To learn more about paid search and search advertising, also see our What Is CPC, PPC & Paid Search Marketing? page.

Sign Up To Receive This Column Via Email:

Blekko Testing Search Ads

Feb 16, 2012 at 9:57am ET by Barry Schwartz

MediaPost reports that Blekko, the slashtags search engine, has started testing monetization efforts through search ads. Currently, the ads are provided through ad fees from Google and Bing. Blekko has yet to build out their own ad network. Rich Skrenta, Blekko founder and CEO said, "we're still ironing out the kinks." They are testing out the RPMs, page revenue per 1000 ad units. Skrenta said he expects the CPMs to be worth between $50 and $100 because of the targeted nature of search ads. I have yet to see any signs of ads on the search engine but they are indeed testing it. If [...]

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

Did Super Bowl Advertisers Take Advantage of Search Interest?

Feb 7, 2012 at 3:07pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Over the past couple of days, numerous stats and figures have been published about how Super Bowl advertisers took advantage (or not) of social media this year. But commercials also drive people to search engines, which in turn (when things go right) can lead potential customers to advertiser web sites where rather than talk about a brand as they can on social media sites, they can watch the commercials again, cementing brand messaging, and take a closer look at the products being sold. (Which is presumably why a company would spend $3.5 million dollars on a thirty second spot in the first pla [...]

Report: Social Media Spending Threatens To Overtake Paid Search Among SMBs

Jan 5, 2012 at 11:01am ET by Greg Sterling

Borrell Associates has come out with an extensive new report about small business ("SMBs") and social media adoption. It contains forecasts and spending estimates as well as other data about SMB usage of social media as a marketing tool. There's a great deal of data already in the market about SMB adoption of social media. What they show is that between 45 percent and 70 percent of SMBs say they already have a presence on social media sites (mostly Facebook). Borrell reports that between 60 and 64 percent of SMBs have a formal presence on social media sites. An earlier 2011 study by [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Facebook | Google: AdWords | Search Ads: General | SEO: Local

Adobe To Acquire Digital Marketing Agency Efficient Frontier

Nov 30, 2011 at 11:20am ET by Pamela Parker

Adobe has agreed to acquire digital marketing agency Efficient Frontier, which has a strong search marketing practice and technology to manage Facebook advertising. The companies didn't disclose the terms of the deal. The companies said Efficient Frontier would become a part of Adobe's Digital Marketing suite, which includes technologies and services it acquired with web analytics and optimization firm Omniture in 2009. Adobe has long been building up its capabilities in the digital marketing space, largely through acquisition. Earlier this month, it bought Auditude, a video ad manag [...]

How To Get Started With YouTube Promoted Video

Nov 28, 2011 at 4:56pm ET by Matt Lawson

Earlier in the year, YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the world’s second largest search engine. In June 2011, ComScore reported that in the U.S., YouTube attracted 5.6 billion viewing sessions per month and the average U.S. visitor frequents the site 23 times a month with each visit lasting on average 26 minutes. And, just today, ComScore also reported that YouTube passed 20 billion video views during October 2011 alone. No matter how you look at the data, that’s a lot of eyeballs and a lot of time spent on a single site that a marketer can take advantage of. But creating a video is only hal [...]

Search Retargeting: 4 Tips To Use Recency To Drive Performance

Nov 16, 2011 at 9:43am ET by Frost Prioleau

In life, timing can be everything. But in marketing, it can make the difference between a sale and a missed opportunity. That’s why the topic of recency is so important to marketers. Fortunately, search retargeting can help marketers capitalize on recency to drive performance. Understanding Recency & The Window Of Opportunity The concept of recency has been a key element in marketing for decades. It speaks to customer engagement in relation to time. For example, a consumer who interacted with your brand two days ago is more engaged and has a better recency score than someone who di [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search & Display | Search Ads: General

The Industry Speaks On The Overlap Between Search & Display

Nov 9, 2011 at 2:54pm ET by Dax Hamman

We talk a lot in the digital industry about the overlap between search media and display media, and how when planned and operated in unison, there is a 1+1=3 benefit model that magically appears, resulting in higher returns than could be generated by those channels on their own. But does this overlap really exist, and does 1+1 really equal 3, or does is it actually just equal 2? In order to find out the answer, I recently asked several experienced figures within our industry for their insights and comment. AKQA Media – Drew Wahl, Director of Business Development Booyah Advertisin [...]

