UK search market grows; Google introduces contextual video ads
First up, the UK search marketing sector is projected to hit GBP 1.4 bn pounds according to e-Consultancy, reports NetImperative, a 65% growth compared to last year. Paid search accounts for most of this pie and is projected to reach GBP1.26 bn pounds.
Interestingly, the SEO market is also expected to record an impressive growth rate of about 50% and hit about GBP147 million by the end of this year. I find it interesting because SEO as an industry is undoubtedly under increasing pressures and challenges as search engines become increasingly smarter. Even if the market appreciates the value of high search engine rankings and is willing to spend money on achieving that (obviously that is the case as can be seen from the grwoth projections), the days of being able to ‘manipulate’ the search engines (particularly Google) to achieve and sustain high rankings very quickly are numbered if not totally gone. Therefore, if the SEO market size is shown to be growing rapidly, I’d be very surprised if the scope of the SEO services that are offered hasn’t changed significantly.
Meanwhile, Google has launched distribution of video ads through its content network sites (AdSense publishers) in the United States, Canada and Japan. Surprisingly, UK is left out of this initial roll out of video ads. All the major enhancements to the Ad formats that Google has introduced to its Adwords progam have been directed only at the content network (be they image / Flash ads and now the Video ads). Rich media advertising — with audio and video is touted to be the future of online advertising, so this is defiinitely an interesting move by Google. In fact, one analyst has called this the beginning of Google’s move into television advertising.
Yet, I believe video advertising will require a lot more policing as I believe there is far greater potential for “mischief” — in terms of brand protection as well as the inclusion of irrelevant or undesirable content in the ads.
