Enhanced CPC is an automated bidding feature that will make use of the keywords’ historical conversion rates to adjust the Max CPC bids on various keywords within a campaign. The Max CPC bids will thus be based on the likelihood of an ad actually converting into a sale.

It is expected that this new feature will help clients to lower their overall CPA, while at the same time increasing the number of conversions they receive.

When a client uses several different keywords within an ad campaign, as most advertisers do, the Enhanced CPC tool will consider which of these keywords have converted well in the past. The CPC for these keywords will be hiked by a maximum of 30% over the set Max CPC. On the other hand, keywords that have not performed too well will have their CPC lowered accordingly.

Unlike CPA bidding, where the advertiser sets a target cost per acquisition and AdWords then adjusts Max CPC bids without any CPC restrictions, the average CPC that the advertisers will pay for various keywords through Enhanced CPC will remain more or less the same as before, but the likelihood of conversions will increase, thus improving the ROI and also making it easier for the client to manage Max CPC bids more easily.

The Enhanced CPC feature will take into account various factors while deciding the new CPC. In addition to adjusting the CPC based on past performance of a keyword, the tool will also recognise variations or modifications to the keywords. Factors such as the user’s location, language settings, browser and operating system will also be taken into consideration while deciding the possibility of an ad converting into a sale.

Enhanced CPC bidding will be available to all advertisers without any restrictions such as the minimum number of conversions required per month to qualify for CPA bidding.

Bid management software providers face yet another threat from this new tool. The Enhanced CPC tool has the advantage of knowing a lot more information about the searcher than any bid management system could possibly know. However, as with all Google AdWords tools, this one too will eventually be aimed at driving more business for Google AdWords – albeit by making advertising on their system more profitable for the advertisers.

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.

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.

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.

Yahoo! has now started serving ads from the Yahoo! Search Marketing system on mobile phones. These ads are served on all smart phones including iPhones and Android mobile handsets.

Ads on Yahoo! Mobile Search

The best part about this new feature for marketers and advertisers is that unlike Google AdWords, the Yahoo! Search Marketing system will not require the usual process of creating new campaigns, mining keywords and writing new ads.

Standard sponsored search ads are displayed automatically on mobile search results pages. The ads are just 2 lines long, consisting of the ad title and the display URL.

One ad is displayed at the top of the search results page and two more ads are displayed at the bottom of the page.

All advertisers will be able to reach an ever increasing audience of mobile Internet users with the introduction of this new feature.

Marketers who wish to specifically target mobile search users will also be able to continue using the Yahoo! Mobile Sponsored Search service at:

Yahoo! Mobile Sponsored Search

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.

It would be great of course if they can achieve these figures.

A large part of this revenue is expected to come from small scale advertising. But lately there have been complaints from several small business advertisers that they are being billed for clicks they do not see on their trackers.

There have been complaints from various advertisers that a lot of click fraud has been occurring. In fact it ranges between 20 – 100%

The allegations also say that this is not a standard click fraud, where mischief makers click several times on an ad without making any purchases. Here the advertisers do not see any clicks on their tracking apparatus, but still they are being billed for these.

This is also not a network problem according to the advertisers as they have checked out on different servers at different DC’s.

Advertisers who have complained to Facebook about these discrepancies, and were asked to provide the appropriate logs were also miffed, that instead of owning up to the errors, Facebook has sent them a standard scripted reply.

A spokesperson from the Facebook communications team has said that Facebook is looking into the issue of suspicious clicks and has identified a solution, which they are implementing.

Facebook must remember that these allegations are serious, and if the matter is not resolved very soon, it may backfire on them if advertisers choose to leave them and use other networks instead.

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.

The message prompts webmasters to give Google AdWords a try, as an alternative means for sending traffic to their website and even offers 100 € free AdWords credit to get them started.

Like all Google promotions, this one is cleverly interwoven into a helpful email. They start by pointing users to the Webmaster Support / Help page and their search engine optimisation starter guide. Only after that do they add that the AdWords programme is just another effective way to drive traffic to a site.

The message ends with a quick run-down of the advantages of advertising via AdWords.

