• by Mark Naples , March 4, 2005

Tough to take this headline seriously, isn't it? That's what all headlines begin to look like, however, when the dozens of search engine marketing (SEM) firms exhibiting at yet another bursting-at-the-seams Search Engine Strategies (SES) event start their PR engines.

Search is the one segment of our industry that has always seemed more like a gold rush to me than the other sub segments. Search is the one category in which a $15 million to $30 million, 80-employee company can go on a road show thinking that they have the best proprietary technology in the world, only to find that the venture capitalists (VC) they meet with think they have a bunch of open source tools and a bid engine that looks just like everyone else's.

"We get it a lot, frankly," said a highly respected rep from one of the leading VCs, in the search segment. "These guys are predominantly salespeople and marketers, and usually very good ones at that. Since the search space is a sales-driven space with technology behind every transaction, actually creating proprietary tools is a great differentiator, so companies focus on it in their messaging when they really don't have much behind the curtain. Some would be better off simply focusing on the results they drive for their clients though, since more often than not, we find that there's little to look at."

This trend toward claiming proprietary technology is not new in this space. So, it struck me as I walked through the show exhibits and listened to or read the companies' pitches that there was a whole lot of re-running going on. Put another way, you had to watch where you stepped.

I would love to name names here, especially since there are probably going to be dozens of people from companies at that show who will read this screed and think, "not us." But, I've learned my lesson about that from columns past, and will keep this one generic.

Let's talk about one of the very largest players in the space. They manage SEM and SEO for one of the largest retailers online that also has a brick-and-mortar presence. They can't help talking about their cutting-edge technology offerings in SEO, SEM, and just about every other sub-element within search, including a special means of managing XML feeds.

All it takes is five minutes to learn that each of these special products and features is not just a little bit like, but is exactly like what is being offered by every other major SEM in the country. What is their secret to SEO success? They flatten site architectures and provide site indexes at the top level, so that spiders can find them. What is the secret to their compelling return on investment from paid campaigns? They buy only longer keyword strings and pay less for them, and therefore, the higher conversion rates become even more amplified. They've also made their paid inclusion process a product.

Nevertheless, 10 minutes spent with them in the booth or - yes - on their site reveals that all of this is driven by their industry-leading, wizard-behind-the-curtain technology.

This wizard must get very tired at these shows, since he's working for every company there. SEM is like ad-serving, in terms of it being a commodity, but closed behind corporate, proprietary doors. It's basically all the same stuff, though.

There are some tremendous SEM firms out there. In terms of full disclosure, I should mention that I have worked with one at multiple levels (icrossing). What many of these firms do to increase sales for companies is truly impressive, and the search segment deserves all of the attention it's been getting, even if it's not because search now comprises more than 50 percent of all interactive spending.

Please though, for those of you responsible for message generation in the SEM space, enough with your cutting-edge technology claims. Come up with something better - like big, branded clients who will go on the record, or across-multiple-verticals vertical analysis with hard data. Now there's something that will garner attention.