February 12, 2009

SEW Experts: Solve Your Call Tracking Problems Now!

Tracking calls has long been seen as a Holy Grail of tracking promotions. The good news? That Holy Grail is available and possible for marketers of every size. In today's online promotion & link building column, "Solve Your Call Tracking Problems Now!," Sage Lewis outlines some call-tracking options for both large and small advertisers.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 5, 2008

Superpages.com Parent Idearc Media Partners with HelloMetro's Network of 1500+ .mobi Sites

Idearc Media, which owns Superpages.com and publishes the Verizon Yellow Pages, has announced an advertising partnership with .mobi network HelloMetro. The two already have a partnership to extend advertising across HelloMetro's .com pages.

“We have received great results in our current agreement with HelloMetro.com and the new agreement can only bring more visibility and more leads for our advertisers on Superpages.com,” said Robyn Rose, vice president of Internet marketing for Idearc Media.

HelloMetro owns over 1,500 city-based Web sites that see more than 2.7 million unique visitors a month combined. HelloMetro serves up your typical content of interest in local guides - attractions, restaurants, special events, movie show times, lottery results, real estate, jobs, phone directories.

“As we continue to add cities to our list of Web sites content becomes increasingly important,” said Clark Scott, CEO of HelloMetro.com. “Superpages.com's local business content will provide an added bonus to our robust city-specific content.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 9, 2008

Marchex Consolidates Ad Platforms

Marchex has announced the consolidation of its local ad platforms into one solution which is being called Adhere. The new platform will offer CPC ads on 200 partner sites as well as Marchex's own network of 100,000 generic and local domains.

Marchex is touting 2 major benefits for the change:

It enables national advertisers to efficiently fulfill their online budget in the same manner as they purchase offline advertising; namely national, spot and local in a single media buy.
It provides small- and medium-sized businesses the opportunity to reach local customers directly through Marchex's OpenList and reach national customers through premium, vertically focused publishers.

Along with the consolidation announcement comes news of new partners joining Marchex's content network:

IDG – Publishers of PC World, CIO Magazine and Macworld
Ziff Davis Enterprise – Publishers of eWeek, CIO|Insight and Publish
Banks.com – covering banking, loans, investing, insurance, taxes, real estate and autos
RealtyTrac – an online marketplace for foreclosure properties
AmericanTowns.com – a national network of community-based websites where people can find & share local information for every town in America
YourStreet.com – Indexes and maps thousands of articles, blogs, and conversations down to the street level
Lat49 – an online ad network providing local and brand advertisers with delivery of geo-targeted and contextual ads across a network of online maps
HelloMetro – city level information on local history, attractions, real estate, jobs, Yellow Pages, White Pages and local resources

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 17, 2008

Urban Mapping Unveils Geotargeting and Local Search Platform

7% of searches are local, including a zip code, city or neighborhood term. With over 10.8 billion searches conducted by Americans in the month of March alone, 7% is a lot of searches.

Now Urban Mapping is making it easier for search marketers to improve the effectiveness of their online advertising and paid search campaigns for local search. Today, the neighborhood data provider announced the launch of its Geomods platform, designed to “deliver more geographically-relevant results for users.”

Here's what you can expect from the new platform:

• Platform utilizes standard web protocols and serves geographic terms relevant to a specified area. • Provides a custom service area based on a variety of demographic, spatial and business factors (via a separate module) • Leverages the installed user base of its neighborhoods boundary database, providing many of the same geographic keywords that power search portals, Internet yellow pages and mapping platforms.

“This geotargeting platform is a radical departure from traditional IP-based geotargeting,” said Ian White, Urban Mapping CEO. “It has been proven again and again that traditional geotargeting does not provide a high degree of confidence for local search, where granularity is of paramount importance—blocks, not ZIP codes or metropolitan areas matter.”

Urban Mapping's GeoMods services includes US, Canadian and European coverage. The company currently counts SuperPages.com, YellowPages.com, MapQuest, Microsoft's Live Search, Ask.com as customers.