Google has not remained unaffected by the economic downturn. This promotion is just one more example of the various new means they are trying to drive advertisers expenditure. The search giant is continuously testing ways to broaden its advertising platform’s reach, prompt more users to click on ads and convincing more advertisers to spend a greater portion of their media budget on AdWords.

Screenshot of message promoting AdWords to Webmaster Tools users

The service will be called Yahoo! My Display Ads, and will initially be launched as a pilot project.

In the past, it has not been easy for small business enterprises to have display ads, as it required a very large budget and also the technical know-how, for which one had to hire specialized agencies, further adding to the costs. With Yahoo! My Display Ads, it will be possible to have display ads with budgets as low as $30 per day.

The Yahoo! My Display Ads will provide over 800 ready to use display templates, thus making the process of building display ads a do-it-yourself procedure. Of course advertisers can also bring in their own ads if they wish to do so. They will have a choice of selecting to pay for the ads on a cost per click basis or on a cost per thousand impressions basis.

The deals will be conducted through Yahoo’s! Right Media Exchange, and the ad inventory will be inclusive of both Yahoo! owned and network properties.

This simplified process of making display ads should be able to encourage marketers to change over from the traditional text ads to display ads.

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.

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.

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.

Microsoft adCenter Analytics was designed with the intention of providing website owners with detailed reports of the activity of their users and also to let them track the performance of their advertisements.

While the service has been closed with immediate effect to new customers, it will continue to be available to existing users till the 31st of December 2009. On that date, all hosted services, data collection and technical support will cease. Those who wish to save any historical data have been advised to download reports through the export feature before that date.

The Microsoft adCenter Analytics team claims that the aim of undertaking this project was to fulfil the needs of small and medium size self-service customers, and to evolve a strategy for web analytics. They claim to have achieved this objective. Their blog states, “It enabled us to most confidently determine that we can be of most value to advertisers and publishers by offering a tailored solution that meets more specialized needs.”

The adCenter Analytics blog will now be called ‘Insights and Analysis’ and it will focus on research and best practices helping online marketers navigate better and improve market optimisation.

Strangely, Microsoft has suggested some alternative analytics services that their clients can now turn to, and the list includes Google and Yahoo!

Two of these new products are meant for display ads while the third is for sponsored search ads.

Search Retargeting

Search retargeting allows advertisers to display ads to their target audience, based on the user’s search activities. For e.g. when a user types in the keyword ‘Sandals’, the advertiser can display ads for different types of footwear, encouraging the user to make his purchase online.

According to reports from the University of Phoenix, Search Retargeting allowed them to reach their targets at 50% lower costs than required in regular display retargeting efforts.

Enhanced Retargeting

Enhanced retargeting enables the advertiser to put up dynamically generated display ads across the entire Yahoo! network, depending on the user’s activities on the advertiser’s site. For e.g. when a user visits a page on the Yahoo! network, looking for details about flights from one destination to another, the advertiser can make a personalized offer to that customer for that specific flight.

A leading online travel company reported a 230% increase in the total bookings and a 651% increase in the click through rate with enhanced retargeting, compared to the traditional retargeting methods.

Enhanced Targeting

This is a combination of ad scheduling and demographic targeting within search. With this product, advertisers can control where and when the ad is shown, at the campaign as well as ad group levels. They can decide the time of day and days of the week when ads should appear. Advertisers can also decide the demographics (gender and age group of the user) that their ad should reach. The advertisers will be able to vary bids according to the different segments to increase the ability to reach a desired audience.

These announcements were made at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual conference, as part of Yahoo!’s keynote presentation. During their presentation Yahoo! urged advertisers to stop the “artificial boundaries” being put up between display and search ads and make optimal use of search targeting products reach maximum users.

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.

Google SearchWiki was launched only last year to all users signed in on a Google account. The programme allows users to re-rank organic search results and comment on them. Now, adding SearchWiki to AdWords will mean that users have the ability to delete or reposition an ad as per their choice and requirements.

