The Internet Advertising Bureau has released its internet advertising ad revenue report for the first half of 2009.
Search And Display Ads 1/2 2009
As could be expected, Search Advertising saw the largest increase in spend while Classifieds and E-Mail experienced the largest decreases.
I received the following email offer from Microsoft adCenter promoting search advertising with Microsoft.
From: Microsoft adCenter [media@microsoftadvertising.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 6:58 PM
To: Search Advertiser
Subject: Don’t miss out on free clicks when you let us upload your next search campaign
To ensure that you continue to receive Microsoft adCenter communications, please add our domain (@microsoftadvertising.com) to your safe senders list.
Dear Search Advertiser,
Time is running out on our birthday celebration offer. Our gift to you: We’ll upload one of your campaigns from another search advertising program to Microsoft adCenter—for free!—and you’ll receive a coupon worth $15 in free clicks. 1
How does your free upload work?
Signing up couldn’t be simpler. You’re just a click away. Our birthday offer ends July 6, 2009, so please act fast!
1. Sign up on our adCenter Anniversary web form.
2. You’ll receive an e-mail message containing details about how to send us your exported competitive search engine campaign.
3. One of our Search Specialists will upload your campaign to your adCenter account.
4. You’ll receive a confirmation that your campaign upload is complete.
5. Simply activate your campaign, and then use your promotion code to receive $15 in free clicks.
Extend your reach with adCenter
Your adCenter campaign upload can help you expand your search advertising reach with:
* Higher-quality clicks: adCenter can offer you a more targeted audience, which can mean more clicks from the customers you want.
* Better conversions: Consumers who click adCenter ads can be three times more likely to engage than those who click Google ads. 2
If you have any questions, contact us at (800) 518-5689, Monday through Saturday, from 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. Pacific Time. Please keep this e-mail for your records to refer to offer details. We look forward to working with you to upload your next adCenter campaign!
Sincerely,
The Microsoft adCenter Team
1 Offer details: Offer valid only for new campaigns submitted by July 6, 2009, that go live by July 15, 2009 (midnight Pacific Time). Participation in this program is limited and this offer is being extended at the sole discretion of adCenter to existing customers of adCenter who are original recipients of this e-mail from Microsoft. Any portion of ad credit not used within 90 days from the date the credit was applied to your adCenter account will expire. Ads must be stopped after ad credit is used up or within 90 days from the time ad credit was applied to your adCenter account, whichever comes first, or your credit card/invoice will be charged for advertising clicks. Offer valid for residents of the 50 United States and Washington, D.C., only. Limit: one ad credit and one free campaign upload per adCenter customer. Offer may not be combined with any other offers or discounts, separated, redeemed for cash, transferred, sold, or bartered. There is a minimum bid requirement of $0.05 per click-through when using adCenter. Search or Contextual Advertising listings are subject to editorial review. See Microsoft Advertiser Terms and Conditions for more details. Other terms and conditions may apply. This offer may be terminated by adCenter at any time and without notice.
Upload requirements: A new campaign is defined as a campaign containing broadly different keywords and ads when compared to others that are live on adCenter. A new campaign must have a minimum of 150 keywords. Campaign names must not exceed 100 characters and ad group names must not exceed 60 characters in adCenter. If adCenter receives files exceeding character limits, it may be renamed to reduce length by removing any additional characters, except where this would duplicate another campaign or ad group name. Subject to all necessary data being accurately submitted by you and your compliance with Microsoft adCenter Terms and Conditions, and the Offer Details above, your unique promotional code will be sent via e-mail to you by Microsoft which will enable you to redeem your ad credit.
2 Conversion is defined as a web visitor entering into a secure session on a website. comScore Quality of Click Custom Study (MSN – Windows Live Search), March – May 2008.
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
Interesting strategy.
Why doesn’t Microsoft promote this on the Bing home page?
The final issue of Portfolio magazine has an interview with Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP Group.
As head of the marketing communications giant, Sorrell oversees more than 100 companies specializing in everything from advertising to consumer research.
Recently Sorrell had characterized his firm’s relationship with Google as that of “frenemies.”
In the Portfolio interview, Sorrell reclassifies WPP’s relationship with Google as “friendly frenemy” because Google competes with WPP through its acquisition of Doubleclick.
