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Media Week, 30th August 2005

Agencies know their options

Letter from Fiona Jewiss, European Search Product Manager, Advertising.com

I refer to your article (Search engines rise to media's front row, page 22, 9 August) about the rising awareness of search engines as an advertising medium.

It is true that there has been a slow uptake in taking full advantage of the opportunities that search engine marketing has provided to advertisers. However, it cannot be inferred that there is a lack of understanding or options available among media agencies.

On the contrary, a vast number of companies have been created to provide whatever service an advertiser requires, be that a licensed piece of technology to run their paid-for search, a specialist search engine optimisation company to get the best possible position in the natural listings or a full-service agency which will work with the search engines on behalf of the advertiser, performing all bid optimisation and editorial work.

Digital media agencies are following the trend, building specialist search teams which have the resources to deliver against advertisers' objectives.

The difficulty seems to be in changing the mindset of the traditional, big brand advertiser to understand the role search plays in online and offline sales.

The measurability of online advertising has forced the companies that work in that arena to deliver against very tight objectives, with very little emphasis being placed on the benefits that the advertiser will feel in the footfall in their stores.

According to research conducted by AOL/NOP in 2004, 76% of people surveyed had researched a product online and bought the product offline. The 71% of people that consider search engines to be a very important source of information (taken from your article) will, no doubt, be part of that group.

While advertisers should not be encouraged to lose sight of the ROI of their advertising campaign, the advertiser who takes full advantage of the possibilities of search engine marketing, places a higher value on keywords that convert well online for them, with the added bonus that there is also likely to be a rise in offline conversions for that product.

The expansion of search will continue through the diversification of the search engines' product lines, with their content networks being a significant part of that growth.

The real growth will come when the big advertisers offline realise the huge gains to be made by effectively using search and online as part of their overall branding strategy.

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