Advertisers' perceptions of search engine marketing

The objective of this study is to examine advertisers' perceptions of search engine marketing. The theoretical part of the study investigates the two aspects of search engine marketing, namely advertising and optimisation. With the use of a qualitative case study conducted with leading search engine marketers and experts in Finland, the paper suggests that search engine marketing is still in its infancy among Finnish companies. Whereas small-sized dot-com companies operating in the Business-to-Business (B2B) sector have been most active in search engine marketing, traditional brick-and-mortars are just starting to set plans for search engine marketing. Finally, the study discusses the implications and provides future research directions.