I probably would have been happy to do all of that while tap dancing and spinning plates on my head if it meant a paycheck.) So, after doing research and asking my share of search questions, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it was all about when I started. Now looking back, despite my efforts early on to understand it all going in, I realize I had a few basic misconceptions about search that may be pretty common among those unfamiliar with or new to the industry.

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News about social media has run rampant in offices across the country in the past few years. If companies aren’t already engaging in the social networking sites, they are attending conferences to learn more about the benefits of participation. If they aren’t already meeting to discuss new media, they are asking marketing agencies to provide strategic recommendations. A concern often shared throughout this process is: What if I lose control of my brand message? Continue reading »

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