Google has announced additional targeting capabilities for ads appearing on its Display Network, allowing advertisers to choose categories, rather than keywords, to trigger their ad’s appearance. Given AdWords’ genesis as a search-oriented advertising system, keywords have always been the main mechanism for targeting ads, though additional refinements and options have long been available. Now, Google […]
Having just spent a spectacular few days at SMX West, the real challenge was getting past the buzz around content farms. But if you bothered to dig a bit deeper, there was an astounding amount of great, um… content, covering the many facets of search marketing other than search algorithm changes. Aside from the usual […]
Google appears to be testing display ads in Gmail. I discovered the following image ad in my own Gmail account this morning, and Google has since confirmed a test. Image ads have made their way into paid search on Google.com and various other properties on Google. But this was really jarring for me to encounter. […]
Yahoo reported Q4 2010 earnings this afternoon. Revenues were slightly up vs. the previous quarter but down compared to the same period a year ago. CEO Carol Bartz called them “encouraging.” Gross revenues were $1.53 billion, down 12 percent from 2009. Search revenues were down; though in a surprise bright spot for Yahoo display ad […]
Despite its ongoing struggles in China, Google reportedly has a new plan for its business there: targeting display advertising, particularly amongst the growing export industry. That’s according to a Reuters report, which lays out Google’s new focus this way: Under the new game plan, Google is targeting Chinese firms to advertise on its dominant overseas […]
In part one of my interview with Shashi Seth, the Senior VP of Search Products at Yahoo, we looked at what Yahoo’s current thinking is about search since the Yahoo/Bing integration. But the point of this series of columns is not where search is, but where search is going. And that’s where we’ll jump off […]
This morning brings another report of AOL M&A machinations involving ways to merge with or be acquired by Yahoo, now that both sites have very similar missions and strategies. They’re in a way like the Ford and Chevy of the internet these days: workmanlike but not very glamorous. Maybe that’s unfair to Ford. Both Yahoo […]
The IAB reported today that US online ad revenues were $6.4 billion in the third quarter of 2010. That compared with $6.2 billion in Q2 of 2010 and represented 17% growth over the same period a year ago. Through three quarters US online ad revenues totaled $18.1 billion. That would put online ad spending on […]
The Google AdWords Blog announced a new ad format available on the image search vertical. The new ad format is the old-style leaderboard display ad. The leaderboard is an image ad 728 pixels wide by 90 pixels tall. Here is a picture of a leaderboard ad on Google Image search: These ads are charged on […]
Search Meet Display; Display Meet Search Presentations from SMX East, October 2010 Search and display ads are two entirely different creatures. Yet web surfers see them both…and they’re getting more connected. Turns our that display ads (brand enhancers) can help search ads (conversion specialists) work together to get people to buy. This session looks at […]
A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma: according to the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, based on the Journal’s report yesterday, financial advisers have been hired by AOL to “explore various strategic options for the company, one of which includes a possible tie-up” with Yahoo. This is just the latest installment of the […]
Continuing from last week’s introduction to placement targeting post, today we’ll discuss how you can set up one of these campaigns for your own account. Campaign Set Up Follow my Step-By-Step: Create An AdWords Content Campaign post from a few weeks ago to create campaigns, ad groups and ads. The big difference here is that […]
Yesterday afternoon Yahoo released Q3 earnings. The company reported higher-than-expected income on basically flat revenues (2 percent growth YoY). The following two charts from the earnings slides show that revenues are not growing (except in Asia) but CEO Carol Bartz & Co have done a good job of helping the company generate more income from […]
Google said it earned $7.29 billion in Q3 2010, an increase of 23% compared to the same period in 2009. Quarterly growth was 7%. Although these numbers aren’t broken out (update: see below), the Eric Schmidt quote included in the press release highlighted display and mobile as having “significant momentum.” Here’s the quote: “Google had […]
This morning the IAB announced online ad revenues for the first half of 2010. According to the report, revenues increased 11.3 percent vs. the same period a year ago. Second quarter ad revenues were $6.2 billion, a 4.1 percent increase over last year. Total 2010 ad revenues to date (through June) were $12.1 billion. Search […]
Earlier this week a Bloomberg/BusinessWeek article appeared under the headline: Apple Threatens Search Giants’ Mobile Ad Shares. It gained a tremendous amount of secondary pickup and discussion for the proposition that Apple had tied Google in mobile advertising revenue. The article relied on IDC estimates to argue “Apple may be gaining share in the U.S. […]
Yahoo announced generally flat Q2 revenues of $1.6 billion but improved net income today. That compares with revenues of $1.57 billion in Q2 2009. Accordingly overall revenue growth vs. last year was 2 percent. However, “Display advertising on Owned and Operated sites … [grew] 19 percent in the quarter compared to the second quarter of […]
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Google will announce a deal with Omnicom Media Group, one of the major global ad holding companies. The Google-Omnicom deal is focused on display advertising and the DoubleClick Exchange specifically. According to the WSJ Ominicom will be spending “hundreds of millions of dollars to buy display […]
Google is already a major player in display advertising and is poised to become even more formidable in the next few years. Not so quietly the company has amassed or built a huge array of assets that could see it best many if not most other display competitors and networks, including market leader Yahoo. Google […]
First the news, which has already been widely reported: Yahoo is more deeply integrating Facebook on its homepage and across many of its properties. It has also changed the name of “Yahoo Profiles” to “Yahoo Pulse” (currently not working) and made the property more of a social media dashboard that manages sharing with third party […]
