I Came to Search Insider Summit a Search Marketer. I Leave a Digital Marketer

Change is inevitable. In the online marketing world, that inevitability manifests itself almost monthly. When I arrived at the stunning, one-percent catering, St. Regis Deer Valley for the Search Insider Summit, I came to talk search. You know, things like negative keywords, dynamic keyword insertion, and broad match modified. Turns out, however, that those traditional SEM topics didn’t play much at SIS. Instead, we talked about DSPs, voice search, mobile-enabled landing pages, and the integration of social signals into display ads. To put it another way, we really didn’t talk about search. We talked about digital marketing.

This is the state of “search” today – specifically, it’s not about search. Search engine marketing agencies are dead and have been replaced by SEMs who happen to apply quantitative analysis to a multitude of online marketing channels. At a minimum, the modern search agency needs to be proficient at:

• SEM – including Google, Yahoo/MSN, and select second-tier engines;
• Performance display advertising – including GDN, retargeting, DSPs, and exchanges;
• Social – including Facebook PPC and mostly likely Twitter advertising;
• Mobile advertising
• Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Add to that several optional proficiencies like video, local, analytics, and SEO, and search engine marketers have a brain-hurting job these days. For the most part, I see this as a huge opportunity for agencies…continue reading the full article