Businesses have been known to use the names of their competitors to advertise through AdWords, and some companies have taken quite a strong exception to this practice and have gone to court to appeal against it, and prevent Google from selling their brand name as a keyword.

Earlier, this month, Europe’s Court of Justice the highest legal authority in Europe has ruled in favour of Google in one such case.

The specific case being referred to was between two competitors who made temporary or portable cabins. The names of the companies concerned are PortaKabin and Primakabin respectively. Primakabin was using the words, Portakabin, Portacabin, Portokabin and Portocabin among its keywords to advertise on Google.

The competitor Portakabin has objected to this.

The judges have finally ruled that, companies, using the names of competitors as Internet Advertising keywords, is not an infringement of Trademark laws in the European Union.

This judgment will be a big victory for Google as it will indirectly boost the revenue they can generate through advertising.

This judgment also upholds another ruling passed earlier in a similar case between Louis Vuitton and Google. The court maintains that as long as the internet service provider is neutral about the content they display, there is no infringement of trademark laws.

The French Supreme Court where the case between Google and Louis Vuitton was first heard, has also sided with the ruling given by the European court according to sources from Google.

Sources from Louis Vuitton however, have claimed that the French Court has held Google ‘liable for the sale of trademarks as AdWords on the grounds of civil liability.’

Clearly it looks as though there will be some more debating required in such cases.

According to this study, 3-word queries are currently the most successful drivers of traffic from organic search results.

The study was conducted during the one-week period between 13 and 19 June 2010 across a sample of 41 million impressions of search traffic. They found that approximately 10 million or 26% of these impressions were for three-word queries.

The next most popular query length was with two words at 19% followed by four-word queries at 17% and one-word queries at 14%.

Queries with  five words or more had a much lower percentage of traffic.

In the past, one-word queries accounted for a much higher percentage. In 2007, one-word search queries accounted for 24.5% and in 2009 they accounted for 20.4%. Two-word queries accounted for 23.6% in 2009.

The study also considered the effect of word count on ad click rate for paid search results. Quite contrary to the findings for organic search results, they found that the highest click rates were associated with queries of five, six and four words respectively, with five-word queries getting 1.4% of the click share. This means, unsurprisingly, that complex searches are more likely to convert into revenue, rather than searches with one, two or three words.

Data from the Yahoo! Toolbar across 50 million page views generated in March 2009 was analysed. Rsearchers, Ravi Kumar and Andrew Tomkins found that users now spend only 21.4% of their online time on search activities.

The total time spent searching included 6.2% time spent on Web searches, 1.4% on multimedia searches, 1.4% on databases of items such as those found on eBay and Amazon.

In contrast to this, users spent 50% of their online time browsing and one-third of the time on communication.

5.3% of all pageviews were found to have a referral from Web searches, 1.4% from multimedia searches, 0.6% from database item searches, and 1.5% from other search query types. Thus, each category of search pageviews tends to result in around one follow-on click on average.

Experts at Yahoo! surmise that in the future, search needs to focus on gathering and understanding, and when appropriate, serving structured information.

It was observed that users are now much more dependent on social networks, location-aware smartphone applications and voice or images to find the content that they are interested in.

Last month, Facebook had more site visits than Google in the U.S.A. Search ads, which are the main source of revenue for the search engines, could potentially lose user attention to an extent.

More importantly, search and display advertisers now have a greater choice and must decide on the best way to reach their target audience and the best channel to maximise the return on the money they spend advertising.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! already recognise this change in online user behaviour and have been forging partnerships with social media sites like Twitter and Facebook for over a year now, in addition to building social networks around their own products.

Click the link below to read the full white paper:

A characterisation of online search behavior (144kB PDF)

As of now, the updated service is available only in the U.S.A. on the iPhone and on Android devices.

When a user views the results of a search query, tapping on a button to the left of the search box on the search results page will reveal the new search options menu. When the user selects one of the items in the menu, the search results get refined, just as is done on regular search.

The expanded search options menu will make the paid and organic search results slide to the right side of the screen. The user can still interact with the results by panning right.

New options, such as News and Products, have also been added to the menu.

Google has promised to roll out the updated interface on other devices and in other locations as soon as possible. They will also offer more options soon.

While speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo, Google’s Steve Lee hinted that a new version of Latitude would be available shortly. The updated version will allow users to access information and data about where they have been. Access to this information will be restricted to the user only.

Contrary to initial reports, the geo-location service is doing pretty well, TechCrunch reports. Latitude has 3 million active users. This is especially significant when compared to competitors, Foursquare and My Town, which have 1 million and 2 million users respectively.

In fact, 8 million people that have signed up for Latitude since its inception. It is believed that this year, Latitude grew 30% each month. The current growth of Android and Blackberry is no doubt helping fuel this growth.

Google hopes to have several third party mobile applications working through the Latitude API in the near future.

The current Google Advertising Professionals qualification, which was launched in 2004, will be discontinued. It will be replaced by the Google AdWords Certification programme.

Google Certification Programme

Google AdWords Qualified Companies will now be called Certified Partners. Individual qualifications will be offered to professionals, irrespective of their association with an agency, making it easier for employees to port their qualifications when they change employers. 

The single qualification exam will be replaced by an Advertising Fundamentals exam and three advanced-level exams – Search Advertising Advanced Exam, Reporting and Analysis Exam, and Display Exam. In order to qualify, each individual must pass the fundamentals exam and at least one of the advanced exams.

Agencies will need to have at least one qualified individual associated with their AdWords My Client Centre account and a minimum spend of U.S. $10,000/quarter. Previously, the minimum spend figure for Qualified Companies was $100,000/quarter. This lower number will make it easier for small businesses to qualify.

Agencies that fulfil the required criteria will be given a ‘Google AdWords Certified Partner‘ logo or badge that they can display on their site. This will include the words ”Click To Verify”, which will prompt visitors to click on the logo in order to verify the company’s actual qualified status, thereby reducing the number of false qualification claims.

Google has also made it easy for advertisers to decide which agency they would like to work with through the Google Partner Search platform. This platform will provide information about the agency’s experience, location, budget spend etc.

Lastly, Google has also introduced a Preferred AdWords API pricing model that will allow Certified Partners free access to the AdWords API, based on the client spend they manage. To avail of the free API credits in this pricing model, agencies must have an active agency profile page, their tool must satisfy the minimum functionality requirements for third-party bid management tools and they must, of course, agree to the terms and conditions required by the AdWords API.

In effect, people visiting a website with the intention to buy are more likely to do so from a sponsored link than from an organic link, and thus more conversions are expected from sponsored links.

This pattern may vary to some extent, depending on the type of search being conducted.

For instance, searches related to news, sports or entertainment, which are not very likely to end in a purchase transaction may originate from an organic link.

On the other hand, searchers looking to purchase specific items are more likely to be attracted to a paid links, and a conversion is more likely to occur when a price tag or model name are available. According to Nick Drew, a researcher who works for Microsoft Advertising, this is largely down to the searcher’s frame of mind.

Someone looking to buy a product is likely to be drawn towards selling phrases such as “buy now”, “sale”, “discount” and prices, which are usually found on sponsored links, as again general information that can be found on organic results. Such a person would not find an organic result from a site such as Wikipedia very helpful when buying.

Conversely, someone looking for information will most likely be turned off by the salesy language on sponsored links, and will instead focus on the organic search results.

Both comScore and Nielsen’s research has found that in any given category of searches, a paid link is more likely to end in a purchase than an organic link. Hence, it is of great importance for marketers to promote their brands through sponsored ad listings.

Former deputy PM and member of the U.K. Labour Party, John Prescott, has been urging and instigating his followers on Twitter and supporters to click on Google pay per click ads from their opponents.

Prescott isn’t actually encouraging users to click on ads posted by the Conservative Party rather than on links to his own party. Instead he wants users to click on these ads in order to cost the Conservative Party money and make them bleed through their search engine marketing budget faster.

