I love this time of year. It's filled with new resolutions (and a ridiculous amount of advertising for diets), the end of football and the beginning of hoops (March Madness is coming!), and, for me, a massive sense of optimism. It's also the time of year for making predictions.
Here are my top 3 for the online marketing/social media world.
1. Facebook will be acquired. The price will be higher than YouTube. The smart money is on AOL. But Google, Yahoo or Microsoft could snatch it away at the last minute. Major dark horse bidder will be a private equity group.
2. "Google Whiplash" begins. Smart online marketers move away from PPC on the giant because of price inflation. Google continues rapid growth because there are plenty of less savvy marketers willing to buy its traffic.
3. Online CPM rates go completely bipolar as niche sites often driven by social media attract strong premiums and massive "old school" sites come under increasing pressure to prove their ROI.
Agree or disagree? What are your predictions?
Unfortunately I don't think smart marketers will move away from Google. Why? Because it works and still provides a solid ROI, so why would you move away from that. The problem with inflating keyword prices is irrelevance; most likely the keyword isn't relevant to the content of the landing page. I am still getting plenty of clicks at a nickel or below, but I can't use as many keywords as I once did.
Posted by: Cameron Olthuis | January 2, 2007 6:21 PM | Permalink to Comment