Kevin Lee of Did-it.com is one of the smartest folks I have met in the 6+ years I have followed the search industry. Today, through SEMPO, he provides further evidence of what Rimm-Kaufman saw in their own client data and what I posted on yesterday:
“Kevin Lee, chief executive of search engine marketer Didit.com, said U.S consumers are “searching less” for various types of products. Lee, who runs one of the largest search engine marketing groups, said search advertising spending by his U.S. clients so far this quarter was flat or down year-over-year, with some clients showing marked drops due to “click supply issues.”
“Ad spending is notably lower than we expected during planning last fall. Overall, we would imagine that Google’s revenue growth is slowing markedly and if economic contraction continues there might actually be a year-over-year decline,” said Lee.”
The math geeks can’t do a lot here. If less people are showing up to buy, there is no amount of optimization innovation that can dig the industry out of that fact.
What we need is *gulp* *gasp* the brand folks (or the top of the funnel). Who woulda thunk it?
