Making Search the Centerpiece of Your 2013 Digital Advertising
As brands ready for 2013, here are a few ways to maximize the role search should play for your brand.
As brands ready for 2013, here are a few ways to maximize the role search should play for your brand.
Search works. Period. End of story.
Despite that truth, every year it seems like many brands cannot wait to put dollars elsewhere. The annual industry spend projections seem to frequently trumpet a rise in media investment in alternative digital channels. They project that some channel is going to replace search or, at the very least, take a chunk of growth away from search. The reasons are varied, ranging from consumer behavior shifts to media inventory accessibility and programmatic ease in buying those alternative channels. The reality is search is as unsexy today as it has ever been to talk about. It’s still largely text and it’s still primarily predicated on an explicit consumer action that takes the influence element out of the media. Search is not measured on exposure and engagement, but rather on cold, hard revenue.
If we can all agree for a minute that people still go to Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and that they search for products, places, and people – and acknowledge that they now do these things on their mobile devices, on YouTube, and will do it on Facebook and Twitter increasingly more often – then we simply need to determine how to make those hand-raisers the centerpiece of our digital strategy.
As brands ready for 2013, here are a few ways to maximize the role search should play for your brand:
In 2013, social, mobile, and audience-based buying are all going to command attention and media dollars. The effectiveness of those channels will be scrutinized and brands will invest substantial time and money in the potential. That’s all important and valuable, but it does not diminish from what search has done for your brand and will do into the future. Sometimes the old dog doesn’t need a new trick, sometimes you just have to feed that big dog and let him continue to eat.