Online adspend for 2007 constitutes a 38% year-on-year increase, which translates to a market share of 15.3%.

Within a ‘relatively buoyant UK advertising market’ the internet has been the biggest driver of growth, and it is likely that online advertising spend will overtake spending on TV by the close of 2009.

Within online, display advertising and paid search marketing continue to show very healthy growth, with search growing by 39% to £1.6 billion in 2007.

Overall the online picture is very positive, with the UK leading the way above all other world markets. One of the strongest areas for growth is in the use of rich media and video for brand building and advertising, which points to how online is set to supersede TV and become the UK’s biggest advertising medium in the near future.

*The Interactive Advertising Bureau released the figures in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre.

Consistency is a vital attribute to successful PPC campaigns. Including the same keyphrases you target in the PPC copywriting throughout the rest of the steps in the conversion process can make or break your end results. This really shouldn’t be surprising, however. After all, it’s not a new development.

For decades, offline marketers have known that consistency was the key to profitable multimedia campaigns. For instance, if you developed a promotion for mouthwash that included direct mail, magazine, television and newspaper, then you’d want the message to be consistent from medium to medium. Offline marketers proved long ago that a single, repetitive voice where one medium interacts with and/or reinforces another brought about the best results. Let’s look at an example.

For our fictitious mouthwash (we’ll call it Fresh Breath), a campaign might start with television ads that show smiling people going through their morning routines including swishing Fresh Breath after brushing. A slogan or tag line could be used to help people associate a core message with the product. The voiceover might also say something like, “Look for money-saving coupons in this Sunday’s newspaper.” Great! We’ve got their attention and offered something (coupon) that can pique interest.

Next, we move on to print. The newspaper coupon insert will feature a full-color layout with the same smiling face, the tag line and $1.00 off the customer’s next purchase. But, what about people who don’t get the newspaper? We’ll cover them in magazine ads that feature a duplicate message. You might also consider sending out samples and coupons via direct mail, too.

Do you see what’s happening? Consistency is foremost in the campaign. Everywhere the customer looks, s/he sees the same core message about Fresh Breath and relates her or his opinions with this message. The same should be true with your PPC campaigns.

PPC Copywriting Starts the Process

All a PPC ad consists of is copy. VERY short copy. That means using successful methods to develop your PPC copywriting is a vital first step. Blow this part and the rest won’t even get a snowball’s chance to prosper because the visitor will never make it past Yahoo! or Google’s search results page.

Think about your core message. Develop headlines that attract visitors and pique curiosity, so they’ll want to click for more information. Don’t try to close the sale with your PPC ads. That’s not their purpose. The sole purpose of PPC ads is to drive visitors to your site where they can collect enough information to take action, whether that means buying, subscribing, joining or whatnot.

When you write PPC ads, include the keyphrase in the headline, if possible. If not, then you’ll want to incorporate the keyphrase into the body copy. Remember the tag line or slogan used in offline marketing? The keyphrase you choose for this ad will act as your tag line and will follow your copywriting efforts throughout the entire conversion process.

Consistency During Every Step

When developing your landing page (the page visitors will land on after they click the link in your PPC ad), use a headline that matches or is extremely similar to the copy in your PPC ad. Experiments have proven time and time again that the closer in content the two headlines are, the longer visitors will stay on your landing page.

But, don’t stop there. If your sales channel is a multi-step process, then you’ll want to continue use of the keyphrase all the way to the end. Let’s look at an example using a Magnavox HDTV.

The PPC copywriting might include the keyphrase “Magnavox HDTV.” The headline could read:

Save $$ on Magnavox HDTV

The two lines of copy might read:

All 26″-42″ HDTV models now on sale-

30% off. Free shipping over $200.

Anyone who types the keyphrase “Magnavox HDTV” into a search field will quickly be drawn to this ad because it includes the very item they were looking for… Magnavox HDTVs. In addition, the copy piques interest. All 26″-42″ models are on sale for 30% off. And, I get free shipping. Great! I’d be clicking over in a heartbeat to see what was available.

But, what happens if I, the customer, land on your home page where I find dozens of DVD players and iPods and stereos? Huh? Where are the Magnavox HDTVs I was just reading about? I’d be lost. I’d likely click back to the search-results page and select another ad.

When I land on a page after clicking a PPC ad that specifically mentioned the very item I wanted, I expect to see a selection of Magnavox 26″-42″ HDTVs. What’s more, I’ll need to actually read the phrase “Magnavox HDTV” to ensure me that I’m in the right place. Consistency.

And, when I click the 36″ model I think I want? What then? I’ll expect to see “Magnavox 36″ HDTV” on the product description page, so I can continue to know I’m in the right place. Consistency.

When I add the item to my cart? Right… same keyphrase. And, when I check out? Yep! And, when you email me my order confirmation? You got it! Consistency, consistency, consistency.

Don’t stop with your PPC copywriting. It’s simply not enough. That’s a tragic mistake most online marketers make. You have to convey a uniform message all the way from beginning to end to get the highest conversion rates possible from your PPC campaign. When you do, your sales will flow in with more… consistency!

