PPC Competition In Google Will Increase This Q3
July 21st, 2008
Sergey Brin of Google admitted to mistakenly pulling back too much on the number of keywords the company displayed in Q1 and Q2 2008 during their earnings call yesterday. (as reported by Alley Insider)
Google had reduced the number of ads it displays on search results pages by 40% over the last 6 months. They went from an average of 6.5 ads per page to 4 ads. Sergey admitted that they cut back too far and Google plans to increase the number of ads displayed in Q3.
This increase could result in higher CPCs and more competition on valuable search traffic for advertisers and their search agencies + affiliates.
Be prepared to lose some traffic or pay more to keep the same traffic. Of course Q3 is always more competitive as advertisers ramp up for the big holiday push.
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Search Marketing by Peter Figueredo | | 0 Comments
Google Assigns Branding Value To Search
July 21st, 2008
MediaPost has a short piece on Google’s recent study that shows the branding effect of paid search and SEO. Of course Google benefits from this data since it leads advertisers to believe they can afford to pay more for PPC search in order to capitalize on the “branding” value. The article seems to think that most advertisers do not take the “free branding” aspect into consideration when buying PPC search terms.
I don’t know about other advertisers but I can certainly say that NETexponent clients are ahead of the game in this area. Most of the clients using our search marketing services have already placed a branding value on key search terms. To this extent we even manage these terms differently than the rest of their efficiency driven search campaigns. Terms that are important to building our clients’ brand are typically placed in a bucket we call “brand critical” and optimized to different metrics and goals. The performance of brand critical keywords is evaluated on a revenue basis as well as their impact on brand building efforts.
The tolerance for CPCs related to branding vs. acquisition will always differ depending on the advertiser’s specific goals so our team uses a custom approach in every case. However, I thought it was important to note that NETexponent clients seem to be ahead of the curve according to how Google sees the PPC search marketplace.
This is yet another reason we love working with smart clients.
Posted in NETexponent Clients, Research, Search Marketing by Peter Figueredo | | 0 Comments
NETexponent will be all over Affiliate Summit!
July 16th, 2008
I don’t know about you, but over here at NETexponent we’re really excited about Affiliate Summit East. We’ll have seven people from the company in attendance! We
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Events, Meet Us by Erin M. | | 1 Comments
Peter Figueredo Elected To The Performance Marketing Alliance Advisory Board
July 9th, 2008
The votes are in and I am proud to have been elected to the Performance Marketing Alliance (PMA) Advisory Board or FAB. I wrote about this group when it was first announced and provided some thoughts o
n ways to ensure proper growth. Now it is time to put my effort where my mouth is and get it done.
The election process was conducted over the last week. The voting committee was made up of over 100 affiliate marketing industry experts. They were asked to choose the top two nominees in multiple categories.
Congratulations to all the winners:
Agency
Peter Figueredo – CEO & Co-Founder
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Awards and Honors by Peter Figueredo | | 0 Comments
Search Engine Optimization Is A Moving Target
July 7th, 2008
I was just reading some interesting updates on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices and came a across an important piece of information. We all know that Google is very secretive about its exact search algorithm (how it determines what sites get listed in natural results). You may also know that Google updates it algorithm periodically as well. This makes ranking high on target keywords a moving target and is the major reasons why Search Engine Optimization experts are in such high demand.
However, you probably did not know that Google admitted to “tweaking” its algorithm over 750 times in 2007 alone. This clearly stresses the importance of constantly refining your SEO best practices. If you hired an SEO consultant/agency who is preaching the same best practices they did 6-12 months ago then you may want to reconsider your choice.
Did You Know…
NETexponent is rolling out our SEO practice using a very strategic and measured approach. Our expert staff has been learning the ropes of Search Engine Optimization for some time and we have been applying those skills to test campaigns. We are also investing heavily in training programs, technology systems, and industry leading consultants in order to build the best SEO service set for our clients. This is the same successful method we used to roll out our PPC search service several years ago so we know it works.
Our search marketing team will continue to grow this new service and constantly evolve our best practices so that we can better hit the moving target presented by Google.
Posted in Search Marketing by Peter Figueredo | | 0 Comments
