Digital direct: Google's scheme is not the be-all and end-all for search
Google certainly caused a stir when it announced its plans to abolish its agency commission system in favour of the European Third-Party Programme (see analysis, p17). Designed to encourage best practice and empower third parties, the programme is viewed by The Search Works as a positive initiative to boost the quality of services in the SEM (search engine marketing) space. Much less attractive, however, is the massive reduction in commission that accompanies it.
On the face of it, Google's new commission scheme, based on tiered
levels of spend, will benefit industry leaders and penalise smaller
players.
However, some of the worst culprits of commission abuse are the very big
ADVERTISEMENT
big budgets from large clients with large offline media
requirements.
It is unclear how Google's scheme will deal with this situation.
We have only been briefed on an outline of the initiative and await
details of how it will work before we take action and, indeed, before we
can begin to advise our clients on the impact of the changes.
Google makes up a large part of the search space, but it's only a
part.
Yahoo!/Overture, MIVA and, next year, MSN, will continue to be important
publishers. We have received clear statements of their intent to keep
current commission levels. It is conceivable that SEMs will meet the
threshold of Google's spend and focus their remaining budget on other
engines. And Google's current proposal does nothing to offset this.
Finally, search may be the fastest-growing media ever, but it's still
only three per cent of the marketing mix. We are much more interested in
initiatives that will push it up to 10 per cent of the mix, while
retaining great ROI for our clients.
Jobs
- Digital Content Manager, Sage UK Limited
- , North East England
- Account Manager, Livewire PR
- £27-33K, West London
- MARKETING MANAGER :: INTERNATIONAL PROPERTY COMPANY, Dylan*
- Up to £55k + fantastic bens, Central London
- STAFFING AGENCY :: INTEGRATED AGENCY, Dylan*
- ,
Comments