• eMarketer.com, Thursday, December 8, 2005 12 PM

Marketers who advertise on TV know all about costs for 30-second spots, and print advertisers assiduously study rate cars and CPMs. But how about CPKs? That acronym stands for "cost-per-keyword," and it's becoming a new buzzword for marketers who advertise online. Search engine marketing has skyrocketed and it has advertisers everywhere asking how much they should pay for a keyword. DoubleClick's "Search Trend Report: Q3 2005" found that the average CPK as well as the average CPC (cost per click) showed steady increases throughout the third quarter, with the CPK rising from $20 to $26. The SEMphonic Keyword Pricing Index (SKPI), an index of cost-per-click and bids on selected industry-specific keywords, also showed a slow but steady rise across all industries in the first half of November.

Read the whole story at eMarketer.com »