• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, November 14, 2006

PALM SPRINGS, CALIF.--Google's entry into print ad and radio ad sales will pressure search marketers to also experiment with ads in traditional media. That's according to Jordan Rohan, managing director of RBC Capital Markets.

"The coordination of traditional and online is going to be one of the main themes in the coming year," Rohan said, speaking Monday at MediaPost's Search Insider Summit. "For marketers and service providers, this is the opportunity of a lifetime," he added.

In fact, Rohan predicted that search marketers--currently considered technical specialists--could become powerful players in media planning, if they could figure out how to implement search marketing principles in radio, print and other traditional media.

Rohan's basic advice: "Learn how to create, measure, plan and sell radio and television inventory, even better than the traditional agencies."

He said that search agencies that embrace old media advertising will be able to take advantage of new efficiencies made possible by Google. "There's a massive opportunity to sell advertising in a newspaper differently than it's done today. There are a lot of advertisers who would pay to insert ads in 500-1,000 newspapers if the process were easier." He added that among the main requirements was an electronic interface similar to that used to purchase search ads.

Google last week announced that it intended to start selling ads in 50 major newspapers by the end of the year.

The company also is readying a major push into radio ad sales. Rohan Monday forecast that Google will secure a big chunk of radio inventory, possibly from Clear Channel or CBS Radio, within the next 30 days. "They will pre-pay for radio inventory to the tune of $1 billion," Rohan predicted.

Rohan also predicted that Google would probably buy Web-based ad agency SpotRunner within the next six months, because "it fits so well with dMarc" and the general expansion into traditional media.