It has been coming for a while now, google are going to begin trialling coast per action advertising across its content network with publishers only receiving revenue when a specified action is completed. This makes the content network more appealing to advertisers and as the article suggests removes the temptation for click fraud. I believe more work is needed in order to make this a reality but as suggested in the article this spells trouble for other ad schemes working on a cost per action basis.

Google Tests Pay-per-Action and In-Text Ads

Google is testing, on a limited basis, a pay-per-action ad form that ties publisher payment to a specific action by those who click the ad, reports ClickZ. Advertisers define the action - an actual sale, signing up for more information or something else - and the publisher on whose site the ad appears would be paid only when that action is completed. Though that means publishers don’t get paid as frequently as in pay-per-click ads, the PPA model usually results in higher single payments.
Publishers will have more flexibility in choosing the ads that run and in encouraging visitors to take action on the ad. That sort of encouragement has been forbidden by Google as part of the AdSense terms of service (TOS) for other ads.
Michael Arrington at TechCrunch points out that a move to PPA model lowers advertisers’ potential exposure to click fraud, since they would only pay when a specific action is taken and not when an ad is clicked (a click is easily automated). He also predicts that this will have a severe and negative impact on ad networks already operating on a PPA model simply because they can’t compete with Google in terms of scale of reach.
Arrington also catches a smaller announcement in the Google AdWords blog post announcing the PPA test. Google will begin testing in-text ads, similar to those already offered by Intellitext and others. When visitors to a site running these sorts of ads mouse over the linked text, a box appears with the ad displayed along with “Ads by Google” text.
This would be the first ad offering by Google to break out of the separate ad box and into the text of the site’s content.

Interesting article on the adoption of mobile marketing. US based buts gives some insight into how the market will need to adapt in order to realise its potential.

Incentives Key to Mobile Marketing MARCH 21, 2007 How hated is the thought of mobile marketing?
In theory, very hated.
Most people (90%) say that they are not at all interested in getting ads on their mobile phones, according to Harris Interactive.
Need to keep up-to-date with trends in online marketing and emerging media? In theory, that leaves less than 10% of users as an audience for mobile marketing.

In practice, the audience is much larger. As with any medium, once mobile ads are associated with something of value, user interest shoots up. If incentives are involved, it shoots up considerably.
Think about the Internet a decade ago. There was still some debate as to whether companies should be on the Web at all — would corporate influence stifle the free flow of ideas on the fresh new medium? Once companies did move online, consumers were initially reluctant to give out personal information. It took incentives and opt-in agreements to overcome their hesitance.
Right now, mobile is the only interactive medium where the typical user pays for both the cost of network access and the content it delivers. Mobile operators and content providers are finding that besides early adopters and enthusiasts, it is tough to find buyers for paid mobile music downloads, let alone video and games.
Introducing mobile advertising into the revenue mix changes the picture. Many users say that they would be willing to receive mobile marketing in exchange for incentives, so offering free applications, subsidized airtime or other goodies makes sense.
Over a third of adult mobile phone users say that they are willing to accept incentive-based advertisements. Of these, 78% say the best incentive would be cash. Other incentives that resonate include free minutes, free entertainment downloads and discount coupons.
As for ad formats, over half (56%) of those who are at least somewhat interested in receiving ads on their cellphones say they would prefer to receive them as text messages, while 40% would like to receive them as picture messages. Less than a quarter of adults would choose to receive them as videos, while others would have them sent as e-mail, voice mail or something else.

eMarketer estimates that mobile ad spending in the US will reach $4.8 billion by 2011, up from $421 million in 2006.

eMarketer senior analyst and mobile specialist John du Pre Gauntt says that current mobile business models practically beg for an infusion of ad dollars.
“Despite the best efforts to convince people otherwise, there is no mobility ‘premium,’” says Mr. Gauntt. “Over time, the justification for charging a 100%-300% markup on a piece of content or service simply because it is delivered over a radio channel will not wash when the same content is available online to be synched with a handset.”

Are any of the search engines below the future of search as we know it? we have been lacking a little innovation for a while and I would welcome a new contender. Some of those listed are more gimmicky than anything else and arent going to be scaleable as a business but that doesnt mean there arent a few little gems in here which could be utilised by one of the big guns to improve their results.

The Hunt for Search Engine Innovation, Part 2 by David Berkowitz, Tuesday, March 20, 2007

