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Oct 3, 2008 at 5:37pm Eastern by Danny Sullivan    Banner Ads & Image Ads On Google Images Earlier this week, we noted a report that Google was showing banner ads on Google Images. Now via TechCrunch, a new implementation — an AdWords ad on Google Images with its own thumbnail image. Notice in the screenshot above how a Guinness Logo is appearing next to a Target ad where NHL Buffalo merchandise is being sold on a search for buffalo logos. While a Guiness logo is being used as part of the ad isn’t clear. Here’s the ad in context: While showing an image next to ad is a big step for Google, it’s not that far removed from video they’ve tested with some ads. But an actual banner ad that they’ve tested with some ads. But an actual banner ad that SearchViews spotted on Google Images is another thing entirely: See it down at the bottom of the page? An actual banner ad. We’re checking with Google for more details. Postscript: Google sent this: As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation and to help users find new and better ways of getting the information they’re looking for, we are currently conducting a test to show ads on the results pages for Google Image Search. The experiment is restricted to U.S. advertisers who are using formats including text ads and static image ads. Display Ads Coming In Image Search from us back in May has more details on how Google said this type of test would be coming. There’s also some discussion now developing on Techmeme.

Oct 9, 2008 at 4:15pm Eastern by Matt McGee    Google Puts New AdSense Ads Under Maps The continued success of Google Maps gives Google another growing revenue stream to tap into, and that’s what they’re doing with the placement of new AdSense ads immediately under maps on Google Maps. The ads don’t show up on all searches, but they do appear on enough searches to suggest this is more than a limited test. Amit Agarwal is seeing these ads in India, for example. Dave Shaw, who first alerted us via email, is seeing it in the UK. The screenshot above shows how the new ad placement looks on a search in Google Maps for [seattle real estate]. Moving out of a major city into a much smaller city suggests that Google needs to improve its targeting on these ads. A search for [west richland real estate] reveals an ad for a company in Richland, PA. (West Richland is a small city in Washington state.) Unlike the regular Local Business Ads that show up to the left of the map, which take you to the map “popup” for that advertiser, clicking on the ads below the map take you straight to the advertiser’s website. There’s more coverage of this on Techmeme.

Oct 8, 2008 at 8:28am Eastern by Greg Sterling    Online Ad Revenues Up Vs. 2007, Down Vs. Q2; Search A Relative Bright Spot Overall online ad spending in the US was up almost 13 percent compared with Q2 2007, but down slightly (0.3 percent) from Q1 2008. Online ad revenues for the second quarter were $5.7 billion, compared with $5.8 billion in Q1. Revenues were $11.5 billion for the first six months of 2008 vs. approximately $10 billion during the same period in 2007, according to the IAB. Search took a bigger share (44 percent) of the pie than it did in the first half of 2007 (41 percent). Otherwise the first six months of 2008 look quite similar in most respects to the first half of 2007. The question now is: how will a souring economy impact Q3 and Q4? Here are some IAB graphics reflecting the spending trends: Most ad categories are flat or differ by a percentage point, except for Search and Classifieds (which includes yellow pages/directories). Those two saw gains and losses of three points respectively. The concentration of ad spending among the top online players remained consistent with 2007 in terms of percentage distribution. Among the top spending industry categories, retail and financial services were down slightly in the first half vs. last year: Expect those numbers to decline further in the second half, as weakness in both sectors gets (perhaps much) worse before things improve. Overall, performance based advertising saw gains of 2 percentage points, while CPM pricing saw an equivalent decline in the second quarter vs. a year ago. I would also expect this trend to continue in the second half as advertisers look to the greater “accountability” of performance-based pricing from their online ad buying. This will continue to benefit search in a relative sense, but no one will likely be spared the effects of the recession.

Google AdWords: Separate metrics for Google and search partners are now available As reported on the Inside AdWords blog, and in the spirit of transparency, Google is finally breaking out stats between Google Search and the Google Search Network. I’ve actually run mirrored campaigns with each option just to be able to see the difference between the two search vehicles. I’m glad Google has now opened this up to us. According to the Google blog: We’re happy to let you know that we’ve changed the way your Campaign Summary and Ad Group Summary pages present statistics in order to give you additional level of detail into your campaign performance. Previously, these pages divided statistics into two categories: search, which included Google and search partners, and the content network. Now, we show one set of statistics for Google and another set aggregating search partner performance. Search partners include AOL, Ask.com, and many other search sites around the web. You can view ad group or campaign performance at a summary level, or broken down by different combination of Google, our search partners, and our content network. Additionally, separate Google and aggregate search partner statistics will soon be available in the Report Center. Click image above for full screen version

Average Search CPC Data by Category for September 2008 Reported by ClickZ based on an Efficient Frontier study A look at the average CPC (define) in search by vertical in the U.S. for September 2008, compared to the prior month. Data and research are provided by Efficient Frontier. “Total finance” includes auto finance, banking, credit, financial information, insurance, lending, and mortgage. Each vertical contains data from multiple advertisers. The percentage of change from the previous month is indicated in parenthesis. Total Finance - $2.06 (-22.6%) Mortgage - $2.89 (7.8%) Insurance - $12.65 (4.3%) Travel - $0.69 (-4.2%) Automotive - $0.54 (-5.3%) Retail - $0.50 (13.6%) Dating - $0.44 (2.3%) The biggest change came in the Finance category which dropped from $2.66 in August to $2.06 in September.

