It’s Friday and what better way to celebrate than with an interview with Andy Hibbert from Artemis8 - www.artemis8.co.uk .First we will start with a photo of Andy and the proceed to a little bit about what he does. After that he is fielding questions from the CJ team about the search market.

What is your role at Artemis8 and how long have you been there?

I’m the Head of Partnerships, and have been for about a year and a half now. I spend my time looking for new PPC commercial opportunities and developing relationships with clients, networks and agencies. It’s a really enjoyable role – I’m out and about a lot, meeting new and interesting people who are looking to get more from their search marketing. My wife thinks I spend too much time in nice restaurants and ‘networking’ in pubs. She may have a point.

What do you think the role of a search affiliate is? And a search agency?

A search affiliate’s role can be pretty varied, but essentially it’s about driving additional and incremental traffic (either directly or via a landing page) whilst also adding value to the merchant proposition – offering brand protection and filling gaps in the client’s own activity.

A search agency typically takes on a broader PPC strategy to manage a client’s PPC spend to maximise clicks and conversions whilst also trying to get more value from the budget. Usually this means making sure that all key brand and generic terms are covered.

From an Artemis8 perspective, we like to think that we offer both – with our experience as a search affiliate giving us a real advantage as a search agency. For example, we know that marketing spend usually doesn’t result in greater value for the client as there is rarely any incentive to reduce costs. This is why, as an agency, we work to a performance-based cost per acquisition. Okay, pitch over

Whilst your core business is based on SEM, what new channels are you looking at to further drive traffic?

After our success with building affiliate sites for clients such as Premier Inn – http://premierinnhotels.co.uk/,  we are being encouraged to look at re-creating these for web mobile and smart phone applications. Outside of mobile we are also already driving a fair amount of business from social media channels where, although the search volumes are not there yet, they will be. In fact, it was interesting to see recently that Facebook has just overtaken Google in weekly traffic levels. Staggering – and we have to ensure that we are also reaching this audience for our clients.

What are your thoughts on the Mobile SEM space? Do you see it evolving enough to justify significant investment? What are the strengths and weaknesses of Mobile?

Outside of recreating affiliate sites for mobile (as above), the challenge is really about looking at brands that could benefit from search activity through mobile. From my perspective, I am happy to search and buy music, or even book a restaurant, but I would be less inclined to book my two week holiday to Italy via mobile. So until that changes the investment will be minimal or very targeted.

Looking into your crystal ball, where do you see the next Google “change” going?

Google Caffeine, or the new real-time Google features, are slowly being implemented which is going to be both a challenge and an opportunity. Also, Google appears to be offering more and more price comparison functionality thremselves through the results page, reducing the number of clicks for the user to get to the purchase. If this expands out to all sectors, that could change everything.

Do you see a point where the search engine isn’t the first place users go to search?

Facebook, as I mentioned earlier, is still growing and is already being used for search, and the ‘overhyped’ Twitter will also drag more users its way with its new ad platform, when that lands. Outside of these, the next big site is almost certainly on its way. Search engines are constantly evolving and they will have to keep users on side.

We  heard you were running somewhere?

Yes, dusting off the old silver shadow Hi-Tecs for an epic three mile run (yeah, yeah, it’s not far but it’s for charity!)

We thank you Andy. Lots of food for thought there.  If you give us the charity details we will surely scrape some dosh together to help you on your endurance mission.