Sorrell then goes on to say what I believe hadn’t yet otherwise been made public before … “we buy about $850 million worth of search advertising from them. We’re their biggest agency customer.”
At an average CPC of $1.00, WPP’s $850 million spend on search advertising with Google would generate 850 million clicks.
Wow.
Although I am not absolutely certain Sir Martin – and unless eBay has doubled or tripled its Adwords spend recently – I think buying $850 million worth of search advertising from Google not only makes WPP Google’s largest agency client – its also makes WPP Google’s largest customer – period.
Microsoft adCenter conducted a survey of 400 small businesses with 250 employees or less to gauge small business sentiment toward search marketing and advertising.
Among the participants’ chief concerns, most cited the common misconceptions of cost, time and complexity as major hurdles to conducting search marketing campaigns for their businesses.
Key small business concerns regarding search engine marketing from the Microsoft adCenter study:
The most surprising finding from Microsoft’s adCenter Study? 7 in 10 small-business owners who participated revealed that they would rather try to do their own taxes than start a paid search marketing campaign!
The Microsoft study also revealed that 59 percent of small businesses with Web sites don’t currently use paid search marketing, and of those, 90 percent have never even attempted it.
Will search engine advertising providers like Microsoft ever overcome the general small business perception that search engine advertising is too costly, time consuming and complex?
Not until the small business advertiser has been convinced and shown otherwise that search engine marketing is inexpensive, quick and easy.
From today’s Wall Street Journal:
“While listening hours are declining, most people still listen to an average of 18.5 hours a week, according to Arbitron Inc. Based on the price of reaching each listener, radio generally offers its audience “at the lowest [cost] of any major media,” says David Field, chief executive of Entercom.”
Not sure about Radio reaching its listeners and audience at the lowest cost of any “major media” – Mr. Field.
Haven’t the internet and search advertising become “major media” yet?
I guess media isn’t major until those in the “major media” say it is.
There is a relatively new – possibly major media – called internet search offered by a company called Google which connects its audience with advertisers for as low as .05 a piece.
Radio may indeed reach its audience for less but by what standard does radio define and measure its connection with its audience?
In search advertising the audience isn’t counted and considered reached until the advertiser’s advertisement is clicked.
Radio advertising measures audience reach and then its connection of advertiser to listener how – instead by listeners clicking their radios on?
Isn’t anything less than authenticated and measured advertisement – disconnected advertising?
Which radio station can I buy a radio ad on to reach a targeted audience of 10 listeners for $.50 or even 100 listeners for $5.00?
Depending on your definition, radio may indeed offer its audience at the lowest cost of any major media – but at what price?
Microsoft’s adCenter blog has posted their 2008 Holiday Advertising Guide for search advertisers.
Some of the guide’s highlights:
“Online retail shopping increases in November by more than 100 percent.1 Adding promotions like free shipping make an enormous difference—57 percent of consumers stated that free shipping is a reason for them to shop online.2 For search and display advertising, online buying will peak on Black Friday, November 28, followed by Cyber Monday, December 1.”
1. Hitwise Market Share in all Categories, 2008.
2. iCongo/Harris Interactive, April 22, 2008.
Based on the percentage of consumer interest and barring any data suggesting otherwise, shipping costs appear to have become the largest remaining barrier to consumers shopping and buying online.
Can elimination of shipping costs insure and increase internet retailers sales prospects this 2008 holiday season?
As the largest online retailer, Amazon.com demonstrated their understanding of the power of free shipping by offering it during the 2007 holiday season.
Amazon is again offering free shipping this holiday shopping season with some conditions through their Amazon Prime Member program.
Amazon Prime
In this current economic climate, aren’t internet retailers who don’t follow Amazon’s lead by offering some type of free shipping risking transaction losses to internet retailers – like Amazon – who do?
According to Microsoft’s Holiday Advertising Guide and their traffic data from 2007, Internet retailers can expect four peak search traffic periods during this holiday season:
1. Black Friday
2. Cyber Monday
3. Holiday Crunch
4. Post Holiday
Holiday Search Traffic
Important search traffic dates for internet retailers this year will be:
1. Black Friday: November 28, 2008
2. Cyber Monday: December 1, 2008
3. Holiday Crunch: Occurs between December 4, 2008 and December 18, 2008
4. Post Holiday: Begins on December 26, 2008
Internet retailers who advertise free shipping this holiday season can forecast a larger percentage of transactions generated via search from within their market than internet retailers who don’t.