This is a good feature, as far as individual users are concerned. What is worrying to advertisers, however, is the fact that if several users delete or lower the ranking of a particular ad, it may eventually affect the Quality Score of the ad.

It is a fact that Google already knows a lot about user preferences towards various ads based on the click through rates of any given ad. This data allows Google to reward sites with higher click through rates and hence higher quality scores by lowering their costs per click.

SearchWiki on AdWords does the reverse in some ways. It will allow Google to identify which of the ads that weren’t clicked were especially irrelevant or offensive to the user.

Such a system could leave Google SERPs open to manipulation akin to what happened in the early days of PPC advertising - unscrupulous companies hired low-pay workers in third-world countries to click on competitor ads, making them bleed through their budget.Such companies could now hire rogue teams to vote down competitor ads repeatedly.
On the other hand, genuine users who do not like a particular ad might just not bother to waste their time deleting or re-ranking it. They might just ignore it.

A Google spokesperson is supposed to have replied to Peter Young, an advertiser from the UK, saying, “This is a small experiment to show the SearchWiki “X” next to AdWords ads on Google.com search results pages … The experiment triggers for a small number of SearchWiki users. SearchWiki is launched to most (but not all) signed-in US English users … Ads that users remove will no longer trigger for that user on that query … At this time the experiment does not affect Quality Scores, CPCs, ranking, or anything else … It it too soon to say how we will use the data in the future … Any time an ad is shown to a user, an impression is counted … [advertisers cannot opt out of this experiment] … [advertisers cannot see reports on ad removal].”

Google’s response to Search Engine Land was more typical of the tight-lipped search giant: “As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, we are currently running an experiment in which users can customize the ads that appear in the Sponsored Links section of the search results page by deleting ad results. This experimental feature is only visible to a small number of users and we have no news to announce at this time regarding developments in our AdWords product offering.”

It goes without saying that since AdWords is a major source of income for Google, they will definitely think long and hard before making any move that their advertisers might not like.

The audio ad service was launched in 2006 to enable the buying and selling of radio ads via Google AdWords. However, the search company now feel that in spite of investing a lot of resources, these services have not actually managed to create the kind of impact that was expected and it would be better to discontinue these services.

Google Audio Ads and AdSense for Audio will be phased out by the 31^st of May. Until then, publishers will be able to continue publishing their inventory. Google Radio Automation will be sold off to an interested party.

All is not quiet on the audio front, though. Google plans to concentrate on developing technology to deliver relevant ads for online streaming audio, where the audience numbers are increasing.

While it may be remembered that Google has also decided to shut down their Print Ads division only last month, they have stated that they will continue with their TV advertising initiatives as they can measure the audience response here and their advertisers can therefore judge ad effectiveness.

While some staff may be reassigned after the discontinuation of these services, it is expected that about 40 people will find themselves jobless as a result of this decision.

Even though Google executives maintain that they are closing the audio ads service due to failed expectations, if one looks at all their other recent cut-backs – print ads, followed closely by the closure of Jaiku, Dodgeball and Notebook – it looks suspiciously like a move to try and keep up the profit margin and tide over the financial meltdown by sticking to what they know best – search.

In September 2007, Google launched AdSense for Mobile Content, to enable publishers to monetise their sites on the mobile networks, with Google text ads.

With this new service, carriers and mobile site owners will be able to embed a Google search box on their portals or websites, thus allowing users to search Google from within the site.

Revenues generated from these searches will be shared with the mobile operator and website owner. Publishers will be allowed to co-brand the search results page with their own logos and insert links back to their site at the bottom of the mobile search results page.

This service is currently in beta, and testing is available to only a few network operators and website owners. Those interested in this facility can apply for it by filling out this form.

AdSense for Mobile search is aimed squarely at mobile operators and large publishers that have not yet joined forces with Google on mobile. While most larger carriers have already chosen sides – either playing along with Google or Yahoo! or trying to take on the giants by offering their own search service or partnering with search services such as Taptu and Medio, this product caters to smaller networks and those that Google has not deemed important enough to woo individually.

