The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (www.sempo.org), a non-profit association, announced on August 12 the launch of a major advertising campaign to increase awareness and promote the value of search engine marketing, which will begin with banner and e-mail ads and will continue with other trade publications. The target market is media planners who may not have had significant exposure to search as a promotional tool.
Noel McMichael, co-chairperson of the SEMPO Marketing Committee, is positive that, properly applied, search can outperform nearly every other media in terms of efficiency, and said that SEMPO wants ad agencies to engage with search engine marketing firms and professionals to amplify the potential of search in their media mix. Many ad agencies, though, may be holding back since the major search engines, including Google and Yahoo, don't offer an agency commission.
