2008: The Year Search Won by a Knockout
Those display people made lots of money and then it ended, for a time. The display bubble didn’t pop – it floated with the wind for a few years only to be caught back on the blow wand and further inflated with hot air from BT. This allowed display to soar higher until finally with colossal fury the medium came crashing down on top of it. It was mutiny. In 2008 the Internet killed its first superstar, display advertising. As search knew all along, the medium was indeed the message.
Eight years ago marketers did everything in their power to disrupt your experience with pop-ups, pop unders, interstitials and spyware.
Back then email was going to rule the world. With ISPs clueless, then helpless, spammers ripped the guts out of email marketing. Email has of course survived and remains a great marketing tool -- it even had the intestinal fortitude in 2003 with one last gasp to build the world’s largest social network in MySpace, but it is a shell of its former self.
Eight years ago analytics was primitive and testing was only possible with redirects, subdomains or in series.
Back then personalization was going to be the next big thing - though privacy was a big concern. Broadband was going to merge TV and the Internet. Mobile was about to break out and viral marketing was white hot. Some things never change.
Eight years ago search advertising was basically non-existent with only GoTo.com and its 25 employees for PPC.
Back then SEO was a burgeoning but underground practice with Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Watch the one must read site. People like SE Guru (Daron Babin) and Detlev Johnson lead the way on the message boards.
Eight years ago… but times have changed.
Over the past eight years search and in particular paid search (or SEM) has slowly and steadily grown up. Of course slow and steady wins the race – and so does relevance. This year search can finally declare victory. It has won the battle for Internet advertising supremacy and it’s hard to imagine any serious competition for sometime.
How much did Search kick ass?
In 2003 Jupiter predicted the paid search market would grow to $4.3 billion in revenues by 2008. The actual figure this year will be around $11 billion – almost 3X of what was predicted only 5 years ago. Search, which only a year ago was equal in spending to display, is now poised to double it (according to Emarketer). Search, that scrappy and seemingly unsexy entity has not just become mainstream, it is now the driving OS behind the future of all advertising.
Eight years ago I became passionate about search because I though it could change the world. It gives me great pleasure to see that it has. The impact, first felt in verticals like travel now extends to nearly every form of media and every business vertical. Search, in some form or another (consumer, vertical or enterprise) is arguably the single most important business discipline. Organizations that don’t learn to harness the power of search internally and externally place their future in a tenuous competitive position.
Still, we have a long way to go. Search is not taught in our schools nor understood by most corporate middle mangers, let alone the C-level execs. Many SEM agencies produce garbage work and many in the SEO world are seen as nefarious geeks. Search still has an identity crisis…kind of like a kid going through puberty.
But this year, 2008, the pimply kid showed the world he has left hook like Joe Frazier. As soon as his skin clears up and he fills out I reckon he’ll be downright attractive and the girls will be lining up for him. And I believe they’ll be quite pleased with the results.
In a year with so much failure and loss I raise my glass and toast a winner. Search. Salud!
Comments