Google Introduces “Bid For Calls” On The PC

Oct 25, 2011 at 6:46am ET by Greg Sterling

Earlier this summer Google gave an indication this was coming. Now Google is rolling out what it's calling "bid for calls," a pay per call (PPCall) offering on the PC. This is distinct from Click to Call, its successful mobile PPCall product. The program will launch in the US and UK at first and relies on the Call Metrics (Google Voice) infrastructure. AdWords advertisers must use Call Metrics and a Google Voice-generated call tracking number to participate. But rather than just paying $1 per completed call for call tracking, advertisers can now separately bid on calls. In the near f [...]

The Highs & Lows Of Search Retargeting: Version 3.0 Is Here Already

Oct 12, 2011 at 12:58pm ET by Dax Hamman

I know this industry evolves fast, but damn! Just 18 months ago, most media planners and search marketers had not heard of search retargeting, and already we are in what could easily be called version 3.0. With the agency hat back on (for today), we look at whether this tactic is living up to the growing hype. When the principle was first explained to me, I was running an agency display media team at a search agency that was focused on direct response clients; I was therefore interested in tactics that involved precise data points as a way to focus on user intent. Search retargeting seem [...]

Confirmed: Bing Tests Ads Within Organic Search Results

Jul 22, 2011 at 4:49pm ET by Barry Schwartz

The RKGBlog blog posted a screen shot of Bing testing search ads directly in the organic results. Honestly, I almost cannot believe it - but more on that later. Here is a cropped picture of the screen shot. Why is this so shocking? Placing search ads inline with organic free listings is somewhat taboo for search companies. Years ago, search engines had "paid inclusion" programs which guaranteed content to be indexed, but they had no ranking factors. In fact, Yahoo after much controversy dropped their paid inclusion program in 2009. But to allow advertisers to inject ads wi [...]

How To Maximize SEM Efforts With Search Retargeting

Jul 20, 2011 at 10:01am ET by Dax Hamman

Last month, we discussed how display media has evolved to be more quantitative in Why Search Marketers Are The Future Media Planners, and ironically, how the skillset held by search marketers has become more relevant to display media than the skill set held by current media planners. Using the real-time environment of the media exchanges, ‘search retargeting’ is one of several techniques that has created a safe bridge for SEM marketers to move into display and see almost instant results, and it is the SEM budget holders that are trying it quicker than the media planners (and who often [...]

Mobile Now 12 Percent Of All Paid Search Impressions

Jul 18, 2011 at 6:49pm ET by Greg Sterling

Earlier today Performics reported another mobile search milestone: "mobile paid search traffic is now 12% of all paid search impressions (mobile + desktop), while mobile clicks are about to cross the 12% threshold." The search-marketing firm based this report on aggregated client data from 1H 2011. Mobile by itself, excluding tablets, is about 10 percent of search impressions. Tablets account for almost 2% of all paid search impressions and roughly 14% of all mobile impressions. Thus mobile + tablets = 12 percent of overall paid search impressions. Here are some other findings fr [...]

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

Measuring & Monetizing The Instant Gratification Of Mobile Search

Jun 30, 2011 at 3:49pm ET by Bill Dinan

No matter where you are in your mobile marketing efforts – whether you are an advertiser still developing a mobile strategy or a growing mobile ad network selling to national advertisers – you should know how to effectively measure mobile and your measurement efforts should include call tracking and attribution metrics. Mobile attribution is key to helping validate the channel and monetizing the high quality leads it delivers. Mobile Searchers Need It Today Consider the mobile searcher profile. Leads that come from a mobile search program are not only more likely to buy, but will ofte [...]

Report: Tech/Electronics Q1 Search Ad Spending Surpasses Q4

Apr 15, 2011 at 2:45pm ET by Matt McGee

Search ad spending among tech and electronics companies is way up so far in 2011, so much so that Q1 spending surpassed Q4 levels for the first time. That's the word from Covario's Global Search Advertising Spend Analysis, which tracks about $400 million in annual spending around the world. Covario says Q1 spending was up 6% over the traditionally heavier Q4 period, and up 26% over Q1 of 2010. The huge year-over-year increase is mainly due to how weak spending was in Q1 2010. Much of the growth is coming outside the US: Spending in both the Asia-Pacific and Europe-Middle East region [...]

