Search engine marketing and B2B publishers

I just returned from the Search Engine Strategies Chicago event, my first such event. I don't know about you, but I felt like a dinosaur at this conference. Search engine marketing (SEM) is so much more sophisticated (and with demonstrable ROI) compared to traditional print ad marketing and online media. And SEM is white hot right now, judging from the buzz at this conference. And not in a bubble sort of way. It is being driven by real results.

Marketers are putting dollars behind search marketing at the expense of all other forms of media. A recent Desilva+Phillips report by Ken Soneclar reports that "about half of all dollars directed at SEM campaigns these days are being drained away from marketing and/or other IT budgets." I believe it. At this conference, SEM gurus were openly exhorting their audiences to shift spending away from hard-to-justify brand advertising (whether print or online) to SEM, whose value is easy to prove to the toughest CFO beyond any shadow of a doubt.

In fact, the elusive ROI metric that we dinosaurs--er, B2B publishers--are trying to prove to our advertisers was being bandied about nonchalantly by SEM pros at the conference: ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). Talented SEM combined with intelligent use of state of the art analytics software yields demonstrable ROAS of 200% to 700%, based on figures I saw at the conference. Translated into plain language: The software is so sophisticated it now tells you that for every dollar you spend on search marketing, you get 2 dollars (or 3 or 5 or 7 or whatever your number) back in sales. The more you spend on advertising, the more sales. Period.

Now admittedly, ROAS metrics were being used by e-commerce B2C companies. However, B2B advertisers are using SEM for lead generation. Some are even tying those leads into their CRM software and doing true ROAS for B2B. Others are assigning a dollar value to leads generated this way, thus yielding simple calculations that show cost per lead.

Publishers can either ignore SEM, or seize the opportunity to leverage our content (which search engines LOVE) for online audience development and lead generation on behalf of our advertisers. In fact, savvy Internet-centric media companies are already using it for this. But I'm not so sure traditional B2B media companies are.

However, I intend to find out. I've volunteered to study online audience development on behalf of the American Business Media's Digital Media Council. I plan to interview several B2B publishers to find out what they're doing for online audience development, and how much does SEM play a role. The results will be presented at ABM's annual digital media event in March 16, 2006, in New York City. Publishers interested in cooperating in the study should e-mail me.