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On October 16, 2024, Semrush, a well-known digital marketing SaaS suite, announced the acquisition of Third Door Media. TDM is the publisher of Search Engine Land and MarTech.org and organizes events like SMX—Search Marketing Expo.
In the following article, I will analyze the reason for the acquisition and how these properties will fit Semrush’s growing portfolio of brands. Along with some concerns about the editorial policy.
TLDR – Semrush acquisition of Third Door Media Properties
- ThirdDoor Media owns several magazines (Search Engine Land, Martech, and Digital Marketing Depot) and events, the most prominent of which is the Search Marketing Expo. Their reach is 1.1M marketers and almost 60K digital event attendees.
- With its recent acquisitions list, Semrush is transitioning from an SEO tool to a complete digital marketing solution offering data—and intelligence-powered solutions for SEO, paid advertising, competitive intelligence, social media management, local marketing, and content marketing.
- I believe the acquisition of TDM was for the publication’s audience in the SMBs and Enterprise digital marketing space and to grow its events business and exposure.
- There are concerns regarding the impartiality of the news and guides provided by Search Engine Land, even if the staff assured of the contrary.
According to the official press release, “The partnership means Semrush will enrich resources, content, and industry insights for marketers, while Third Door Media’s portfolio of Search Engine Land, MarTech, Search Marketing Expo, and Digital Marketing Depot, will continue to operate as standalone brands.”
Table of Contents
Third Door Media Properties Analysis
Third Door Media was founded in 2006. Its properties are amongst the oldest and largest providers of search engine and digital marketing trends.
These properties include Search Engine Land, Martech.org, and Search Engine Marketing Expo, a digital and in-person event series.
Here, you can have a list of the properties and the traffic:
- Search Engine Land is a digital marketing magazine focusing on SEO and PPC. It has around 800,000 unique monthly visitors and makes 1.8 million monthly visits (according to Semrush traffic data). Most visitors are from the USA, India, and the UK.
- Martech.org is a digital magazine that focuses on marketing technology. Its community of marketers receives news and insider information about all aspects of marketing, such as digital asset management, marketing automation, attribution, etc. According to Semrush traffic data, it receives around 116,000 unique visitors monthly, most from the US, India, and the UK.
- Search Marketing Expo (SMX) is a series of conferences focused on SEM and SEO. These events bring together industry experts, practitioners, and marketers to discuss the latest trends, strategies, and technologies in search marketing. SMX events are held in various cities around the world, including major hubs like San Jose, California, New York City, New York, London, UK, Berlin, Germany
- Digital Marketing Depot is a small website that offers digital marketing resources, reports, webinar announcements, and more. It has less than 10,000 visitors monthly.
According to their website, these properties reach 1.1 million marketers online and 59,507 participants in their digital events.
According to its LinkedIn profile and About Us page, Third Door Media employs around 30 people.
Semrush Long-Term Goals
According to a presentation held by Semrush, which is available here, Semrush’s goal beyond 2024 is to become an enterprise-ready AI-powered digital marketing platform.
They plan to offer data- and intelligence-powered solutions for SEO, paid advertising, competitive intelligence, social media management, local marketing, and content marketing.
A slide from the same presentation clearly shows that Semrush no longer competes with other SEO tools like Ahrefs, Serpstat, or Moz. As they broaden their services, they face new competitors: digital media intelligence platforms like SimilarWeb, media monitoring solutions, competitive intelligence platforms, etc.
Semrush allocates a significant portion of its budget to sales and marketing, often around 30-40% of its total revenue. This means it is in an accelerated growth phase. Additionally, 21% of the budget is allocated to research and development, another signal that it wants to grow.
In 2023, Semrush powered a 24-hour, nonstop digital-only event called Global Marketing Day. In 2024, they organize an in-person event called the Spotlight conference on October 30 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
According to the website, “Spotlight is a full-day conference by Semrush featuring expert‑led keynotes, interactive roundtables, and networking opportunities.”
Semrush Recent Acquisitions
According to Freedom24, this is the list of recent acquisitions and the price paid.
Here is a list of recent acquisitions done by Semrush:
- In July 2024, Semrush acquired Ryte, which analyzes and optimizes website user experience to improve organic search effectiveness.
- In 2024, Semrush acquired 58% of the shares of Brand24, a SaaS platform that provides its clients with brand awareness data, user sentiment analysis, and feedback. The acquisition price was $13.5 million, paid in cash.
- In December 2023, the company acquired 60% of the shares of Datos, which provided Semrush with high-quality click data from around the world for its analytics system. This data is vital for enabling AI capabilities and competitive intelligence products. The total cost of the acquisition was $13.86 million, of which $7.5 million was paid in convertible bonds.
- In February 2023, Semrush acquired leading marketing training company Traffic Think Tank for $1.8 million in cash. The deal resulted in Semrush acquiring a valuable brand and content related to the SEO community and training courses.
- In March 2022, Semrush acquired Intellikom (branded Kompyte) for $10 million in cash, adding a competitive analysis platform to its offering.
- In January 2022, Semrush purchased Backlinko, a marketing and SEO learning platform, for $4 million.
Analysis of the Semrush acquisitions
From the list of acquisitions above, we can see that Semrush is actively working to transition from an SEO solution to a complete digital marketing solution that will offer the clients data and tools about competitors, traffic sources, and user experience rather than SEO-only how, for instance, Ahrefs is doing.
Semrush spends around 40% on sales and marketing and 20% on research development, which means its focus is on growth. With such a large amount spent on S&M, acquiring Search Engine Land will bring more exposure to the SMB and Enterprise audiences, help them increase sales, and get a lower customer acquisition price.
Since they organized a 24-hour digital-only event in 2023 and are now holding the Spotlight conference in Amsterdam in 2024, acquiring the Search Engine Expo series of events makes sense. It also shows that Semrush will take its share of the pie of digital marketing events, even if the competition is tough. It is also a good marketing and sales channel for their suite of tools.
Concerns about the editorial policy
Danny Goodwin, the editorial director of SEL and SMX, assured the readers that the staff at Third Door Media will “continue to do our job bringing you independent news coverage, analysis, and contributions from expert columnists.”
Concerns of the SEO experts industry that Search Engine Land will not keep their editorial impartiality may be valid, as after the Backlinko acquisition, ahrefs claimed their positions at various tops had been changed.
When I searched for “best rank tracking tool,” “best SEO audit tools,” and “SEO agency software tools,” Semrush was positioned first. Also, aHrefs was not mentioned in this article: “41 Best SEO Tools (Free & Paid).”
However, while Backlinko was mostly a blog with guides and tutorials written by Brian Dean or his staff, expressing his views and research conclusion, here we talk about a media outlet with multiple well-known editors that must maintain their reputation.
Conclusion
Considering all the above, Semrush wants this recent acquisition to improve its exposure to the SMB and Enterprise audience and grow its events business. I believe they found it to be a lucrative client acquisition channel.
What’s your opinion on the acquisition?
Feel free to post it in the comments below.
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I think the concerns about impartiality are valid, but between Barry S and Danny G, I’m pretty certain integrity will reign. Now if one or both of them were to depart, I’d be more concerned.
It’s a detailed article, i love it and i was looking for this type of content on this acquisition, thanks