Advertisers spent $183 million for the top 1,000 apparel paid-search keywords in the first quarter of this year, according to a report from AdGooroo. More than half were devoted to desktop text ads; 33% or $61 million to desktop product listing ads (PLAs); 10% or 9 million to mobile product listing ads; and 6% or $11 million to mobile text ads. The higher spend doesn't necessarily mean better results.

Following Kantar Media's first ever estimates for paid search -- and some pretty healthy ones at that -- SMD asked Chief Research Officer Jon Swallen to drill down and explain exactly what the medium's 7% growth during the first quarter means, amid a media marketplace that is languishing overall. Among other things, Swallen points out that some of the comparisons are a function of the data that Kantar has access to, but at least for now, we know that the desktop search marketplace is still relatively healthy and vibrant. One would imagine that mobile paid search is even more so, …

Top Fourth of July recipes, summer salads, and thirst-quenching drinks are some of the top searches on mobile devices these days. Some 39% of consumers report having made a purchase of some kind from their kitchen on a mobile device, and 75% of the growth in viewership of food channels on YouTube is coming from mobile devices. How-to content related to food on YouTube had 419 million views last year, and "how to cook that" is one of the top "how-to" searches on YouTube

Google+'s influence on search engine optimization across its engine and network of sites and partners will continue to impact content rankings. A content discovery engine Thursday will announce an application program interface integration with the social platform, making it one of a select number to support Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Demonstrating the power of images in creative storytelling, news from Cannes suggests that WPP, Daily Mail and Snapchat have jointly launched a joint content marketing venture called Truffle Pig that combines a global agency and newsroom with social media talent. It's a shift that will influence search marketing.

Traditional search algorithms are based on queries that pull information from across the Web, but what if we were to redefine the concept and consider not only search query keywords, and "Likes" and "Hides" taps, but characteristics of people in photographs, colors and background images.

Storytellers are familiar with making stories for the big screen and on television, but what happens when the screen shrinks to a size that fits in the palm of a hand? What happens when it becomes a line of text or image? The advertisement doesn't always need to look like an ad for people to remember the brand. It might just look like funny, unexpected content.

Search and recommendations -- Netflix offers both. So when Netflix's media relations contacted me with Father's Day statistics from a study they released this week, I couldn't help but take the concept one step further and use the data to build a search and recommendations feature. It reinforces data from Millward Brown suggesting marketers now have the data, but don't know what to do with it.

Google's quest to quench a thirst for in-the-moment data led the company to redesign a version of Google Trends that makes the information from the site more real-time. It gives data users up-to-the-moment trending information on current happenings such as presidential candidate speeches, sporting events or significant moves in the ad tech space like Nokia Stephen Elop leaving Microsoft. It also forecasts trends based on historic data.

The ad placement on a Web site page can become pretty annoying. Optimizing the ad placement based on a specific question and message can turn a negative experience into a positive, but it's about improving return on investments.