June

The Search Works tops SEM agencies

The Search Works has emerged as the UK's top search marketing agency, according to NMA's inaugural Marketing Services Guide.

The Soho-based agency quadrupled its turnover this year of earn £20.74m in the 12 months to December 2005, compared to £5.3m for the previous year. This takes The Search Works to the top of NMA's ranking of agencies in this sector, nearly £2m ahead of its closest rival, Latitude.

"The reasons we've had such a successful year are that we have a fanatically motivated team and great clients who are very happy with what we're doing," said Jim Bridgen, MD, of The Search Works. "Other third parties are getting things fundamentally wrong in how they offer their products and their pricing. We're really at a sweet spot- no one is more passionate about online search than we are."

The Search Works is on an aggressive new business drive and Bridgen expects 2006 to be even better than last year. Earlier this year the agency formed a sister company, The Technology Works, to focus on developing and marketing its technology. Below The Search Works and Latitude is Isobar-owned media buying agency Diffiniti, which tripled its paid-search business last year.

Joining these three agencies in the top five of the guide's ranking are All Response Media and 24/7 Search. The top five agencies turned over more that £70m in paid search. The results reflect a buoyant year for the paid search sector overall. SEM agencies Guava and Bigmouthmedia more than trebled their turnovers. So far, any knock-on effects from Google's withdrawal of agency commission last October and Yahoo! Search Marketing's tightening of its terms haven't been felt, although a period of consolidation is expected.

This is the first time search specialists have had their own ranking table in an NMA guide. As well as search specialists the NMA Marketing Services Guide lists affiliates, ad networks, email, mobile and iTV agencies.