• by June 7, 2007

Yahoo fared well in DoubleClick Performics' Search Trends Report for the first quarter, with the research finding sharp decreases in Yahoo search costs due to the new Panama platform.

Although Yahoo transactions and sales were down in the quarter, with advertisers purchasing fewer clicks and spending less overall to acquire them, DoubleClick said Yahoo's overall rank improved because Panama is doing a better job of showing more appropriate search results to the right audiences.

Overall, the report found significant increase in the prevalence of expensive keywords, with six times as many keywords with a cost-per-click (CPC) of $1 or more than in the same quarter a year earlier. This resulted in increases both in average CPC and average cost per keyword (CPK).

Advertisers, on average, increased the number of active keywords by 54% over a year earlier. But average CPC grew more than average CPK, since the additional higher-CPC keywords received more viewer clicks than less-expensive keywords.

The report also said that increased advertising investment in branding campaigns rather than direct response helped drive continued search growth, even as it led to a drop in ROI of 43%. Those advertisers who did rely on direct revenue based campaigns saw transactions rise 38% and sales 28%.

The DoubleClick Performics Search Trend Report, conducted quarterly for the past two years, measured 50 actual paid search campaigns managed by the division's SEM experts during the quarter. DoubleClick Performics said it is currently managing about 280 campaigns in total.