Earlier this week we told you about some of the market trends and technologies that are going to be making an impact this year. In our second and final installment, we’ll talk about some of the advertising innovations that will be changing the industry as well as make some un-predictions about much hyped trends and [...]
Earlier this week we told you about some of the market trends and technologies that are going to be making an impact this year. In our second and final installment, we’ll talk about some of the advertising innovations that will be changing the industry as well as make some un-predictions about much hyped trends and technologies that will be leaving a minimal footprint.
Advertising Innovations for Search and Beyond
The technology of search advertising is constantly evolving, so it makes sense that the ways ads are served up to the search public as well as the content of the ads themselves keep pace.
Here are a few of the ways search advertising will reinvent itself over the next 12 months:
Monetized RSS Feeds
Much like blogs, many are downplaying the advertising potential of RSS feeds, saying its a case of too much hype too early in the game. We think, if properly handled, feeds may represent an incredibly relevant and effective new marketing channel. Kanoodle is already getting on board with this idea with their Feedster partnership. Overture is doing the same with Feedburner.
IBM Launches Semantically Targeted Ads
In case you were wondering what the patent they filed late last year for a “Method and apparatus for creating and displaying user specific and site specific guidance and navigation information,” means, puzzle no more. We think IBM is going to launch a new ad server that can auto optimize placement based on the other ads on the page. From rumors we’ve heard thus far, this technology may be able to understand which message works best against a subset of competing ads, serving up the best option at the appropriate time. Sounds similar to what Advertising.com promised when they first launched as Teknosurf. We’re showing our age (in internet years), aren’t we?
On-Page Image Ads for Google (Gasp!)
Stop denying it – it’s coming. Despite their continued insistence that image ads will “never make it onto Google.com,” last year’s beta testing of image ads paved the way, and this year Google will take it one step further with the launch of image-based ads right on their site. We’re not sure what this is going to mean for their already slightly bruised credibility (the gMail rollout), but expect to see a lot of initial grousing from purists.
We’re Not Holding Our Breath – i.e., What’s Not On the Horizon
The wealth of predictions out there naturally lends itself to some debate. What may seem a surety to some can look like a bunch of hype to others. To that end, we’d like to share what we don’t see in our search crystal ball for the coming year.
Search Will Be Fully Integrated into Marketing Plans
Unlike years past, the majority of marketers now understand that search is important and they can’t take full advantage of today’s market without it. But many still don’t know how to dovetail search with other marketing initiatives. They don’t understand the nuances enough to execute a fully integrated plan that ties search back to what’s being done offline. As a result, search will retain red-headed stepchild status and remain fairly siloed over the next 12 months.
Click Fraud Continues to Be a Scourge
Much has been made of this issue coming out of the holidays, in the same way that much is made of it every year. Yes, click fraud happens, but not as often as some would have you think. And when it does happen, the engines (the bigger, more reputable ones, at least) do a great job of helping eliminate questionable traffic from your bill during their end of month resolution. As long as you’re watching your data for anomalies and managing your campaigns back to your metrics, click fraud should be nothing more than an annoyance.
Local Search Hits the Big Time
We’re big believers in the power of local search. Just not right now. The hardest piece to nail is consumer adoption and that’s still a ways off. It’s not enough to have the technology. Engines need to train searchers in order to get them using it on a regular basis. Once the user adoption happens, then the widespread business adoption can begin, and the national companies can stop hampering the local competition.
That about does it for 2005 predictions and un-predictions. What do you think? Did we miss the mark on anything or fail to include the obvious? Let us know.
Local Search combined with Googles latest rules for affiliate advertisers will have a huge impact on the online travel sector bringing about ever faster consolidation amongst the and weeding out all the zillions of spammy directories and other intermediaries. I reckon Yahoo and Google local are poised to take a huge share in this market, especially the SMEs.
There are two sides to Local. Re Jupiter’s skepticism re Local’s development . . . On the consumer side, trends are very clear and local products are developing rapidly. Also, the data show that local search is growing fast than overall Web search. That one’s a no-brainer. It’s happening. On the adverstiser side there are two dimensions: nationals going local and SMEs/SMBs trying to adopt the interent. The former is already happening and will continue to happen. The latter is more complex. Jupiter seems to associate "local" almost exclusively with small business, which is only half true. While it is correct to argue that that it will be challenging for SMEs to adopt online/search marketing, there’s a great deal going on "under the radar" helping facilitate the adoption of internet marketing by SMEs. Because the consumer behavior is so clear, it will happen on the advertiser/SME side. The appropriate question is how long will it take to reach $X market size. But it will happen. See, e.g., http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-03-03-small-business-ads_x.htm
I agree Greg. We are doing a ton of "local search" marketing right now, but purely for national brands targeting locally. In order for the marketplace to evolve, both for national advertisers and mom & pops, we’re going to need to see greater penetration of people learning to search locally and better tools for advertisers (eg: better IP targeting) for the instances when users don’t prequalify themselves.The holy grail for the SME market will be when someone offers affordable tools that can empower the little guy to run profitable search campaigns across multiple engines.