January 29, 2008

Marchex to Distribute Ads from Superpages Advertisers

Advertisers who buy placements on Idearc's Superpages.com local search site will now be able to get the added distribution over Marchex's network of more than 200,000 vertically-focused local sites, as well as more than 50 partner ad networks and vertical sites. Under the new distribution deal, ads will be served and tracked by Marchex's Enhance Interactive subsidiary.

Enhance Interactive also distributes ads from several large interactive agencies and advertisers, including Avenue A | Razorfish, Reprise Media, Carnival Cruise Lines, Cox Auto Trader Publishing, FXCM Forex Capital Markets, Roto-Rooter and Reunion.com. Through Marchex Connect, a private-label search marketing platform, Marchex also distributes ads sold by AT&T's YellowPages.com.

Ads can appear on Marchex's OpenList network of local sites, as well as search engines like Yahoo, Dogpile, Snap, and Verisign.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:45 PM | Permalink

January 25, 2008

SEW Experts: Mobile Local Search: A Perfect Storm

Last week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) showcased the first few devices that run Google's much anticipated Android operating system. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Mobile Local Search: A Perfect Storm," local search expert Michael Boland explains how these are the first physical signs of what will be a major inflection point in the history of mobile devices and mobile local search.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 21, 2008

AT&T iPhone Google Deal Pits Apple Against Blackberry

Pitting Apple against Blackberry, AT&T will offer a corporate plan for iPhone users, Engadget reported today.

The iPhone Google AT&T alliance made news at MacWorld with the launch of new Google apps and features for the iPhone.

Today's announcement, though, may be the biggest search engine industry news to come out of MacWorld. If the iPhone succeeds in dislodging Blackberry from the enterprise -- and Google maintains its iPhone-Apple ties -- then Google's share of local mobile searches could increase significantly over the next two years.

Google doesn't enjoy the same dominance in local mobile search as in desktop search. Google's strategic business development deals a couple years ago bundled Google desktop search with Dell computers and made Google the default home page on the computer's pre-installed browser.

Engadget blogger Thomas Ricker notes the move by AT&T iPhone comes in lieu of a 3G announcement by Apple. 3G, with service at 5-10 Mb per second, would make wide-area wireless voice telephony and broadband wireless data available in mobile.

With faster speeds and more bandwidth, 3G would likely increase the total volume of local mobile searches.

Increasing the number of searches is the only win-win for the search industry. Slicing and dicing search inventory increases the long tail of searches. With Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask battling for small gains against Google's dominant share of searches, local mobile search -- and the enterprise -- may be the final frontier.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:06 PM | Permalink

January 18, 2008

SEW Experts: Online Reviews: Tips, Tricks, and Secrets for Advertisers and Publishers

The importance of reviews and ratings – positive and negative – can't be overstated in local search. In terms of consumer motivation, it's all about informing others or rewarding a business for its excellent product/service. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Online Reviews: Tips, Tricks, and Secrets for Advertisers and Publishers," local search expert Gregg Stewart notes that how you react and interact with the online version of word-of-mouth referrals can have important implications for your business.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 9, 2007

ReachLocal Scores $55M Funding

Local search marketing firm ReachLocal announced a $55.2 million round of funding today, led by Rho Ventures. ReachLocal, like Marchex and WebVisible, is a local search fulfillment agency, according to Marchex's view of the local search landscape. They offer advertisers packages of local ads from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Superpages and others. For the past year, ReachLocal has been building out its sales force to reach local advertisers. Its 11 sales offices in the U.S. are set to expand dramatically with the new infusion of cash.

"Essentially the company is building a yellow-pages style sales force without the directory publication (Weblistic and Yodle are attempting something similar). It's an audacious but possible enterprise," writes Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "There's clearly an SMB appetite for Internet distribution and a need for someone to educate and help SMBs get from where they are to the various consumer points of entry on the Internet."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:44 AM | Permalink

August 17, 2007

SEW Experts: This Just In, Google Recruits Local Sales Force

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "This Just In, Google Recruits Local Sales Force," Gregg Stewart gives you a heads up on Google Local Business Referrals and continues his review of local search strategies by covering underutilized local media sources.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 13, 2007

SEW Experts: Google's Local Search Land Grab

In today's Search Ads column, "Google's Local Search Land Grab," Tony Wright tells you how you can help Google to digitize local search information, and help yourself in the process.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 24, 2007

Superpages Launches Local Video Ads

Idearc's Superpages has launched a beta trial of local video ads on its yellow pages directory. Superpages.com is trialing 30- and 60-second local merchant video ads in Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, with additional cities to be added in the next few months.

