Search Engine Marketing Survey Released By Sherpa

Search Engine Marketing Just Somewhat Effective?

According to Marketing Sherpa, the biggest surprise in their 2004 Search Marketing Survey results was that neither marketers nor their agencies voted any type of search campaign to be “very effective.”

Here’s the breakdown of what folks actively using each tactic thought of their results:

Very Good Somewhat Not Good BAD
Optimization 31% 50% 14% 5%
Paid Ads 34% 47% 12% 6%
Paid Inclusion 18% 51% 23% 8%

As you can see, “somewhat effective” won out every time. Sherpa states this trend has shown up on every survey they’ve conducted to marketers of all varieties (b-to-b, online ad specialists, Google experts, etc.) for the past two years.

Why? Well, their guess is a combination of factors, including:
- PPC click costs are rising
- SEM newbies are flooding the field with inept campaigns
- Search algorithm changes make consistent SEO results hard
- Increasing results page clutter
- Competition

More Information from the Sherpa Survey