Google Party Over For Ad Agencies

Google is set to scrap its subsidy payments for European search advertising agencies.

The program, called Best Practice Funding, which has made subsidies to the tune of US$100M, will wind up at the end of 2008. It is in effect across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The program gives agencies that used Google's search engine to book ad dollars, a percentage of money back based on how much they spent on behalf of clients.

The goal of the program was to drive search advertising across the region by allowing investment in technology, training and research to create better campaigns.

Agencies get from 3% to 8% of their ad spend returned each quarter depending on how much money they place with Google and other qualifying factors.

The program is similar to incentives TV and other media ad channels offer agencies, discounts for buying ad slots and rewarding agencies that do higher volumes with more discounts.

Participating agencies get to train two staff members as Google Advertising Professionals and approximately 2,000 have gone through the process to date.

"Agencies are now at a level where they don't need a subsidy," said Damian Burns, head of agency relations for Google EMEA.

Mr Burns did add that there had been a "mixed" reaction from some agencies at the news.

For those agencies that have based their business model on using subsidy as profit in place of the traditional discount for volume buying, will have to rethink their business model.

Google's rival Yahoo! last year modified its agency discount system for search campaigns to offer a maximum of 10% rebate, down from 15%.

MSN has maintained its discount rate at 10%, according to one media agency source.

Google Analytics Gets New Look

Google announced a redesign of the popular Google Analytics application. The new redesign will make the analysis even more accessible and easy to use while improving the data reporting capabilities of the Web site usage monitoring service.

Products like Google Analytics continue to rise in importance as companies strive to understand how people arrive at their Web sites and what they do once they are there.

Knowing that helps webmasters make their sites more effective tools for displaying online ads, providing sales leads, and generating e-commerce transactions.

According to Brett Crosby, Senior Manager, Google Analytics, "The overall goal of this upgrade is to make the product more intuitive to use and its data clearer and easier to digest so that it can be used effectively to make business decisions."

Brett will be giving an indepth workings of the product at the upcoming Searchnomics Conference as part of his talk on Using Analytics To Improve Your Marketing Efforts.

Sir Martin Says Google Is Frienemy

I was at "The Future of Advertising Conference" at Stanford and Sir Martin Sorrell, Chairman, WPP, the largest advertising holding company shared some interesting stats about the advertising business.

1. WPP has a market share of approximately 25% of the global ad business, annual billings of $60 Billion and yet only $200 M of that is with Google.
2. Google's revenues are approximately $11 Billion and at $200 M, WPP is one of Google's largest customers. So Google's tail is very very long and they are just getting started.
3. He went on to say that Google is a FRIENEMY - Google is your friend in the short term and enemy in the long term. His reasoning was Google wants access to large advertising account, that they do not have relationships with and that is where the friendship begins.
4. There was little mention of Microsoft or Yahoo and it understandable as their respective foot prints in this space is still considered baby steps.

On May 16, 2007, the WebGuild will be having an event of The Future of Online Advertising with all the heavy weights including Google. The panel will share insight into the future of online advertising from several perspectives of paramount importance to web professionals, seos, sems or search engine marketers, web analytics professionals, online merchants, venture capitals, entrepreneurs and anyone that uses a website to acquire customers, service customers or monetize customers. There are still a few spots left. If you miss this then there is always Searchnomics, which delves deep into search advertising and search & marketplaces and must attend for all web professinal.

In Search of Traffic

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article on why website owners need to harness the power of Search Engines and deploy SEM and SEO strategies to find customers.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are often shoppers' first stops when they're looking for a product on the Web and thus it is crucial for websites to show up prominently in search-engine results.

The is the focus of the upcoming Searchnomics 2007 Conference aimed at web and internet marketing professionals. Search has become the enabler for business. It is the most efficient medium connecting business and customers. Searchnomics is where the leaders of the search industry meet to share cutting-edge knowledge, best practices, and trends in:

• Search Engine Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Design and Development
• Branding and Promotion
• Web Analytics
• New Innovations and Opportunites

The article is only available via paid subscription. Here is the link http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117769688676085058.html?mod=wsj_right_click

Keyword Optimization

According to a new study by AOL’s advertising.com on keyword performance for paid campaigns, simple, relatively low-cost techniques related to search keywords, titles and descriptions can dramatically improve search performance for advertisers.

"From managing keyword lists to establishing bidding strategies, search management is notoriously complex for marketing professionals," Lauren Weinberg, Advertising.com's research director. "This study reveals several highly effective yet relatively simple ways to generate more clicks or conversions, enabling marketers to obtain greater ROI from both their search budgets and their management efforts."

The study tested three “creative” optimization techniques, each with a different goal, and found that;

Keyword Insertion - resulted in a 38 percent increase in click-through rates, on average. Keyword insertion refers to the incorporation, into the sponsored link, of the exact keywords that the consumer is searching for.

Keyword Expansion - resulted in a 15 percent in click volume. Keyword expansion refers to the expanding of an existing list of keywords by generating additional terms that contain more specific information; the intent is to increase the overall volume of consumers.

Targeted URLs - resulted in a 36 percent increase in conversions. Targeted URLS is an effort to increase conversion - consumers are directed to a specific, subject-relevant page on a website instead of the homepage or a more general page.