On Internet Explorer

When seen on an Internet Explorer (IE 7+) window, with no toolbars installed, ads now cover 49% of the screen area for Live Search results when seen on a monitor with 800 x 600 resolution, 44% of the results area at 1024 x 768 resolution and 37% of the results area at 1280 x 1024 resolution.

Ads seen on IE 8 with no active toolbars on an 800 x 600 monitor

On Firefox

With just one active toolbar installed, on Firefox the ads now cover 55% of the screen area for Live Search results when seen on a monitor with 800 x 600 resolution, 46% of the results area at 1024 x 768 resolution and 38% of the results area at 1280 x 1024 resolution.

Ads seen on Firefox with one active toolbar on an 800 x 600 monitor

According to Tina Kelleher of Microsoft, these changes have been made taking into consideration the feedback sent to Live Search by adCenter advertisers. This alteration will enable the generation of more clicks for pay per click campaigns being run on adCenter.

A recent report from analytics firm Covario found that global technology firms increased their ad spend on pay per click ads on Microsoft adCenter by 45.7% in the last quarter of 2008, compared to the same period in 2007.

The placement of a fourth mainline ad was introduced by adCenter last September in the U.S.A; and has shown very encouraging results in that market since then.

There is no mention of any consideration for how this change might be received by users and the impact it might have on the perceived quality of Live Search results.

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 will stop taking in new ads from the 28^th of February and the entire Print Ads department will be shut down from the 31^st of March.

The official reason given for this move was, “the product has not created the impact that we – or our partners – wanted … the current Print Ads product is not the right solution”. The company also says that they remain “dedicated to working with publishers to develop new ways for them to earn money, distribute and aggregate content and attract news readers online”.

The newspaper advertising service had started testing in November 2006 and by the beginning of 2007 Google declared that the service was a success. Accordingly, they expanded from buying inventory from 50 newspapers to 800 newspapers by July 2007.

Print Ads were run on the same principle as the hugely successful AdWords system, where keywords were auctioned and then sold to the highest bidder.

Hence it sets one wondering if the official reasons given for shutting the division are really true, or whether there is more to it than meets the eye here. Could it be fueled by dropping newspaper readership in the current financial slow down?

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.

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.

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.

It is estimated that the Nokia Media Network reaches over 100 million customers worldwide, allowing their advertisers to promote products and services to their target audiences on the premium mobile Internet publisher pages, operator partner portals and Nokia services pages that are all part of the network.

Click through rates for ads on the network are touted to be about 10% which is considerably higher than the average click through rate in the industry.

Nokia already has Reuters and Cosmopolitan on-board and some of the new companies that will now be included in the Nokia Media Network are:

• Agence France-Presse, France
• RTL Mobile, Germany
• Cuatro, Spain
• Grupo Prisa – Publisher of El Pais, Spain
• Unidad Editorial _ Publisher of El Mundo, Spain
• CNET, U.K.
• Telegraph Media group, U.K.
• Trinity Mirror, U.K.
• International Herald Tribune, Pan-European

Business Development Manager, of Agence France-Presse, Otman Meriche says, “Agence France-Presse has joined the Nokia Media Network because Nokia has demonstrated leadership in building a global media advertising service. Our advertisers are looking for brand-safe, high performance media, and Nokia’s understanding of the mobile channel is unrivaled.”

The world’s largest handset maker is also pushing advertisements to publishers’ mobile websites by acting as an ad platform, known as Nokia Interactive Solutions. Their services the group provides include mobile banner ads, mobile coupons, mobile websites, location finders and click to call ads.

Nokia seems to be seriously going head-to-head up against Google in their quest to dominate the mobile advertising market. Like Microsoft, they own the lion’s share of the actual medium used to access the Internet. However, Nokia might have the advantage in mobile as there isn’t any established norm and users’ habits are just being formed, unlike on the desktop where users have become creatures of habit and Microsoft’s battle is much more to change user mindsets than to develop a superior product.

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.

This news comes in spite of the fact that the total amount of money being spent on advertising across the various forms of media, such as print, television and radio is expected to go down.