Ask.com and their search advertising product – Sponsored Listings – is now offering conversion tracking to their advertisers.
Ask Conversion Tracking
More about Ask.com conversion tracking offer:
“When you activate ASL conversion tracking and track at least one valid conversion by October 31st, you’ll receive a $25 credit! We’ll automatically credit your account after your conversion tracking has been verified.*”
Ask.com’s reasoning for deploying Conversion Tracking within their Sponsored Listings product:
* Increase your ROI: Measure and optimize your cost per acquisition (CPA) and improve your overall Return on Advertising Investment
* Gain deeper insight into your campaigns: Remove under performing traffic sources
* Get comprehensive reporting: View your Ask.com advertising by account, campaign, ad, keyword, conversion type, and date
Ask.com’s conversion tracking offer’s boiler plate:
“*Offer Terms and Conditions: in order to qualify for the $25 account credit, you must place the ASL conversion tracking tag on your web page and record at least 1 conversion by October 31st, 2008. ASL will verify your conversion and credit your account within 15 days of your conversion. Only one credit will be given for each individual account, web domain, and/or company.”
Its been a long time coming but all four major search engine advertising providers – Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com now provide conversion tracking within their search advertising platforms.
If not for all search advertisers now – soon – precise measurement of search advertising return on investment will be the rule not the exception.
In a previous post I wrote about the differences I found between the four major search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask and their search advertising geo-targeting options.
I stated Microsoft didn’t offer geotargeted search advertising options to its advertisers.
However, Dave Naffziger pointed out Microsoft AdCenter’s geotargeting features can be found under the “edit ad group settings” instead of the “edit campaigns settings” like in Google, Yahoo and Ask.
The following are screen shots of Microsoft adCenter’s geotargeting capabilities:
Like with other search advertising platforms, Microsoft ads can be targeted by country or region and then targeted specifically to cities within a region.
Microsoft Adcenter Geotargeting
Although Microsoft lists all countries worldwide available for targeting, only five countries can be selected for geo-targeting search advertising through Microsoft’s adCenter at this time.
The five countries are:
The United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France and Singapore.
Microsoft Adcenter Country Targeting
Once a country or region has been selected, advertisers can select a limited number of cities within each state to distribute their ads to.
Microsoft Adcenter Ad Group Geotargeting
Advertisers can’t target their ads specifically for distribution at the state level like they can in Google, Yahoo and Ask.
Microsoft Adcenter Geotargeting States or Cities
Once a city or cities have been selected for geotargeted search advertising, adCenter then provides a map of the targeted area.
Microsoft Adcenter Geotargeting Bellevue WA
I haven’t yet been able to get the adCenter map to display any of the locations of my geotargeted ads.
adCenter search advertising features still require further development before they will match the features and functionality already available from the other three major search advertising providers.
Gian Fulgoni chairman of comScore, recently wrote about his firm’s research on the impact online display and search advertising have on in-store retail sales.
How does comScore measure the impact online advertising has on retail offline sales? According to Fulgoni, “using the comScore panel, off line sales impact can be measured by linking panelists’ exposure to online ads with their in-store buying (through the use of retailers’ loyalty card data).’
Fulgoni draws two interesting conclusions from comScore’s
research:
1. “Search advertising provides higher sales lift than display advertising, but when combined, the synergy provides the highest lift…”
comScore Shoplocal.com Lift
Search and Display Ads Lift
2. “While search advertising results in a higher sales lift than display advertising among the people exposed to the ads, the number of people reached by display advertising is typically markedly higher than the number of people reached by search advertising …
comscore shoplocal.com reach
Online Advertising Reach
For media buyers planning to increase their brand message reach and lift consider the following;
1. An online display advertising campaign often reaches further than a search advertising campaign but online display ads will have less lift than search ads.
2. Search advertising will have more lift than online display ads but search ads may not reach as far as online display advertising.
Brand managers buying either online display advertising or search advertising but not both online display advertising and search advertising are likely diluting their brand’s message power – and along with it the ability to maximize their return on either form of online advertising they may have invested in.
Search Marketing Communications 
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