"There is a clear trend in advertising as more consumers are willing to engage with videos online," Eric Chandler, president, Internet, for Idearc Media, said in a statement. "Superpages video advertising allows small to medium-sized local businesses the opportunity to tell their unique story in a new medium. These 'documercials' also let consumers take an up-close and personal look at a business before making a buying decision."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:01 AM | Permalink

April 26, 2007

Superpages.com Revises Ad Algorithm

Idearc's Superpages.com, a local search service based on Verizon's yellow pages directory, is changing the way it displays ads. Using an algorithm that makes it more closely resemble Google's AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing's Panama platform, Superpages will begin ranking ads based on criteria like relevance and performance, in addition to bids.

Idearc has been very busy over the past few months since it spun off from Verizon. Besides revamping its ad offering, it's launched a national TV campaign to court advertisers, and began offering SEM services to small business advertisers earlier this month.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:49 PM | Permalink

March 26, 2007

Idearc Launches TV Campaign

The local search space is heating up, and now one player is moving the fight to TV. Idearc Media, the owner of the Superpages online yellow pages business that spun-off from Verizon in the fall, is beginning a TV campaign to introduce the new brand to consumers and advertisers.

The 10-week run will include buys on more than 15 national cable networks, including ESPN, CNN, Fox News and HGTV. The ads will attempt to tie together the Idearc brand with the print version of the Verizon Yellow Pages and establish Superpages.com as the online yellow pages site of record in the eyes of consumers. At the same time, the ads are an attempt to entice advertisers to spend their ad budget with Idearc.

The ads can be seen on Idearc's site.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:44 AM | Permalink

March 6, 2007

Local.com to Distribute Superpages Ads

Local.com has added another local content provider to its site. This time it's Superpages, the former Verizon property that recently spun out on its own as Idearc. Under the agreement, Superpages.com's PPC ads will receive priority placement in the "Featured Sponsors" section of the Local.com site.

Earlier this week, Superpages announced that it has expanded its national 60-person sales team in a new office in Alpharetta, Ga. Superpages added an office in Kirkland, Wash., in November, along with its existing Irving, Texas, headquarters.

Superpages offers both free yellow pages listings for 19 million small-to-medium-sized businesses in the United States, as well as enhanced listings for 11 million of those businesses. It sells both fixed-fee and performance-based ad products, including pay-per-click and pay-per-call ads.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:23 AM | Permalink

December 22, 2006

Bringing Small Businesses Online

TheStreet.com has an article on the growing trend of small businesses advertising themselves on Craigslist. As opposed to individuals buying and selling merchandise, this involves local businesses creating posts that list business information or possibly product or inventory info.

Essentially, this utilizes Craigslist as a place to have a free landing page. But this kind of advertising precariously places such pages where they can be bounced around as newer posts push them down chronological listings.

More effective for some small businesses have been free landing page and microsite offerings that have grown in number over the past year, as the name of the game for many search engine marketers will be to get more small businesses online.

This comes with the thought that a significant chunk of revenue growth for search engine marketers will come from new business - those local and small businesses that have thus far steered clear of online marketing because they aren't inclined to do it, or they simply don't have websites. Bringing a business online with free development and hosting tools is thought to hook them, and to develop early loyalties as a place to also do their online marketing.

Enter the free landing page development and hosting offerings. Yahoo! has done this for a while with its free local listings product, and Google came out with Page Creator in February which it recently upgraded with its new "hosted business pages" tool. Companies that have introduced similar solutions include vFlyer and Affinity Internet.

Many of the small businesses in this boat are service businesses that traditionally advertise in the yellow pages. In many cases these businesses are better equipped to handle a phone call than a click, which can be an abstract concept to some. A recent study done by Nielsen//NetRaings and WebVisible suggest as much.

So in addition to more free website development and hosting services, we could see more click-to-call functionality in paid search. In the last month alone, we've seen this from Google and LiveDeal. Look for more to emerge throughout '07.