Media communications company, Carat, has estimated that the budgets allocated to online advertising will go up, by 23.7% in this fiscal year, and 18.6% next year. In other words, the Internet will account for 8.6% of the total revenue allocated to advertising this year, and 9.8% next year.

An important cause for this could be the change in loyalty of consumers, from the older forms of media to Internet and mobile. However, it is more likely that the increased level of accountability offered by search marketing makes it more attractive than other media formats, especially during times of economic uncertainty.

Another report released by StrategyEye Digital Media also indicates that in spite of the general down-sizing in advertising, Internet and social media advertising will continue to remain strong.

StrategyEye surveyed over 200 decisionmakers in dominant companies across the digital media sector. The survey found that 60% and 56% of respondents are likely to invest more in social media and mobile respectively. 87% of those surveyed felt that online advertising gave better results than other form of advertising.

While almost 62% of advertisers using traditional media plan to cut down these budgets, 52% of advertisers using online plan to increase their budgets and only 13% of them will reduce online ad budgets.

Most advertisers are of the opinion that online advertising presents a great opportunity. Many companies plan to spend more on digital media at the expense of traditional media. Mobile advertising is doing very well presently, and is expected to continue doing so. Online TV is also believed to be a great opportunity in the future.

The most surprising result of the survey, though, was the general opinion that investing in social media is perceived to be a good move, in spite of the relative reluctance shown by most brands to invest in the space.

Having a well balanced mix of online advertising, mobile advertising, online TV and social media might be the most effective strategy for 2009.

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.

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.

Insights For Search adds to the bunch of new tools and features that Google has released in the past month. It is supposed to enable AdWords advertisers to understand search better. However, closer inspection makes it seem more like a repackaging of already available data with some pretty graphs.

An advertiser interested in selling a product or service, say SEO, could type in the search term “seo” to study search volume patterns across a given time period. The data can be compared for various geographical markets, as shown below:

The advertiser can also see the top and rising related searches and to compare search volumes across multiple local markets within each of the geographical locations being compared.

For the statistics and trivia buffs, Google Insights For Search also includes the ability to compare trends for multiple search terms…

… and the ability to compare trends for a search term over multiple periods of time.

Users can download the results from this service and view the numbers on the graph by signing into their Google account. The numbers on the graphs, though, are rather useless for most real purposes. In Google’s own words, “The numbers on the graph reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don’t represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalised and presented on a scale from 0-100″.

The same information, minus the pretty graphs and maps with hotspots, can be found from the Google keyword tool, with the added benefit of now including real search volumes. It seems rather unlikely that this tool will be used to a great extent by savvy search marketers.

Graphical representation of data, easy correlation of geographical distribution (in spite of rather dubious results in the UK) and comparison to other related terms might appeal to Internet marketing novices and traditional media executives who have begun dabbling in search, which seem to be Google’s new target market.

Google, the parent company of DoubleClick, also announced that they have reached an agreement with DoubleClick, to launch Silverlight 2 based ads.

DoubleClick already has ad deals with Flash, RealMedia, and Windows Media, so it seems like a good idea for Google to also add Silverlight to their portfolio. Google and DoubleClick will begin this new partnership by monetising 2,500 hours of Silverlight’s NBC Olympics content. NBC Olympics.com will be among the first to offer Silverlight 2 to their advertisers with DoubleClick In-Stream ads.

“Microsoft has always had a strong commitment to working closely with partners and the industry to enable them to leverage our tools and platform to deliver great user experiences. With Silverlight, we’ve extended that commitment to the advertising space,” said Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, .NET Developer Division.

What hasn’t been clarified is why Microsoft had to turn to its biggest rival, Google, to sell ads on their own platform, rather than using Microsoft’s own adCenter advertising!

Targeting site placements is an option that AdWords advertisers can choose to enable. If not, the ads will continue to run as before.

When an advertiser uses a keyword in his ad campaign, with a contextual target in mind, Google will match it to relevant pages across all of the sites on the Content Network.

Using this new facility, advertisers can bid more, or less, on specific content network placements that they are targeting. They will also be able to make ads for specific groups of pages, which they find highly relevant.

