KEYSTONE, COLO.--Prices for premium search terms will probably rise steeply in the next few years, according to Chris Sherman, executive editor of SearchEngineWatch.com. Sherman, the keynote speaker on the first day of MediaPost's Search Insider Summit, predicted that this inflation will be caused by the entry of more major brands into search marketing. "I think we're going to see explosive keyword inflation in the next couple years," Sherman said. "I think the missing piece is that big brands have barely started to play." Sherman noted that a recent study pegged search advertising at about $5.75 billion, but worldwide ad budgets are currently around $500 billion. "What happens if the big brands decide to move just 10 percent of that half trillion dollars into search marketing?" Sherman asked. He added that most large marketers that turn to search will likely pour money into brand-oriented keywords--without regard for performance metrics like click-through and conversion rates. "A lot of these brands aren't going to care about the things we do--they're not going to care about conversions and click-throughs. They'll just want to block their competitors and get their brand out there," he predicted. But even if premium search terms become more expensive, marketers can still achieve their goals by strategically bidding on less popular terms, Sherman said. "Start aggressively bidding on the 'search tail'--there are literally millions of those terms, and I think they're going to become far more effective. They won't give you the frequency, but in the end it's magnitude of results that matters. If you get the magnitude, you'll get the huge payoff." Sherman also advised marketers to devote more resources to making sure their sites were optimized for organic search results, saying that many U.S. consumers report that they distrust paid search advertising. Click here to view photos and listen to panel discussions from the Search Insider Summit.
KEYSTONE, COLO.--Senior executives from Yahoo and Google said Thursday that the search industry hasn't shared enough information with search marketers and their agencies. "One area we're focused on is data. We haven't done the best job of letting you get access to that data," said Ron Belanger, senior director of channel strategy and development for Yahoo, at MediaPost's Search Insider Summit in Keystone, Colo. Another Yahoo executive, Ben Wright, a director of channel strategy and development, seconded Belanger. "Part of what we need to do on the provider side to help our clients is bring research and marketing data over and above the traditional metrics that search has been held to--that's the way to get big brands. We need to do a better job of informing you guys what's going on so you can start planning earlier on in the budget cycle." Karen Crow, director of sales and operations for Google, identified similar goals for that company: "A main theme for the future is going to be transparency, control and flexibility. There's been a constant movement towards showing advertisers where their ads have shown up. We're also trying to give them more control as to where the ads go, so it's not just a little 'black box.'" Executives also discussed the complicated, still largely unknown relationship between search behavior and purchases at brick-and-mortar stores. "Online behavior is driving offline purchases, and offline behavior is driving online purchases," said Google's Crow. She added that some new services, like "click-to-call," can help bridge the gap between online shopping and traditional purchases. On the agency side, Matthew Greitzer, director of search marketing for Avenue A/Razorfish, agreed that more research is required to understand the interplay between online search and offline purchases: "Integrated data and integrated analysis is where it really gets interesting. A lot of interactive agencies are well-positioned to understand data integration from an online perspective--but that really only looks at that one channel. You have to look at search and how it interacts with your other channels--how it interacts with direct mail, for example--beyond just online direct response." Aimee Reker, senior vice president and global director of search for McCann Worldgroup, provided perhaps the most sweeping view of the situation, describing structural developments that confirm agencies' need for more data: "[The growth of search] reminds me a lot of the late '90s, when we first thought about integrating online media into the media planning mix. It has moved the agency relationship deeper into strategic planning and business development." As a result, she said, "the tools we use for planning have totally changed. We need to use our measurement tools to identify current consumer behaviors and opportunities, and then get a clean meaning from that information, and get this data to our clients." Reker said this doesn't necessarily mean "inundating them with pages and pages of keyword performance data." Instead, she called for using analysis to formulate "contingency plans, to make sure they know that if we're not where we want to be next week, this is what we're going to do." Click here to view photos and listen to panel discussions from the Search Insider Summit.
KEYSTONE, COLO.--Executives from the leading search engines took very different stances on the best way to approach local search during the first day of MediaPost's Search Insider Summit in Keystone, Colorado--with Google, MSN, and Ask.com saying they will keep local search separate from their "core" search functions, but Yahoo planning on folding them together. One thing they did agree on: local search marketing's potential hasn't really been exploited yet. Karen Crow, director of sales and operations for Google, summarized the general feeling: "Local is huge, but it hasn't really been tapped into." Ron Belanger, senior director of channel strategy and development for Yahoo search marketing, agreed: "Local has been somewhat slow to move, no question." But that's where they parted ways. The executives from Google, MSN, and Ask.com all appeared to believe that integrating local search functions into their "core" search would likely hurt smaller local advertisers, who would get lost in an ocean of similar search results. Instead, they said, their companies are focusing on improving features that are targeted toward local search marketers. Microsoft's Doug Stotland, group marketing manager at MSN Search adCenter, said the company believes it can clear a major local hurdle--the ambivalent attitude of small businesses toward the Web--by making it easier for them to create and manage Web sites with Windows Live. He added that Windows Live Local recently added a mapping function that provides a bird's eye view of the local area. Meanwhile, Google is focusing on ironing out some of the kinks that might make local search more useful, Crow said--for example, the actual inventories of local businesses: "We've been doing a lot of linking with advertisers' back end to find out, for example, what specific products their local store has, and which of those products are in stock. We're trying to figure out how to work with local advertisers to link inventory so people can know that yes, that particular SKU is in stock." Yahoo is taking a very different tack, Belanger said, getting rid of the local search category entirely and integrating local search with its core functions. "Karen [Crow] and the others will try to outdo each other in software and programming, but we're folding local advertisers with the rest of our search." Above all, Yahoo believes that users find multiple entrances for search counterintuitive and inconvenient, Belanger said--which may explain the low activity rates on specialized local search portals. To tackle the data problems inherent in listings of local businesses described here, "Yahoo is making big bets on the power of social aggregation," Belanger went on, pointing to sites like del.icio.us and Flickr. According to Belanger, the same type of social functionality can be used to effectively sort and organize information about local businesses. Yet another approach was offered by Marc Barach, chief marketing officer for Ingenio, who described that company's "click-to-call" approach to local business listings. The integration of telephone contact has the advantage of ease of use for users who may be less Web-savvy, or who value the personal element of local business transactions. Click here to view photos and listen to panel discussions from the Search Insider Summit.