Posted by Mike Boland at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 3, 2006

vFlyer Seeks To Overcome Classifieds Fragmentation For Sellers

From a marketer's point of view, one of the undesirable characteristics of the Internet in general and the local Internet in particular is audience fragmentation. Like other segments in local, classifieds are growing -- dramatically according to comScore (99% year over year). The firm also shows 37.4 million users in July to 10 high-traffic "classifieds" sites. But, in reality, there are many millions more users going to sites not part of comScore's segmentation that fall within the top three traditional newspaper "classifieds" categories -- Jobs, Cars, Real Estate.

Craigslist has become the 800-pound gorilla in online classifieds. But there are many more sites out there that are meaningful in terms of traffic and value delivered to sellers. Reaching this disaggregated market can be time consuming and challenging.

A new site and service from a company called vFlyer seeks to provide tools and distribution to create better-looking ads, using pre-designed but customizable templates and one-click distribution to a broad range of sites (including Craigslist) -- all free to sellers.

Each templated ad has a unique URL and is being optimized for SEO. So, effectively, these are microsites or landing pages for search distribution too. The business model isn't fully baked, but largely based on advertising although premium services may be offered. Postlets is a competitor.

Here's more on the company from the NY Times.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 2:40 PM | Permalink

August 10, 2006

Newspapers Getting Into Local Search Game

MediaNews Group, which bought the San Jose Mercury News from McClatchy, becomes the third newspaper group to employ a "guaranteed clicks" geotargeted search program for the local business market. Powered by WebVisible, which McClatchy is also using, the product is the essentially the same as what the yellow pages publishers have been selling for the past year or so.

These "guaranteed clicks" products offer a simplified version of SEM for the local market. Campaign set up and fulfillment is managed by the third party vendor (WebVisilble in this case). The chief value of these products is that they're simple to sell, simple to buy and have good margins. But fulfillment isn't always easy.

Here are the main companies offering versions of "guaranteed clicks" or "simplified search" (SEM or SEM+ SEO) to the local market through partner-aggregators:

Local Launch
WebVisible
Reach Local
Marchex/Traffic Leader
Leads.com (now owned by WebSitePros)
Matchcraft
ClickForward (now owned by YellowBook)
Inceptor (now owned by SuperPages)

July 12, 2006

ShopLocal Taps Topix for Geotargeted Ads

This isn't search, but it is local. ShopLocal has partnered with news aggregator Topix.net to offer dynamic banner ads that are targeted by ZIP. The program services national advertisers trying to drive consumers into their local stores. An example dynamic skyscraper ad is visible here.

ShopLocal is providing the ad content and Topix provides the local news pages on which the ads appear. Here's the press release. Read a somewhat longer post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:12 AM | Permalink

April 28, 2006

Yahoo Local Adds Featured Listings

The Yahoo Search blog just announced a new Yahoo Local advertising solution named Local Featured Listings. This advertising solution enables advertisers to place their ads at the top of a local listing for different business categories. The business categories seem to be based on your location and keyword. The rate chart shows you can spend $15 to $300 depending on your location and keyword phrase, Manhattan and florist being the most expensive category, since Manhattan is very populated and florist is a popular keyword phrase. A lot more information at http://listings.local.yahoo.com/prlfl.php, I may have more later on this.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:18 AM | Permalink

April 13, 2006

Small Businesses Getting Local

Local Search Advertising Pays Off For Small Marketers from BusinessWeek taking a short look at how small businesses are looking more to search engines now that they can buy locally targeted ads.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:33 AM | Permalink

March 10, 2006

Will Local Search Engines Replace National Search Engines for Local Search?

ClickZ reports "about half the panelists believe local search engines will replace national search engines like Yahoo, Google and MSN when it comes to specific market needs," according to Borrell Associates's "2006 Local Search Advertising" report.

Two-thirds of the panelists say that this can happen as soon as five-years from now. My own personal feeling is that this won't happen. Yahoo, Google and the other engines, in my opinion, are doing a wonderful job with their local search portals, and the vertical integration with their main search portals. In addition, Google and MSN have wonderful search advertising targeting, with Yahoo not lagging that far behind. But with local search revenue to hit $987 million this year and double the year after, there is plenty of money to be shared amongst all the engines.

