2009 – The year of “OK” in the search marketing industry with further emphasis on Integration, and the beginnings of consolidation

In my crystal ball – I predict that the search marketing industry will weather the current economic storm, but it won’t be the best year. It’ll just be OK with more churn than growth. While there will be potentially more dollars devoted to search, those dollars won’t be astronomical. There will be opportunities for search marketing firms to really demonstrate effectiveness and to grow accounts, but the flip side is that the companies we work with won’t be immune to the economic downturn. The savvy companies will adapt and spend more money on the Web.

Like everyone else – I also see “traditional” marketing agencies taking an even greater interest in bringing an SEM offering to the table as they struggle to stay afloat as marketing dollars dry up. I also see this as the beginnings of consolidation where marketing agencies and other SEM firms consolidate as the economy starts to turn around late this year and into 2010. I also predict that sole practitioners and smaller SEM shops will be absorbed into larger firms as finding and keeping clients gets harder to do and the brand and business development power of a larger shop or marketing firm brings in the clients.

These 2009 SEM predictions were also posted to the SEMpdx.org Web site