Hannah Evershed, the digital marketing services company's global director of search, was in Bangkok yesterday to announce the firm's plans to the media.

Although search marketing is new to Thailand, Isobar is confident companies here will soon embrace the new tool.

"The full operation of iProspect in Thailand is expected in the third quarter. Over a period of three or four months until the end of the year, we are targeting revenue of around Bt25 million to Bt30 million," said Mahithorn Pongsarat, chief executive officer of Digithais Network.

Both Digithais and Isobar come under the global advertising agency Aegis Media.

Mahithorn admits the target might look aggressive in view of the firm starting from zero and the "virginity" of the local market, but he believes the market will soon take shape, led by international blue-chip companies that have used the new channel successfully in Europe and the United States.

Isobar forecasts its revenues in Thailand will grow by 50 per cent annually.

Currently, there are about 10 million Internet users in Thailand. Search is the second most popular activity after e-mail. On average, there are 3.8 million searches per day.

Mahithorn said marketers would soon realise the high potential of search marketing and how it could help them to maximise their budgets.

"Marketers must look at search, because people search when they want to buy your products. And if they don't find your products, they may find your competitors' products," he said.

Amares Chumsai Na Ayudhya, Digithais' executive director, said the company would advise its clients to allocate 2-3 per cent of their marketing budget to search marketing.

It expects the channel to account for 10-20 per cent of its billings within next two years.

Companies in the tourism, real-estate and electronic gadget sectors are among its targeted clients.

Evershed said that as few companies had yet realised the potential of search marketing here, the opportunity was huge for firms to exploit the relatively low costs and to dominate the market through using the tool.

The most expensive keywords for searches in Thailand - mostly related to tourism - cost only Bt17 per click for Thai keywords and Bt70 to Bt100 per click for English keywords, such as "hotel".

But if the targeted clients are out-side Thailand, the keywords are more expensive, said Ploynittcha Ariyakiadkhachon, group head of digital media for Digithais.

iProspect will penetrate both or-ganic search and paid search markets in Thailand. Isobar is making a global rollout of its iProspect brand and will have 21 offices in Asia within this year. Mahithorn said Bangkok would host the first iProspect office in Southeast Asia, partly due to Thailand's large Internet population and its readiness through the work of local firm Digithais.

Isobar has 1,604 staff working in a network of 69 offices in 33 countries.

Pichaya Changsorn

The Nation