NewsLine Column: What Next For Internet Search Marketing?
The popularity of search engines amongst internet users is growing at unprecedented speed, bringing with it valuable advertising real estate. Martin Child, managing director, Overture Northern Europe, looks at the future of internet search marketing and the next generation of search targeted marketing…
Today 85% of European internet users first discover websites through search engines and, with the exception of email, consumers use search more than any other internet application.
So how can businesses harness the power of search – and what new developments are in store this year?
There is already a much broader acceptance of paid placement search (where companies use search to drive targeted leads to their business, only paying when a customer clicks through to their website). Spend in the Home & Garden, Telecoms and IT sectors all doubled in the last year, and an even bigger growth can be seen in the Automotive sector, where spend has trebled – a reflection of the fact that more people are using the Internet as a research tool to evaluate later purchases offline.
Outside the core area of paid placement search, the commercial search industry will continue to develop technologies in three particularly hot areas – contextual advertising, local search listings and mobile search.
Contextual advertising (where relevant advertiser links are embedded on content-based pages) will be a strong area for growth this year. For example, users reading a web page about cars may see in-page advertiser links for second-hand cars, car insurance or car-buying services.
Similarly, users who are researching holidays may see advertiser links from hotel and car-hire agencies. This is an important growth area, not only for search engines and portals looking for new ways to monetise the page, but also for advertisers to complement paid placement search campaigns.
Local search (geography-specific search) is a natural evolution for this marketplace – and is progressing rapidly. Allowing advertisers to easily market to interested customers within a defined radius of their business location, local search will make it much simpler for searchers to obtain the exact business information they need to purchase products or services locally.
Once local search is well and truly up and running, the possibilities are endless. Why should search be restricted to your computer? Shouldn’t you be able to quickly and easily find the nearest restaurant or cinema in your area through a Web search on your phone, PDA, or even via your car’s GPS (Global Positioning System)?
Mobile search is the first step towards connecting consumers and businesses in this way and the number of mobile phone subscribers in the UK is set to reach 88% of the population by 2007. With WAP portal traffic now reaching significant levels, beta testing of a paid placement search product is now viable in terms of both user experience and lead generation for advertisers. As a result, mobile search directories are currently in the process of being tested by Overture.
For example, while browsing the travel section of a network operator’s WAP portal (like Vodafone live! or Orange World), a user will be able to search for a ‘cheap flight to Spain’ from a directory-style service. The user could then choose to either go through to the company’s WAP page, or simply click a link and initiate a phone call.
In essence, relevancy of search results will always be the key to survival in this industry. The future of search lies in improving the precision of search technology to the point that it fully understands user intent. As an industry, we should always be striving towards the ultimate goal of unravelling a user’s true intent behind a search, even if this is not directly communicated by the user and their keyboard. When we reach that level, we will be able to provide users with the highest quality search experience possible and advertisers the strongest return on their marketing investments.
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