Internet Marketing Weblog
Julian Sharpe | 4:56 pm | November 10, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, Events, Google, Jobs, MIVA, MSN, Mobile, News, Online Media Planning (OMP), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media, Tracking, Viral, aol, yahoo
With the Credit crunch still biting it is predicted that Christmas shoppers will turn to the Internet pushing sales up by 15 per cent from last year. Online sales for the final 3 months of this year are forecasted to be around 13.16 billion.
December the 8th has be ear marked as the biggest online shopping day, so let’s see if the statistics agree on the 9th.
Julian Sharpe | 9:32 am | October 22, 2008 | Google, MSN, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), yahoo
Search spend on Yahoo and Microsoft has already started to drop it is reported as advertisers move they budgets across to Google following its decision to allow gambling advertising in the UK.
Many of the top brands including Ladbrokes and Bet365 have re-organised budgets to launch large search strategies on Google although there are still possible issues with a saturation of the market happening making for heavily inflated CPC.
Initial spend levels have been in excess of 300 million a lot higher than the initial report of 100 million.
A quote from Rob Allan, Ladbrokes online marketing manager, said.
“We’re increasing spend but also looking at where that money would be best spent,” he said. “Google has significant market share and is where many people go to first online, so Yahoo and Microsoft are not as good from that perspective.
“I can guarantee that over the next month or so money will come out of Yahoo and MSN,” he added the question now is, given Google has 80% market share, do we place the same share of our spend on it.
With Yahoo and MSN both suffering losses last quarter it will be very interesting to see the impact for the next 2 as Google move forward into Gambling area.
Garret Cunningham | 11:26 am | October 16, 2008 | Google, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Bet you didn’t expect to hear this (excuse the pun) Google are about to announce they will begin considering gambling websites setting up campaigns on Adwords.
To be announced later today, but following a conversation we just had with Google, if your running a gambling site, you will be able to bid on the keywords you’ve been desperately trying to optimise for!
Google are expecting to be extremely busy with the setups so are warning they won’t be offering any help on pitches and proposals for clients, so if you want to get setup, do it quick!
Although accounts will take longer to get setup, and will require completion of a few legal declarations, it looks like its going to be free for all by the end of today!
I’m sure we will have some more specific information later today when things became official, but until then, get on to your agencies or account managers at Google!
Good luck Yahoo! and MSN…
Additional Points: We will update as we get more information but some additional information includes:
- Accounts will take longer to setup
- Applies only to the UK, but excludes Northern Ireland, so only applies to England, Scotland and Wales
Julian Sharpe | 11:55 am | October 7, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, Google, MSN, News, Online Media Planning (OMP), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media, yahoo
Even with the current Credit Crunch issues sweeping the nation Internet advertising spend seems to still enjoying a level of growth with overall spend reaching 1.68bn in the first half of this year, which is a 21% like-for-like increase based on last year (Source: IAB).
The highlights of the latest survey is a 28% year-on-year growth for paid search, which now accounts for 58.3% of total online spend and almost breaking the 1bn barrier (981m) for the first time in a six-month period.
Other areas saw Display advertising rise 16.3% year-on-year to 333.8m, this was helped by a 36.6% increase in investment on embedded formats such as banners, rich media and video via social media networks.
Report shows that the majority of online display ad spend is still being achieved via the major portals and online publishers, but sales networks representing thousands of smaller sites have increased their volumes and accounted for 41% of all display expenditure.
Classifieds advertisements grew by 30.2% year-on-year to 361.6m as recruitment, property, automotive and small ads continued their migration to the internet from print classifieds, which declined 10% year-on-year.
Technology leads the market sector advertising spend table with a 17.3% market share, followed by finance at 11.9%, entertainment & media at 10.7% and recruitment at 9.9%.
Overall online increased its market share by four points to 18.7% of the total UK ad market, only 0.6% behind total press display (19.3%) and 3% behind TV (21.7%). The total advertising market was £8.98bn, down 0.7% year-on-year, during the period January to June 2008. The advertising market would have experienced a 4.6% decline without internet advertising growth.
Julian Sharpe | 9:54 am | September 3, 2008 | Google, MSN, Mobile, News, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Google has now moved into the browser market taking on Microsoft only area of true dominance with the launch of Google Chrome, an open-source web browser.
The new browser is released in beta initially and claims among other features to offer the following browser improvements.>
Improved protection from rogue sites>
Improved speed and responsiveness>
More powerful JavaScript engine to power web applications not possible in existing browsers.
Google Chrome has been created using components from both Apple’s Web Kit and Mozilla’s Firefox and the code has been made open to all to harness the power of the development community a kind of Kit car browser is you like. It will initially launch for Windows, with Mac and Linux versions to follow.
The launch of the browser follows on from Google’s previous moves into the operating system market in mobile with Google Android and the document processing market Google Docs, which as expected is challenging Microsoft’s Windows for Mobile and Microsoft Office core products.
First impressions do show a much quicker browser although some comments have been made in regards to imagery issues, but here at Lakestarmedia we will test away and let you know our thoughts on the Chrome browser.