GOOGLE SHOULDN’T REST on its laurels just yet. Last week, we blazed through Charles Knight’s Top 100 Alternative Search Engines and found many areas where innovation was lacking. This week, we’ll visit some of the high-impact innovation categories and engines.
Sorting the engines into categories isn’t a perfect science, as many engines are hybrids. URL.com is a meta-search engine combined with user rankings, Ujiko combines a graphic display with user ratings, Exalead combines category filtering with image search, and Polymeta is a metasearch engine with filtering based on keywords and categories that also includes vertical and multimedia search. Don’t try too hard to sort it all out; by and large the most impressive engines have a clearer value proposition. Let’s see what they’re made of.
High-Impact Engines
Vertical niches: Goshme, discussed last week, aims to aggregate all vertical engines in one place. On the Top 100 list, the most innovative vertical search engine is Like.com. Microsoft’s recent Medstory acquisition also signals that the major engines are watching the vertical startups.
After last week’s column, Jessi Zambrano wrote about Indeed.com, a job metasearch engine not included on Mr. Knight’s Top 100 list. Job search engines have been among the most successful innovators, and they’ve also been among the priciest search-related acquisitions. Searching for jobs is also one of the few search activities that truly matters to consumers’ lives. Compare shopping search (”I want a good deal on something I plan on buying”) with job search (”I want a new/better job”), health search (”I’m trying to diagnose/care for myself or a loved one”), and dating search (”I’m lonely”/”I want to start a family”). The latter three categories really matter, so expect search pioneers to emerge from them. I’d include some kind of food search in that bunch, but once you’re online, searching for food is generally not a matter of fulfilling primal necessities but finding a decent takeout joint.
Multimedia search: Here’s where there’s the most need for improvement, and several startups have a leg up on the major engines — for now. The Top 100 list includes just a few examples of multimedia search engines, and they focus on video. Blabline is simply a Google Custom Search Engine. Clipblast bills itself as the world’s largest video search engine, though I’m not sure how it defends the title (my bet: the honor goes to YouTube, MySpace, or most likely Google). Blinkx has the most momentum, and it’s a favorite of Search Insider columnists; Aaron Goldman recently wondered if Google should buy Blinkx, and I predicted back in January 2005 that it was a ripe acquisition target.
Semantic Web: It’s getting harder and harder to write about any form of Internet innovation without factoring in the semantic web. John Markoff recently covered the topic in The New York Times, and by the time the Times gets to reporting on technology, you know it’s old news. The one semantic engine on the Top 100 list is Swoogle, a database impenetrable to anyone without a computer science degree (I can, however, tell you the difference between a rondeau and a villanelle).
That Swoogle is hard to parse is in a way ironic, as the gist of the semantic Web, to oversimplify it, is to provide a way for all forms of online content to better understand themselves and each other. For instance, if a search engine or other content site were to index or link to this column through the lens of the semantic Web, it would know that this column has everything to do with search engine innovation and nothing to do with obscure forms of poetry. It would also realize that Aaron Goldman is an esteemed MediaPost columnist and not this septuagenarian who has jogged 200 miles in 72 hours, and it would surely never mistake me for the more infamous individual who shares my name. In the most utopian visions for the semantic Web, such as those shared at a DoubleClick Industry Insighters Salon earlier this month, the Web will be so adept at understanding your own interests and wants that you won’t need to search for anything at all.
That’s one of those beautiful ideals, to become so good that you make yourself irrelevant. Could we really get there one day with search?
It’s unlikely. Even if any form of search became that good, we’re still hunters and gatherers at heart. We’ll always want the empowerment of thinking that searching is a skill, and if the right result is presented to us, we’ll take the credit, even if a computer programmer or algorithm actually made it happen. That means that the ideal search engine of the future, the standard every engine should shoot for that truly gives consumers what they want, will be one step shy of perfection.

In a recent bizreport article travelocity’s CMO Jeffrey Glueck made the observation that in PPC “most of your profits come from buying your own brand term”. No kidding! This is a basic principle of search marketing and one which is a constant area of discussion between agencies and clients. In a market such as travel where competition is high and price is everything building a strong brand is essential to your success. Glueck goes on to say he is “dismissive” of the approach of buying a large range of generic terms in a PPC campaign. I have to wholeheartedly disagree with this dismissal and say that in my experience of managing travel campaigns it is essential to hold whole range of generic spcific and brand terms in your campaign. Due to the price sensitivity of the travel market search engine user go through a number fo research stages before deciding upon a purchase, they will research different countries, followed by regions of a country and then hotels within a region before finally searching out the cheapest price for their chosen destination. In the final comparison stage they are likely to take note of the cheapest site they find during their search before returning through a brand search. Hence it is importnat to have a presence at each stage of the buying process in order to have a chance of getting the sale. Full article is below, make your own mind up!

article here

I cant belive the cheeky so and so’s use this as a way to get a link to their website!

Technorati Profile

interesting information on the acceptance of mobile ads and the need for them to be appropriately targetted. nothing ground breaking but it at least puts some figures on the acceptance level.


Report: Mobile ads are more accepted
There is good news for mobile advertisers. A new report from Harris Interactive shows increasing acceptance of mobile ads. Correctly targeted ads to users will only increase the acceptance level according to the report. The bad news? Incorrectly targeted the ads will likely only annoy the user.

