Why Your Merchandising Team’s Effort is Lost on Your SEM Team, Part 2: Breaking Down Silos Between Merchandising and Marketing

Unfortunately, merchandising and SEM teams commonly exist within silos that rarely communicate with each other. While some people hear this and worry about a human resources intervention, I hear it and worry about unrealized clicks and conversions.

Online merchandising teams spend considerable time grouping items together and deciding which products to display when consumers enter specific search terms. Likewise, SEM teams dedicate resources to identify the keywords and phrases that lead to the most relevant landing pages. What these teams rarely do is share how their efforts can be integrated to produce results. Remedying this situation and breaking down the silos will lead to more targeted web-search landing pages, more strategic keyword selection and bidding, and ultimately higher clickthrough and conversion rates.