2005 Year in Review (12 Months Early)
|
Written By Reprise Media | January 10, 2005 | Share This
|
|
Take down the blinking lights. Return that horrible sweater Aunt Edna got you. Hit the gym. There are certain activities we associate with the beginning of the new year, and making predictions are no exception.
Today we’re proud to present the first installment of a two-part series of our 2005 predictions – a heady mix of […]
Take down the blinking lights. Return that horrible sweater Aunt Edna got you. Hit the gym. There are certain activities we associate with the beginning of the new year, and making predictions are no exception.
Today we’re proud to present the first installment of a two-part series of our 2005 predictions – a heady mix of prophecies and general notes on trends and ideas that we expect to have a big influence on the marketplace in the coming year.
We know we’re not the first SEM blog to share our prognostications and we definitely won’t be the last. Each January, the media is flooded with these types of pieces. Regardless, we do see the value in looking ahead, particularly when the ideas advanced dare to be more bold, and (hopefully) a little more entertaining than the rest of the pack.
Let’s face it, it’s fun to do our best Carnac the Magnificent impression, and make some bold predictions about what’s in store for the search market over the next 12 months. If 2004 is any indication, it’s going to be a wild ride.
Enjoy!
It All Comes Together: Market Consolidation & Strategic Acquisitions
DoubleClick bought Performics. Excite and its brethern were absorbed by Ask Jeeves. Real Media acquired Decide Interactive. No doubt 2004 was a year of big buys and big sells, and we don’t see that trend slowing anytime soon.
Here’s our take on some of the market players making big moves in the coming year:
Google Gets an RSS Aggregator
Now that they’ve got the outside content (Blogger) and given their own a makeover (Google Groups), it only makes sense that they’ll be looking for some way to pull it all together. Enter an RSS aggregator, which Google will either develop in-house or acquire (we’re guessing it’ll be the latter). Their ‘deploy first, monetize later’ mantra will, of course, apply.
Yahoo! Buys Moveable Type
Don’t expect Yahoo! to stand on the sidelines of the blog race while Google and MSN gather all the headlines. A purchase of personal publishing giant Moveable Type will be a major part of an increasingly aggressive strategy in this space.
A Major Company Snaps Up an SEM
Last year saw the larger, more developed SEMs being acquired by agencies finally getting hip to search, and we expect this trend to continue. However, we also see search engines of all sizes and web analytics firms acquiring small and mid-size SEMs. Doing so may give Tier II engines an opportunity to push their own product while sharing in some of the revenue generated by major engines like Google and Overture.
On the other hand, analytics firms may see an SEM acquisition as a case of 1+1=3. SEMs can help find and funnel qualified users to a site, and analytics companies can refine their experience once they’ve arrived, ensuring that the SEM campaign runs as efficiently as possible.
Ask Jeeves Buys PPC Engines
After building up a 7% market share the easy way (if you call a $343 million payout easy) with the acquisition of Interactive Search Holdings, Ask Jeeves is going to continue the trend of expansion through acquisition, picking up several, smaller PPC engines as a way to diversify their revenue and supplement their traffic.
Search Engines Step Up Their Technologies
It’s going to be another year of the search titans doing the thing they do best – innovating (and lest we forget, making money while they’re at it). Expect to see more information coming from more places delivered in a more relevant way.A little too vague for you? Here’s a look at some specific innovations in store for search technology in 2005:
Google’s Offerings Get in Sync
Between their desktop and local search, the library project and countless other efforts, it seems like Google’s got a piece of everything these days. What it doesn’t don’t have is a way to pull it all together. This year Google will refine its ability to cross reference information from all its different arms, mixing things like product discussions from Google Groups with Froogle results or mapping local search results to their new Keyhole product, etc.
Smarter Delivery of Contextually Relevant Information & Advertising
Contextual advertising will win over some of its detractors (and we know there are many) as search engines and associated businesses explore new ways to deliver information and advertising in a more elegant and intuitive manner. This is indicative of a 2004 trend, examples of which include Vibrant Media’s embedded ad model, the launch of Answers.com and the Trillian/Wikipedia partnership.
A Changing Search Marketing Landscape
Last year search marketing saw phenomenal growth, both in the sheer size and numbers of SEM firms entering the space and the overall number of dollars spent by advertisers. We expect this year to be no different. What will be different is the way marketers work with search engines and vice-versa.
Here are some of the ways the search marketing landscape will change as a result of these newly adopted mentalities:
Natural Search is the New Paid Search
Well, not really. But as paid search continues on its hockey stick-like trajectory, the sticker shock of rising click prices will cause many marketers to take a renewed interest in search engine optimization as a way to lock in premium ad spots and establish brand dominance. Search marketing and search optimization will be no longer kept church and state as marketing departments become more integrated, with dollars and dedicated resources flowing again after a long period of dormancy.
The Scramble for Blog Dollars
We see not just search engines, but also ad networks, weblogs and their ilk racing to be the first to develop a successful monetized blog network. Even though there’s a lot of chatter about blogs making a less-than-monumental impact this year, we think that’s an underestimation. Our prediction for first at the finish line: Google and Blogger.
Search and Contextual Advertising Get a Divorce
And a long overdue one, we might add. Though many think it’s still a pipe dream, the major engines have been listening to advertisers’ complaints about the lack of transparency between the two mediums and have been taking steps to better the situation. This goes beyond baby steps like Google’s Smart Pricing system and includes separate marketplaces, bid management and creative techniques. Expect Google to stay stubborn on this one and Yahoo! to be one who finally brings it home.
B-to-B Fully Embraces Search
It’s being said all over, and for once we agree – business-to-business advertisers will finally come to embrace the search channel as an essential part of their marketing mix, allocating additional resources and dollars for their 2005 campaigns. As 2004 progressed, we saw an increase in interest from this vertical, and market reports support a much larger wellspring of interest for the new year.
Check back Friday for the thrilling conclusion, where we’ll cover some advertising innovations that we expect to shake up the market as well as shred some pie-in-the-sky predictions that seem to be getting a lot of airplay in the press as of late.
Topics: Advertising: Behavioral, Advertising: Contextual, Advertising: Distribution, Blogging, Investment, M&A, Open Source, SEM: Firms, SEM: Paid Search, SEO, Search: Innovations, Web Analytics |
salam
Search Divorce Records Bodega Bay
The Berkshire Book of Records ; Chymes - Search With Google: