The search engine business has the potential to upset the traditional advertising business in terms of client expectations, technology needs and business models. The business can grow tremendously, and Mumbai-based search advertising firm, Pinstorm Technologies, is looking to spearheading this growth.

For this, Pinstorm Technologies has identified three issues concerning the search engine ad industry.

According to Pinstorm Technologies founder and CEO, Mahesh Murthy, “One issue is that not enough clients know of this new medium and its potential in paying for performance – the holy grail of advertising. Secondly, traditional agencies do not understand the medium, they do not have the technology in picking words and bids or the knowledge of how to write ads for this medium, therefore growth is slow. The third issue is an internal industry problem – Google in India has been actively working in conflict with search agencies by going directly to their clients and bidding against them for the same business.”

Murthy further said, “The solution to the first two is time and education. At Pinstorm, we are working on formal education sessions for clients across all the geographies that we work in, involving both training on the underlying technologies and benefits as well as tips on how best to use it. While we haven’t been affected by Google’s strange market behaviour in India, we know many others who have. A combination of changing people on Google India’s sales side – what I understand has already happened – along with legal recourse may be the best option here.”

Murthy was confident of Pinstorm growing into the world’s largest and best search–driven marketing firm. The company plans to open offices in three more locations by the year-end. “We are growing at 400 per cent this year and are profitable. As time goes by we will explore growth options through innovative market and venture growth models,” he added.

Pinstorm was founded on May 1, 2004, with offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The company today ranks among the top five largest search advertising firms in the world. Pinstorm’s clients span eight countries and include well-known names such as Kodak, HP, ICICI, HDFC, and eBay, among others.

“In a world full of US-based advertising multinationals, we are India’s first successful multinational advertising firm,” said Murthy with understandable pride.