Stepping out of Conventionality

I think I have lived a bigger life in the past two weeks than I have at any other time in the three full decades I’ve called this planet home. Over the past fourteen days, I have traveled across the continent twice attending two of the most important annual search and online marketing conferences, ad:Tech and Pubcon. Though feeling both physically and mentally exhausted, I am also feeling exhilarated and inspired, left with the strong impression that the industry is only getting more interesting.

I have attended, spoken at and covered search marketing conferences for years. Previously, I attended as a working SEO, coming to the conventions from a practitioner’s perspective. That served to both focus and limit my experience at previous years. As my position in the search marketing industry is rapidly evolving at this time, I was (by invitation), able to sample at the tables of dozens of other businesses in online marketing, trying to get a sense of the directions the sector might be heading.

There are an awfully lot of smart people working in search and Internet marketing. In another time or place, many could easily be called rocket scientists. They have the intelligence, passion and dedication of true entrepreneurial innovators and, believe it or not, an altruistic attitude that really does want to better the world in which we live.

There are, of course, an awful lot of awful businesses providing advertising solutions online as well. Most of these folks are not rocket scientists though more than a few could be considered evil geniuses. That type will always be around acting like parasites generally around the peripheries, but sometimes leaching close to the heart of their host, the Internet itself.

I am most interested in where the good stuff is going while trying to keep up with and inform others about the bad stuff. Today, let’s accentuate the positive and step out of conventionality, the mode many of us have been in for a while.

Remember the big-talk about convergence in the late 1990’s? Convergence was the concept that eventually all mediums would coalesce under a dominant media format. Convergence might have been accomplished all those years ago if any of us actually knew what we were doing but, alas, as history shows us, learning to run before taking baby-steps is generally a devastating idea.

The baby-steps have been taken, the child is growing rapidly and the early indicators of full convergence of mediums are present in the industry. When we watch the Winter Olympics from Whistler in 2010, the majority of us will be watching a digital signal on a HDTV or from our computers. Similarly, our newspapers, radio and other information sources are increasingly turning to digital distribution solutions, leading the search marketing industry to the threshold of the true global advertising world.

The future is bright for SEOs. Everything online comes down to search, especially as our information sources expand and diversify online. Every information distribution format both in advertising and web content creation I saw, tested and questioned at ad:Tech had some search functionality built in. Document, file and domain based optimization services are likely to flourish over time, especially as the search application environment itself becomes more diverse and complex.

The future is also bright for paid search advertising and the SEM agencies servicing that sector. What is not as clear is how the current dominant model of PPC will evolve. I heard a lot of discussion at ad:Tech and Pubcon about how rapidly rising expenses are driving small to medium advertisers away from Google and in some cases Yahoo Search Marketing over towards MSN’s adCenter, ASK’s sponsored listings, and the flat-fee model offered by the ISEDB. Advertisers are also becoming more interested in audio and video formats.

What impressed me most, and is something I need to think about a great deal more, is the speed of transition I sense happening. Remember being a kid and wondering what would happen if everyone on Earth jumped at exactly the same time? That’s sort of how I feel today contemplating the rapidity of change I perceive in the industry.

The surest bet is video. There is no way to stop the oncoming train of video invading the webspace. Embedded, streaming video is going to be a part of your future online advertising message as it is almost certainly going to be a part of your competitors’ messaging.

Next, in the sure bet category, comes regular, organic search. There is nothing that beats the ROI gained from a well thought-out organic search marketing campaign. Returns from PPC are excellent but dollar for invested dollar pale in comparison to the results gained from SEO. PPC focused SEM vendors will continue to do fine however that world is changing very quickly, consumers understand how to run their own campaigns, and a backlash against rising costs appears to be forming.

Lastly, some from of auction-based pricing is likely to be adopted by competitive sectors online. We already see this automated in the hotel and travel sectors through complex search devices like Expedia but the next step will be to empower the consumer themselves to bid for an arrange sale-prices, much as they do at eBay.

The greatest impression I am left with after two weeks of living in search is that those who are prepared to step away of conventionality will do better than those who do not chose to adapt. At the same time, the best thing for online businesses continues to be doing good business being diligent, and watching the returns from various online advertising initiatives very carefully.

As for me, I am in recovery mode for the next few days. I got back from Vegas late Saturday. I slept and read through of yesterday, except during the Grey Cup game, which I could have slept through anyway. I plan to spend the rest of the day writing thank-you notes to everyone I spoke with over the past fourteen days and trying to fully understand the dizzying mixture of experiences had and contacts made.

At this point, the only thing that is certain in my mind is the rush of happiness and gratitude I feel being back in Canada again. It’s good to be home, even if the premier football game of the year was uncharacteristically boring. At least the Lions won.