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The Christmas Jump, Tablet Hump & CPC Bump: Recent Trends In Mobile Usage

Jan 31, 2013 at 12:38pm ET by Siddharth Shah

“I grab my tablet and get busy with the pen. Y'all could not be just like me if y'all was my twin.” -Andre 3000 That consumers are rapidly changing the way they interact with advertisers is no secret – but the rapidity in which they are doing so is quite surprising. As I looked into the data from the last retail season three trends stood out. Christmas Day Is The Early Predictor Of Tablet Traffic For The Next Year Tablet impression-share has a distinct pattern. It spikes on the weekends when people are home and drops in the weekdays when people are on desktops in their offices. This [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Paid Search | Search Ads: Mobile Search

Google Tests B2B Market With Google Shopping For Suppliers

Jan 30, 2013 at 1:10pm ET by Ginny Marvin

Google is entering the B2B shopping segment with Google Shopping for Suppliers. CPC Strategy reported yesterday on the quiet roll-out, noting that the beta is open only to electrical and electronics industries at this time. The beta started about two weeks ago and is showing in the US only. Google has built Google Shopping for Suppliers to accommodate the unique aspects of B2B selling that has limited supplier participation on Google Shopping. Recognizing that B2B transactions often involve negotiations on shipping costs and volume discounts, many Google Shopping policies on Pricing and [...]

Report: PLAs Drove 28% Of Google Non-Brand Ad Clicks In Q4

Jan 16, 2013 at 3:51pm ET by Ginny Marvin

Google Product Listing Ads generated 28% of Google non-brand clicks in Q4 according to RKG's latest Digital Marketing Report released today. PLA CPCs were 26% lower than CPCs for competitive text ads. RKG also found a larger than average gap between bids and actual CPCs for PLAs, suggesting competition is still relatively light. Product Listing Ads are also having a big impact on non-brand Google ROI when compared to Bing. RKG reports, “As Google CPCs have declined overall and compared to Bing, the non-brand ROI for Google now stands 22% higher than that for Bing.” Google Nonbrand Paid [...]

Report: Global Paid Search Spending Up 18% In 2012

Jan 15, 2013 at 8:07am ET by Ginny Marvin

Advertiser spending on paid search rose 18% in 2012 according to Covario’s Global Search Advertising Spend Analysis, which tracks paid search spending in more than 45 countries. That growth trend is down just slightly from the 21% annual increase Covario reported for 2011. In Q4 Google commanded 86.5% of global paid search spend and a whopping 93% of impressions. Advertisers spent 13% more on search spending with Google than they did a year ago. Spending on the Yahoo Bing Network increased 23% over the past year, however spend fell 6% from Q3. Source: Covario Regional Outloo [...]

Forrester Report: The Best PPC Bid Management Providers

Nov 20, 2012 at 3:20pm ET by Chris Sherman

Forrester, the large marketing technology analysis organization, has released the final of its quarterly Forrester Wave reports related to search marketing. The first, Forrester Rates The Top Large Search Marketing Agencies, offered an assessment of large, full service (meaning agencies that offer both organic SEO and PPC) and agencies who serve large clients of $1 billion or more in revenue. The second, The Top SEO Platforms, the relatively new set of tools that has emerged over the past few years to help SEOs automate and bring more efficiency to a broad range of search optimization tasks. [...]

Last Minute Tips To Use Mobile Search To Ramp-Up Holiday Sales & Beyond

Nov 5, 2012 at 12:53pm ET by Sherwood Stranieri

This holiday shopping season is predicted to the the biggest ever for mobile commerce. A new survey from Deloitte expects that holiday sales from mobile devices will hit $36 billion this year, accounting for 5.1% of the $925 billion online total. Your Holiday To Do List So, if you have a mobile store up and running, you'll want to make sure your mobile store is ready to attract, inform, and convert incoming shoppers. Here are some great tips from past columns that should be part of your to-do list: If you have a responsive design mobile site, you'll want to take a second look at the Tune [...]

iPhone 5 Won’t Change Mobile Search, But Can Nokia?