“According to our research, cell phone users are more willing than ever to receive advertising,” said Judith Ricker, President of the Marketing Communications Research Practice at Harris Interactive. “To make their mobile campaigns more effective, advertisers should take note of how cell phone users are most interested in being contacted.” Mobile ads should also be relevant, have a clear call to action and let users control how they are profiled according to the study.
According to the study 90% of mobile users are uninterested in receiving ads, however, it shows that if the ads are properly targeted only 64% are uninterested. What this means is that demographic, ad type and the offer are the keys to continued ad acceptance.
Younger demographics (men and women between 18 and 39 years old) are most receptive to mobile ads if the ads offer something of interest - cash, free phone minutes, etc. Older users (40 to 49 years old) are least interested in mobile ads. Income also changes how ads are seen. For the income range of $125,000 to $149,000, only about 13% of users are interested in mobile ads.

In a study recently carried out by a group of womens monthly magazines and involving the opinion of over 4000 women over 70% of the repondents claimed that they could no longer live without the internet. This is a staggering figure when you consider the traditional view of the internet user. The vast majority of the users stated their internet usage had increased over the past year and according to the article this was to the detriment of TV and newspapers.

Read the article here

The Purchases of google and Microsoft give a great indication of the way they see the market moving. This article tells of Microsoft’s recent purchase of TellMe, a provider of voice activated search technology. No prizes for guessing that this ties in with the markets interest in mobile search. Everyone appears to be fighting to be the best equipped for when the mobile market takes off. Apparently 2007 will be the year for the adoption of the technology and 2008 will be the year it takes off. I still remain to be convinced about the extent of mobiles emergance but one thing is for sure this wont be the last of the purchases in this market in 2007.

Microsoft Buys TellMe, Voice-Activated Mobile Search Provider
by Shankar Gupta, Thursday, Mar 15, 2007 6:00 AM ET
MICROSOFT FINALIZED A DEAL WEDNESDAY to purchase TellMe, a directory assistance provider and voice-activated mobile search firm, giving Redmond a possible edge in the race to develop a better mobile search tool.
Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Marketing Intelligence, said that despite the manual dexterity mobile search users are developing, using a tiny keyboard still offers a sub-par user experience.
“There’s still usability problems that are pretty significant,” he said. “Keying in search queries is awkward. This is really about improving usability, and driving consumer adoption.”
Microsoft is reportedly purchasing the voice-recognition and directory assistance technology firm for between $800 million and $1 billion. A statement released by Microsoft specifically called out “search services on mobile phones that integrate with Live Search for mobile offerings” as an area of interest between the two companies.

apparently micorsoft is planning to expand its content offering and also the use of adcenter. verticalisation of the content network is essential if it is going to survive and be a useful medium in search marketing. google have done it through site targetting, miva are planning on completely restructuring around it and now microsoft is looking to follow suit. The obvious result of this (or what they will tell you) is much more targetted traffic. this has not been seen yet on Miva’s precision network (and costs have risen!) but if it is done well I can see it working. In the majority of markets though it will always be the poor relation to the main search network. It is still open to fraud and I still question whether unless a user is actively searching that they have a high enough propensity to click and ad and then ultimately convert through the website.


Microsoft’s adCenter content ads expanded
Advertisers looking for a better way to control and influence their online advertising efforts are going to get some help from Microsoft. Looking to increase how online marketers interact with their ad serving software, the company is expanding their adCenter offerings. According to reports, the expansion will give advertisers more control over online campaigns.
by Kristina Knight
The expansion will also give advertisers more outlets within the canopy of the MSN network.
MSN’s networks like Health and Fitness, Tech and Gadgets, Travel and Money currently house the majority of content ads from advertisers. With the new system, advertisers will control which networks show their ads, even going so far as to determine which specific content pages the ads appear upon. They will also be able to determine whether or not to allow ads within Windows Live Search results pages.
Advertisers can choose to run ads either on network content pages, on Live Search results pages or both. They can also track ad sales results from each platform.
There is no word when or if the content ads will be offered outside the Microsoft Network umbrella, but the potential to offer advertisers specialized ads on other platforms, like through Yahoo’s Panama platform or through Google’s AdSense platform is possible.

is the fallout between google and viacom a route to market for smaller online video providers who are willing to play by the rules? personally I think whatever the outcome Youtube has a bg enough grip on the market to hold its share. That is unless people start pulling all their content which could be a problem. individual users will be slower to boycott however and these are the best videos anyway arent they? fat guys dancing, practical jokes, hidden cameras…priceless!

Viacom/Google Fallout: Prime Time For Smaller Competitors To Woo Content Partners
by Shankar Gupta, Wednesday, Mar 14, 2007 6:00 AM ET
IT’S PRIME TIME FOR SMALLER video players to step in and make content partnerships as relations between Google and traditional media companies grow increasingly frosty. That was the assessment of industry watchers in the wake of the $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit filed Tuesday by Viacom against the search giant and its subsidiary YouTube.
Viacom is likely to seek out other partners who are more responsive in developing strategies to pay media companies whose content appears on their sites, said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey. “They think they’ve waited long enough for Google and YouTube,” he said. “What they’re going to do is work aggressively to get distribution everywhere else.”
Citing a major deal with YouTube rival Joost and smaller initiatives that allow small site owners to create custom clips of Viacom content and syndicate them on their Web sites, McQuivey said that major media companies’ dissatisfaction with Google-YouTube is an opportunity for up-and-coming players.