• SEM Geek , Thursday, July 31, 2008 2 PM

Greg Meyers interviews Rob Murray, president of iProspect, about the agency's research on Universal Search and the practice of integrating search with other marketing channels, among other things.

IProspect released a study in April uncovering how Universal Search was influencing searcher behavior. For example, they found that people were more likely to click on news results than images or videos. Meyers asked whether the research should deter marketers from running ads on the video- and image-heavy social networks.

"Without making a blanket statement on whether it's a good strategy for ALL companies to invest PPC budget on social networking sites, I disagree with the premise of your question," Murray said. "That's because people who are being presented with blended search results-- and are subsequently clicking news results more than images or videos--chose to go to one of the major search engines for a specific reason. A marketer may very well want to show their ads to people who had a reason to visit a search engine AND to people who had a reason to visit a social networking site. The reasons are not exclusive of one another."

Murray also said that while about half of iProspect's clients were integrating at least one offline channel with their search campaigns, "many are not doing so when they first engage with us and need convincing of the wisdom of doing so."

Read the whole story at SEM Geek »