Signaling its intention to ramp up online marketing efforts, Dunkin' Brands, Inc. said Thursday that it is seeking a single agency for all of the company's digital marketing initiatives across its three brands, Dunkin' Donuts, Baskin Robbins, and Togo's. Previously, Dunkin' Brands' three divisions worked with an assortment of different shops for digital marketing efforts, said Lois Kelly of Foghound Corporation, which is consulting on the search. Dunkin' Brands is looking for a shop with experience in handling large retail brands that can develop a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, Kelly said. "Digital marketing is becoming a more and more important part of the marketing mix, and [Dunkin' Brands] wants to work with a leading firm," Kelly said. She added that Dunkin' Brands is seeking one agency to handle strategy, creative work, and also back-end operations--including e-commerce engines, analytics, and databases. The agency search is another sign that Dunkin' Brands, acquired in April by a consortium of three private equity firms, is looking to raise its profile through marketing. One month after the change in ownership, the company embarked on a widescale TV ad campaign, which was handled by Hill Holliday in Boston, Dunkin' Brands' agency of record for traditional marketing. All of the digital shops that have worked with Dunkin' Brands were invited to participate in the search process, Kelly said. The company intends to whittle down the candidates by the beginning of August, and to select an agency by October.
Search giant Google Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $721 million, or $2.49 per share excluding stock-based compensation--well above the $2.22 per share that analysts had predicted, and 110 percent higher than the same period last year. The company's revenue totaled $2.46 billion--up 77 percent from the same period last year--with revenue from Google's own sites, which are largely monetized by AdWords sponsored links, accounting for 58 percent of the total. During a call with press and analysts, Google brass touted the new products released in this quarter, especially its new electronic payment system, Google Checkout. "We were very happy to introduce Google Checkout. We've spent a lot of time thinking about how we can help users shop more quickly online, and how we can help our advertisers get more sales," Google co-founder Sergey Brin said. "We have already received very positive feedback from users, and we are seeing very good adoption rates," he said, citing Buy.com, BlueFly, Starbucks, and BackCountry.com. Google co-founder Larry Page also said that Google's click-to-play video ads on the AdSense network drew high-value brand advertisers. "Many large and small advertisers are already taking advantage of click-to-play video ads, while other companies like GM and Honda are running their TV ads on the Google network to extend their reach," he said. Industry analyst Greg Sterling contrasted Google's overall positive report with that of Yahoo, which two days earlier said it was going to delay an upgrade to its search engine marketing offering. "Google's growth has been much more accelerated than Yahoo," Sterling said. "It reflects two things--Google's continued dominance in paid search, and their greater ability to drive more revenue per search."
AOL has started offering closed captions on select CNN news footage across its entire network, marking the first major effort of a large Internet service provider to offer closed captioning for live-action video. Besides helping to make the Web more accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing, the captioning represents a potential benefit to members of AOL's wider audience when trying to access streaming video in public places. "This is the first consistent programming that is being offered with captions over the Web, said Jennifer Sagalyn, director of strategic partnerships at WGBH's Media Access Group, a pioneer in media accessibility and a partner in the AOL initiative. She said that beyond mandated captioning on government Webcasts, video with closed captioning on the Web remains scarce. WGBH's Media Access Group is also working with Yahoo on making the Web portal more accessible, but that the company's efforts on captioning are still more in the discussion phase. AOL first introduced captioning on a limited basis three years ago on the "Princess Natasha" cartoon series, on its KOL service for kids. It also offered captions for CNN news updates that were limited to the text of an anchor's script. Now, CNN videos will be captioned manually, as on TV, to ensure that all of the audio including unscripted material and sounds will be accessible. "We believe it's essential to work through a lot of the technical hurdles that prevent widespread adoption of closed captioning on the Web," said Tom Wlodkowski, director of accessibility for AOL. One of the key challenges of captioning video online is the Internet's demand for continually updated and new material. Wlodkowski said that captioned CNN video may be delayed by as much as 30 minutes after non-captioned material is available on AOL. To activate the captions, users click on a "CC" button that appears on the AOL Media Player beneath the video window. The minimum requirements for watching close-captioned videos are Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating system, Windows Media Player 7.1 or higher and Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher. While captioned videos are now limited to CNN headlines and news stories, AOL plans to add captioning for other content--likely starting with entertainment programming--in the coming months. While AOL's work in closed captioning has been praised by leaders in the deaf community, the company believes it will attract an even wider audience among its users. Wlodkowski imagines Web captioning becoming useful more generally in noisy public places or at work, much as TV captioning is now prevalent in bars, restaurants, and gyms. "So we envision that there are certainly residual benefits to the general audience," he said.