If someone had told the forefathers of direct marketing there would be a day when it will no longer be necessary to spend money to guess who might be interested in your product or service, people would have laughed. That time has arrived. Search engines are an incredibly effective path to reaching a new customer because the prospect is initiating the inquiry.

Lead quality has always been a challenge for direct marketers. When a list is both fresh and targeted, the conversion rates are, of course, much stronger. High-caliber leads also allow for a measure of slackness in other dimensions of a program. For instance, in the call center industry, a good list will compensate for a mediocre rep and a great rep will look like a superhero when communicating with the most qualified of prospects. On the direct mail side, a targeted mailing can seriously offset plain vanilla copy or a flawed response mechanism.

Through search, the 2% rule still exists (that a 2% or so response to many types of campaigns is a satisfactory result), but with search, you don't have to pay for the 98% who aren't interested.

Search is an evolving industry and it's important to understand the landscape. Today, there are three main channels to gain prominence within the search engines. They are:

1. Paid placement. Top positions on Google and Overture.

2. Paid inclusion/XML feeds. Guarantees inclusion in many engines).

3. Organic or natural search. Algorithmic positioning, important for Google.

Paid placement programs are generating considerable buzz. That's because, as a marketer, you have the ability to determine how visible you want to be or can afford to be in any search result listing. If the budget is ample, it's perfectly possible to “bid your way to the top.” That having been said, the more competitive the keyword, the more costly the proposition.

Google provides paid listings to both AOL and Ask Jeeves in addition to its own results. Overture shares its first few listings with MSN, Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista and several others.

Unlike other aspects of search engine marketing, the playing field here is not level. Bid prices can range from a few cents to many dollars. Depending on the popularity of the search term, that can amount to a considerable number of clicks. Those with deeper pockets have a distinct advantage.

A newer component to the submission terrain is paid inclusion. Paid inclusion is similar to paid placement in that there is a direct fee charged by the engines, but the pricing model is different. Instead of an auction-type environment, paid placement fees are derived from a flat-rate cost per click (CPC). For some engines like Ask Jeeves, the fee is the same, regardless of the industry, while other engines and directories such as LookSmart have recently transitioned to a category-based pricing model. Click prices typically range from 30 cents to 75 cents.

Paid inclusion results are database positions and they will appear below the paid positions. Although exact positioning is not guaranteed, it is an excellent way to gain traction within the engines that offer this technology and generate qualified traffic. For the more competitive keywords, this is a proven way to generate cost-effective traffic.

Many engines, most notably Google, still derive their database listings from an algorithmic formula. Google's doesn't have a paid inclusion option. So, in order to advance within the Google index, a Web site needs to be built in a manner that Google appropriately recognizes. There are two chief objectives:

• A Web site needs to be coded in a manner that Google's spiders can navigate as they work to capture the content contained throughout a site. The easier the navigation, the greater the amount of data captured. Coding is the “infrastructure” of any Web site, and today there are numerous construction methods. Some (such as flash) are meant to enhance the user experience, but can provide impediments to effective crawling. There is often a trade-off between the visual aspects of a site and the degree that site can be indexed through search engine spidering.

• Google is able to assess the degree that any Web site is populating the Internet. Attaining positions in the other main search engines and directories can be very helpful. This illustrates for Google that other hubs of the Internet consider the Web site to be noteworthy. Furthermore, linking to Web sites that contain content of a similar nature (such as industry-related portals and online trade journals) is also very valuable.

Guaranteeing positions within Google's database is not possible, as it is a very dynamic environment. Google consistently modifies its ranking algorithm, with the objective of displaying increasingly relevant data.

Traditional forms of direct marketing that produce a favorable ROI should continue to play a significant role for most companies. It's vital, though, to be accepting of new marketing channels.

The evidence continues to build that search engines have carved a niche as a tremendously effective tool. Now is the time to take stock of your current search-related initiatives and be certain that you are leveraging this evolving client-acquisition channel.