An executive summary of the report is available here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:08 AM | Permalink

February 16, 2006

Local Search to Grow from $3B to $13B by 2010

ClickZ reports that Local Search to Hit $13B by 2010. Online local search, including Internet Yellow Pages, local search and wireless, brought in $3.4 billion this past year. According to a forecast by the Kelsey Group, by 2010, it should reach "nearly $13 billion." The Yellow Page advertising is expected to only grow 1.5% over the same time period, reaching $28.4 billion by 2010. More details at ClickZ.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:54 AM | Permalink

January 18, 2006

Still Seeing "Blue Pins" on Some Google Maps; Google Now Testing Paid Links in Google Earth

Although some sites are reporting that the Google Maps "blue pin test" is no longer visible, I'm seeing the blue pins on some Google Maps results pages as of this morning.

The pins represent the location of the sponsored links that come above editorial listings to the left of the map. As we know, when Google tests something it might be visible with one search and a moment later, it's gone. Then, an two minutes or two hours later it's back but you're the only one who can see it. In fact, that's what happened today. Here's a screen cap of what I was occasionally seeing as of 11:20am today when searching for hotels NYC. RustyBrick told me he was also still seeing the blue pins

While we're on the topic of Google tests, a SEW Blog reader sent a note saying that he was seeing paid listings when running business searches with Google Earth (GE). I opened GE and spotted the same thing (in some situations) when clicking on the mapped location of a business. Here's a screen cap. I'm checking with Google to see if this is new, something old that we never noticed, or another test. Stay tuned.

Postscript: A Google spokesperson has just confirmed to SEW that they are testing (on a limited basis) paid links in Google Earth.

As part of our continuing effort to provide a positive advertising experience for users and advertisers, we are always exploring ways to improve the way we display ads. We are currently conducting a limited test of ads in Google Earth. We do not have any other specifics to share at this time.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:22 AM | Permalink

January 12, 2006

MSN & SuperPages.com In Local Ads Agreement

SuperPages.com local advertisers now appear in MSN local search results. Type in a query, such as deli, New York or dentist, Dallas and superpages ads are displayed at the top of the page, above local search result listings.

Backfill ads appear to be generic—for example, a search for books in Seattle displays ads for Overstock.com, Simply Audio and discount magazine subscriptions.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 4:25 PM | Permalink

January 6, 2006

Yahoo Forges Ad Partnership with Yellowpages.com

Yellowpages.com advertisers now get extended reach with placement within Yahoo! Local and Yahoo! Yellow Pages. This agreement expands on existing agreements Yahoo had with AT&T Yellow Pages and BellSouth Advertising and Publishing. Pamela Parker has more on today's deal over at ClickZ.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 4:01 PM | Permalink

November 30, 2005

Locally Targeted Ads, Links, and Offers Coming to CBS Station Sites

DMNews reports in the article: Viacom Eyes Local Sponsored Links for CBS Station Sites, will soon launch locally targeted ads on CBS sites powered by Kanoodle.

Visitors will see on content pages and search results pages customized links and targeted advertiser offers.

It's at the intersection of local sponsored links as well as the explosion of locally targeted content," said Mark Josephson, chief marketing officer at Kanoodle, New York. "It's fast becoming a de facto component of all content on the Web." The CBS sites will use Kanoodle's LocalTarget product, applying a topic-matching approach to listings on city-specific Web pages.

More in this news release from Kanoodle.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:31 PM | Permalink

October 16, 2005

More on Google's Plan for Wi-Fi in San Francisco; Text of Google's Filing Available

If you're interested in learning more about Google's plan (one of 17) for providing free Wi-Fi access throughout San Francisco, the San Jose Mercury News article: S.F. unveils 17 firms' WiFi bids, has a few more details in addition to what was reported a few weeks ago.

We've also made available the full text of an eight page document of the request for information/comments (RFI/C) Google (Word Doc) filed with the city. Note: If you would like to read the RFI/C filed by the 16 other providers, you can download them all here. Comments that were submitted are also available for download. More about the SF plan here.