Sep 24, 2012 at 1:30pm ET by Sherwood Stranieri

With the launch of the iPhone 5, perhaps the most eagerly awaited electronics launch ever, speculation has been rampant on the impact it'll have on the mobile phone market, on Apple's future as an innovator post-Steve Jobs, and on the coolness of the next gadget to get dropped into your pocket. But from a mobile search perspective, iPhone 5 is pretty much more of the same. A more effective version of Siri will be standard in the new phone's iOS 6 - but that was a game changer from the iPhone 4s. iPhone 5 has certainly caused a sales storm, pushing more smartphones into more pockets. B [...]

Report: Tablets Offer Lower CPC, Higher Conversions Than Desktop PCs

Jul 25, 2012 at 10:51am ET by Greg Sterling

One of the key findings of the Q2 2012 Global Digital Advertising Update from Adobe (Efficient Frontier) is that search marketers can get more value from mobile campaigns than they now can on the PC. According to the report cost-per-click (CPC) prices are lower for both tablets and smartphones than comparable PC search campaigns and the ROI is higher in both cases -- although "conversions" are lower on smartphones. Adobe's data are drawn from "over 250 billion impressions and activity of 46 million fans for 225 companies in the automotive, CPG, financial services, media and entertainment, a [...]

RKG Report: Search Growth Declines Slightly; Shakeup In Store For Shopping Space

Jul 11, 2012 at 5:46pm ET by Pamela Parker

Paid search's growth rate slowed a bit in the second quarter of 2012, but it still increased 29% year-over-year -- down from a 32% year-over-year growth rate in Q1. That's according to the RimmKaufman Group's latest report on digital marketing, released this week. Generally speaking, CPC's were down (6%) as compared to the same period last year, but click volume increased fairly dramatically (37%). RKG put together the report using stats from its clients, which include more than 30 of the top 500 etailers. Trends varied from engine to engine. Google's paid search spending grew only 32% i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: General | Stats: General

Chitika: iPad Leads Tablets With Web Usage But Only Has A 1.02% CTR On Ads

Jul 9, 2012 at 9:30am ET by Barry Schwartz

Chitika published a study today on tablet device usage share and the click through rate (CTR) on ads based on screen size. The study showed that 8 inch tablets such as Vizio and Pantech had the highest level of click through rates but the lowest level of web usage rates. Similarly, the 8.9 inch tablets such as Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the Archos 9 had the second highest click through rates with the second lowest rate of Web usage rates. Apple's iPad is the leader on click through rate when it comes to measuring a single tablet device despite size. The iPad lead the 9.7" tablet [...]

Microsoft AdCenter Rollout Comes To Three More European Countries

Jun 27, 2012 at 4:32pm ET by Pamela Parker

The paid search part of the Search Alliance has conquered three more countries. Both Bing- and Yahoo-owned and operated properties, as well as publisher networks, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are now powered by Microsoft Advertising's adCenter, the company announced today. Now both the algorithmic and the paid search portions of the Alliance have been rolled out in Austria, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Switzerland, the UK and the US. The remaining European countries -- Denmark, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden -- are expected to be transitioned later [...]

New Exact & Phrase Matching Behavior: Early Findings

May 23, 2012 at 10:30am ET by Benjamin Vigneron

In a world where lots of search marketers are still reluctant to use broad match type due to its lack of relevance and control, Google has released two features to have more advertisers show their ads on all those very long tail queries: The broad modifier feature was rolled out in July 2010 in the U.S and was mostly aimed at scaling up those accounts not already using regular broad match type. Search marketers have to then build new broad keywords using "+" signs to effectively unlock the broad modifier feature. Because it requires some time and effort, not all advertisers have actually [...]

Search Alliance: AdCenter Migration Complete In UK, Ireland And France

May 7, 2012 at 10:11am ET by Pamela Parker

Microsoft and Yahoo -- the Search Alliance -- have announced the completion of the migration of advertisers to the adCenter platform, from Yahoo Search Marketing, in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. Since they previously migrated all Yahoo algorithmic search results to Bing, the transition is now complete in these countries. The migration has been underway since February. Next up for the transition comes Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Yahoo and Microsoft will start working with partners to make the change this month. The companies have typically offered migration assistant soft [...]

