Large online advertisers will waste as much as $4.5 billion on paid search advertising in 2008, estimates WebTrends Inc., a leading provider of web analytics and online marketing solutions.

WebTrends bases this estimate on results of its new service, WebTrends Ad Director, which formally debuted at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose, California. WebTrends Ad Director utilizes self-learning technology to optimize millions of combinations of keywords, landing pages and ads across the major search networks to achieve maximum results. Companies using the solution have seen their return on ad spend increase an average of 44 percent.

“Search engine marketing is one of the most critical acquisition channels for many companies, but it is clear that a significant portion of these investments are being wasted or underutilized,” said Kevin Ryan, vice president and global content director of Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch. “As search marketing becomes even more competitive, marketers would be smart to investigate automated methods for increasing SEM returns.”

(more…)

Google has now fully launched its competitor to Wikipedia. Knol has been open in Beta format since December with only a certain number of authors allowed to contribute. Perhaps the most graphic explanation of what it is all about is provided by its Plain old bag o’ knols, which appears ‘below the fold’ on the screen. Clearly many of its Beta authors were medical doctors who could write pharmaceutical knols, which will support a great deal of AdWords advertising. If such a knol attracts the searcher’s click, then they will move from a search report page with AdWords to an explanatory page with AdWords.

With Google so dominant in search they are formidable competitors in the advertising field. However Internet advertising is so lucrative that competitors will certainly be offering attractive advertising packages that should be seriously considered. One such is Performancing (thanks to Donna Fontenot for the heads up).

(more…)

Last year I wrote extensively about major online players Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL using Behavioral Targeting. Microsoft and Yahoo have been very open about it but Google has not admitted openly about engaging in Behavioral Targeting.

I speculated about Google entering Behavioral Targeting, you can read my past blog posts at http://webanalysis.blogspot.com/search/label/google). Recently, Google Analytics Data Sharing option reconfirmed my belief about Google entering Behavioral Targeting and using all the data it collects via Google Analytics (and other applications) to better target the ads.

A recent survey by SEMP.org (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) found that four out of five advertisers are willing to increase their online advertising budget in order to add behavioral targeting to their pay-per-click campaigns.

The survey also found that

Considering these stats and all the things that I have observed (see my past blog posts), I won’t be surprised if Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and ASK soon start offering behavioral targeting to it’s Paid Search (PPC) advertisers. To get the most of out of behavioral targeting, they won’t limit the behavioral data to search only, they will most likely use every data point they collect about visitors in various places including browser toolbars.

(more…)

Online advertising in general is fairing well in a slow economy. However, display advertising revenue, especially for bigger websites, is not doing as well. (Marketing Pilgrim runs display ads - Andy how are they doing - notice any downturn?).

Web sites, newspaper publishers, and news media companies like CBS make money by selling display ads. Remember all the new ad networks that have popped up in the last few years? Publishers are getting less for the ads they run through those networks.

PubMatic’s online pricing index showed that the price for ads purchased through an ad network dropped 23 percent from March to April. It’s worst for the largest sites - the prices for that segment dropped 52 percent. Ad networks are responding by more precise targeting of ads.

The New York Times Company saw quarterly revenue for Internet ads, but not as much as last year. Revenues increased 16 percent compared to 20 percent last year.

(more…)

As each day passes, we’re presented with new information that documents the decline of traditional media in favor of online counterparts and new media competitors. It seems that newspapers are among the hardest hit with circulation and print advertising down - forcing layoffs across the country.

The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) recently released a study showing newspaper Web sites attracted an average of about 66 million unique visitors in the first quarter, up about 12 percent over the same period a year ago.

The problem for publishers has been turning that online traffic growth into revenues. Online advertising at newspapers grew 18.8 percent last year, according to NAA figures, but that wasn’t enough to offset a 9.4 percent decline in print advertising. Total newspaper advertising last year, print and online, declined 7.9 percent.

Is Social Media to blame for the erosion in traditional media consumption and advertising revenues? Is the appeal of participating in news and relevant stories or the prospect of content creation more attractive to the thin attention span of today’s Web-savvy consumer?

(more…)

Shocker—people don’t want to see ads.
As marketers, we hear people complain all the time about advertising. It comes as no surprise that BurstMedia’s recent survey found that people don’t like ads—but it’s probably something we should think about.

First, the good news: The survey of 2600 online adults focused specifically on online video and advertising in online video. As we all know, the medium is pretty darn popular—72.1% of respondents viewed video online at least monthly.

(more…)

Ad executives are going to have to change the way they do business and include more progressive methods to reach customers. Marketers want more focus on other advertising like online video and social networking sites and less on traditional media alone. That’s according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

As the economy slows, more businesses are attracted to Internet advertising. Not only is it often less expensive, but it’s also easier to measure than tv and print ads.

Every prediction I’ve seen shows growth in this space outpacing growth in traditional advertising methods.

(more…)

At last, neuroscience is applying itself to understanding how that extremely artificial endeavor - advertising - engages our basic biological instincts.

Two pieces of science news will interest marketers. First, the more we can anthropomorphize products, the better we like them. Second, advertising can take the place of real memory in our beliefs about a product.

It seems that dancing raisins, talking cars and the Geico gekko - but probably not subservient chickens - can actually change consumers’ perceptions and attitudes, according to Pankaj Aggarwal (University of Toronto) and Ann L. McGill (University of Chicago).

This Science Daily story says that we’re more likely to positively evaluate an anthropomorphized item.
(more…)

The web has long been rich in social and viral marketing elements.

Email this to a friend, social bookmarking, blogging, etc. So many services have popped up that now there is a Social Media Firefox Extension and Andy Hagans is planning his fake review optimization service.

Ultimately the communities that are focused on a niche and editorially biased will be successful while aggregator websites that are nothing more than a feature that Google can add to their suite of services will die.

Google quitely launched a Digg clone, and is aiming to create the underlying platform that powers most social networks. And they might bid on wireless spectrum in the US and UK.

As the leading portals collect more data they will be able to add value to more transactions and disintermediate middlemen by employing creative individuals to do jobs that were once done in offices.

If people get paid for results then the quality of work goes up. Think of portals as television stations vying for a bite of your attention for as long as they possibly can, and looking to pay you for your attention with relevancy, and cash if you are really motivated.
(more…)

Federal Trade Commission is conducting a Town Hall meeting to discuss several topics on Behavioral Targeting and Online Privacy. This is your chance to participate in the panel and have your voice heard.

This two-day Town Hall will bring together consumer advocates, industry representatives, technology experts, and academics to address the consumer protection issues raised by the practice of tracking consumers’ activities online to target advertising - or “behavioral advertising.” It will be held November 1-2, 2007 at the FTC Conference Center at 601 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC. It is free and open to the public.

The Commission invites interested parties to submit requests to be panelists and to recommend other topics for discussion. The requests should be submitted electronically to behavioraladvertising_requests@ftc.gov by September 14, 2007. The Commission will select panelists based on expertise and the need to represent a range of views about the issues. Panelists selected to participate will be notified by October 5, 2007.

Topics at the Town Hall will include:
(more…)