2005 Online Advertising Trends in Atlanta, Part 2
2005 Online Advertising Trends in Atlanta, Part 2
Based on interviews by Ed Hill of Ed Hill PR
Search engine marketing will continue to be a hot online trend in 2005. The Google IPO and Google desktop search in late 2004 put search firmly in the public eye. Advertising firms began to develop search marketing capabilities in-house, hired search engine optimization consultants or acquired search marketing firms.
July 2004: Digital Impact, a California provider of integrated digital marketing solutions, acquire Marketleap, a San Francisco-based Internet firm providing search engine marketing services for clients such as Kaiser Permanente, Primedia, SBC's SMARTpages.com and Tyco Electronics
June 2004: DoubleClick Inc, a leading provider of marketing solutions for advertising agencies and web publishers, acquired Performics Inc., a search engine marketing and affiliate marketing company based in Chicago.
December 2004: UK based media communications conglomerate Aegis Group acquired Massachussetts based iProspect, for its search engine marketing capabilities. Sarah Fay, president of Aegis's interactive division, explained that search marketing represents 30% of online advertising in the US.
January 2005: London based WPP Group outlined plans to dominate the global search engine marketing sector with the launch of a new network with 47 offices worldwide. Tne new mSearch agency will manage pay-per-click advertising and bids for keywords, as well as natural search optimization.
Moira Vetter, VP of Account strategy at Atlanta's Merge Inc. sees the same trend with her clients. "Our B2B customers have all brought up search in the last year. Search emphasis may not be a significant revenue stream for B2B advertisers, but if someone can’t find you on the search engine then they won’t find your web site," says Vetter.
Online consumers are drowning in too much information and too many competing businesses on the web. Its natural for businesses and consumers to use search marketing to break through the clutter.
Jean Cobb, VP and Account Director at Freebairn and Co, points out that they rely more on optimization than on search engine marketing. Most of their clients are B2B and too specific to benefit from paid key words on search engines. They have had good success in gaining high ranked placements through search engine optimization.
MaxMedia Design does a mix of Pay Per Click and organic search engine marketing. Don Berg, Executive VP of Marketing, believes that for the short term and with Flash promotions, PPC is a good way to guarantee top placement quickly. For the long run, however, organic results that come as a result of an optimized content rich site is the best bet.
Don Berg says "Some clients demand a Flash heavy site to get their message across with visuals and sound, which doesn't provide the opportunity to build a spider friendly site. Others realize the benefit of providing a lot of keyword rich HTML text to get indexed with the search engines".
Jean Cobb at Fairburn agrees that there is a trend away from Flash and graphics heavy sites. Now words are text instead of pictures. The words as pictures were popular because they look great but search engines like Google and Yahoo can't find them. The use of text on client web sites in the place of images has helped to yield higher search engine placement for clients.
Adrenaline Senior Designer Gina Arbore believes that Flash based sites can be used if the Flash graphics are a small part loaded into HTML pages that contain mostly text. Optimizing for search involves inserting the same keywords into the HTML web pages, that customers use for a Google search.
Moira Vetter of Merge points out that Merge uses Atlanta consultants for search engine optimization. The trend now is less pages and more content. Your web site is no good if no one can find it. Merge does re-writing of the site content to use customer friendly terms. Businesses tend to use too much technical speak. For collateral and web copy you need to stress features and benefits. Talking about solutions to a problem shows business clients you understand their problem from their view.
Vetter says, "We’ve been combining direct mail, white papers, online related to print, and online communities. People have always used various media. It’s more targeted about where the online appears. People are looking more closely at if they can reach their customer when they go to an online HR community. Online advertising is more specific now, so you can catch your B2B prospect in the right frame of mind to buy." Most of the Atlanta agencies agree with the trend for most campaigns to combine online and traditional media.
