The objective of integrated marketing is to create a fluent conversation with consumers across all media touch points. If a consumer goes to Google after watching a TV commercial and enters a few keywords from the commercial, she expects to find a link to a landing page – if the search is unsuccessful, the advertiser has not only lost a potential sale but decreased the value of its investment in media spend.

Few companies have managed to integrate marketing activities to harvest the ROI from integrating online and offline media. Companies often have a host of specialized marketing partners divided by brand, managed by different divisions internally. End result: the brand owners do not align marketing with the eCommerce group or the direct marketing division, retention managers and new customer acquisition marketers experience channel conflicts, and the conversation with consumers is fragmented and incoherent as a result.

As marketers enter 2010 with the slim budgets and demands to increase marketing ROI, integrated marketing will be the point of differentiation between those who succeed and those who fail. Marketers who understand how to run integrated campaigns, and lead collaboration between agency partners are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the synergy between online synergy not only produces a lift in search (from TV and mail) but also improves conversion rates, the quality of conversions, and how quickly consumers convert.

Furthermore, the most recent Black Friday and Cyber Monday proved consumers are more skilled than ever in online searches. The shopping events demonstrated “the solidification of the internet as a primary research tool, both for shopping online but also for doing research before they go into stores," said Dan Schock, Google's retail industry director.

At WebMetro, we have developed a reporting dashboard mapping weekly search results to the weight of other media. Combining search volume, keyword performance, conversion rates with offline media spend and online social media metrics empowers our clients to effectively integrate marketing activities and receive the benefit of increased ROI. Instead of optimizing PPC and SEM campaigns against the prior week’s trends, we work with clients and partner agencies to effectively support campaigns from launch. And that search effectively supports investments in ALL other media channels.