The logic behind this is simply that the Conservative Party pays for every click their ad receives. They could end up wasting their entire daily budget paying for clicks from Labour supporters and their ads would then stop showing.

In other words, John Prescott is encouraging his supporters to commit Click Fraud.

Click fraud was a major cause for concern for PPC advertisers in 2006, when a number of unscrupulous businesses hired rings of click fraudsters to keep clicking on their competitors’ ads till the competitors’ campaigns ran out of their daily budget, which would then mean that the competitors’ ads would stop showing for the given search term.

The Labour MP’s advice to his followers, may just boomerang on him, as the ultimate aim of any political party is to pass on their message and ideology to voters, which is precisely what is likely to happen when supporters of any party click on ads of the Conservative party and visit their site.

Moreover, voters would most likely tend not to look favourably upon a politician who encourages them to commit fraud, albeit online.

This new feature will allow advertisers to reach visitors that had already shown an interest in their product, service or brand by accessing their ad or website in the past, but did not proceed to actually make a transaction or purchase.

This service is not the same as retargeting, as it does not require any data from Google.com.

To make use of remarketing, the advertisers can tag pages and use cookies to identify a visitor or a category of users who can later be shown an ad or offer, based on their interests.

Google AdWords explains this system, by giving an example of a basketball team wanting to sell tickets. By putting a code on the tickets page, they can later show relevant ads to all visitors to their site. The relevant ad could be in the form of discounted tickets or could be an offer for VIP hospitality or team merchandise and so on.

Even though, in essence, this new feature uses behavioural targeting to show ads to users, Google has chosen to call it “Remarketing” rather than simply “behavioural targeting” in order to avoid any controversy involving user privacy and the FTC.

Users can still opt out of personalised or behavioural targeting  via the Ad Preferences Manager. Alternatively, users can specify ad categories, which they would be interested in, on the Ad Preferences Manager.

The remarketing feature was run in a limited beta test for the past one year. It has now been opened up to all AdWords advertisers. It could be a very effective way for advertisers to reach consumers who showed an initial interest in their content, but stopped short of making a purchase.

Brand advertisers want to know whether they are getting their money’s worth, in terms of quality and quantity, where digital media is concerned.

It is a well established fact that the more time a user spends seeing an ad, the more he or she is likely to be influenced by it and if this user is actively engaged with that ad the perception of the brand concerned is usually found to be higher.

The time spent on an ad, multiplied by the rate at which it is actively engaged with is known as the dwell score. The dwell score thus provides a tangible source to measure the effectiveness of a brand and its online ad campaign.

Dwell Score = Time spent on ad x Rate of engagement

Research from other sources such as comScore corroborate the fact that a high dwell score indicates a higher number of branded search queries, more visits to the brand website and more engaged visitors.

Data also shows that click-through-rates are not very effective in measuring brand performance as consumers are likely to spend more meaningful time on an ad then to actually click on it. To better understand this subject, new systems are required to measure the time spent and engagement with an ad.

According to the findings of the MIA Project, 96% of marketers surveyed felt that these digital ad measurements and calculations should be clear and transparent, but only 29% felt that they were so at present. 96% of them also felt that there should be consistency in the terms of measurement, but again, only 23% of them were satisfied with the present state of affairs.

Read the full white paper: Being Greater With Data (PDF 627 KB)

www.searchalliance.com

According to the official press release from Yahoo! and Microsoft, this alliance will enable their business users to connect with a larger audience of potential customers, thus saving them valuable time and money.

Users will now be able to search ad inventory from both the sites simultaneously, by using the Microsoft search engine, Bing, which presently has a combined audience of about 577 million users worldwide.

Advertisers will be able to use Microsoft adCenter to advertise to the combined client base of Yahoo! and Microsoft.

The alliance will obviously help both the companies concerned to improve monetisation for their partners, eventually helping the companies to generate more revenue for themselves.

Though both companies will continue to have different consumer search experiences, Microsoft will manage the technology for both of them through Bing. Yahoo! will support high volume advertisers, SEO and SEM agencies and resellers and their clients. Microsoft on the other hand will support self service advertisers. All ads will go through the Microsoft ad-Center.

This alliance will be implemented across the U.S. Canada, U.K. and France. Elsewhere in Europe, Latin America and Asia, Microsoft is already a partner of Yahoo!

At present, ads will continue to show up on Bing search results, just as before, and advertisers will be informed about the alliance once it actually begins. They aim to be able to implement the new setup before the 2010 holiday season, but may delay it to early 2011 if needed.

Advertisers can now add a location specific business phone number in mobile ads that appear on mobile devices with full Internet browsers, such as the iPhone. When users want to call a business, instead of visiting its website, they needs to simply click on that phone number.

Since customers on mobiles are more likely to prefer to call a business than to browse through a big website, this feature will be an added convenience users. The feature will be good for advertisers as well, as it enables customers to contact them more easily.

For businesses with outlets in several locations, the number of the outlet closest to the user’s geo-location, as determined by the mobile phone’s location detection service or via Google’s My Location service, will appear on the screen. If a user wishes to call an outlet in any other location, he can do so by entering that location in his search query.

The cost per call will be the same as the cost per click for the advertiser.

Advertisers have already reported better click-through rates and increased phone calls during the beta tests of this service.

To show this ‘click to call’ number alongside their local business ads, advertisers will have to set up location extensions and then add their business phone number. They must then check that the option to show ads on smartphones has been selected in their campaign’s settings.

AdWords reports will show the number of calls they receive, thus allowing them to judge the effective the service is. In order to see click to call statistics separately, advertisers must go to the ‘Campaign Summary’ tab in the AdWords account, click on ‘Filter and Views’, then select ‘Segment by’ from the drop down menu and ‘Click Type’.

Google has now launched a beta search platform that provides a list of these certified professionals.

Google Professionals Search

Individuals or agencies that have been certified by Google can help businesses to better manage their AdWords campaigns and thus advertise their products or services more effectively.

An interested business owner or marketing person can go through Google’s list of certified professionals and select any one of them according to the location and weekly budget that their campaign runs on.

These certified professionals offer various services such as online display advertising, search engine optimisation, web design, web analytics, affiliate programs, advertising on traditional media such as print and TV, as well as on new media like mobiles and social networks.

Professionals who are certified by Google have to keep appearing for periodic tests, which Google conducts, and they also have to pay a fee of $50 every 18 months.

In the past, many people who have been certified have neglected to renew their certification. With the introduction of this new list, agencies and individuals who want to to be featured by the programme will have to renew their membership by taking the exam and paying the fees regularly.

While big agencies are automatically listed in multiple cities, individuals and small shops will have to register separately for each location.

To be fair to Google, their Learning Center does provide very thorough information on the subject, and certified professionals are definitely able to make up the money they spend.

Chitika recently conducted a study that revealed that users of Microsoft browsers and operating system have a tendency to click on advertisements more than users of other services such as FireFox, Safari, Chrome etcera. Not only that, even users of Windows click on ads far more frequently than users of other operating systems such as Mac OS or Linux.

The findings of this study are significant as it was conducted using a sample of over 130 million impressions across 80,000 sites.

The details emerging from the study are as follows:

• Internet Explorer users on average have a click-through rate (CTR) of 1.05% compared to 0.66% for Firefox users, 0.50% for Safari users and 0.21% for Chrome users
• Windows users have a CTR of 0.92%, while Mac users have 0.52% and Linux users have 0.46%

These findings have been indirectly validated by TechCrunch, where reports that users of Microsoft’s search engine Bing have a higher CTR than users of other search engines. Bing users have a CTR of 1.74% as opposed to 0.98% for Google users and 1.37% for Yahoo! users.

TechCrunch insinuates that the higher CTRs from Microsoft users is because these users are more gullible and easier to dupe than others, which has ruffled a few feathers, even though it is probably true.

Microsoft users don’t click the most, though. AOL, which is a much smaller network has the highest CTR of 2.5%.

The initial version of the Ad Review Center allows publishers to block ads from certain categories or from certain Google certified ad networks and lists all ads that are placement-targeted to their sites, with the option to block them individually.

