• by Mark Naples , March 11, 2005

Last week, I stuck my neck out with the assertion that there is a preponderance of search engine marketing firms (SEMs) who make specious claims regarding their "proprietary technology."

The point was this: If we all "invent" a cool bid management tool, that does not necessarily imply that there are differences among these tools. It also does not imply that open source technology is anything special. What I was trying to stress was that the best SEM firms live and die on the same value proposition that the best agencies live and die on - the relationships they attain and nurture with their major clients. If you want to find a great SEM, talk to the brands you respect that work with them.

Something I wish I had included in last week's column was a disclaimer of sorts, that I was not writing this piece about any of the top-tier firms - let's just say that none of the ones mentioned in Nate Elliott's SEM Report for Jupiter a couple of months ago were in my crosshairs.

But that didn't keep me from hearing this on my cell phone before lunch last Friday: "You're not talking about us, are you?" This plaintive call came from not just people at one of these top-tier firms, but from three firms in all. Then came the calls and e-mails from people who were very pleased with what I wrote. One SEM CEO (whom I've never met) even wrote me with an offer to contract my services because of how much he liked reading that column. He must not have finished reading it, seeing as I mentioned clearly in the conclusion that I have long worked with another SEM.

Then again, maybe conflict of interest doesn't matter so much in the SEM business. Even Google caught Google in a cloaking scam this week. No wonder traditional marketers think we're all a little bit silly.

Curiously, the auto-signature file in this CEO's e-mail contained a logo that, when I moused over it, contained the URL of another, much larger company (one of the aforementioned top-tier players). I forwarded his e-mail to a few friends and colleagues, each of whom saw the same source script when they rolled their mouse over his logo. My questions to him and to execs at the other company have both been met with curious denials. If anyone has an explanation for why this script subterfuge would occur, I'm all ears. I have to admit, when I saw it the first time, my initial thought was "it figures."

My favorite response came from a marketing representative from another firm who sent me an e-mail that was almost as long as my column itself - more than 600 words. In this note, the representative described to me what was cool and innovative about his company's technology. He used the usual terms, like "ROI" and "technology agnostic," and he lost me in his second paragraph, when he mentioned "single interface analytics" for the third time.

(Pet peeve note: Why is "platform" or "technology agnostic" the term of art in our industry when "agnostic" means "not knowing?" Why don't we refer to "platform indifferent" instead? To any marketers who are reading this - news flash - words mean things.)

In all, the carnival that is SEM came to me in the past week, and I was glad to have the visit. I like writing about search more than most other topics because SEM, by its very nature, makes a lot of sense. Treating a search engine like other media can be a marketer's panacea. No wonder there are so many charlatans. It's just like every other gold rush.

See, I'm not agnostic to the platform or to the technology behind it. I know it works. The differentiator is seldom in the technology though. It's in the ideas, which means that the differentiator resides in the same place it does for most service enterprises; it resides in the people.