Marchex Acquires 800-Free-411 Owner Jingle Networks

Apr 11, 2011 at 8:31am ET by Greg Sterling

Marchex announced this morning that it was buying Jingle Networks, operator of free directory assistance service 800-Free-411, for $62 million in cash and stock. Founded in 2004, Jingle Networks also has a pay-per-call mobile ad network. Jingle's 800-Free-411 competed with GOOG-411, which was closed down last year, and Microsoft's Bing-411, which is still operating. However Jingle was the leader in the "free directory assistance" segment. At one point I called free-DA "local-mobile search for the rest of us." That was before the dramatic growth of smartphones, which have continued to ero [...]

Eye-Tracking Study: Everybody Looks At Organic Listings, But Most Ignore Paid Ads On Right

Mar 10, 2011 at 10:09am ET by Matt McGee

Interesting new data about searcher behavior from a recent User Centric eye-tracking study: Whether using Google or Bing, all 24 participants looked at the organic search results for their queries, but between 70% and 80% ignored the paid ads on the right side of the page. User Centric studied the search behavior of 24 "experienced users" of both Google and Bing, all between 18 and 54 years old. They were asked to do eight searches -- four on Google (with Google Instant turned off) and the other four on Bing. The results? Here's a table version of the diagram above. Google [...]

Big Trends (Hint: Mobile) Emerging In Online Advertising’s Next Frontiers

Mar 4, 2011 at 10:04pm ET by Chris Sherman

One of the most competitive and interesting sports in reporting on what's happening in the online world is the ongoing game of predicting the future. Just as we're seeing regime change in North Africa and the Middle East, it looks as if we're experiencing another tectonic shift in the universe of online ads. I spent the past couple of days at Borrell Associates Local Online Advertising Conference in New York City. This event was primarily focused on strategies and tactics that executives from traditional media companies should be looking at to survive and thrive in the increasingly competi [...]

Case Study: How Negative Keywords Can Pump Up Paid Search Performance

Jan 17, 2011 at 12:17pm ET by Matt Lawson

Once campaigns reach a certain size, successful paid search marketing becomes less about generating traffic and more about identifying and driving the highest value visitors. At the same time, however, scale makes creative testing and ad group refinement difficult to implement across hundreds of thousands or even millions of keywords. In a high-volume world, actively managing negatives is possibly the single most impactful opportunity you have for increasing conversions and decreasing costs. Keyword building is a continuous process for both positive and negative keywords. If you have not [...]

Yahoo-Bing Gaining On Google In Some Paid Search Metrics: Report

Jan 11, 2011 at 3:24pm ET by Matt McGee

The Yahoo-Bing paid search partnership has produced a couple positive trends for advertisers, according to new data shared by search marketing agency Efficient Frontier. As a preview to its usual quarterly overview, Efficient Frontier has published some early data on its blog with some findings about the Yahoo-Bing transition. The company says that the transition led to small drops in click share and spend share, and a larger drop in overall paid search ad impressions for Yahoo-Bing. But, the flip side of that was a gain in revenue-per-click (RPC). Efficient Frontier says revenue-per [...]

Yext Takes Google Tags Idea Across Web

Dec 30, 2010 at 8:13am ET by Greg Sterling

Local advertising provider Yext has spearheaded the launch of a Google-like "tags" product that receives distribution across a vast array of local sites including Yelp, Yahoo, Mapquest, Superpages, Topix, Patch, Citysearch and others. It's being characterized as an "anti-Google alliance." That's not exactly correct. As a practical matter it gives advertisers a way to run promotions across what is in effect a new local ad network, which in the aggregate constitutes a massive number of search queries and impressions. The program is the brainchild of Howard Lerman, Yext's CEO. In the wake of G [...]

Get Our News, Everywhere!

Follow @sengineland

Got a tip? Tell us here!

Most Likes
Most Tweets
Comments

Our Stories Being Liked on Facebook

Search Engine Land Sponsors

Advertise With Us

Free Daily Search News Recap!

SearchCap is a once-per-day newsletter update - sign up below and get the news delivered to you!

Click to watch SMX conference video

Join us at an upcoming SMX event:

North America

SMX Advanced - June 11-12, 2013
SMX East - Oct. 1-3, 2013
SMX Social Media Marketing - Nov. 20-21, 2013
SMX West - March 11-13, 2014

EMEA

SMX Paris - June 6-7, 2013
SMX Stockholm - Oct. 14-15, 2013
SMX Milan - Nov. 7-8, 2013
SMX Israel - Jan. 2014
SMX Munich - March 25-26, 2014
SMX London - May 2014

APAC

SMX Sydney - April 2014

Search Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.