Media Buyers & Search Engine Advertising

[Howard17]

Just joined SEW moments ago. What a great resource!

Anyone have any insights on what media buyers in traditional ad agencies think about search engine marketing? Is it part of their world yet? Are they recommending it to their clients?

Thanks.
H17

[dannysullivan]

Welcome to the forums!

Overall, traditional firms seem to becoming more and more aware of it, though many anecdotally still seem to not get it. That doesn't surprise me. Many traditional firms are about brand building. Search marketing, while it has brand impact, is more a direct marketing/response medium.

Pulled together some resources you might want to check out, and others who are from or work with traditional agencies may also wish to contribute to this thread.

Agencies are acquiring firms, such as iProspect last week. Here's a list I made covering acqisitions this year.

State of the Search Marketing Industry 2004 on our SEW blog talks about two reports that look at ad agency spend in relation to SEM firm spend.

Gathering of the Tribes: Agencies, Engines and Advertisers Tackle Points of Friction is a forum thread out of our recent SES Chicago conference with some thoughts on the topic.

Ad Agencies Slowly Embrace Search Engine Marketing from our Boston SES conference in 2003 covers a panel on the topic of agencies and search marketing.

Ad Agencies & Search Engine Marketing Firms Beginning to Play from our New York SES conference in 2004 covers a revisit to the panel we did in Boston with new players, a year later. FYI, our SES NY show at the end of Feb/beginning of March will have this panel come back again for our annual look.

Why Ad Agencies Fail at Search Marketing, from ClickZ where Shari Thurow looks at why she thinks ad agencies don't get search marketing.

iProspect's John Tawadros did a Five Reasons Why Ad Agencies Hate Search Engine Marketing article that linked to and discussed from this forum thread here.

Where Do Agencies Fit in the Search Engine Marketing Process? from MediaPost had author Ross Fadner thinking agencies don't get search, after talking with a variety of analysts and media professionals. Elsewhere, Fadner also recounts concerns that were aired specifically on a panel at the Jupiter Media Advertising Forum on that topic.

What's missing is a perspective of search marketing from a traditional firm. I think that speaks volume. One of these may have gotten past me, especially as I may not be reading the same publications and outlets that a traditional ad marketer might review. But overall, I've rarely seen someone in a traditional firm stepping out explaining why "search marketers don't get it" or their strategy to absorb search marketing as part of the traditional experience. Love to hear if someone else has seen this.

[andrewgoodman]

Danny, nicely put together - that's quite a well-organized way of finding the one gap in available info - so, I gather that we haven't heard traditional big agency people weigh in much on search marketing yet? Interesting.

Just an off-the-cuff speculation or two on why this is.

1 - Size of opportunity / It doesn't pay. (a) Advertising as a whole still dwarfs the budget big companies spend on search advertising. Indeed, individual companies like GM spend billions offline (over $3 billion in GM's case for 2004). Agencies get paid based in part on the size of the corporates' budgets, so there is no incentive to pay attention to search as long as big companies are so hot-to-trot on television campaigns.; (b) there is virtually no 'creative' in search marketing & advertising. Agencies get paid for elaborate campaigns, not just making the "buy," obviously.

2 - Agency "stars" go for glamour, status within the existing advertising community. While there may be downward price pressure on big agencies, forced in part by larger companies who are fed up with the ad business, when smaller boutique shops start up, they mainly do the same type of work and chase after the same types of accounts. Why? Perhaps because they are trying to impress those in the trade, rather than being true to some notion of ROI or impressing "one client at a time." Status appears to matter quite a lot to some.

Search (for now) lacks size and glamour, so it stays off the radar of big agencies. That of course is a mistake on their part. Financial institutions and so forth who ignored "unglamorous" methods such as direct mail, in favor of the same old big brand agency-driven creative campaigns, have in certain cases been eaten alive by a new breed of direct marketers.

To sum up, I suspect the online "buy" is often too small for big media buyers. The business model is very different and different kinds of companies will (for now) chase after what is perceived as "scraps."

Part of the problem is how do business publications report on advertising and marketing? "So-and-so created a brilliant campaign" which made big company X a winner in a tough marketplace, etc. Advertising industry mythology is constantly reflected back to us in major business publications and even in shows like The Apprentice. What these accounts lack is any attempt to measure success. Arguably, the business section of your newspaper, like the nightly news, is more about entertainment than about info.

[Chris_D]

Yep - Andrew - I agree.

Search lacks the "glamour, status within the existing advertising community" that big TV ad buys have.

And besides - search is detail driven, often repetitive, time consuming work. Long hours.

Big Ad agency types just want to sign off the ad placements with the client, then get the media publisher worry about the details, so they can go to lunch to talk about it how good they are.......

Search doesn't fit that business model.

[Howard17]

Thanks for your insights. I agree about -- until there's a category for SEM in the Addy or Clio awards, it won't have the appeal of mass media campaigns.

Howard

[OptimizeOnline]

Originally Posted by andrewgoodman

Agencies get paid for elaborate campaigns, not just making the "buy," obviously. ... Agency "stars" go for glamour, status within the existing advertising community. ... To sum up, I suspect the online "buy" is often too small for big media buyers.

Andrew, I agree. In my experience many of the media agencies are much more interested in the "buy" and very little to do with the "manage".

Some agencies have worked with traditional media / marketing methods for so long that they fail to realize that SEM is simply another piece of the puzzle that can be used to compliment an overall campaign. As was previously mentioned, PPC is typically more of a direct response method, but should not be neglected as part of the campaign. For some agencies and folks in other branches of the media (TV for example), its been tough to sell SEM as a complimentary value to traditional advertising. I personally think its a natural fit.

Coach