From the Merc article: Google has offered to build the network for free, as has fellow Mountain View company MetroFi. Google's eight-page response was heavy on company philosophy, but provided few details on the company's blueprint for a San Francisco wireless Internet, or WiFi, network.

The company hopes to work with San Diego-based WFI, which would provide network engineering and installation services. Google also hopes to leverage its skill at bringing ultra-targeted advertising to those who use its network. `Now mom-and-pop local shops will be able to specifically target affordable advertisements to WiFi network users within a few-block radius,'' Google said in its response. Google's response said it would bring free Web connection speeds of 300 kilobits per second citywide.

I focused on the very localized advertising that would be available in my first post about the plan.

Key Points From Google's RFI to City of San Francisco (Executive Summary)

Google plans to build and operate a Wi-Fi mesh network covering the City and County of San Francisco. To ensure availability by the largest number of client devices, the network will use open radio standards, including 802.11b and 802.11g as well as 802.11n (when ratified). The network will be designed to offer more than 1Mbps of symmetric service throughout the entire city.
To facilitate better indoor reception, users may be encouraged to purchase a CPE (customer premises equipment) to connect to the Wi-Fi network.
In furtherance of the goal of enabling other providers to offer services on the Google Wi-Fi network, wholesale access will be provided at rates vastly discounted from the retail prices at which fixed line and 3G service providers are offering services today. Any willing partners will be able to resell access to a network at substantially higher data rates than the free solution, potentially reaching 2-3Mbps of throughput. Google may also sell such high speed access to consumers, as well as other potential premium services.
The City will make available to Google the rights to mount radios (access points) and point-to-multipoint gateways on approximately 1900 lamp posts and at building locations determined by our clutter analysis.

The remainder of the eight page document has info about Google company leadership, Google's wireless "philosophy", a sentence on Google Secure Access, material on what will make the Google's SF service successful including the company's important quality, "may be our refusal to accept the status quo," and Google's ability to work with their project partner, WFI. Lots of WFI info, too.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:32 PM | Permalink

July 29, 2005

First Craigslist, Now Google: Newspaper Classifieds Woes Worsen from Poynter covers two research reports out that highlight how search engines -- in particular Google -- are attracting local real estate advertising money. Google said to have three regional sales teams devoted to going after real estate and classified ad money. The company's gone into pitching major real estate firms. One realtor is quoted as dumping print ads after the Google ads caused leads to shoot up. An executive summary of the Borrell report can be requested from here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:42 AM | Permalink

July 26, 2005

Superpages.com Tries on Agency Hat covers how Verizon SuperPages has advertisers who can't buy enough inventory on SuperPages itself, so SuperPages plans to take their excess money and do buys for them on Google and Yahoo through a new "pay-per-click-plus" program it will begin testing in August.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:43 AM | Permalink

June 24, 2005

The Magic of Seeing Your Search Ad from Justin Sanger at ClickZ probably should have been titled, "The Dirty Little Secret Of Local Search Click Fulfillment." For the past 18 months or so, a variety of new local search packages and programs aimed at small, locally-oriented merchants have sprung up. They've often had a simple pitch. "You'll get clicks!" It's a focus that's alarmed me given that search marketing in general has progressed well past rankings, clicks and into conversion.

Justin explains how the click guarantees may get fulfilled by ads placed well of the regular beaten track of the major search engines. He's not suggesting that the clicks don't convert or that there's fraud going on. Rather, he points out a more basic problem.

Those buying the ads may be small businesses, but they're savvy enough to want to actually see their ads on Google, Yahoo and other major players. When they don't, they get frustrated -- a bad move for a new advertiser audience the industry is trying to attract.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:24 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2005

In Online ad sellers think local, News.com revisits why search engines are interested in developing local search. It's a largely untapped vein of small businesses they hope to mine. It touches on things we've heard before, such the difficulty in getting small businesses going online, plus looks briefly at how online players are trying to convince them to make the leap.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:40 PM | Permalink

According to a Clickz story, SBC's SMARTPages and YellowPages.com are announcing flat-rate pricing packages hoping to get more local customers advertising online. The program will be run by TrafficLeader.

April 18, 2005

The rebranding promised in March has happened. Overture has officially become Yahoo Search Marketing, marked by the launch of a new Yahoo Search Marketing site that lists all of Yahoo's search-related listing products.