Oct 23, 2008 at 1:42pm Eastern by Barry Schwartz    Google AdWords: Now With Images Some AdWords ads on Google are now showing associated images — and getting much larger in the space they take up — through a “Show products from” Plus Box implementation that some are seeing now when searching at Google. For example, try search for bluenile, which brings up a Blue Nile ad. Under the usual ad title and description is a plus symbol (called a Plus Box), followed by the words, “Show products from Blue Nile for bluenile.” If you click on the box, it opens up three product listings from Blue Nile, each listing with an associated image. The most shocking part of this ad is that how much room it takes up. Here is the ad when it is closed: When you click to open up the product results, the whole visible part of the page is consumed with this one ad. Here is an image of just the ad, that measures about 370 pixels tall for me: The ad also shows on the right hand side, as Steve Rubel shows. I was able to replicate Steve’s findings, by searching for diamonds. This implementation is better, in my opinion, because it does not change how the natural/free results are shown but rather only pushes down other ads on the right hand side. Images associated with search ads are not too surprising. We have seen implementations of video ads in AdWords several times. It just seems to me that Google is willing to try anything now when it comes to ads, from video to images to multimedia and who knows what. Do note that back in November of last year January, I reported that Google was testing product results within AdWords. But those product results seemed to have been powered by Google Base and did not contain product images. Google has also been testing showing banner ads in image search.

Oct 14, 2008 at 2:19pm Eastern by Greg Sterling    YouTube Now Featuring “Promoted Videos” Perhaps the “third leg” of the new YouTube monetization tool, the site has introduced “promoted videos.” These ads are to YouTube video search results as Google paid search is to organic listings. AdAdge wrote about the new ads yesterday. This new ad unit joins “click to buy” and ads on full-length shows, which were also introduced within the past week. Here’s an example of the promoted videos (right column) on a search results page on YouTube: In this case the search was “puppies” and only one of the ads is relevant. This is likely a function of a limited number advertisers at this point. Because promoted videos are fairly unobtrusive and consistent with the appearance of YouTube search results, they don’t impinge on the user experience. And while they could be quite effective for Google, the challenge will be to get enough coverage so that they’re relevant to queries and users click on them accordingly.

TEXT SIZE Advertisement <SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N5621.websitemagazine.com/B3286961.2;abr=!ie;sz=300x250;ord=[unique-string]?"> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> <a target='_blank' HREF="http://ads.websiteservices.com/adclick.php?bannerid=244&zoneid=14&source=&dest=http%3A%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net%2Fjump%2FN5621.websitemagazine.com%2FB3286961.2%3Babr%3D%21ie4%3Babr%3D%21ie5%3Bsz%3D300x250%3Bord%3D%5Bunique-string%5D%3F&ismap="> <IMG SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N5621.websitemagazine.com/B3286961.2;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=300x250;ord=[unique-string]?" BORDER=0 WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 ALT="Click Here"></A> </NOSCRIPT> Advertisement Paid Search Beats SEO Conversion Rates? ShareThis In a statement that will surely have SEO's up in virtual arms, WebSideStory, a provider of digital marketing and analytics solutions, today announced the results of a  study that shows paid search has a nine percent edge in conversion rates over organic search. I can hear the furious typing of a million outraged SEO bloggers at this very minute. Via the news release, "In a study of leading business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce sites during the first eight months of this year, paid search -- keywords bought on a pay-per-click basis at search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN -- had a median order conversion rate of 3.40 percent at business-to-consumer e-commerce sites using the company's award-winning HBX Analytics technology. This compared to a conversion rate of 3.13 percent for organic search results, defined as non-paid or natural search engine listings, during the same January-to-August timeframe, according to the WebSideStory Index, a compilation of e-commerce, site search and global Internet user trends. The study analyzed more than 57 million search engine visits. Order conversions occurred during the same session. "For both paid and organic search, you have highly qualified traffic that converts far above the overall conversion rate of about 2 percent for most e-commerce sites," said Ali Behnam, Senior Digital Marketing Consultant for WebSideStory. "In the case of paid search, marketers have better control over the environment, including the message, the landing page and the ability to eliminate low-converting keywords."