Google is now making it easier for publishers to find and manage the ads that are shown on their sites.

As a first step in that direction, Google is in the process of making it possible to search for ads that are placement targeted to their site. They have already started offering this facility to a few of their publishers, and will make it available to others in the future.

The new search feature allows publishers to search for individual ads by keyword, display URL or destination URL. A publisher could, therefore, for example, search for all ads that link to a competitor.

It will also be possible for publishers to search for ads across multiple AdSense products such as AdSense for mobile content or AdSense for feeds. Publishers will also have the choice to view allowed, blocked and new ads.

Google is waiting for feedback on this service from the first set of publishers who have been given this facility. They will then make the required adjustments, according to the feedback received, before they release this service to other publishers.

In addition to traditional sponsored links, users will soon be able to view lists of targeted products, retailers offering those products, their prices and a product image when they search for shopping related terms on Google.

The best part of this ad format is that it is based on a Cost-Per-Action (CPA) pricing model. This means that the merchant only has to pay Google when a user clicks on his ad and completes a purchase on the site.

Product Listing Ads will be especially useful to merchants selling a large variety of products. Advertisers don’t actually need to create any additional ad text or keywords.

Whenever a user enters a search query relevant to an item in an advertiser’s Google Merchant Center account, Google will automatically show the most relevant products along with the associated image, price and product name.

While this new system would make it very easy for merchants to advertise all their products on Google, it could also take control away from the advertiser. Google has not currently specified any details about how participating retailers will be able to specify CPA bids or exclude certain products from being included in Listing Ads.

The service is in beta at present, but will gradually be made available to more and more advertisers. The launch has been timed to gain popularity very quickly, with the approach of the holiday shopping season.

AdWords Comparison Ads

As the name suggests, this new service will make it possible for users to compare offers provided by various advertisers.

Google Comparison Ad unit

The basic Comparison Ad allows users to specify what they are looking for, in a bit more detail than is normally possible on a regular search query, and then delivers a comparison of different offers side-by-side.

Users that engage with a comparison ad will now have to click on a promotion listed within the comparison table that they think is of interest to them. If they are not satisfied, they can provide some more details about what they want, to see better targeted ads.

When the user identifies a satisfactory offer, the advertiser can be contacted directly on the phone – making it a pay per call ad – or a quote can be requested.

Google will anonymise the user’s number with a unique code, through which the advertiser can then contact the user. Advertisers will not receive any user information unless the user wishes to release it. Advertisers will pay Google only if a user calls on the phone number allocated for that advertiser or if the user fills out a form requesting a quote.

The comparison ads feature is very speedy, as it provides relevant offers in less than one second, and the ads will only be for real products. There will be no teaser rates or bait and switch offers.

At present, the service is only available to a few users in some states in the U.S.A and it is only for advertisers in the mortgage and refinance field.

Ad Sitelinks

Just like certain organic results include sitelinks, certain ads can now also feature sitelinks via a new feature called Ad Sitelinks.

Advertisers with extremely high quality ads will be able to specify up to 10 links to deeper pages on their site. These can be links to special offers, featured products, support pages or other popular pages on the site.

Up to 4 Ad Sitelinks will show up below the regular ads for keywords that meet certain quality requirements:

1. The ad should have the first position above the organic search results
2. The ad should have a very high quality score, typically 10/10
3. The Ad Sitelinks URLs must direct users to pages that are part of the main website, and allow users to navigate freely

The links can be updated without changing the ads, as frequently as desired. The option to add sitelinks shows up in the campaign settings tab, under the “Networks, devices and extensions” section, and is labeled with the text “Show additional links to my site within my ad”.

Display ads have long been an important tool used by marketers to influence users and to create brand awareness. This new tool from Google will now enable marketers to measure the effect a particular ad on their target audience, even if it is not immediately clicked upon after viewing.

The new service will be able to measure the number of conversions that occur within 30 days from the date of viewing, even if no click was recorded at the time of viewing.

If a user sees an ad on a given site without clicking on it, but later visits the ad site within the next 30 days and converts into a lead or sale, this conversion will be reported in the AdWords campaign tab.

This facility will also allow marketers to better compare the performance of their ads on the Google Content Network, vis-à-vis its performance on any other content network. Marketers can then decide for themselves, which is the best place to advertise and thus get the best value for the money they spend on advertising.

To make use of this service, marketers will need to ensure AdWords conversion tracking works for their accounts. Google Analytics goals are not compatible with View-through Conversion reporting, and this service is not available for search campaigns and for text creatives.

Several advertisers have admitted that of late, the results they get from advertising on Facebook are better than those achieved from advertising on Google, and that is in spite of spending less on Facebook than on Google.

According to several advertisers and marketers, the response they have been getting from Facebook has improved substantially in the last 6 months, and due to this, more and more businesses are buying ad space on Facebook.

Tim Kendall, director of monetization at Facebook, however, maintains that the advertising growth curve at Facebook has maintained a steady pace and there has been no sudden jump in the demand for ad space on their site. It is true, though, that the number of advertisers on Facebook has tripled over the last three years.

One important factor for this growth surge at Facebook is the ability of advertisers to find their target audiences accurately from the profile data available about Facebook users. Facebook has always been very strict about users using real names and information on the site, and has often deleted profiles that posted false information. As a result, demographic data on Facebook is more reliable than on other networks.

When a Facebook user likes a product they are likely to recommend it to most of their friends, who are already on Facebook. This feature has certainly attracted a lot of marketers to Facebook.

While Google has not commented on this topic, Facebook has announced that they have logged annual sales to the tune of $500 million. Coupled with Facebook’s fast growing user base, it may only be just a matter of time before the social networking leader out performs Google on the advertising front.

Advertisers can make use of Google Spreadsheets to make the necessary changes to the keywords in their AdWords accounts.

By making use of the copy and paste facility in an external spreadsheet, advertisers can make several changes in their AdWords accounts such as changing the bid, creating a list of keywords, editing destination URL’s etc.

Users can edit keywords within an Ad Group and also edit the keywords with external AdWords tools.

In order to make bulk edits with a spreadsheet within the ad group, the steps are as follows:

1. Sign in to AdWords and navigate to the Ad Group that needs to be edited
2. Next, select the ‘Keyword’ tab and then the ‘More Actions’ command, which is at the top of the ad group table
3. Select the ‘Spreadsheet Edit’ operation from the drop down menu
4. Make the necessary changes
5. Lastly, click ‘Save’.

After these changes are saved, errors occurring in any of the cells are highlighted. When the cursor is placed on such a cell, the error is shown and can be corrected. Once all the errors have been corrected, the changes can be submitted to AdWords.

While using a spreadsheet within the ad group, users can make employ common keyboard shortcuts as well as spreadsheet formulas, with the Formula Autocomplete feature. These formulae can be used to change bids based on the performance stats in the spreadsheet.

All the cells in the column can be modified, but only columns with text in black will apply the changes that are saved. These columns are ‘Keyword’, ‘Max CPC, ‘Destination URL and ‘Status’.

Bulk editing of keywords with external AdWords tools can be done using either the ‘AdWords editor’, which is a free downloadable application for managing the account or by using AdWords API.

Click fraud has reduced not only compared to what it was in the first quarter of the year, but also compared to what it was in the second quarter of 2008. At present it is 12.7%, while in the first quarter of 2009 it was 13.8% and in the second quarter of 2008 it was 16.2%.

According to Click Forensics this data has been collected from ad campaigns of large as well as small advertisers spread over all of the leading search engines and over 300 ad networks.

The president of Click Forensics, Tom Cuthbert says, “The increased diligence of online ad networks to detect and block invalid traffic sources has contributed to the decline in the over all click fraud rate this quarter. However increasingly sophisticated attacks, such as publisher collusion fraud, continue to be a concern. Ad networks should pay close attention to such threats in the coming months.”

Publisher collusion fraud is a lot more difficult to track as publishers make use of bots and rotating IP-addresses to click on their own ads, thus raising their rankings and also increasing the commission which they earn from the ad networks, which cannot easily detect such invalid clicks from the valid ones.