Based on interviews by Ed Hill of Ed Hill PR
Agencies Gaining Search Marketing Capability
Search engine marketing will continue to be a hot online trend in 2005. The Google IPO and Google desktop search in late 2004 put search firmly in the public eye. Advertising firms began to develop search marketing capabilities in-house, hired search engine optimization consultants or acquired search marketing firms.
July 2004: Digital Impact, a California provider of integrated digital marketing solutions, acquire Marketleap, a San Francisco-based Internet firm providing search engine marketing services for clients such as Kaiser Permanente, Primedia, SBC's SMARTpages.com and Tyco Electronics
June 2004: DoubleClick Inc, a leading provider of marketing solutions for advertising agencies and web publishers, acquired Performics Inc., a search engine marketing and affiliate marketing company based in Chicago.
December 2004: UK based media communications conglomerate Aegis Group acquired Massachussetts based iProspect, for its search engine marketing capabilities. Sarah Fay, president of Aegis's interactive division, explained that search marketing represents 30% of online advertising in the US.
January 2005: London based WPP Group outlined plans to dominate the global search engine marketing sector with the launch of a new network with 47 offices worldwide. Tne new mSearch agency will manage pay-per-click advertising and bids for keywords, as well as natural search optimization.
Customers Who Can't Find You On Search Engines, Can't Find Your Website
Moira Vetter, VP of Account strategy at Atlanta's Merge Inc. sees the same trend with her clients. "Our B2B customers have all brought up search in the last year. Search emphasis may not be a significant revenue stream for B2B advertisers, but if someone can’t find you on the search engine then they won’t find your web site," says Vetter.
Online consumers are drowning in too much information and too many competing businesses on the web. Its natural for businesses and consumers to use search marketing to break through the clutter.
Jean Cobb, VP and Account Director at Freebairn and Co, points out that they rely more on optimization than on search engine marketing. Most of their clients are B2B and too specific to benefit from paid key words on search engines. They have had good success in gaining high ranked placements through search engine optimization.
Pay Per Click Versus Organic Search Optimization
MaxMedia Design does a mix of Pay Per Click and organic search engine marketing. Don Berg, Executive VP of Marketing, believes that for the short term and with Flash promotions, PPC is a good way to guarantee top placement quickly. For the long run, however, organic results that come as a result of an optimized content rich site is the best bet.
The Trend Away From Flash Heavy Sites and Towards Keyword Text
Don Berg says "Some clients demand a Flash heavy site to get their message across with visuals and sound, which doesn't provide the opportunity to build a spider friendly site. Others realize the benefit of providing a lot of keyword rich HTML text to get indexed with the search engines".
Jean Cobb at Fairburn agrees that there is a trend away from Flash and graphics heavy sites. Now words are text instead of pictures. The words as pictures were popular because they look great but search engines like Google and Yahoo can't find them. The use of text on client web sites in the place of images has helped to yield higher search engine placement for clients.
Adrenaline Senior Designer Gina Arbore believes that Flash based sites can be used if the Flash graphics are a small part loaded into HTML pages that contain mostly text. Optimizing for search involves inserting the same keywords into the HTML web pages, that customers use for a Google search.
Moira Vetter of Merge points out that Merge uses Atlanta consultants for search engine optimization. The trend now is less pages and more content. Your web site is no good if no one can find it. Merge does re-writing of the site content to use customer friendly terms. Businesses tend to use too much technical speak. For collateral and web copy you need to stress features and benefits. Talking about solutions to a problem shows business clients you understand their problem from their view.
Advertising Campaigns That Integrate Web With Traditional Advertising Media
Vetter says, "We’ve been combining direct mail, white papers, online related to print, and online communities. People have always used various media. It’s more targeted about where the online appears. People are looking more closely at if they can reach their customer when they go to an online HR community. Online advertising is more specific now, so you can catch your B2B prospect in the right frame of mind to buy." Most of the Atlanta agencies agree with the trend for most campaigns to combine online and traditional media.
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