There's clearly an emerging market for better
tracking and data evaluation
technology. Any plans to release your software as
a commercial product, or is
purely for in-house use?
Although the technology we developed was initially for
in-house use, we
have decided to refine it and launch these PPC management
and ROI tracking facilities
as a stand-alone commercial product - either as a "white-label" solution
for agencies or as a branded MMT product (PPCBoss and
ROIBoss) (if people prefer to
use our brand names). We do not intend to sell this product
direct to end-users but solely through resellers/agencies.
As a technology based company
we are better at supporting people technically
rather than having a large sales force and support facilities
for end-users.
The stand-alone product is currently in final Alpha
testing and will be
ready for beta-testing (hopefully) by 1st September.
Beta testers will get
free use of the product until it is launched (probably
1st Jan 2005) and
those interested in being a tester can apply to me directly
- we are quite
selective though!
With Google's
imminent IPO, there seems to be more attention paid
to the channel than ever
before. What changes do you see coming up for searchmarketing
over the next year?
There certainly seems to be a huge amount of interest
in the channel. At
SES in San Jose I experienced this at first hand,
with VC companies
circling around like sharks! Having spent years
quietly developing the
business with the bank saying to me "I don't
understand what you do - but
it seems to work.." - it was a surprise to
have bankers sitting down and
saying "I think I understand what you do -
but what makes you different..."!
Probably channel consolidation will really start
to take off over the next
12 months. Already we can see tranches of VC money
being ploughed into SEM
companies, mergers and acquisitions are taking place
and I feel the market
will evolve into a few large players and some smaller
regional companies
offering services for their niche markets. Certainly
I think the era of
anyone and everyone saying that they can offer SEM
services and new SEO
companies starting daily will begin to draw to a
close. As the business
becomes more mainstream, so people are looking at
suppliers with a more
critical eye. The recent case successfully prosecuted
by the Washington
State Attorney General
(http://www.atg.wa.gov/releases/rel_4greatbuys_081104.html)
against
Internet Advancement would have been thought almost
impossible a year ago -
now there is a precedent of taking action against
SEM companies that
mislead or give unsatisfactory guarantees to potential
clients. I think
this is a very important case and, hopefully, will
give pause to thought to
the people out there who have been getting away
with less than satisfactory
service to their client base over the years.
All this should make people a lot more circumspect
in choosing their SEM
partner and those who have been around for a few
years should be the
beneficiaries. Of course, this could make them prime
targets for
acquisition also as larger agencies who want to
get into the channel try
and bring their skills in-house.
The realization that SEM is a lot more than just
tweaking meta-tags or
placing the maximum bid for your client on a PPC
engine is starting to take
hold - which takes us back to what we were talking
about at the beginning
of this interview - accountability to the client.
So, in a nut-shell - I expect to see a shakeout
of the plethora of SEO
companies and the beginning of the consolidation
of the SEM industry. This
could even include the major search engines offering
professional SEM
services for their engines (Overture are already
trying to do this). The
recent employment and use of consultancy services
from certain (unnamed)
very experienced SEOs shows that they may recognize
that the real talent
they need is already out there in the channel.
So great opportunities exist for established channel
vendors - but I
wouldn't like to be a new company entering the SEM
market today. When we
started, I think it was a lot easier!
...
Based in Northern Ireland, Barry
Lloyd has worked in the computer industry
for over 20 years in the UK, Europe, Taiwan and the USA. He has been
involved in the development of hardware and software products worldwide.
Barry has held senior sales and marketing positions for several leading
IT companies before founding the company in 1998. Barry has spoken
at conferences such as Search Engine Strategies on search engine marketing
and writes articles on specific aspects of the industry for information
based newsletters such as HighRankings Advisor and The
MakeMeTop
Newsletter.
