Toyota's new oddball Matrix campaign is not a dedicated search initiative--in fact, it's a display-based campaign. But as Jonathan Mendez points out, its still a great lesson on why an ad's landing page needs to jive with the ad copy--no matter whether it's text or image-based. The Matrix ads are appearing on a number of tech-oriented blogs and sites, and they feature fake products like animal lingerie, ham radios and pub fighting lessons. The problem is that the joke doesn't continue once viewers actually click on the banner. Users are taken to a landing page that is …

Microsoft has drawn a line in the sand with Yahoo regarding its acquisition offer--the price isn't going past $31 per share, and Yahoo has three weeks to make a decision. So the deal is still on--and as Andrew Goodman notes, the buy is as much about search as it is display or content. "Yahoo is #2 in search. Microsoft is no longer a close third place in most markets. They're a distant, unimpressive third," Goodman says. Despite the millions of hours of man-power and billions(?) of dollars the software giant has invested, it can't seem to catch up …

Starting May 6, AdWords advertisers in the U.K. and Ireland will be able to bid on their competitor's branded keywords, as Google is set to expand its formerly U.S.-only trademark bidding policy. While European search firms that manage international client's accounts may be used to participatie in branded term turf wars, other firms and advertisers may be in for a drastic change to their bid prices and brand management strategies. According to the Netimperative team, the new policy is "tipped to send prices skyrocketing, and could leave the search giant open to legal challenges from the major U.K. …

A paid search campaign is only as good as the actionable metrics it can provide--and Olivier Silvestre, director of optimization consulting at Omniture's Visual Sciences, discusses the three areas that marketers should focus on for optimal campaign metrics. For landing pages, Silvestre says it's about the "single access visit" ratio, or the percentage of visitors that land on the page and then leave the site without browsing any other pages. "If the ad copy is relevant to what a company offers, and the landing page is consistent with the ad copy message, then the SAV should stay low, …

Starbucks recently launched the MyStarbucksIdea feedback board/online community for caffeine junkies, but Debra Mastaler notes that the coffee giant has thus far failed to promote the property offline. And that's a link-building no-no. "It's smart to advertise to your demographic offline because people assign credibility to what they read and transfer that trust to an online brand when they see it," Mastaler says. "And we know trust helps to build links." Mastaler acknowledges that her local Starbucks may have been an anomaly (she inquired about the MyStarbucksIdea site and the baristas had no clue), but even …

It may seem like an odd question, but as Titus Hoskins says, there's a difference between the general monetization of a Web site and a highly targeted monetization of a site's traffic. You can choose to slap a tag from platforms like AdSense, Azoogle (now Epic Advertising) or Chitika on your page and let it be, or you can get more involved and monetize every page view or landing page visit via affiliate and lead generation products like ClickBank or Commission Junction. "On any given site I may use Google Adsense for general traffic, affiliate products …

"Advertisers on Google's Content Network have been clamoring for more control over what sites their ads appear on," says Tad Miller. And while it has seemingly taken a while to get the point, Miller touches on the multiple options for site exclusion and segmentation that AdSense now offers. AdSense users can now keep their ads from running on parked domains and error pages, as well as segment (or exclude) the traffic they get from forums, image and video-sharing sites, and even social networks. And the exclusions don't stop there, as companies can choose to exclude pages …