Julian Sharpe | 11:08 am | August 20, 2008 | Google, MSN, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), yahoo
On August 15th it marked the second anniversary of Microsoft ad Center’s after its groundbreaking UK launch and associated claims to compete with Google Ad words. But has it, not even close the system maybe 2 years old but its still 3 years behind Google from its unfriendly user interface to lack of flexibility that ad words offers not only via the main interface but with ad words editor.
The keyword tools although due for an update offer a list of 5 at time, and although it may seem unfair to always compare to Google, they have stuck to basics and used feedback very effectively.
But MSN are not the only ones lagging behind in the paid search market, Yahoo and its now infamous Panama platform have also failed to provide a more superior product however overall it does beat MSN but the promise over a year ago of a editor type tool has yet to appear but the editorial issues seem to moving forward with a more relaxed and realistic system.
So the next 2 years…… Yahoo and MSN both need to pull they socks up in the technology and user side of the paid search systems, however they are still very viable media options and we have always found them to convert well so get back to basic’s and we will all be a lot happier.
Julian Sharpe | 9:43 am | August 15, 2008 | Google, Mobile, News
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has predicted that he sees the future profit zone for the search giant will come from mobile advertising more than internet advertising in the future.
The Google CEO believes the personalisation of mobile advertising will ultimately drive Google’s mobile revenue to naturally overtake its online ad business.
Speaking on US TV, Schmidt said, “We can make more money in mobile than desktop eventually because the mobile computer is more targeted. You carry your phone everywhere, it knows all about you, it knows what you’re up to. We can do a very, very targeted ad. Over time, we’ll make more money from mobile advertising.”
He also countered rumours of delays in the Android software platform, which he claims will be distributed in phones before the end of the year.
Google has one fo the strongest ranges of products available on mobile including a search service and Google Mobile Maps mapping application.
Julian Sharpe | 12:43 pm | August 7, 2008 | Google, News
Google has finally been able to relieve itself of the search engine marketing company Performics with a sale to agency Publicis Groupe for an undisclosed sum.
Google has been trying to remove Performics from its portfolio, a company which they inherited through its purchase of parent company Double Click.
Performics advises its client base how to run effective search campaigns and current has over 130 search engine marketing clients. Publicis plans to integrate the 200-strong company with its digital unit VivaKi Nerve Centre, which combines the services of agencies including Digitas, Starcom-Mediavest, Zenith Optimedia and Denuo.
Quote:
Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis Groupe, said the acquisition would bring in a raft of new clients. “Not only will this acquisition bring critical mass to Publicis Groupe’s formidable search capabilities, but it will also enhance our affiliate marketing and overall performance marketing offering,” he said
Julian Sharpe | 11:50 am | July 30, 2008 | Google, News, yahoo
A new report released states that Yahoos share of UK search spend has dropped again in the second quarter, by a further 1.3% to just 10.6% of the market. Yahoo had already suffered a share drop 0.5% in Q1. Meanwhile Googles share of the search spend has increased by 0.6% to 85.4% in Q2 showing its dominance of the market remains.
Brands have stated that Yahoo which has been stuck in search-focused takeover battles with both Microsoft and Google this year isn’t a focal point for their search campaigns, with main budget focus being on Google.
Quotes
David Lengen, head of e-business at Egg parent company Citibank, told NMA, “All of our search budget is geared towards Google. We rarely optimise for Yahoo! and don’t manage the Yahoo! search account like we manage Google. If we want volume, we have to be on Google.”
Likewise, Tom Bennett, marketing director at Confused.com, said, “These numbers don’t surprise me. We don’t have a fixed search budget, so what we look at is purely where we get the best ROI, and that’s on Google basically.”
Andrew Girdwood, head of search at Big Mouth Media, said Yahoo!’s position was weak. “When you look at how long it takes to optimise Yahoo! then report on the success, in many cases its wasting clients’ money. That’s obviously a big problem for Yahoo! to overcome.”
What do we think?
At Lakestarmedia we have a similar attitude like that of Alan Harding, Head of search at Moneysupermarket, and we agreed that value can still be achieved from well-run Yahoo! and Microsoft campaigns.
Although the volume of overall traffic is not as high as Google for obvious reasons the conversions and the resulting ROI is normally above or comparable with Google and the point of online marketing is achieving a positive ROI for your clients. By using a positive media mix you can achieve this, just because it takes longer to optimise for Yahoo does not mean it should be simply dismissed.
Julian Sharpe | 12:56 pm | July 18, 2008 | Google, News
Google share prices have dropped after the search king failed to achieve analyst targets for its second quarter results. Googles shares dropped by around 10% last night after the search giant reported a profit increase that fell below market expectations.
Despite posting a net profit increase of 35% to 1.25bn (629m) for the second quarter.
UK revenues were down 1% year-on-year, at 774m (390m), and now representing 14% of Google’s total revenues, with the company attributing the slowdown to seasonality.
However, overall revenues from outside the US were up from 48% to 52% to 2.8bn (1.41bn) year-on-year. Overall gross revenues for Google rose by 39% to 5.37bn (2.7bn).
Quote
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said: “Strong international growth as well as sustained traffic increases on Google’s web properties propelled us to another strong quarter, despite a more challenging economic environment.”
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