These ad networks consist of lesser known sites that still manage to reach large audiences, at a much lower cost than the bigger, well known internet sites.

The bid simulator can be accessed in the new AdWords interface by clicking on a CPC value to adjust it, or clicking on the tiny graph-like icon next to the current bid value, as shown in the screenshot below:

Accessing AdWords’ bid simulator

When the tool opens up in a new layer (on the same page), it shows a simulation of the estimated clicks, cost and impressions that particular keyword will get if the bid values are increased or decreased. The tool also includes a graph to illustrate the change in number of clicks as CPC changes.

AdWords bid simulator in action

Documentation provided by Google describes the function of the Bid Simulator: “It doesn’t predict the future, but it estimates the click, cost and impression data that your ads would have received over the last seven days had you set different keyword-level bids. ”

The tool does not work for all keywords, and the graph does not show up for all keywords that have the bid simulator enabled. Search volumes are the determining factor for whether or not the simulator and the graph within the simulator are enabled or not.

According to Google, “The bid simulator requires historical information in order to provide click and cost data for different bids. If a keyword didn’t receive many clicks in the last seven days, it isn’t possible to simulate clicks and cost.”

Values for the bid simulator only apply to the search network – that is, Google search and other search partners.

Microsoft Live Search had been losing market share in the last quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009, but Bing seems to be changing that situation now.

Reports from Efficient Frontier show that ROI received by advertisers has gone up by 43% for Google, and by 24% for Microsoft Bing, but has dropped by 8% for Yahoo!

This is in spite of the fact that the over all expenditure by advertisers on search marketing has gone down by 21% compared to the same time last year.

The amount that advertisers spent on Bing has gone up by only0.1 percentage points compared to last year, but has gone up by 0.7 percentage points when compared to the first quarter of 2009.

In the second quarter of 2009, Bing received 4.5% of ad spend of the clients of Efficient Frontier, while Yahoo! received 20.5% and Google received 75%. At the same time, Bing had 4.1% of the total clicks while Yahoo! had 24.3% and Google had 71.6%

Bing has been doing especially well in the travel and financial services sectors.

The report by Efficient Frontiers also shows that the amount which its medium spenders (between $50,000 to $2,00,000 per month) are spending on SEM has gone up by 5% in Q2 of 2009, compared to the amount spent at the same time last year, but small advertisers (below $50,000 per month) spent only 59% of what they spent last year, and large advertisers (above $2,00,000 per month) spent 78% of what they spent last year. Over all, the budgets have gone down by 21%.

On the other hand, another SEM company reported that large spenders (over $1 million per year) spent 18.77% more than they did last year, while small spenders (below $1 million per year) spent 25.33% less than they did last year.

comScore reports that Microsoft had 8.4% of market share soon after the launch of Bing in June 2009, compared to 8.02% in May 2009. but that figure is still less than the 9.2% which they had in June 2008. This may be the effect of the recession though.

Research from the UK Trade and Investment government offices has found that despite favourable circumstances only 75,000 businesses in the U.K. are engaged in exporting their products and services.

Chief among the reasons for this low turn out are language and cultural barriers, apart from other factors like administrative restrictions, cross-border logistics etc.

To help businesses overcome these obstacles, Google has tied up with Applied Language Solutions, HSBC, Royal Mail, Institute of Export, U.K. Trade and Investment and Alibaba.com, to launch a new comprehensive solution called Export Adviser.

Google Export Adviser

UK-based businesses interested in export can now avail of this service.

The Export Adviser will help novices to start an export business by guiding them through various steps like identifying and evaluating target markets, judging the market demand, creating an English language keyword list, translating that list and forecasting a cost per click for those multilingual keywords.

The opportunity finder tool offers a neat tie-in between three Google tools to translate keywords, mine keyword data and predict demand in the market, as demonstrated by the simple example below, where a search for ‘seo’ brings up a map showing where most opportunities lie among emerging markets, along with suggestions for related keywords and rising keywords in various languages.

Google Export Adviser’s opportunity finder tool

For those who wish to expand their export business, the Export Box, created in partnership with Applied Language Solutions offers a slightly expensive (considering the target market is SME) solution: For a price of £3,000 users will be provided with the following:

1. A translated website, built as landing pages for specific search terms
2. Keywords and Adverts specially researched and designed for the target country in the target language
3. £1,000 worth of paid advertising on Google AdWords using Multilingual PPC, plus a free Google voucher worth £200
4. A free online shop front and discounts on Gold Supplier membership for Alibaba.com to market products to over 8 million international buyers
5. £1,000 worth of language support
6. Membership to the Institute of Export and discounted international banking with HSBC.

SMEs that don’t want the full support of this £3,000 package are lured by an alternative £200 AdWords voucher, the details of which can be found from AdWords account managers.

Screenshot of Google Export Adviser website

The email sent out yesterday informs advertisers that if they wish to continue running ads on Google AdWords, they will need to use Visa, MasterCard or American Express credit cards or switch to direct debit payments before the end of the month.

In their own words…

“We are writing to inform you of an upcoming change affecting the use of Switch cards with AdWords. As of July 31st, 2009, we will no longer accept the use of Switch cards. Please select an alternative form of payment to fund your AdWords campaigns before July 31st, 2009 to keep your ads running. Google currently accepts Visa, MasterCard, and American Express credit cards. ”

No reason has been supplied for this change in policy.

The move could be to drive more advertisers to pay via direct debit, rather than credit cards. Google introduced the ability to pay for AdWords accounts via direct debit in the UK only in August last year. Current postpay users paying by credit cards can switch to direct debit.

Instructions for switching to direct debit can be found on the AdWords Help centre at:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=50328

Google still does not allow pre-pay users to switch to postpay or direct debit.

Just as users vote up or down the news stories on Digg as per their preference, they will now be in a position to vote up or down the ads displayed on the site.

If users like an ad they Digg it (vote it up). If they do not like the ad, it gets voted down. Digg will then decide the rates they charge their advertisers, depending on the number of votes an ad generates. If an ad is really popular, it will garner more votes. Such an ad will be charged at a lower cost per click rate, compared to ads which garner fewer votes and are relatively unpopular.

In turn, an advertiser is likely to display a popular ad for a longer length of time, than he would display an unpopular ad, as he would have to pay a higher amount for the unpopular ad.

The ads will appear alongside the main stories and will be clearly demarcated as sponsored content. They will be linked to the main story, trailer or product review.

It will still be quite some months before this platform is launched as it is still in the early planning stages.

Even after it is launched, Digg will look out for user feedback, to further modify the platform as required.

Google Suggest is a drop down menu that provides a list of query suggestions when a user starts typing in a query. The feature was added to the search engine’s home page last August and is now being updated.

To begin with, links are being added to Google Suggest. If a search query appears to be navigational, that site will appear in the drop down menu itself, thus saving the users time when he conducts the search operation.

Another new feature is the addition of Sponsored Links or ads among the search suggestions. Such related ads will now appear directly in the search suggestion box. The ads will be marked ‘Sponsored Link’ and will be on a coloured background to differentiate them.

Thirdly, when a user who is on a particular results page starts another search, he will receive certain search suggestions which will be related to the previous search which he has carried out.

The last feature to be added to Google Suggest is a personalization of suggestions. This means that when a user signs in to his Google account and if his computer has ‘Web History’ on the ‘Enabled’ mode, search suggestions will be sent to him by Google, based on his past searches. Google has found that users who are signed in often repeat their searches. In fact the figure for repeat searches is as high as 25%. Users have however been provided with an option labeled ‘Remove’ which they can use if they do not want a past search to show up in future.

The final change being made on Google Suggest is the deletion of the number of searches that have been conducted for a given query, as Google feels that this data has been of no use to their users.

tapMatch

Companies can now advertise their products on this service by bidding on keywords and categories. The ads will then be displayed on mobile web pages and above mobile search results.