Advertisers will therefore be able to decide to show their ads only on contextually relevant pages, and set specific bids for the different sites, depending on the response they have been receiving from each site. An advertiser can now set a higher bid for placement on a site that has driven good business, and lower the bid on sites where the ad has not been doing too well.

It will also be possible to write ads that highlight specific features of a product, and display the ad only on sites that are relevant to these specifications. This way the advertiser is better assured of reaching his target audience, with greater control on placements and over ad budget.

To accomodate these changes, the AdWords interface has been updated considerably. When creating new campaigns, advertisers are given the option to start with placements or start by targeting keywords.

The Ad Group summary view now includes a search clicks, with an indication of whether the Google and search partner targeting options are on and content clicks with a breakdown of placements that have been specifically targeted and other placements on the content network.

A ‘Placements’ has been added alongside the Keywords and Ad Variations tab, and clicking on it reveals details specific to the targeted placements within that Ad Group.

In fact Google believes that by 2010, the internet advertising market in Russia alone could touch the $1 billion mark. In 2007, the Russian market was worth $200 million, but Google hopes that this spend will seem insignificant in the next few years.

A Russian executive of Google, Vladmir Dolgov, says that the online advertising market, has captured the imagination of people in Russia, and already 75,000 of Russia’s 3 million registered companies are advertising online. Surely others should follow soon.

While Google continues to compete with Yandex.ru and Rambler.ru, Russia’s leading search engines and ad networks, and is keen to get more and more searchers on their site, their operations will be controlled from Moscow and St. Petersburg, only, since both are close to the Eastern end of the European union, which makes accessibility to existing operations easier.

Google first entered the Russian market in 2006, with a meager 5 percent of the market share. It now holds over a third of the market according to a report by comScore.

Japan is of course the world’s most advanced country for mobile marketing, as about 80% of its 100 million mobile users, use mobile data services, and Japan accounts for 40% of the world’s mobile data revenue.

According to a report from Seed Planning, the market which was worth about 81 billion yen, last year, is expected to cross the 100 billion yen ($1 billion) mark, by the end of the year, i.e. a 22% growth in a span of just one year: and if this expansion continues in the same manner, it may even cross 250 billion yen by 2011.

This sudden growth spurt in the mobile advertising market, is inclusive of banner ads, affiliate advertising, paid search and mailing ads.

Affiliate advertising in particular, has crossed the 17.9 billion yen mark, which is a rise of 184% over the previous figures. This will be welcome news to the directory industry, which is of the opinion that affiliate advertising on mobiles is a good way to increase their mobile online business.

Though similar ads are available for desktops and mobiles, they may not be equally successful on both the versions. What works for one need not work for the other. For instance it has been shown that email ads have been more successful on mobiles than on PC’s.

Thus it is necessary for an advertiser to be very watchful, in order to decide which form of advertising will give him the best results on each platform.

The two leading search engines have now decided to consolidate the deal, and extend the contract into a broad-based partnership. Under the terms of this agreement, Yahoo! will display Google ads alongside their own organic search results in the U.S. and Canada, and outsource a part of their search ad inventory to Google. They will retain the right to do the same with other providers as well.

Yahoo! will have the discretionary powers to decide which pages the Google AdSense for Search and AdSense for Content ads will be displayed on. This deal will not affect their actual organic search results in any way.

Though details of the financial transaction are not available, the deal is expected to generate an additional, $800 million in revenue for Yahoo! annually. In the first year itself, there is expected to be an increase in cash flow ranging from $250-450 million.

Yahoo! will follow the same open bidding system as Google AdWords, to deliver third party ads to their search results, thus making it possible to include Microsoft in the scheme of things.

In order to avoid any hassles with anti-trust laws, at a later stage, Yahoo! and Google have decided to wait for three and a half months, before implementing the deal, thus giving the U.S. Department of Justice, enough time to study the implications of the deal.

As of now, the deal will continue for a period of 10 years. An initial period of 4 years, followed by two terms of 3 years each, at Yahoo!’s option.

