An upgrade at Yahoo! Search Marketing this weekend has created technical problems that left some advertisers and search marketing firms unable to manage their sponsored search campaigns. "Yahoo! Search Marketing initiated a systems upgrade this past weekend to lay the groundwork for performance and availability improvements that our advertisers will see over the coming months," said a Yahoo! spokeswoman in an e-mail. "During this process, we encountered some unexpected issues that affected advertisers' ability to access their accounts." Not all search marketers appear to have been affected to the same extent by the problem; one large search marketing firm told OnlineMediaDaily it hadn't noticed any difficulties with Yahoo!'s service this week. At another search engine marketing firm, Enquiro, the problem only became apparent on Wednesday, said Cherise Slater, sponsored search strategist at the company. She said that as of 7 a.m. Wednesday, it was impossible to log in to manage campaigns. By early evening, Enquiro staff was able to get on the site, but was experiencing significant delays--in some cases, significant enough that users weren't able to make changes before being "timed out" of the page. But, she said, clients' ads were appearing as sponsored listings on search results pages. "Ads are still running, but advertisers are unable to make changes to campaigns easily," she said. She added that the day's difficulties weren't likely to have a long-term impact on campaigns. "Having it down for just one day probably isn't going to affect the larger scheme of things," she said.
The new instant messaging program released by Google Wednesday isn't yet ad-supported. But if and when Google is ready to monetize it with ads, it doesn't look like there will be any shortage of marketers. Carat Interactive media buyer Sarah Fay said her agency has placed ads on all the major IM networks. "We're big fans of it, and we're using all of the IM products of the other providers of that platform," she said. Fay added that her agency would have no hesitation to advertise on Google as well, assuming the company's messaging service proved as popular as the other major instant messengers. "We would be just as likely to use Google as another IM property--if they get themselves to the same level of usage as the others," she said. Other instant messaging services have a multitude of ads. America Online's AIM, for instance, displays banner ads above users' contact lists. At MSN, users can download "skins," which will brand their contact list and message windows. The first major advertiser to employ MSN's branded messenger windows was Coca-Cola North America. In March, Coca-Cola incorporated Sprite's action-figure pitchman, Miles Thirst, in the messenger by creating a branded Web site, skin, and sound files that could be played to contacts during IM conversations. MSN Messenger also monetized video chat by adding seven-second pre-mercials while the users' computers buffer the video connection. Companies advertising with AOL's instant messenger include Classmates.com and Fox. Yahoo! uses the messaging tool to drive users to their already monetized properties. Fay added that one of the big draws of IM advertising is that on some services, users can choose to display skins to their contacts, effectively giving the ads a viral nature. "As an ad vehicle, I'm a big fan of instant messenger," she said. "The proposition is, because it's viral, and it's chosen by the person who displays it on the IM screen, you gain an instant credibility." Still, it's not clear that Google will allow display advertising on the product. Google Director of Product Management Georges Harik told OnlineMediaDaily that Google developers were not convinced that advertisements are the appropriate way to monetize an instant messaging service, and that the company is looking into ways to profit from the service "in a way that's consistent with the user experience."
Industry watchers expected that search growth would moderate in the summer, on the theory that consumers spend less time at their computers during the warm weather. But new figures from Nielsen//NetRatings show that U.S. Internet users actually performed more searches last month than in June. The total number of Web searches in the United States rose last month to 4.454 billion--up nearly 3 percent from 4.327 billion in June, according to data from Nielsen//NetRatings. The data also revealed that individual searchers conducted an average of 37.6 searches last month, up 3.7 percent from 36.2 searches in June. Still, the growth rate was less impressive than earlier in the year; in the second quarter, users conducted 12.8 billion searches--5 percent more than in the first quarter. Google once again captured the largest proportion of searches, accounting for 46.2 percent last month--down slightly from 47 percent in June. Yahoo! Search was responsible for 22.5 percent of July searches--up slightly from 22.3 percent in June--while MSN Search accounted for 12.6 percent of searches last month, up marginally from 12.5 percent in June. Figures released last week by research company Hitwise vary slightly from those of Nielsen//NetRatings, but both research companies show Google leading the market, followed by Yahoo!, with MSN coming in third. Hitwise had reported that Google and Google Image Search were responsible for 43.29 percent of searches for the four weeks ending July 23, while Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Image Search accounted for 19.68 percent of searches for the same time period. MSN Search accounted for 15.32 percent of searches for the four weeks ending July 23, according to Hitwise.
