State of Search Engine Marketing
Good article covering a report on the "State of Search Engine Marketing". I think the big highlights are that this is a big market and is growing by impressive leaps and bounds, and nobody is ignoring it.
One thing that did interest me is that search engine analytics and marketing platform software has generated relatively little interest in the venture community, as least from my perspective it has. One is left to wonder why there are not more companies like Efficient Frontier that have been funded. Even more interesting is why CRM/SFA companies have been so slow to acquire these platforms and integrate them into their core offerings.
I think the reason there's not more Efficient Frontier's is that the math competencies required to provide exceptional returns while automating SEM day-to-day are exceedingly hard to find. Most people who have the math skills necessary to optimize large portfolios are doing so on Wall St and not Madison Avenue or Silicon Valley.
Posted by: Chris Zaharias | Jan 10, 2006 at 02:19 PM
There are actually more and more out there. Check out Adapt. Actually, there are 2 different Adapts, both doing some interesting things along the lines of what you are pointing out. There are also a whole host of firms with technology that many online marketing companies like aQuantive, Doubleclick, etc. have acquired. Lastly, many of the SEM companies that look more like agencies, are developing their own in-house tools that I believe will someday become transparent and outward facing.
Posted by: MJ | Jan 11, 2006 at 11:14 PM