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I'd love to hear what predictions people have for SEM in 2004 in terms of industry trends, technologies that'll come to the forefront, and any other interesting thoughts about how things will change in the SEM world next year.
A few predictions of my own:
1) MSN will make clear how & when they'll compete with Google and Overture, and what they'll do to set themselves apart. Look for their special sauce to involve leveraging OS dominance and huge cash hoardes to make an irresistible offer to SEM advertisers.
2) At least one company will productize an integrated SEM management suite that will include keyword generation, copy/title generation, bid management, mgmt for multiple SE's, reporting that actually provides value. A lot of the pieces currently exist, but no one has integrated them.
3) Keyword competition will become intense for the long tail. Today most companies compete on the top 5-10% of their keywords, but 2004 will see intense competition for keywords that today have only 1-4 bidders all near the minimum. This will change the ROI picture for paid search and force out more and more of the smaller players.
4) By end of 2004 Nutch will have 5-10% of global search traffic. Haven't heard of them? They're an open-source effort to compete with Google.
5) Search engines will find a way to get their users to do much more well-defined searches. This will result in higher traffic for the 2nd and 3rd-tier keywords in everyone's keyword portfolios - and more competition.
6) Someone with deep pockets will make an attempt to roll up a number of the 20-100 person SEM agencies into one mega-SEM agency. Those of you who've developed thriving small businesses in the SEM space, you'll have a chance to find dumb money to finance your retirement, but remember - TAKE CASH.
7) The branding value of PPC will become sufficiently quantifiable that dozens, if not hundreds, of brand marketers will throw $100K-$1M/month spends into PPC not even worrying if they get a single transaction.
C'mon everyone, pontificate!
