Will Success Spoil the Search Engine Marketing Party?
At this week�s Ad:Tech conference in NY, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) was a hot topic. According to MediaPost Communications, there were at least 11 panel discussions devoted to SEM. At an estimated $1.4 � 1.6 billion in ad revenue in 2003 and growing by leaps and bounds, SEM is deserving of the attention it has been getting from the media, especially due to the success of Overture�s and Google�s search engine ad networks and contextual ad placement programs.

But, as big name advertisers increasingly get involved in a territory that was formerly dominated by Web content managers and publishers, how will the expanding supply of paid listings affect the costs of SEM? And beyond ad cost, how will the popularity of SEM affect the quality of the search experience for the user? The providers of the ad networks that place paid listings and contextual ads will have to refine their processes for accepting and posting paid listings to ensure relevancy for the users. With contextual ad placements, the challenges are even greater since there are three parties to please: the advertiser, the user of the Web site who sees the ad, plus the publisher of the site where the ad is placed. To be most effective, the ad content needs to be relevant to the user who is viewing the content on that Web page and it needs to be acceptable to the publisher of the Web site. Clearly, there is lots of room for innovation in the �contextual ad� space and the increasing dollars being spent on online advertising by the major players in advertising will help encourage further investment in technology and applications, which should benefit Web publishers and information seekers alike.