Yahoo! could gain between 800,000 and 2 million new relationships with paying consumers as a result of its deal to offer broadband service for $14.95 a month with Verizon, according to Piper Jaffray Senior Research Analyst Safa Rashtchy. Rashtchy, in a research note issued Wednesday, added that attaching Yahoo!'s name and services to broadband connections might make phone companies more competitive with cable providers. "Yahoo! as the partner of choice is becoming a strategic asset for Yahoo!, as companies like Verizon and SBC use Yahoo!'s brand and content to fend off competition from cable operators," he wrote. Separately, another report issued yesterday--Pike & Fischer's "Competitive Analysis of DSL and Cable-Modem Markets"--also found that phone companies were becoming more competitive with cable for broadband services, even though cable modems still account for the majority of high-speed connections--21.8 million, compared to DSL's 14.7 million. "DSL is proving to be a consistently viable challenger to cable in the high-speed Internet market," stated the report, which noted that this year, the cable industry's share of the broadband market dipped below 60 percent for the first time.
Like it or not, if the growing controversy surrounding the misuse of cookies by our industry and their deletion by consumers is to be solved, it will be up to the publishers to do it. I had the great fortune to spend Monday in Toronto at the AdMonsters conference debating the issue on a panel with Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, Esther Dyson of Release 1.0, Kiumarse Zamanian of Yahoo!, and Bowen Dwelle of AdMonsters. In attendance, and very much part of the debate, were the heads of ad operations from almost all of the 50 largest ad-supported sites on the Web. It was quite a session. In spite of the fact that each of us has historically taken positions quite opposite from the others, everyone largely agreed almost immediately on a couple of key points. (Disclaimer: I can't speak for the panel and the audience, so this is my version of the discussion.) The online ad industry is facing a large and growing problem with consumers not understanding or trusting cookies that are placed on their browsers, equating them with spyware. This problem is not going away. It is only going to get worse. It doesn't matter if cookies are not executable software like spyware; consumers don't understand the differences and don't care. They are now in charge. As long as they continue to perceive that a problem exists, they will continue to use software tools and other means to delete cookies and anything else that identifies and tracks them without their consent. Consumers will only be happy and well served if every company that tracks and uses consumer information is fully transparent about what data is being tracked, how it is being used, and if consumers are given the opportunity to consent to participate in the process. Publishers are the ones that will have to lead the effort for transparency and consent, as well as police the process, since they are the ones with regular, recurring, and direct relationships with consumers and are the "gatekeepers" that advertisers and their agencies pay to contact and engage those consumers. Trackable consumer data is becoming a very powerful driver in the digital marketing arena. If publishers do a good job of getting consent and providing value to consumers in exchange for data, they can probably build very large and profitable businesses doing it. Thus, it may not only be good public policy, it is probably good business. All of these points are certainly still subject to debate by many, but for publishers, the debate must end now. It is easy to look at all of the logistical challenges of providing consumers with notice and an opportunity to consent when cookies are used -- I outlined many of them in my last column -- however, we can't forget that it is the publisher that provides the consumer access for advertisers and their service companies. If publishers don't take the lead, if publishers don't police the use of cookies that capture and exploit consumer data, who will? How should publishers start? Here are my thoughts. Notice and consent. Publishers must develop a policy to provide clear and transparent information about how they use cookies or similar technologies. Putting this information in their privacy policies is only the first step, not the last. Basically, publishers should establish themselves as the consumers' trusted partner for data-targeted advertising. Information and control. Publishers must begin to understand and control how their sites are being used by others to cookie their consumers. They must recognize that their media has and continues to be the channel of choice for spyware companies and brokering companies that place cookies as part of campaigns to "harvest" those cookies. At the least, publishers should institute a policy that requires all advertisers and agencies to disclose to them: 1) a list of all cookies that will be placed on consumers' browsers as part of a campaign, together with the domains within which they will be set; 2) a description of what data will be captured and appended to cookies or a related database; and a description of what the captured data will be used for and for how long it will be kept. Will there be challenges? Yes. Will ad buyers and service companies push back? Of course they will. Most ad agencies and advertisers don't even know all of cookies they and their service providers set. The cookies that agencies and their service providers set can change frequently between campaigns and during campaigns, so keeping track of all of these will be challenging, for sure. Collecting and monitoring cookie deliveries will make publishers' lawyers worry that they are taking on new liabilities, and may counsel against this. And, it could impact revenue. Since there are a number of large online advertisers that buy media for the primary purpose of capturing consumer data for reuse, it is likely that some of them will balk at disclosure, or refuse to advertise if disclosure is required. What's the answer? Do it together. If publishers work together on this, they will have enough clout to get it done. Be loud. Be persistent. If you do it right, consumers and their advocates like Walt Mossberg, will be on your side. They will support you; they will reward you with their loyalty.