Adding to its display media assets, Google has reportedly acquired Invite Media for an undisclosed sum. The purchase price estimate is $70 million. Invite Media’s platform “Bid Manager” enables agencies and media buyers to buy across ad exchanges more efficiently. First there were ad networks, then ad exchanges to make buying across networks more efficient. And now […]
Mike Arrington just had a no-holds barred interview with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz at TechCrunch Disrupt. Bartz gave back as good as she got, at least in sound bites. As usual, I didn’t find many of her statements convincing. A highlight was her saying “Google is 90% search. That’s a fact.” It’s not. In particular, […]
Google executives reflect on year at annual meeting from CNet News reports on yesterday’s shareholder meeting at Google. At the meeting was Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, co-founder Larry Page, VP of products Susan Wojcicki, VP of user experience Marissa Mayer, general counsel Kent Walker and others. I wanted to sum up the key takeaways as […]
Yahoo announced (PDF) their first quarter 2010 earnings and showed a revenue increase of 1% and income increase of 87% from the first quarter of 2009 compared to the first quarter of 2010. Revenues were $1,597 million and income from operations was $188 million for the first quarter of 2010. Part of the revenues came […]
Recession? Economic slowdown? Financial gloom-and-doom? Not online, and not as far as Internet advertising is concerned. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) says that U.S. online ad revenue hit an all-time high of $6.3 billion in Q4 of 2009, a 2.6% increase over the fourth quarter of 2008 and a 14% increase over Q3 of 2009. […]
Yahoo was the first of the major search engines to use search query data to inform and influence subsequent display ad serving. However, as Magnetic CEO Josh Shatkin-Margolis pointed out to me, that only works within the Yahoo network, not across the broader internet. He would know, having worked as a Director of Engineering at […]
The HotJobs for sale rumor has been around for some time. Yesterday a deal with Monster was finally announced. It is being widely hailed as a smart move by Yahoo to gain cash and divest itself of another “non-core asset.” Except for payment and other terms the deal is conceptually analogous to what Yahoo is […]
Google posted a very strong Q4, given the recession, with $6.67 billion in revenues. This beats financial analyst general consensus estimates. Here are some top-level highlights from the earnings release: Revenues – Google reported revenues of $6.67 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, representing a 17% increase over fourth quarter 2008 revenues of $5.70 […]
If you’ve been around me you’ve probably heard me say this, but it bears repeating: As soon as you, the marketer, pay for a search click, someone will want to know what you got for it. This means that you will need effective ways to both optimize and report out results on your campaign. This […]
Google announced they have purchased Teracent, a company that uses machine learning to show the different display ad creatives based on dozens of factors. Google bought them to improve and better automate the display ad side of their ad serving technology. Google said: We think that this technology has great potential to improve display advertising […]
Many publishers have complained repeatedly that Google and Google News (not the leading online news site) reduces their content to “commodity” status or otherwise adversely impacts their brands. Google’s Fast Flip is a response to this in part. It offers a more “branded” and visual way to consume news and magazine content from major publishers. […]
Just as the introduction of the iPhone changed everything in the consumer world of mobile and helped usher in the era of the mobile internet, the pending Google acquisition of mobile display ad network AdMob is an almost equally significant event for mobile advertising. Over the past few years mobile advertising and marketing have been […]
Google has acquired AdMob (www.admob.com), a popular mobile display ad company, for $750 million. Google has already built their own platform for AdSense on Mobile devices, but this acquisition gives Google access to AdMob’s more than 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications. There are more details about this acquisition at google.com/press/admob. Here is the email […]
Yahoo just announced quarterly revenues of $1.575 million, which represents a 12 percent decline from the third quarter of 2008 and is basically flat vs last quarter. However the company saw a 19 percent decline in search ad revenue YoY but flat sequentially. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz characterized Q3 as “solid” in the press release […]
Along with a new search format, Yahoo has rolled out a new “It’s You” marketing push with clever slogans like “The Internet Is Under New Management, Yours.” The company is holding a press conference shortly, and I’m here liveblogging it. Let’s do this. We’re waiting. So are you. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz up, welcoming people. […]
DoubleClick’s advertising exchange has been in the works since at least 2007 and before Google acquired the company. But this morning Google is formally announcing the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which reflects a milestone of technology and platform integration between Google and its DoubleClick unit. Google sees this an an opportunity to attract more display and […]
With a penis joke, AllThingsD previews a major new ad offensive from Yahoo, which will have distinct but related messages for advertisers and consumers. On the advertiser side of the campaign, Yahoo will reportedly stress its reach and scale in an IAB event keynote next week, coinciding with Advertising Week in New York: The main […]
In my last article, “Matching Local Advertising to Consumer Intent,” I encouraged local advertisers to consider the intent of the consumers that they wanted to reach with their advertising distribution sources. The same idea can be applied to mobile, including the types of advertising that best fits your desired action (i.e. an enticement for an […]
An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning makes the case that investors have overly punished Yahoo for its “no-cash-upfront” search deal with Microsoft. The piece cites continued growth in Yahoo uniques and page views and the myriad Yahoo properties that are at the top of their respective categories: Despite all the turmoil at […]
Display advertising and local search have been key points of emphasis for major online search engines and networks in earnings calls over the last several weeks. This raises an interesting question about the interplay between local search and display ads: Can local spend help drive display advertising over the near or medium term? While we […]