It's a good change that ought to help new advertisers. Rather than having to explain that they need to buy "Overture" to be on Yahoo, Yahoo can now direct them to a site that retains its branding.

But with rebranding can come confusion, so I thought it would be helpful to look at all the products listed at the new site and also compare them to Google products. In particular, an email I got from a reader prompted the idea:

I am trying to find the "comparable" Yahoo program to Google AdWords. Since their rebranding of Overture last week, I'm still looking unsuccessfully for something like Precision Match, but it looks as if the program has been axed?

We've been using Google AdWords since it launched and are very happy with the format and back office (most of all the results). Is Yahoo offering a similar program? Honestly, I've read about their "Sponsored Search" and it's simply not obvious.

Meanwhile at our Search Engine Watch forums, a thread on the rebranding shows similar confusion:

I thought Overture was being renamed to Yahoo Search Marketing, but this page boasts a range of products, including Shopping, Travel, Directory, PPI & Overture (sponsored search).

The chart below gives you a side-by-side look at all the products listed on the new Yahoo site, along with some other listings areas that I thought made sense to add. If you're a Search Engine Watch member, see this extended post that provides commentary and additional advice and information about each listing area.

Search Submit Express

Search Submit Pro

but advertisers can get listing support

February 23, 2005

Pay per click advertising campaigns are great, if you have a web site with a landing page, product offerings and other meaningful information for consumers. For advertisers that don't have a web site, however, there's little incentive to participate in a paid search campaign.

Until recently, that is. The past year has seen the emergence of a new type of paid search advertising program that doesn't require merchants or service providers to have an online presence. In Tuesday's SearchDay article, Pay-Per-Call: A New Avenue for Search Marketers, guest writer Heather Lloyd-Martin covers a recent Search Engine Strategies panel where the pioneers of this new marketing format talked about how it works, and why it's particularly appealing to the millions of local advertisers that don't have a web site.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:34 PM | Permalink

February 22, 2005

If you're looking for another site dedicated to paid search, you might give Pay Per Click Universe a whirl. Up for a few months now, it gives you a rundown on what it considers the top ten paid listing services, with the ability to read through some reader reviews. There's a nice list of bid management tools, a section on local paid search, some articles on paid search and more. See also our Pay Per Click Search Engines (CPC/PPC) page that lists some similar long-standing resources.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:18 PM | Permalink

January 28, 2005

Local Online Ad Spend to Rise 46 Percent in '05 from ClickZ summarizes a Borrell Associates report on 210 US media markets predicting that online ad spend will rise from $2.7 billion last year to $3.9 billion in 2005, a 46 percent increase.

Daily newspapers grew the most last year, with online yellow pages spending slower. Why? Money may be going to the major search engines like Google and Overture that offer local ad targeting, rather than online yellow pages. Quoting out of the report, which you can request here:

Some of the pure-play companies offering targeted local advertising also picked up share. But Internet Yellow Pages appeared to have slipped, perhaps seeing their results cannibalized by Paid Search. More analysis will be offered in early March when we complete our annual survey of local Internet media.

And the report also has this on paid search:

Paid Search averages 8.4% of all locally spent online advertising. This is the first year we are tracking Paid Search spending by local advertisers. Our projection for 2005 is $329.5 million. Without Paid Search, local markets would see a 33.8% increase this year.

What will drive growth this year? More people being online; proof from previous spending that local ads online work and all the online local media companies deluging local merchants with information about their opportunities and programs.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:05 AM | Permalink

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Confidential Leading Publisher New York, United States

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Account ManagerVarick Media Management New York, United States

Reporting and Data AnalystVarick Media Management New York, United States

PublisherConfidential Leading Publisher New York, United States

Director, Online Acquisition Marketing - Consumer (eCommerce, SEM/SEO)Barnes & Noble.com New York, United States

Account Manager
Varick Media Management New York, United States

Reporting and Data Analyst
Varick Media Management New York, United States

Publisher
Confidential Leading Publisher New York, United States

Director, Online Acquisition Marketing - Consumer (eCommerce, SEM/SEO)
Barnes & Noble.com New York, United States