Search Engine Marketing (SEM) vs. Blog Marketing: Targeted Advertising

In a previous post we started a comparison of Search Engine Marketing vs. Blog Marketing - in this post I look at other aspects of the analysis.

What SEM introduced to marketeers was the ability to track results with a precision unprecedented in the traditional marketing world. Google AdWords has turned me into a data addict - the breadth and depth of analysis capabilities is mind boggling and keeps me entertained in my endless quest for optimal keywords, campaigns and ads.

Although analysis is a key component for successful advertising another aspect that is perhaps even more important to advertisers is precise targeting.

An advertiser's dream is to be able to target potential customers with the precision of a sniper. SEM is still pretty much a shotgun approach.

Although the selection of keywords provides some focus, the common rule in PPC is to use a broad range of keywords to ensure a high number of impressions and then to whittle them down to pick out the most effective ones that push up the CTR and through that increase conversions. By trial and error the campaign becomes more targeted.

Blog Marketing on the other hand provides the precision of a sniper. Snapbomb's algorithm rewards bloggers that are the best fit for the advertiser's campaign. For example, if an advertiser wants to promote running shoes, bloggers that blog about running shoes a lot and that have a large readership will be rewarded the most. One can assume that the subscribers to that blog are interested in running shoes as well - the ideal target segment for the advertiser.

So is Blog Marketing the holy grail of advertising? Not yet. As the number of blogs and readers of blogs grows, blog marketing will become more and more important but for now, a good mix of marketing tools such as Google AdWords in combination with Snapbomb is probably the best way to go.