Thursday, March 01, 2007
Search Owns Ad Dollars
Search marketing will continue to be the dominant revenue source for online advertise for the foreseeable future. What does that say about the effectiveness of other forms of advertising?According to investment bank Jefferies & Co. (as quoted by MediaPost, keyword search advertising represents 40 percent of advertising revenue and will be a $14 billion industry in 2010.
Worldwide online advertising will reach $60 billion by 2010, indicating that search's share will be declining over time.
Search advertising remains popular because ads are based on requests for information. So search marketing attempts to give people want they want. On the other hand, anticipating what people are interested in through behavioral and target marketing should become a more effective solution.
People use search because they don't know where to find something. Search is the first step towards matching consumers with the information (be it a purchase or context). But informed consumers theoretically should know where to get good prices on sneakers or to read about interesting cities in Italy to visit. Every search for sneakers is a defeat for the agencies that are promoting footwear in other forms of advertising.
Using technology that analyzes prior behaviors (including search data) on the sites that people regularly visit negates the need to use search. You should haven't to do a search to see ads that match the things that you like -- ad networks should be smart enough to know what you are interested in most cases. There is still much work to be done on behavioral and target marketing, so search has a few more years of riding the gravy train. But those days may not last forever.
Posted By John Gartner at 10:34 AM
Permanent Link: Search Owns Ad Dollars
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