Jumptap claim that the service uses technology to relay ads very selectively, so that advertisers do not waste their money.

The service allows advertisers to target ads to certain handset models such as the Blackberry and iPhone. Google AdWords mobile ads do not currently provide device targeting. Like Google, other targeting options such as location, mobile carrier and language are also be available on tapMatch.

In the past pay per click mobile ad services have not been able to target audiences too well, in spite of the personal nature of the medium. TapMatch will allow advertisers to select their target audience by building client profiles through various sources such as search queries, context and previous click-through history of the client. Accordingly only appropriate and relevant ads will be shown to the mobile user.

Additional levels of audience demographic targeting present in the ad delivery system are expected to produce high levels of user engagement, which should eventually translate to high a conversion rate for advertisers.

Signing up for tapMatch is easy. Advertisers who are used to Google AdWords will find the process of signing up and setting up campaigns to be remarkably similar.

Pricing of these ads will be auctioned just as it is for Google AdWords. Advertisers will be required to pay only if the user carries out one of the click actions the service offers, which include:

• Sending users to a website
• Displaying an SMS landing page that includes a title, 250 character description, an image and instruction to text something to a short number
• Capturing an email address via a landing page that includes a title, 250 character description, an image and a text box with a button to capture user email addresses
• Showing a phone number on a landing page with a title, 250 character description and an image – this would have worked better as a pay per call action
• Delivering a 250 character marketing message along with a title and image.

In theory, all these features seem very interesting. However, reality might show that tapMatch has a long way to go before it provides serious competition to the likes of Google, mainly due to the higher volume of mobile users that default to the search giant even for their mobile search needs.

mobile.accuracast.com

Given the recent growth in mobile Internet usage, a number of businesses are now looking to tap into this growth. This new sub-domain allows business owners and marketing professionals to order simple, straight-forward, sleek mobile websites that suit their requirements.

tools.accuracast.com

Our four main tools – the Search Ranking tool, PPC Cost Estimator tool, Monthly Ranking Report and International Search tool – all now have a new home in this sub-domain.

AccuraCast France

The French section of our site has now been moved to its own dedicated .fr domain, and has a slightly different design from the English website. Warning: The website is written only in French (of course!)

AccuraCast India

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Middle East will now be served from our Indian office. The Indian site is markedly different from the UK and French sites, and so are the service bundles we offer in the sub-continent. Please note that the service bundles offered on this site are not available to European and North American customers.

AccuraCast Mobile

Unlike the mobile sub-domain, AccuraCast Mobile is a lone-standing mobile site that provides a quick introduction to our business and our services, in a mobile-friendly format. This is just a (relatively) static, information site targeting our mobile audience. It is also one of the best ways to view the Search Daily News headlines from your mobile phone.

SEO-London.info

Perhaps the least obviously related site, SEO-London.info was launched last year to cater to small businesses and start-ups. The site provides bare-bones SEO and PPC services for companies with extremely limited budgets – sort of like a no-frills SEO / PPC agency.

As always, I welcome any comments and feedback from our regular readers, clients and visitors to the site. You can either drop a note in the comment box below, or tweet me directly @AccuraCast on Twitter.

Best wishes,
Farhad Divecha

As the name of this feature clearly suggests, ads will now be delivered to users depending on the interests of the user.

User interest will be judged based on Google’s previous interactions with the user. This will not be limited only to direct interaction with Google Search and Google Software but will also extend to tracking sites that the user visits frequently.

Each users will be segmented under one or more categories, based on the web pages visited. Users will be able to view, edit or opt out of the interest categories through the Ads Preference Manager (shown below), which is available on most AdSense ad containers.

AdSense account holders will not need to change their ad code but they will need to make some changes to the privacy policy of their website in order to use this new facility. Google requires AdSense publishers to make all necessary changes to the privacy policy need to be completed before the 8th of April 2009. Publishers will have to make these changes in accordance with the laws of the country they operate from.

Google has made a point of addressing privacy issues that will definitely arise as a result of this announcement. They say they will continue to use user information in accordance with their privacy policy, i.e. they will not use the information to identify the user personally or display ads based on personal or sensitive information unless the user has opted in.

Opting out of the Interest-based Advertising service is not as obvious as Google makes it out to be. This could turn into a point of contention with privacy advocates.

Publishers will obviously benefit from this service as they will be able to better suit their website by increasing the value for advertisers. If the beta test phase of this service goes well, it will be expanded to others later in the year.

Rich Ads on Yahoo! Search results pages are being tested by a handful of advertisers since the end of 2008, and so far the results are encouraging. In fact, Yahoo! claims their advertisers have reported a rise of 25% in the click through rates for these ads. Not only that, the brand exposure and conversion rates have also reportedly increased significantly.

This new service allows the advertiser to add video, images, custom links and custom search boxes within their ads. These ads are placed in a separate box than the regular “Sponsored Results” and are labeled as “Promotional Results“, as shown below:

Click on the image to see a live Rich Media ad on Yahoo! search

Advertisers will also now be able to customise the ad to suit their needs. It will also be possible for them to decide the day, time and other demographics, for when the ad should appear, as is seen with TV and radio ads.

Google tested video ads in search results last year, but they have not gone mainstream with the feature. Yahoo! seems to be following in Google’s footsteps, but seems determined to beat them to the punch in delivering a rich media ad solution first.

Ads with the video and images embedded within the search results would certainly increase the impact that the ad has on the user. Yahoo!’s Rich Ads also allow the creation of deep links to the relevant pages and they can also contain boxes to enter data or select from lists of products, allowing customers to search for the product without having to navigate away from the page. Brand logos can also be incorporated into the ads.

While these features help advertisers and agencies to increase brand recognition and advertiser conversion rates, making them attractive to advertisers, it is not doubtful that they will make Yahoo! any dearer to end users. The company is desperately trying to lure advertisers, and could be shooting itself in the foot by alienating end users in the process.

Michael Walrath, Yahoo!’s senior vice president advertising marketplaces group says, “As the economy continues to put pressure on advertising budgets, marketers are looking for increased accountability for every dollar they spend. Yahoo!’s new targeting products significantly improve the ability for search and display advertisers to reach their target audience providing increased efficiency and accountability.”

Don’t they ever learn? Google had it right to start with – forget advertisers – concentrate on getting users and the advertisers will automatically follow.

The updates are supposed to make account organisation more intuitive and help users find the right tools on the right account screen. Navigating through accounts will be faster, editing keywords, ads, bids and placements will be easier and users will get more detailed statistics and in-context reports within the campaign management screens.

Some of the updated features are as follows:

• Easier account navigation
  New tabs have been added in the main navigation bar providing direct access to AdWords Tools and Billing. Secondary navigation between active campaigns can be done via a menu on the left – paused and deleted campaigns are not represented on this tree.
  
• Easier Account Monitoring
  Users can easily check on the performance of all the elements in a campaign by clicking on Keywords, Networks or Ads, thus displaying all the keywords, placements and ads in a single table. Graphs provide a quick overview of the performance of the segment being viewed. Users can then decide how much to bid on specific keywords or placements.
• Details and Filters
  Dynamic roll-ups give a broad view of the overall performance of a campaign within the same page. It is also possible to set up filters to display only certain ads or keywords by clicking on ‘Create Filter’ under ‘Tab Options’, thus focusing on selected parts of the account only. Detailed information about particular ads can be viewed by clicking ‘Show Query Report’ or ‘Automatic Placements’ on the ‘Networks’ tab.
  
• Dynamic Keyword, Bid and Ad Updates
  Users will now have more flexibility to expand accounts. They can create ads, add keywords and set bids in any order on the same tabs used to manage campaigns or ad groups. Users can also use a one-page creation process to build new ad groups. Fast, in-line editing by clicking on any bid or keyword enables users to make quick changes in the account.
  
• Networks and Placements
  The old ‘Placements’ tab is now the ‘Networks’ tab. It summarizes the performance of ads on Google Search and Partner sites. Domain and URL level reports for content network placements are also visible here. Users also have the option to have ‘Managed placements’ or ‘Automatic Placements’.

