The market reacted well today to encouraging signs for the U.S. economy.
Retailers said that store sales in February were up by the largest amount
since November 2007. And US factory orders rose by the largest amount in
4 months. Well, let me add some more positive news to the mix: using SMX
West as a sample, the energy level at search conferences is up 2X year over
year (for you statisticians, I made that up).
Danny Sullivan and team put together a strong event in SMX West 2010.
Kicking it off with Steve Ballmer was a coup for SMX and his energy and
enthusiasm for search carried throughout the event. And the level of
interest in the sessions and enthusiasm for search (and display) marketing was
evident among the attendees I spoke to over the last few days.
I participated in two very different panels. On Wednesday, I spoke about
the opportunities in integrating search and display marketing. A clear
take away from the search and display session was that marketers are
hyper-focused on making progress against the challenges of attributing success
correctly across marketing channels. We’re eager to partner with our
clients and prospects in tackling the complex problem of attribution!
Today, I spoke about the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. I received many questions
(asked in different ways) about the future relevance of Yahoo! without a core
search offering. (Note to Yahoo!, it doesn’t seem like your messaging
around “controlling the user experience in search” is breaking through with
advertisers.) Clearly, Yahoo! has some amazing properties that most of us
use every week if not every day (ex. Finance, Mail, News, Sports). They
will remain very relevant for the foreseeable future, just perhaps not as a
search engine.
It was fun to engage with peers on the coming trends in our industry. The
cloud of “cautious retrenching” that very appropriately dominated events in 2009
may have lifted. With the search landscape evolving, display shifting to
auction pricing, and mobile coming of age, we have huge opportunities on the
table over the coming months and years in digital marketing.
Vice President, Marketing and New Product Development
Great! I look forward to seeing you guys at ad:tech in San Francisco next month.
Posted by: Fabian Ahmadi | March 18, 2010 at 05:57 PM