The present SEM market was formed when an obsession with “instant” results collided with marketers misunderstanding of the purchase consideration process to produce a form of binary thinking that severely limits marketers’ ability to persuade. Persuasion is not a binary (on or off) or linear process. Persuasion is an iterative process.

The Internet cannot be understood as a purely direct marketing vehicle but it also cannot be understood simply using the traditional brand marketing paradigm. On the Internet the entire persuasive experience needs to be architected; hence Persuasion Architecture.

This was inspired by Fredrick Marckini’s (CEO of iProspect) excellent column in ClickZ. titled:
Why Nonconverting Keywords Will Drive Search Ad Spend

“…Direct marketing mustn’t be the one-hit wonder of your MP3 playlist. Unfortunately, direct marketing is the only song search advertising is singing now.”