August 20, 2009 Google Chief Economist Says Conversion Rate Doesn't Vary Much by Ad Position Google's Chief Economist Dan Friedman Hal Varian and his team have conducted research on whether ad position affects conversion rate. Their conclusion is that it doesn't much. I have a feeling "much" is subjective among SEMs. Their research showed that for search results pages with 11 sponsored ads, conversion rates "only" varied 5% from first place to last. So, if an ad gets a 1% conversion rate in the first place, the worst it would get is 0.95%. Friedman Varian wanted to emphasize that ad position is affected by ad quality. Therefore, ads with higher ad position are likely better quality and more likely to have higher conversion rates. In other words, don't compare apples to oranges when testing ad position. You would need to test the same ad across various positions.

AdWords Brings Business Addresses to Ads Google has launched "location extensions," an AdWords feature that lets clients "extend" campaigns by dynamically incorporating their business addresses. Users can create local ads with extensions from scratch, or add them to existing text ads, observes Search Engine Land. This makes it unnecessary to build separate ad units for local business ads. Learn more about location extensions at Google's dedicated overview section; a portion of its help center also covers setting up specific location extensions for individual ads. "Your ads can show with their relevant extensions on Google and Google Maps and as regular text ads without the extensions on partner sites in the Search and Content Networks," explained Google's AdWords blog. The feature will be unrolled across the AdWords user base over the next handful of weeks. To access it, click on "Settings" within a given AdWords campaign and select "Show relevant addresses with your ads" under Audience > Locations.

Oct 28, 2008 at 9:11am Eastern by Barry Schwartz    Microsoft adCenter Fall Upgrade The Microsoft adCenter blog has an army of posts containing details of their large fall upgrade. The main features most advertisers may notice are: Campaign Management: ability to pause and resume ads and keywords, geo-targeting enhancements, and improved performance reporting on the Ads page Editorial Improvements: faster reviews, dynamic feedback about why ads and keywords were disapproved, and inline notification when dynamic text causes your ads to exceed character limits User Management: if previously you were only able to have one user, now you can create multiple account users Content Ads (U.S. only): get keyword bid suggestions and performance estimates for your content ads Here is a breakdown of all the blog posts I found pertaining to this fall upgrade: adCenter Fall Upgrade: New Features, adCenter Blog for Advertisers Blog adCenter API Production Fall Upgrade Now Live, adCenter API Blog for Developers adCenter Fall Upgrade: Campaign Management Updates, adCenter Blog for Advertisers adCenter Fall Upgrade: Content Ads Updates (U.S. only), adCenter Blog for Advertisers adCenter Fall Upgrade: Editorial Updates, adCenter Blog for Advertisers adCenter Fall Upgrade: User Management Updates, adCenter Blog for Advertisers adCenter Analytics Beta Refresh - Check Out The New Features, adCenter Analytics Blog adCenter API Production Upgrade Now Live, adCenter API Blog for Developers

May 20, 2008 Yahoo Makes Minor Updates to Sponsored Search In the midst of a proxy board fight, new negotiations with Microsoft, and a possible deal with Google, Yahoo has made updates to its sponsored search listings. In an announcement on the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog, Jeff Hecox said the changes wouldn't make "worldwide headlines" but they designed the changes to be more intuitive to users. Here's what to expect: • Names of objects (campaign, ad group, keyword, etc.) that are offline will be displayed with red text for easy recognition. • "Top Campaigns” and “Watched Campaigns” tables on the Dashboard page now include a “Status” column to help you identify if and why any campaigns are offline. • On the “Campaigns” page, there's a new “Status” column, the ability to filter by “Status” when using the Advanced Search function, and the “Campaign On/Off” button have been replaced with individual “Pause” and “Unpause” buttons. • On the Ads table On Ad Group pages, a “Status” column has been added and “Pause” and “Unpause” buttons have replaced “Campaign On/Off” button on the Ads table. • New status settings have been added on the Search page, under the Campaigns tab. • The ability to export (using the “Download” button) account information has been added to account-level Ad Group and Keyword pages, under the Campaigns tab. What do you think about the updates to Yahoo's Sponsored Search? Leave a comment!

Search Force SEM Platform Now Supports Image Ads SearchForce, a company whose platform consolidates bid optimization, campaign management and reporting, has incorporated support for content-rich image ads. The company claims it is the first search engine marketing and bid optimization firm to do so. Users can now decide the specific placement of image ads within Google's AdWords network. They can also optimize bids, track conversions and view reporting on them. According to SearchForce, image ads remain lamentably little-used because of lack of visibility, awareness about location of placement, and the inability to clearly associate ROI to spend. Apart from the support of image ads, its platform also enables users to segment keywords by performance and automate multiple programs. In May, the company launched a new profit algorithm that enables clients to quickly adjust bids based on quality, seasonality and day of the week patterns. A recent Hitwise report found that, while marketing dollars are increasingly moving online, search advertising has taken a blow as a result of the recession.