Google is still working on certain updates, such as campaign settings, position preference, demographic bidding and certain specialised ad formats.

For a long time now, YouTube has been engaged in a tussle of sorts with big media companies. These companies feel that YouTube’s policy of allowing users to upload content produced by the media houses is a violation of copyright laws.

Given the fact that YouTube is the most popular online video site, media owners are better off being on YouTube’s side rather than getting into a legal battle with them. However, some companies like Viacom have sued YouTube in the past.

TechCrunch reports that a new proposal from YouTube will allow these content providers to sell ads on YouTube, alongside their own videos. Content owners will obviously be given a share of the revenue thus earned, which should please them and may even induce them to change loyalties from other sites such as Hulu and TV.com, which they currently patronise.

According to Ars Technica, a few companies such as CBS already have such a deal with the Google subsidiary, but it could now be expanded to include others.

YouTube will gain from this arrangement as they will be able to better monetise their content and earn higher revenues than they have been able to do so far. It will also increase their share of media content received from big media partners, which is only 4% at present.

Last but not the least, users who upload various videos including content from larger media companies on YouTube will no longer have to worry about the videos being removed for fear of copyright violations.

It is expected that this service will be launched by the end of the first quarter of 2009.

Google has forged into a new deal with online video advertising company, SpotMixer, that allows advertisers to use SpotMixer’s video creation technology to create television commercials for their products free of cost, and then air them on TV as well as online.

Ads can be made either in the form of images, audio and / or video content selected from a vast database provided by Google, or from the advertisers’ own uploaded content. There is also an adjustable soundtrack so that advertisers can record the ad in a voice of their choice if they so desire.

The service can be accessed from the “Submit Ad” page when creating a Google TV ads campaign. Google has provided the short video clip shown below to teach advertisers how to use this service.

Creating a new TV ad with the tool is quite a simple procedure really. After logging into the AdWords account, users have to select an appropriate categories for the industry concerned or the type of product to be advertised and then select from relevant images, audio or video content using a drag and drop interface. Advertisers can customise the ad to their requirement by clicking the link to “Add more images and video”. They can also dynamically change the templates to give the ad a more personal look. Completed ads need to be downloaded and then added to the TV Ads Campaign.

This is a great idea for a cheap, do-it-yourself system to advertise products and service to a wide audience. It should help start-ups with limited budgets advertise on television alongside big brands without needing to spend a lot on ad production. The service was launched in beta back in September 2008, for a few clients and they are already reporting positive feedback.

This move comes as something of a surprise to users familiar with Google’s advertising ethics, because during an interview in 2004, Google co-founders Sergey Brin had said, “One thing that’s important to us is the distinction between advertising and pure search results. We make it clear when something is paid for. Our advertising is off to the side and in a couple of slots across the top. Ads are clearly marked. There’s a clear large wall between the objective search results and the ads, which have commercial influence.”

Of course, in order to make sure that users can still differentiate between the ads and the organic search results, Google Mobile Search is using a different coloured background for the ads.

To be fair, the ads are not interspersed within the regular organic results. They are, instead, placed at the end of the plain text results on a universal search results page.

Mobile search advertising has still not found its groove. Google continues to test various ad placements to find the right solution. Google started by placing ads at the top or one at the top and one at the bottom of the mobile search results page. Recently, this changed and ads were placed only at the bottom of the Google Mobile Search results page.

Given the fact that the mobile screen is very small and there is really no place available to demarcate the page into a separate column at the side or at the top for displaying the ads, the only choices really are to place ads atop, below or in between organic results. Google already tested the first two options. They are now taking tentative steps towards the third option.

A really bold move, though, would be to intermingle sponsored links within the organic text-based results on the mobile search page. Will Google go back on its own word and implement such a system in order to get more money from mobile search?

The advertisers will not be required to create special mobile landing pages, or ads in mobile formats as the ads will be pointed to the desktop landing pages, thus saving the advertisers a lot of time effort and money.

These ads will continue to have the advantages of the standard mobile ads. For instance, they will have delivery of mobile specific calls-to-action. In addition, they will reach users who are conducting related mobile searches, which is an activity that is fast gaining in popularity.

Earlier, Google Search was running desktop results pages, which were modified to suit these phones. Now Google has launched results pages, which have been specifically formatted for the iPhone. Hence, it will now be possible for advertisers to create ad campaigns for mobiles only, and these ads will receive separate mobile performance reporting.

The advertisers will have the right to choose, whether they wish to start displaying their ads on mobiles, or continue advertising only on desktop and laptop computers.

In order to start displaying ads on the iPhone, G1 etc, advertisers will have to access their AdWords account where they can go to “campaign settings”. From there they have to go to “Networks and Bidding”, which has the option “Device platform”. Lastly, they select “iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers”.

This will mean that as and when newer mobiles with full internet browsers are released, the ads will be launched on these handsets as well.

For further assistance, advertisers can visit the AdWords Help Center.

Beer manufacturers will be allowed to directly advertise the sale of their products.

Manufacturers of hard alcohol and liqueurs, on the other hand will not be able to directly advertise the sale of their products. They will only be allowed to provide information about the hard alcohol or liqueurs, such as providing the recipes, which are available on their websites or sending brand messages.

To give an example of this new policy, AdWords explains, that hard alcohol and liqueur can be marketed to people who are on the lookout for relevant alcohol related information. In other words, search advertising will be allowed. They can suggest ideas for cocktails to be served during the holiday season and the calorie content of these drinks etc.

While beer manufacturers have been given a free hand to market their commodity, even the manufacturers of hard alcohol and liqueur will be able to take advantage of the upcoming holiday season, to reach their target audience.

These changes to the policy have been made keeping in mind, the feedback received by Google AdWords, from their advertisers over the years. It is obvious of course, that it will also help AdWords to generate some much needed revenue.

In the coming weeks Adwords will also expand this new policy to cover other countries, keeping in mind the local rules and regulations regarding alcohol.

For further details on the alcohol policy, interested users may visit AdWords’ Advertising Policies Page.

Back in 2007, Google had announced that they were missing out on as much as $200 million per year because they were not monetising their Image Search product. After that, there was no report of anything being done about this till some users spotted a single Sponsored Links result among the images, as reported on TechCrunch.

Today, though, a full line of three Sponsored Links are showing for most searches carried about by a handful of user accounts that have been selected to participate in the test.

The paid search listings that appear on Image Search results are not the same as those on the Web Search results page. The reason behind the difference in ads delivered is not yet clear. The ad copy of the ads that are common to both is the exact same, which makes one think that Google has some other selection criteria for delivery of these ads.

The presentation of the Sponsored Links above the organic search results here is different from that on the Web Search pages. The 4-line ad format with 3 ads placed side-by-side in the images results looks better than the 2-line format with 3 ads placed one below the other on regular search results as the organic image results are also shown side-by-side rather than one after another.

Why Google hasn’t done this earlier is a question worth asking.

Automatic matching uses Google’s language processing capabilities to identify other keywords associated with the account, based on their analysis of the current keywords, ads and landing pages. The advertisers ads will then be shown for these keywords as well, even though they are not actually listed among the advertiser’s target keywords.

Keywords queried on Google and the Search Network will triggered ads through automatic matching. The new system will not affect ad delivery on the content network.
Cost per click for automatic matched keywords will approximately match the Ad Group’s current average CPC. Traffic delivered through automatic matching will not affect the Quality Score.

Advertisers can view the exact keyword queries that triggered their ads by running a Search Query Performance report in the AdWords reporting centre.

The new system has come under a lot of criticism since it went into expanded beta in May 2008. The main criticism being that Google is once again trying to make advertisers spend more money in ways that they’re not clearly aware of. While the feature requires users to opt in, not all AdWords advertisers are savvy enough to understand what it could imply and how they can keep track of which keywords are triggering their ads.

While YouTube is an extremely popular video site, and continues to grow by the minute – 13 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube every minute – it can be quite a daunting task for people to find the video they are interested in, as YouTube has quite a mammoth collection.

