Search engines are constantly evolving and marketers need to know how to leverage the various aspects of search to have successful campaigns.

(Coverage of SES Chicago continues at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Justin Merickel, Vice President, Marketing & New Product Development, Efficient Frontier, said SERPs are changing and have become more focused on images.

Marketers should use structural data they have to help drive additional results within SERPs.

Benefits for SEM:
long tail automation
specific creatives - prices, offers
Automates a significant manual effort
Complements optimization also in use

"End result is greater SERP coverage," said Merickel.

Creative Management:
Develop feeds
Map feeds to a creative template
Generate ad variations from template
Assign/match o ad groups based on feed data and schedule

Merickel says there are two big trends driving display towards search-like performance, each with optimization implications.

1.    The rapid expansion of auction-based access to inventory
2.    Access to targeting data decoupled from media (offline is online)

Search and display needs to work together in order to boost conversion rates.

Eli Goodman, Search Evangelist, comScore, said three things stand out related to search including branding, in-text search and social search.  Branding opportunities for marketers have increased and go way beyond direct response.

"As organic results become richer,sponsored results must keep up - expect innovations," said Goodman.

Ecourage advertisers to think of search as the traffic driver to the brand mechanism, not just the brand.

In-text Search

Think about the internet through search and the hyperlink

How personal will it get? All about you (users)

More useful content increases user engagement

Social Search

This market is growing by leaps and bounds

"Social search is the next frontier, but the results need to be more relevant," said Goodman.

Sees real true search product at Facebook

YouTube SEM Opportunities -- allows opportunities for little guy
 

WebProNews Reporter/Anchor Abby Johnson Contributed To This Report.

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