Search engine marketing may be commanding an ever-increasing share of the marketing dollar while producing measurable results. But it is “notoriously bad,” according to Todd Simon of Omaha Steaks.
“When a person goes to AOL and types in ‘Omaha Steaks,’ we don’t know whether they want to buy a steak from us or eat an Omaha steak in another city,” he said. ” How can you make it a more relevant and useful tool for the consumer?”
A panel of experts at the Donnelley Information Privacy Forum gave different answers to that question.
Paul Levine, general manager, local information at Yahoo, acknowledged the need for improvement.
“There’s some positive consumer response to search, but only 50% off the search results are relevant to what the consumer typed in,” Levine said. “There’s a ways to go, particularly in local search.”
Simon, who said his firm would buy more search if it were better, asked if an interim page could be served with follow-up questions.
Levine responded that a couple of search engines “categorize the query down” by offering links. The person who typed in Omaha Steaks could choose “the company, the steak houses in Omaha, or any number of things.”
Yahoo’s approach? “We continue to churn through the index of searches coming through, and will identify similar searches and prompt you to give you a little more information on what you’re looking for.”
But Levine added: “We don’t want to overburden the page with interfaces. It has to be powerful enough to serve the need and simple enough not to be too complex.”
Brendon Benzing, executive director, Yellow Pages and local search for AOL, explained that “the average query is only two words today. In the future, it could probably be a lot more specific.”
He continued that the search engine companies have invested billions in new technology, and that this should pay off in improvements over the next couple of years.
“Some problems will be handled with query routing,” he said. For example, the consumer might be asked: “Do you mean Omaha Steaks the business?
Another problem confronting SEM enthusiasts is trademark poaching. When buying key words, many marketers finding themselves bidding against their own brands, according to moderator Mark Schwartz, general manager, infoUSA Data Licensing Solutions.
Even more bizarre is when company divisions compete against each other.
“It’s common for an affiliate of a company to bid for similar keywords to the person they’re an affiliate of,” said Erron Silverstein, director of strategic planning and business development for Citisearch.
The latter problem can perhaps be solved by technology (and better integration). But legal action may be the only weapon against outright trademark violation.
“There’s a lot of litigation around this area right now,” Benzing said. “AOL has the same problem. We have to buy our name and brands on Google as well.”
Then there’s privacy, an issue hardly confined to the search-engine arena.
Is AOL coming up with anything like Google’s Gmail (a service that reportedly serves content-relevant ads within individual e-mails).
“We have a lot of data from instant messaging and chat rooms,” Benzing said. “There’s lots of opportunity.” But his firm is “not currently pursuing any of those infinitives. We’d be very, very careful about doing that.”
Yahoo is also being cautious.
“We were surprised to see the backlash to g-mail,” Levine said. “Consumers were clear in the message that they’re not liking that service.”
Meanwhile, Yahoo has discontinued its third-party advertiser e-mail program.
“Consumer preferences have changed,” Levine said. “They’re getting a lot more finicky about what will let in their inboxes. We’ve responded and tried to raise bar about what we’ll allow to happen.”
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