In order for content owners to build up viewer numbers and fan following as well as to help users find the right video, YouTube now lets content providers promote their videos, thus making it simpler for users to find them.

They have introduced a new advertising program, called YouTube Sponsored Videos. This new service will enable brands and content owners to reach those who are interested in their video content, irrespective of whether they are a big and famous company, or new-comers looking to build a reputation.

YouTube Sponsored Videos

An automated tool allows video creators to decide where they want to place their videos. They can then make bids through an online auction process, similar to the one used by Google Adwords, and also specify a daily budget.

AdWords ad ranking principles will be applied on YouTube too, so that a combination of the ads maximum cost per click bid and the ad Quality Score will determine where the ad gets positioned.

When an interested user searches for videos, the appropriate videos will be shown, along with the regular YouTube search results, under the heading ‘Sponsored Videos’ on a pay per click basis.

This service is still in an experimental stage and further changes will be made as required, based on feedback Google receives from users.

Sponsored Videos on YouTube are available only in the U.S. at present, but will be introduced in other countries at some point in the future.

YouTube is estimated to be the second largest search destination in the USA and the UK. Given the volume of searches this implies, and the success that Google has seen by monetising their main search service, it is but natural that Google would apply the same formula to YouTube. If advertisers and react favourably to this service, it could solve Google’s long-standing dilemma of how to capitalise their acquisition of YouTube.

Microsoft and several advertisers and publishers had objected to this deal, citing anti-trust laws and raising concerns about the possible rise in ad prices for advertisers.

At the time, both Google and Yahoo! had maintained that this was neither a merger nor an acquisition, and hence there was no question of violating the anti-trust laws. They also said that ad prices would continue to be determined by the usual auction process, so there was no need to worry about increased ad rates.

Their stand obviously did not pacify their opponents, who continued to lobby against the deal, and eventually, in September, the Justice Department appointed Sanford Litvack, the ex-Vice-Chairman, of Walt Disney Co. to look into the matter and prepare an anti-trust case if applicable. This development not only generated a lot of publicity regarding the issue, but also caused the stock prices of Google to fall.

Even though Google and Yahoo! maintained that their deal was not subject to government approval, they decided to cooperate voluntarily with the Justice Department. They even decided to put the deal on hold for a while. The two companies have been holding meetings with the Justice department in this regard but so far they have not reached any solution. One of the major stumbling blocks here is the reluctance of these firms to sign a consent decree, stating the terms of the partnership. Agreeing to sign such a decree would, in effect, mean agreeing to be constantly monitored by a judge, which they would not like for obvious reasons.

In their withdrawal statement Google said that a protracted legal battle and the possible estrangement of relationships with other partners were the main factors influencing their decision to end their relationship with Yahoo!
Google has seen a further fall in their share prices, but contrary to expectations, Yahoo! shares jumped up. The rise in YHOO stock could be due to announcements from Microsoft and Yahoo! saying they were now open to merger talks as well as Wall Street’s expectation that with Google out of the way, Microsoft is bound to step in and acquire Yahoo!

Until last week, click summaries were divided into two parts – Search, which included Google and its search partners and Content, which included all sites in Google’s content network that featured contextually targeted and placement targeted display ads from Google.

The change is expected to benefit advertisers, as it will provide a more detailed account of the performance of the ad campaign on different channels. Advertisers will now be able to see track performance on each of the channels from which traffic flows, and advertisers can then decide which partners they should continue advertising on.

A drop down menu on the top right corner of the box allows advertisers to review the campaign summary or ad group summary with any combination of results that they choose. Users can opt to split Google, search partners and content results, split just search and content results or view Google, search or content results only.

Reports providing separate Google and aggregate search partner statistics will also be made available in the near future.

Search Partners v Google

For the first time advertisers and everyone interested in search is able to accurately and easily gauge the contribution of search partners to the total number of clicks, and the numbers are pretty significant in some cases.

• Depending on the industry, the search partners can contribute anywhere from 15 to 50% of the total number of impressions.
• Click through rates from the search partners seem to be consistently lower across all verticals.
• Mobile traffic on the search partners seems to be very low compared to Google Mobile – accounting for less than 5% of total mobile searches on our accounts.

This comes as a sudden change after they had issued a ban on paid search advertising for gambling sites about 16 months ago. The ban will however continue in Northern Ireland and outside U.K.

Previously, online gaming sites including Bingo and Betting shops were not allowed to advertise on AdWords, but that has changed now, and it is very likely that these sites will make a dash to get themselves registered with Google in an attempt to cash in on this new avenue now available to them. They will however have to go through all the correct licensing procedures before they can advertise on Google.

This is a very lucrative move for Google, with millions of pounds expected to come their way through this channel.

It is very likely that the policy change has been effected keeping the current financial crisis in mind. However, Google insists that they have been reviewing their policy for almost a year, and have also consulted with the Gambling commission on this issue, and the timing is just a coincidence. Google’s industry head James Cashmore says, “this is not a decision that’s been made quickly; its been something that’s been under discussion for months.”

Google has also decided to classify gambling ads under the non-family safe category, and hence they will be automatically blocked for users that have turned on the safe search option.

This change of policy could be bad news for Google competitors Yahoo! and Microsoft, who have picked up most of the ad spend that Google turned away in the past. Advertisers may now move away from these search engines and return to the more popular Google.

AdWords Display Ad Builder should be especially useful for small businesses and smaller advertising agencies. It facilitates the progression from simple text based advertising to display ads. At present the tool is only available to advertisers in the U.S. and Canada.

Presently the display ad builder contains forty templates that have been categorised as business, movies, games, travel and so on. AdWords account holders can click ‘Display Ad Builder’ on their ‘create an ad‘ page to access this new tool and make new ads or even to modify ads that are already loaded onto the system.

Ads will be charged in the usual manner, on a PPC or CPM pricing format, and will have contextual and placement based targeting options.

View the Display Ad Builder tutorial

While the launch message does not say anything about Google’s real motivation behind this, it is obvious that the Display Ad Builder has one purpose, that is to drive smaller businesses to use the content network even more and to improve Google’s position in the display advertising market.

Interestingly, Google is not the first to launch such a tool. MySpace beat them to it by just a few days when they introduced a similar tool called MyAds. The beta platform lets marketers bid between $25 and $10,000 for performance-based display ads on MySpace.

www.google.com/ads/games

In February 2007, Google acquired AdScape Media for a sum of $23 million, which will now be put to use for this latest venture called AdSense For Games.

During the beta phase, Google will concentrate on different ways of placing the ads in the games. The test will incorporate video ads, as well as text and image ads into online games.

To start with, Google will work with PlayFish, Mochi Media, Demand Media and Komani. The games will first be placed in Frogger and Dance Dance Revolution. Companies like Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sprint and eSurance have already signed up to promote their brands via AdSense for Games.

Google is not the first company to incorporate advertising in games, and will have to compete with others like Double Fusion, IGA, and Microsoft’s Massive. Google’s entry into in-game advertising confirms that this market has huge untapped potential. Speaking to CNet, Jonathan Epstein, CEO of Double Fusion, said, “Google does not enter into markets that don’t have billion dollar-plus potential for them.”

Christian Oestlien, the senior product manager of AdSense for Games, explains that Google will establish a presence in this market with the help of their vast network of advertiser partners and effective placement of print, image and flash-based ads.

The success of Google’s venture will depend largely on their ability to integrate the ads appropriately into the games. If the ads are placed in a relevant and non-obtrusive manner, they will be appreciated. Otherwise, users may show their displeasure. Results would also depend on how well users interact with the ads, especially for click-through ads.

While pessimists may also wonder, if this is the right time to invest in a new advertising medium, given the insecurities in the current financial markets, many believe that gaming is a pretty resilient industry and game players tend not to let economic worries stop them from playing.

www.google.com/yahoogooglefacts/

Google has tried to prove that this deal will not only be harmless, but will actually be beneficial for the industry. They have highlighted various details of the deal, which they feel should be of interest to advertisers and publishers and should lay any doubts to rest.