Discover the proven methods for writing powerful PPC ads with Karon’s latest ebook How To Write Successful PPC Ads. This quick-read has easy, tested ways to create PPC ads fast that get higher click-through rates. Learn PPC copywriting today at http://www.WritePPCAds.com. © 2008, All Rights Reserved

When the research analysts at Hitwise, Nielsen, and Compete release their monthly search engine rankings, you can sometimes feel their pain in covering the same story over and over again. Check out Jeremy Crane’s latest post on Compete’s blog where he tries to lighten things up by talking about his wife’s birthday (happy belated, Mrs. C.!) and laments in the headline, “Microhoo gets boring.” I feel your pain, Jeremy. That’s why we’ll mix it up a little this week and focus on eight search-related startups.

Note that this list is random. There’s no methodology — no ranking by buzz, funds raised, visitors, customers, parties thrown at SXSW, or volume of schwag sent my way (though the schwag’s always welcome). These are companies that caught my radar at some point or another, whether through a news article, blog post, word of mouth, or personal contact from them, and they all shed a bit of light on where search is heading.

Local Search

NearbyNow: Search for products at a shopping mall near you, and you can reserve them for in-store pickup. This local search player aims to close the loop between online shopping and offline buying. For shoppers who like the convenience of malls but don’t want to spend all day there, this should find a receptive audience.

Visual Search

ManagedQ: This visual search engine responds to your query with a matrix of snapshots of the relevant sites. It takes me far longer to scan this layout than a standard page of text results, though I do like the related person/place/thing tags to the left.

Quintura: Alongside the natural search engine results is a tag cloud showing related keywords and phrases to help you explore more. For me, this only slows down the search process, though I’ll keep an open mind. Quintura for Kids may be more useful, but a search on ‘new york governor’ turned up just one result that seemed to be about former governor George Pataki, and a search on ‘eliot spitzer’ turned up no results. At least that means there are no Emperor’s Club screen shots.

Social Search

blippr: Search is only a small part of what blippr does, but it plays an important role in this new social search engine. You rate books, movies, music, and games, write a brief reason for your rating (at most 160 characters) and invite friends to take part so that it delivers personalized recommendations. Search the site for Indiana Jones and it brings up several DVDs to rate, along with friends who rated it. It sounds like many other sites and Facebook applications, but it’s strangely addictive, and it’s still in beta.

Message Boards

Dipiti: Users search for support and assistance on this meta-message board search engine that focuses on health, legal, money, and pet care. It pulls from an impressive array of communities, but with engines like this, the question remains whether they’re too specialized for a mass market. When you have a pet problem, do you want to find a community, or do you just want an answer wherever it is? In the latter example, a regular search engine should suffice.

News Search

Silobreaker: Have you ever thought that news search results were good, but not cluttered enough? Enter Silobreaker, which provides a higher grade of link smack for news junkies. Say you’re searching for news on Eliot Spitzer, in the event that he’s done something newsworthy lately. Querying Silobreaker brings up way more information than you can possibly process: a biographical snapshot, top stories from an array of sources, blogs, YouTube video clips featuring breaking news, a chart showing article volume over the past month, links to related topics (David Paterson, Emperor’s Club), a network map showing how those topics are connected, hotspots showing geographically where the news comes from, trends for news on Spitzer and related people (Paterson and Hillary Clinton), and quotes. Clearly this is overkill for many people, but others will be hooked.

Mobile

Mosio: Send a text message query and it’s answered by the community of other users. I used it last year to ask for recommendations for the song to use for my wedding’s first dance, and while I like to think I did a little better than their answers (come on, John Denver?), a number of thoughtful responses came back instantly.

ChaCha: This search engine was better for entertainment purposes than actual search value, but now it has a mobile component that makes it incredibly useful. You text CHA CHA (242 242) from your cell with a question and a real person sends you a response with all the relevant info, assuming someone can answer it. For instance, if you’re the governor of one of the most populous states in the Union, you’re on the Amtrak to D.C., and you need to know how to get in touch with the Emperor’s Club, just text 242 242 “What’s the number for the Emperor’s Club?” and someone will write you with the phone number. I tried this myself and the respondent said, “The prostitution ring known as the Emperor’s Club has not made its contact information available online.”

Governors must use some other sort of search engine. While I’m not sure which one Spitzer might have used, there’s an engine out there for any query you can imagine.

Minimum bids no longer fixed at $.10 for Sponsored Search

If you go to any auction, whether it’s Sotheby’s, eBay or your rural county’s hog auction, there’s usually a reserve price (or minimum bid) set according to what is believed to be the minimum value of the product. It’s their way of making sure that no one walks away with a cheap Van Gogh just because people aren’t lifting those paddles fast enough.

Following the auction model, we are changing the way we set the minimum bids required to participate in a Sponsored Search keyword market. In the next several weeks, we will start calculating a variable minimum bid for some of the keywords you’re bidding on. That means that sometimes the minimum bid may be lower than 10¢. Sometimes it may be higher. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at 10¢.

