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On Tuesday I spoke with Kevin Lee, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Did-it. Kevin also sits on the Board of Directors at SEMPO. SEMPO has just completed compiling the results from their annual “State of the Marketing” survey so the interview was focused around Kevin’s views on some of the findings. Hear the audio below.
Here is the list of questions I posed to Kevin Lee.
What are you thoughts on the overall success of the survey? Did SEMPO hit their targets in terms of respondents and representation from various industries?
Organic SEO is still the most popular form of SEM, what are your thoughts on that and how what do you expect to see in the future?
Why do you think there was such a huge decline in the number of firms using paid inclusion? It was down from 40% in 2005 to 20% last year?
Why do you think increased traffic was the most measured metric to gauge the success of SEM campaigns? Why not something more tangible which is related directly to the bottom line?
25% of respondents said they cannot afford to pay more in terms of paid placement, do they have any choice? Were you surprised to find out that a third of the respondents said their funding came from newly created budgets.
What are your thoughts on MSN’s huge rise in paid placement popularity, considering their solution came out so recently?
Here are some key takeaways from the findings:
- SEM was a $9.45 billion industry in North America in 2006, and will grow to $18.6 billion in 2011
- Direct sales an brand awareness are now primary objectives of advertisers, with an almost equal percentage of respondents citing them
- Organic SEO is still the most popular form of SEM, with almost three-quarters of advertisers using this method, with paid placement a very close second at 71%
- ROI is in line with inflation: Three out of four advertisers say they could afford to pay a mild increase in the price of paid placement, with one quarter of respondents reporting they’re already at their maximum cost per lead
- SEM is poaching budget from other marketing channels – especially from offline marketing channels, a marked difference from 2005 when budget was shifted mostly from online media such as web development and affiliate marketing