According to Google, this deal does not violate antitrust laws of the U.S. constitution in any way, as it is similar to several other deals in industry, such as the deal between Toyota and Ford – Toyota provides hybrid engines for Ford – or the deal between Canon and HP – Canon provides laser printer engines for HP.

Regarding the fear of ad prices going up, Google keeps using the same old argument that the prices of ads are not manually set, but are decided by an auction process, whereby prices are never fixed and an advertiser will never bid to pay more than a keyword is worth. However, as Silicon Alley Insider points out, they have stopped short of actually saying that ad prices will not go up as a result of this deal.

In a market where there is only one dominant player, all advertisers will end up competing for the same ad spots and this will drive up bid prices, whether one likes it or not.
Consumers will will benefit from this deal as they will see more relevant ads while searching on Yahoo! and the interoperability between Yahoo! Messenger and Google Chat will mean better communications.

In theory, website publishers too should be pleased with this deal as better ad matching technology could increase their revenue and advertisers could find new ways to reach their target audience. However, if the publishers have only one supplier controlling almost all the traffic volume, this puts them at a great disadvantage when bargaining for better rates.

The serch giant keeps reminding users and litigators that this deal is not a merger and does not remove Yahoo! from the field and that since the deal is non-exclusive, Yahoo! can continue to make similar deals with others. It is true that Google’s share of search traffic will not increase with this deal, though, they fail to mention that the share of search traffic their ad platform serves will definitely be increased.

APT is a display advertising platform. Yahoo! believes that once the platform is made available, it will simplify the whole process of advertising, as it will help advertisers reach a larger target audience, provide better performance, give a lot of insight into user needs and most importantly simplify media buying.

According to CEO Jerry Yang, who envisioned this platform 18 months ago, APT will change the face of online advertising. He and President Sue Decker had earlier called it “Nirvana”. They believe that with APT, online advertising will be revolutionized in 2009.

Before preparing this platform, Yahoo! took the trouble to find out all the difficulties that their partners have to face in the process of advertising. They found that it takes over 30 manual operations from the stage of ad strategy to ad launch, and that the whole process can take weeks to complete. Also, it is extremely difficult to locate and understand ones target audience as they are spread out across hundreds of websites.

Perhaps they should have also taken the trouble to find out about the difficulties advertisers face when advertising on Yahoo! and dealing with Yahoo! Inc.’s internal inefficiencies!
With the release of APT, Yahoo! hopes to change all that. They promise to make the ad buying and selling process simple, open and fast – they claim it should be possible to complete in minutes. However, given Yahoo!’s history of failures where it comes to ad platforms, few in the advertising industry give any credit to such loud claims.

Yahoo! Is very confident that APT will be able to deliver on all these promises, because they have received a lot of feedback from their partners during the process of development and testing of this platform. APT will initially be made available to the Newspaper Consortium and then gradually to all advertisers and publishers over the next several months, running into the next year.

Yahoo! hopes that the new technologies used in APT will bring back some credibility to their advertising offering, especially since the fiasco with Microsoft and their current deal with Google, which has done nothing but put their own ad platform, Panama in very poor light.

The Association of National Advertisers, which represents over 400 major companies, including Wal-Mart, Ford, Procter & Gamble and General Motors, has decided to take a stand against this deal, as they feel that the deal could be bad news for them.

In a letter to Assistant Attorney General, Thomas O. Barnett, the A.N.A. has said that “a Google – Yahoo! partnership will control 90% of search advertising inventory”, which according to them will be bad for the market. They have recommended blocking the deal.

The letter further informs that this deal could result in decreased competition, increased market power for Google, and restricted choices for advertisers, who will then have to pay much higher rates for high quality search advertising services, due to the lack of competition in the market.

After the deal was finalised, Google had opted for a Congressional investigation, while at the same time maintaining that the procedure was not required by law.

As per the terms of the deal, Google will be able to supply areas of Yahoo!’s Web search system, with Google search advertising.

As is well known, Google already controls 70% of the search market in the USA, and this deal will give them further monopoly. This matter has raised concerns regarding anti-trust laws. Google, however is very confident that there is nothing irregular about the deal.

Microsoft’s earlier complaint against such a deal did not yield any significant result, but according to the Wall Street Journal, the letter by the Association of National Advertisers may carry more weight.

As a defense against allegations of monopolising the market, Google and Yahoo! state that theirs is not an exclusive deal, and Yahoo! will retain the right to have similar agreements with other companies. Yahoo! also states that the deal will not raise prices, but will help Yahoo! to generate more revenue and improve their position in the market.

The Justice Department has not made any comment on the matter so far, but has gone ahead and appointed litigator Sanford Litvack to head a possible anti-trust investigation against Google. Luckily, Litvack is no stranger to technology. He was on the board of Hewlett Packard and Compaq, and was also an assistant attorney general, in the justice departments anti trust division in the late 1970′s.

Madhouse Inc. started a contextual ad service, towards the end of 2007. They have also started full screen interstitial mobile ad products and mobile video ad products this year, which are firsts for China, and have been very well received

Ad platforms in China allow mobile ads to be targeted to users depending on their location, mobile phone brand, model, and even retail price. The services can also optimise ad versions and frequency of ads shown, clicked or downloaded by each individual customer, similar to the way Google AdWords does.

China currently boasts over 500 million mobile phone subscribers, which represents a penetration rate of under 50 percent. Most Western European nations have penetration rates of over 100 percent.

If the Chinese population adopt mobile usage in a similar manner, the potential audience for mobile advertising in just that country will overshadow Europe or North America.

Content owners will now have the prerogative to decide for themselves, what they wish to do with these unauthorized clips. They can either block the videos, or promote them. In fact, if they choose to promote the videos, they will now be able to make some money through it, by inserting an ad in the video clip.

Over the last few months, Google has come to the conclusion that the vast majority (90%) of their partners, have chosen to monetize their videos, instead of blocking them.

It has become quite clear to most of Google’s Video ID partners, including CBS, Universal Music, Lionsgate, Electronic Arts etc. that, with this new technology, they will be able to encourage creativity, while also being more accessible to their fans, and at the same time make good use of a great opportunity for monetization.
Google said, “These partners now have a new way to successfully distribute and market their content online”.

Most content owners now seem to have realized, that instead of fighting YouTube, which is after all the number one video sharing site, it would be better to join hands with them and promote their videos, while at the same time making some money, which after all has to be the primary reason to fight piracy.

More Accuracy to Quality Score: So far the per-query Quality Score was a static pre-determined factor, but will now be made variable. The ad’s quality and relevance will be adjudged each time it matches with a search query. Through this system, AdWords will be able to select the most appropriate and relevant ads for display. This should be a win-win situation for both users as well as advertisers, as users will get to see only the ads which are most accurately matched with their keywords, while advertisers will receive highly qualified leads.

Keywords will no longer be inactivated: With this new quality scoring system, keywords will not be marked as “inactive for search” in the advertisers account. All keywords will now be capable of relaying the ad on Google web Search and the search network, unless the advertiser chooses to pause or delete a particular keyword from his account. However since it is likely that the previously inactivated keyword did not have a very high Quality Score and bid, it is doubtful if it would now be capable of generating much traffic.

Minimum Bids to be replaced by First Page Bids: It is expected that first page bids, will be a more effective tool than minimum bids. As the name suggests, First page bids would give advertisers an indication of the amount required to get their ad to reach the first page of search results. The bid will be based on the closeness of the match with the keyword used the Quality Score, and the extent of competition on that keyword. The first page bid should help advertisers to get a good idea of the bid required to get the ad placement they are looking for.

The effectiveness of this new system will of course vary between advertisers. While some may find a substantial change, others may find no significant change. At present Google is working to update the AdWords API and AdWords Editor, to support first page bids, and till that is done, minimum bids will continue to show up, based on the per-query Quality Score.

Google will inform advertisers when these changes are finalised.