The future of search

Update - response from Microsoft's Cedric Chambaz at the end of this insight.

Early morning in London and some lively people (as well as others who are not so good in the morning) congregate at the Mayfair Hotel for the NMA Live Developments in Search event. I settle down towards the back of the room, ready to hear what people have to say.

What I’m expecting

There are so many exciting changes and developments in search; the one that I have been waiting for is the Yahoo & Bing Search Alliance. Social and Mobile are looking set to really launch this year with search as an important part of the digital planners’ strategy to get their webpages, social presence and apps noticed by our search consumers.

And here it is...

There’s some great information and opinion sharing regarding search, social and mobile from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, MediaCom and the sponsors, Found. One of my favourite points was the very small reminder that search has been the gateway to the web and opened up the wealth of information that we now have access to.

Decipher delivered an insightful presentation about how search is being used in TV, but I didn’t find that it was really about the future of search, it was more about how the concept of a search engine within TV PPR services is being used, so I’m going to skip that part. If you want to know what they had to say, let me know via our Twitter account.

Paid search opportunities

Converging with social advertising and mobile advertising, improved ad formats and measurable ROI means that being visible on paid search across all platforms is becoming more crucial for businesses. Using paid search as a base data source and applying cross channel learning can improve digital campaign impact and ROI.

Ad formats

Ad formats which are now being offered by the search networks are going to offer huge brand engagement opportunities; this is great for a focus on search for branding because the evolution of our medium is based on giving a greater offering – something which I can only agree with. There is now a great deal of placement opportunity for image, flash and video ads across multiple networks.

The Search Alliance

Apparently the North American transition went well, so I’m feeling good about this and we’re going to see Bing populating the natural search results in Yahoo by the end of Q1, and then the paid search transition will happen by the end of Q2.

Bing will power all search results and Yahoo will run account management and drive sales for the Alliance (I’m feeling all Star Wars now). I’m waiting to hear what other delegates have to say about the hook up before I ask my question – will the competition for search share mean that their products surrounding search will compete heavily or combine?

Social search optimisation

Social optimisation is about understanding audience needs and then refining your message to meet them. Think about interests, demographics and creative, and how social can feed your search. At the same time, social links are like votes in an election – your natural search wants those votes, and so it is at this point that every page on your website becomes a landing page to be optimised.

Mobile search

Mobile is about to take off as we see more smartphones in the marketplace, giving local search a higher importance. More localised and immediate information is required from mobile search than desktop search. I like this as I believe that every business should have a page in local search – and an app is not the be-all and end-all of your mobile strategy (Red Ant’s mobile strategy experts agree with this, so if you want to improve your mobile web but are not keen on an app, give us a call).

And so it ends…

What I have taken away from this is confirmation that my feelings were right - social and mobile search platforms are going to be very important to my work in search in the next few months. Search engines still need to be fed information to supply information, and content, copy, image and video should be optimised to appear in search across all available platforms.

Our search community will be watching and assessing how the Search Alliance will affect the UK search market and quality of traffic, while keeping an eye on their competing products outside of search. I expect that by the end of Q3 we will be looking at new emerging platforms from these two engines that we can use to drive more traffic using search as a medium.

Next time however, I need to put my hand up first and not be shy so I can get my questions answered! If the guys at Yahoo & Bing want to elaborate about their competitiveness, I’ll gladly update this article.

 

Update

Microsoft's Cedric Chambaz, EMEA Marketing Lead - SMB Advertising, has kindly given this response to my query about collaboration between Yahoo! and Microsoft:

Hi Sarah,

Before I start, let me thank you for the great capture of the NMA Live event. In your article, you raised the question of how Yahoo! and Microsoft will collaborate in advertising. As per our Twitter exchange, I wanted herewith to provide you with the answer to your question.

First it is critical to understand that the Yahoo! and Microsoft partnership is, as it says on the tin, a “Search Alliance”. Not a fusion, not an acquisition… An alliance limited to search. As such, as Jon pointed out in his presentation, we are collaborating but we also keep on competing.

As you rightfully pointed out in your article, Microsoft will power Yahoo!’s search and search advertising infrastructure, meaning that the search alliance covers algorithmic search (web, image and video through Bing algorithm) and search advertising. Microsoft and Yahoo! will unify their paid search marketplaces, and Microsoft’s search advertising platform (Microsoft Advertising adCenter) will be used for paid search advertising. For large advertisers and agencies, Yahoo! will become the exclusive sales force for Yahoo! and Microsoft paid search. Microsoft on the other hand will become responsible for driving demand for self-serve paid search advertising which will be enabled on adCenter. Click charges for all search ads will be set by adCenter’s auction.

The Search Alliance however does not include any aspects of display advertising, vertical searches or Yahoo! site searches, such as queries on Flickr or Yahoo! News. In these fields, our two companies will continue to compete.

I hope this answers your specific question. Keep up the good social media work.

Yours,

Cedric

This blog post was written by Sarah

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