ClickZ: The SEM Shakeout: Are You Ready?

ClickZ's Kevin Lee predicts that there will be a shakeout in search engine marketing, with marketers playing virtual games of chicken against one another, daring each other to bid higher on keywords that will be able to be profitably used only if the marketers can track very accurately the resulting returns on purchased clicks. From his exposure to the AdTech crowd, Lee asserts that it's very difficult to determine the difference between a smart cookie bidding high and a crazed SEM lunatic wasting his money in an irrational effort to own a keyword.

The battlefield is likely to quickly drive marketers to better ROI tracking systems so that they can compete with the high-spending winners without losing their shirts.