Microsoft Advertising Is Becoming “Bing” For SMBs

May 2, 2012 at 3:01pm ET by Pamela Parker

There's Microsoft, there's Bing, there's Yahoo, and there's the Search Alliance. How can any small business search advertiser figure out what's what? That's the thinking behind the rebranding of Microsoft Advertising to Bing, announced this week. Besides the name change, marketing collateral and web sites will incorporate the large beautiful images that the Bing consumer site has become known for -- to unify the brand experiences. "Previously, there was just a lot of confusion around our brand," Matt Lydon, general manager of Microsoft's SMB Advertising group, told me. The brandin [...]

DataPop CEO: Mobile Paid Search Traffic Is 50 Percent Or More In Some Categories

May 1, 2012 at 11:21am ET by Greg Sterling

I had a chance recently to speak to DataPop CEO Jason Lehmbeck. Before DataPop Lehmbeck was at Overture/Yahoo. DataPop is an agency/platform that specializes in "offer driven" search campaigns. I was talking to Lehmbeck about mobile search trends and what kinds of consumer response he was seeing to various campaigns. Lehmbeck gave me some unpublished, internal data that I'm now sharing in this post. He said that mobile paid search "looks like much like search advertising did in 2001." 15 to 25 Percent Mobile Paid Search Traffic Between 15 percent and 25 percent of paid search traffic is n [...]

Google “Comparison” Units Get New Look; Change Highlights Paid Inclusion In Some Vertical Search Areas

Apr 30, 2012 at 7:21pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Google has had what it has called "comparison ads" for some time, but these comparison units are getting a new look in Google’s search results beginning today. Google hopes the change will better explain to searchers that comparison listings come from companies it has a commercial relationship with. It also highlights how three Google search products now seem to largely operate on a paid inclusion basis. Google was once a vocal opponent to paid inclusion programs. "We’re changing the design layout of our hotel, flight, credit card and bank account results, which help users complete acti [...]

For Social Media Marketers, SEO Is Much More Popular Than PPC

Apr 3, 2012 at 3:18pm ET by Matt McGee

Social media marketers are much more likely to also use SEO in their marketing efforts than PPC, according to a new survey out today. Social Media Examiner announced the results of its fourth annual survey, which this year had replies from more than 3,800 social media marketers around the world. When asked what other marketing channels they use, search engine optimization (SEO) was the No. 2 response behind e-mail marketing. Paid search -- or "online ads" as the survey called it -- was far down the list at number six. Sixty-five percent of social media marketers say they use SEO, compare [...]

App Search Engine Appolicious Introduces “AdWords For Apps”

Mar 27, 2012 at 5:59pm ET by Greg Sterling

Appolicious, an independent apps marketplace and search engine, has introduced "AdWords for Apps": a new PPC advertising system for app developers and publishers. The company says it's the largest independent apps engine and market. Chomp, which was recently acquired by Apple, was its primary competitor (other than iTunes and Google Play). Between iOS and Android there are more than 900,000 apps. App discovery is now a major problem for both consumers and developers -- hence the new advertising option on Appolicious. Chomp was planning to introduce a similar capability and then was boug [...]

Building Mobile Landing Pages That Succeed In Mobile Search

Mar 26, 2012 at 12:06pm ET by Sherwood Stranieri

Inertia is always a problem when you're starting something new. The start seems like a very tall wall, and we often make that wall taller by imposing a lot of requirements and parameters on what needs to be done. Mobile marketing must seem that way to a lot of companies, and as a result, far too many of them are sitting on the sidelines. Fortunately, there are a few vendors out there offering a shortcut to the mobile Web: a turnkey publishing platform that allows a marketer to quickly deploy mobile landing pages. The question is: how effective are these pages in the context of mobile s [...]

Microsoft adCenter Launches Location Extensions In Ads

Mar 7, 2012 at 5:22pm ET by Chris Silver Smith

Microsoft has announced the launch of Location Extensions in adCenter, after mentioning plans for this, among other new features, nearly a year ago. The Location Extensions allow local business advertisers on Bing and Yahoo! search results to display their addresses and phone numbers within the ads, similar to the Location Extensions in Google AdWords. The interface for adding location extension information is pretty straightforward: The Location Extensions are clearly part of the adCenter team's intention to achieve feature parity with Google AdWords soon, as Eric Enge mentioned las [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft: Bing Ads | Search Ads | Yahoo: Search Ads

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