We will find out the impact of the Bing & Yahoo partnership (prediction #3)

The latest rumor was that a U.S. regulatory decision will come in the first quarter of 2010. If approved, and many think it will be, Yahoo! will start fading out its organic and paid search platforms and substituting Bing, country-by-country. It is widely anticipated Bing will first start rolling-out in the U.S.

It is hard to tell whether the estimated 30% market share of a combined Bing & Yahoo will disrupt Google predominance in U.S. search. It is also difficult to predict what will be the impact of this new partnership for Bing and/or Yahoo advertisers.  This being said, it would make sense to imagine all pay-per-click will be managed through a joint (revamped) Microsoft AdCenter. Advertisers might want to familiar themselves with it and stat anticipating an influx of impressions when Yahoo and Bing searches are combined.

More to come in 2010. I am looking forward to using an alternative platform to AdWords. Most advertisers are a bit reluctant to use 3 and plus providers. Making this into two large platforms might turn out to be an easier sale.

We will experiment with more AdWords ad formats (Prediction #2)

In the past few months, Google introduced several new ad formats, including Sitelinks, Product Extensions, and Product Listings.


SiteLinks

According to the Google AdWords blog: ‘’Ad Sitelinks is a new AdWords feature that allows advertisers to extend the value of existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to content deep within advertisers’ sites. Rather than sending all users to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks will display up to 4 additional Destination URLs in search-based text ad for users to choose from. By providing users with more options, advertisers can create richer, more relevant ads that improve the value of brand terms and other targeted keywords.’’

At this point, only a handful of large advertisers have been selected to test this new feature. Hopefully it will become more widespread in 2010.

Products extension

Another Google AdWords wonder, Product extensions allow advertisers to use existing Google Merchant Center account to highlight products directly in search ads. When AdWords text ad appears, and advertisers’ Google Merchant Center account contains products that are relevant to the searcher’s query, product extensions show the images, titles, and prices of products in a plusbox under your ad.

Products Listing
A second feature for e-tailers, Product Listing Ads works with an advertiser's Google Merchant Center account to serve highly targeted ads that include richer product information directly in the ad itself - including product image, price, and merchant name. U.S. users searching on Google.com may begin to see Product Listing Ads more frequently on their shopping related queries.   

While still new formats are being tested, they are designed to improve customer experience for web users. Advertisers should test them out.

AdWords headline can go beyond 25 characters.
Another small change Google introduced earlier in 2009 is longer headline. Google AdWords restricts the Headline of text ad to 25 characters. This is a good thing; it forces advertisers to be relevant while being concise. However a few bloggers reported they have been able to stretch this to 30 + characters. Apparently Google has been experimenting with it throughout 2009. I have been unable to find any post on the Google AdWords blog but I will continue looking. Longer headlines are particularly important for Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) when longer tail searches also appear in the headline. Up to now, DKI shortened longer tail keyword in the headline. 

The use of long tail keyword searches will rise (Prediction #1)

According to Marketing Charts, Searches containing five to more than eight words in length increased significantly among US users in fall 2009. Searches with one word amounted to 18.6% of all queries during the same time period (-2.3% compared to 2008). 

It is hard to find some consolidated data for 2009 but it’s pretty obvious Internet users are getting more sophisticated at using search engines, and have learnt to make use of longer keyword.  What does this mean for Search Engine Marketers? 

Increased customer targeting and more sophisticated campaign builder tool such as SpeedPPC will help us design more granular campaigns. Campaigns that only run a hundreds keywords or less will not only become less relevant but also very expensive to maintain. As Cost-Per-Click increases year over year, less sophisticated advertisers will see their ROI decrease. 

The good news is more resources (including a revamped Google AdWords learning center) will be available for Pay-Per-Click novice advertisers to jump on the longer tail keyword bandwagon. And those who don’t have the resources to launch ten to hundred thousand keyword campaign might consider outsourcing to Search Engine Marketing agencies. 

5 Search Engine Marketing predictions for 2010

It’s about time to wrap up 2009 and look forward to a more exciting 2010. Overall Search Engine Marketing (SEM) was less impacted by the recession than traditional advertising. Most companies came to realize that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click provide cost effective ways to attract new customers during tough times. According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), in 2009, close to $15Bn was spent through the various search and content networks in North America. This number is expected to reach close to $17Bn in 2010 as more advertisers focus on accountability and ROI and small and medium businesses jump on the bandwagon.  Repeat and new advertisers will see some major changes in 2010: 

Prediction #1: The use of long tail keyword searches will rise

Prediction #2: We will experiment with more AdWords ad formats
Prediction #3: We will find out the impact of the Bing & Yahoo partnership 
Prediction #4: We will test more geo-targeting campaigns

Prediction #5: We will experiment with Pay-Per-Click in social media

YouTube keyword suggestion tool

The YouTube keyword tool was launched in March 2009. For those of you familiar with the Google AdWords Tool, it works pretty much the same way. Instead of using web queries as the AdWords tool does, the YouTube tool tracks keywords that trigger videos on a particular topic. These keywords can then be saved and used to edit 'tags' when uploading videos. The example below shows keywords that were returned by the tool in relation to 'search engine marketing. The tool generated 33 keywords. Some of them are a bit out of place but other like 'internet marketing training' or 'sem' can be useful. This tool is probably more directional and I would think it will become more targeted as the number of videos and queries on YouTube increase.

Another feature offered by the tool is the video id or URL feature. I looked for a popular video on 'search engine marketing' and the tool returned keywords YouTube users entered to find this video. The functionality generated 46 keywords.

 

Google Adwords new advertising exam - is this good news?

According to Google AdWords blog, ''As part of our ongoing efforts to improve training materials and the Google Advertising Professionals program, we have updated the certification exam and learning center. The new test became available on November 13. The four main changes are as follow:

1) The test will cover a wider variety of questions. I took the old exam in which the breadth and depth of materials was already strong. I wonder why they would make it even broader. The previous exam has an entire section on campaign paid in non US currencies or mobile advertising. I would think these topics might not all be relevant to a broad audience. One possible improvement might be to offer a basic training supplemented by concentrations in particualr areas (such as mobile advertising for example).

2) From what I read in the various AdWords forum, the new test is a lot more conceptual. It requires a fair amount of thinking. The previous test was essentially interface questions for which mosts answers could be found by referring to the AdWords guide.

3) The passing score is now higher. It used to be 75% and is now 85%. The test is really no hard (see my previous post here) however it does require to memorize (or at least organize answers) to a lot of questions across a variety of topics.

4) The training center is now all in text. Previously you could choose either text or video. The tutorial videos did a very good job explaining the bits and pieces of each topic. For those people like who memorize visual elements better, it will be hard to read all this content, mostly on a screen. Too bad the videos are gone.

With this, good luck in passing the exam. Glad to know I don't have to pass mine for another two years.

Government 2.0

I ran across this neologism for the first time while reading an interview by O'Reilly. The man came-up with web 2.0. I figured gov 2.0 had to be another revolution I did not want to miss. According to wikipedia, Government 2.0 is an attempt to provide more effective processes for government service delivery to individuals and businesses. Integration of tools such as wikis, development of government-specific social networking sites and the use of blogs, RSS feeds and Google Maps are all helping governments provide information to people in a manner that is more immediately useful to the people concerned. More on this topic as I continue investigating what it actually means for us.