Both companies have the option to terminate the deal, in case of a change in management of either organisation. However if Yahoo! chooses to terminate the deal within the first 2 years, it shall be liable to pay Google a termination fee of $250 million less 50% of the revenue earned by Google through the deal.

As an additional incentive, the companies have agreed to allow interoperability of their instant messaging services.

Google’s chairman and CEO, Eric Schmidt, says “This commercial agreement, provides Yahoo! with the opportunity, to deliver more relevant ads to users, and provide advertisers and publishers with better, advertising technology.”

It is believed that this deal will further strengthen Google’s dominance in the search advertising market, while at the same time finally pulling down the curtain on the possibility of a deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft.,

Investor Carl Icahn’s reactions on the issue are yet to be known as his strategy to replace the board of directors at Yahoo! depended on Microsoft’s interest in buying over Yahoo!

It is well known that Yahoo! ran tests with arch rivals Google, to show AdWords advertising on Yahoo! Search. What is not so well known, however, is their opinion on the same subject.

On 30 January 2008, just a day prior to Microsoft’s announcement that they intentended to acquire Yahoo!, the board of executives, led by Jerry Yang had dismissed the suggestion of a tie up with Google, stating that although such a tie up may result in short term gains, it would not be a good idea in the long run, as it would reduce Yahoo!’s chances of becoming a “must-buy” for advertisers.

This fact was revealed following a complaint, filed by lawyers representing shareholders of Yahoo!, alleging that the board of directors at Yahoo! purposefully acted to discourage the Microsoft offer. In fact, the papers reveal that even as far back as January 2007, the then CEO, Terry Semel, had rejected Microsoft’s offer of $40 per share!

The complaint further alleges that CEO, Jerry Yang, has not acted in the best interests of the company, or the shareholders, but rather out of personal hatred against Microsoft. The plaintiffs go on to say, that the tie-up with Google was only a means to deter Microsoft, as the situation would lead to a lot of legal complications that would deter Microsoft.

According to Eric Auchard at Reuters, Yahoo!’s sudden change of heart following Microsoft’s takeover bid seems to prove that the partnership with Google is just a desperate bid to keep Microsoft away at any cost.

Mr. Carl Icahn, who has already received permission to buy more shares of Yahoo!, just had his position strengthened by these revelations, as he tries to oust the current board of directors, including CEO Jerry Yang, through a proxy contest.

The big question at Yahoo!, however, is that even if Mr. Icahn is successful in replacing the board, will Microsoft still be interested in the deal, and if so at what rate?

The policy change has been made following a change in U.K. legislation regarding advertising of gambling services. It used to be illegal to issue ads that contained any invitations for gambling, or a mention of the money, bonuses or prizes that could be won by gambling. Following the recent changes in legislation, any or all of the above subjects can be incorporated into an ad.

Yahoo! has decided to update its own editorial policy and allow gambling to be promoted in ads displayed through their search marketing platform. The email sent by Yahoo! says:

• Previously, gambling ad copy could not contain invitations to play or any mention of money, bonuses and prizes. Under recent UK legislation on gambling advertising, UK gambling ads may now include any or all of these. This new legislation does not however extend to gambling advertising in Northern Ireland or Republic of Ireland, and so the relaxation on ad copy restrictions applies only for advertising which is run in mainland UK.
• Advertisers are responsible for blocking any regions within the market where their ad copy is not compliant with local gambling advertising legislation. Because the laws on gambling advertising are different in Ireland and Northern Ireland, as an advertiser with gambling ads on UKIE properties, you must use your geo-targeting settings to block non-compliant ad copy in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
• The existing rules on responsible advertising continue to apply, and gambling ads may be rejected on the grounds that they:
• Lead people to adopt styles of gambling that are unwise
• Are socially irresponsible and/or encourage excessive gambling
• Exploit the young, the immature or those who are mentally or socially vulnerable.
• The existing rules on location and licensing of gambling advertisers also continue to apply.

Google currently prohibits any form of promotion of gambling, even if it is for play-for-fun websites. By relaxing their rules on gambling ads Yahoo! could be winning some money that Google has left on the table.