The Internet Advertising Bureau – the trade association for internet marketing – and the Direct Marketing Association are launching the first search marketing charter to establish best practice throughout the industry.

Wednesday, 15 August 2007

The Internet Advertising Bureau – the trade association for internet marketing – and the Direct Marketing Association are launching the first search marketing charter to establish best practice throughout the industry. The charter includes four key requirements for search marketing companies in the UK.


This is the first time industry bodies have collaborated on search standards in the UK. The charter is a product of the IAB search council and the DMA’s continued efforts to educate marketers about search marketing – currently worth 58% of all online advertising expenditure in the UK – and to reinforce advertiser and agency confidence in the medium.

The charter is aimed solely at search engine marketing companies (SEMCos) and significantly raises the bar on best practice in the UK. To conform with the charter SEMCos must currently fulfill 4 criteria, with more to be added before the end of the year:

• They must have at least two employees dedicated to search marketing
• They must have search engine accreditation (from Google or Microsoft with more to follow) and have received official search engine optimisation (SEO) training as relevant
• The company must have been trading for 6 months
• The company must be a member of either IAB UK, IAB Europe, DMA or Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organisation (SEMPO) or the Association of Business to Business Agencies (ABBA).

All IAB and DMA members will be encouraged to comply with the current criteria over the next few months, with a view to achieving maximum industry coverage before the end of the year.


Search marketing companies that adhere to the charter can declare their compliance with an IAB ‘best practice icon’ (see above) on either their website or additional promotional company literature. The DMA is also looking at a similar compliance mechanism.

This is the first section of the IAB/DMA best practice charter, which is intended to grow with the industry. The IAB search council, working in cooperation with the DMA is currently producing two follow-up sections on working with affiliate marketers and trademarking in search engines.

David White, chair of the IAB Search Council and Managing Director of search marketing company Weboptimiser said: “We created the charter to help clients identify reliable suppliers who know, understand and demonstrate best practice within this fast moving industry. We have further plans for the charter that will include affiliate marketers and detail advanced search engine marketing techniques."

• Downloads Available

• IAB Search Marketing Charter (280k)
  Read the charter to make sure you're compliant and then get the icon