Into the Future of SEM

Why did you get into SEM and what interests you about the field?

I believe that the SEM business world is going to continue to expand dramatically, especially if you consider the disproportionate advertising spend when comparing SEM to more traditional forms of marketing. Consider this quote from CNET "Total online ad spending is expected to increase just a little less than 20 percent this year, from $19.9 billion in 2007 to $23.8 billion. By 2013, Jupiter expects total online ad spending to hit $43.4 billion." When you consider stats like this, it is not a leap to realize that this is a growth industry even in a struggling economy, and therefore is a good industry to be in.

Where do you think SEM is going?

Further considering the quote above, and realizing all the new media possible to advertise on, I believe the SEM world is going to continue to expand rapidly for many years to come. I believe major SEM spending will expand to hand held devices such as the iphone in the near future as well as upper level managers continue to realize the power of marketing digitally. I also don't think it is a stretch to envision a network of roadside billboards that are all tied to ad networks as well displaying rich media ads such as flash. In summary, I believe in the years ahead SEM control centers like Adwords will evolve to include much more than just text based search network ads and that marketing spend in these areas will continue to increase drastically.