What your minimum bid means

An auction house has guidelines it keeps in mind when it sets a minimum bid, or the reserve price—how rare a painting is, how famous the guy who painted it is, things like that. We have guidelines that help us set minimum bids, too. Minimum bids can be based on multiple factors, including the quality of the keyword and its value—or how much we think that keyword is worth to its bidders. Here’s how we do it:

Quality—If you haven’t noticed before, we like quality. High quality generally means that your ads are being clicked more often, relative to your competitors. And that usually means that searchers are finding what they want more readily. So we try to reward quality—first with higher rankings and lower costs, and now, potentially, with lower minimum bids.

Value—While figuring out the value of a keyword can be complicated, we may look at a number of things to determine what it’s worth: for example, how many advertisers are bidding on your keyword, and what they’re willing to pay for it. (Note: we do not use conversion data to determine minimum bids.)

A keyword term becomes “active”—switched “on” in the system and eligible for display—when your bid is equal to or greater than your minimum bid. Keywords become inactive when your bid falls below your minimum. You will be notified in an alert on your Account Dashboard if your bid is about to drop below your minimum, and you’ll have a grace period of up to a few days to raise your bid to keep your keyword active.

What you can do to prepare

A lot of the best practices that are always important in search marketing are especially important when you’re managing your minimum bids. Here are some of the best ways to manage your account:

Get to know your keywords and their value. Since variable minimum bids may be set for each of your keywords, it is important to know which ones work best for your business.

Improve your ad quality. Better ad quality can potentially translate into lower minimum bids. Plus, it also affects the price you pay per click and your ads’ position in search results.

Learn about updates to the account interface. To help make your bids easier to manage, we are offering some enhancements to your account interface. These include a new search and management tool that allows you to find keywords that are below the minimum bid—bids too low for your keyword to become active—within a selected ad group or campaign.

by Helen Leggatt

Misleading promotions and the misuse of the term “free” are just a couple of scenarios the IAB’s “Online Lead Generation: B2C and B2B Best Practices for U.S.-based Advertisers and Publishers” document hopes to help stamp out.

It focuses on three specific areas – advertiser disclosures, publisher privacy disclosures and promotional site disclosures.

“This is truly an industry landmark, and I applaud the Lead Generation Committee for its extraordinary efforts at creating this critical document,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB, in a recent statement.

“As digital media continues to become the fulcrum upon which marketers are building their brands, it is incumbent on the interactive industry to proactively develop and live up to the highest standards. This document helps us achieve that goal.”

Two other lead generation documents where produced in 2007 by the IAB, in conjunction with the Lead Generation Committee, addressing data transfer and lead quality issues.

by Helen Leggatt

One thing remains certain – Internet marketing is still the fastest, most measurable and direct means of marketing and it is here to stay. However, just 15 percent of businesses surveyed by Microsoft last year felt they had used their Internet marketing to the best of their abilities.

With social networking, blogging and online video in the limelight during 2007, it’s easy to be distracted.

Don’t let your strategies, or your budgets, be sidetracked by the bright lights and hype of new technology - keep on track by following Bizreport’s 2008 Must Do Online Marketing List.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you’ve been on another planet and haven’t yet got round to optimizing your website for search engines, make sure that 2008 is the year you get to grips with it. Paid ads are all well and good, but with 4 out of 5 searchers clicking on natural search, your goal should be to appear on the first page of search results, better still, in the in top 5.

2. Develop a content strategy, paying particular attention to any niche areas and ensuring content is relevant and focused. Text length is also a consideration as shorter articles and bullet points are more likely to be instantly attractive and read. Longer articles tend to be overwhelming and overlooked. Consider linking to expanded information from short, sharp statements.

3. PPC advertising. Continually track and analyze conversions when using PPC advertising, and hone keywords to ensure you’re keeping on top of your competition.

4. Build a blog. If your company doesn’t already publish a blog, start one this year. More and more Internet media researchers, journalists and consumers are turning to blogs for up-to-the-minute information and personal perspectives.

5. Develop a mobile compatible website. Mobile devices are increasingly being used to surf the internet – whether it be for comparison shopping on-the-go or to download infotainment, book tickets and find directions. Is your site “mobile ready”. Check http://mr.dev.mobi to find out.

6. Get social. Involve your company in some form of social marketing whether it is on forums, social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace or even social bookmarking destinations such as Digg.com, Travelbookmarking.com and de.li.cious.

7. Start making movies. In two years time experts predict that 80 percent of the U.S. online community will be viewing online videos – that’s around 157 million people. Optimize video files with keywords and ensure they are submitted to video search engines. Investigate the various methods of advertising in and around online video, the niche markets and the pros and cons of user-generated content.

8. Smarten up email marketing. With the huge amount of spam invading consumer inboxes it has never been more important for email marketers to get the message, timing and relevancy right. Clean up email lists, segment and target campaigns, keep rich media files small, track ROI and, perhaps most importantly, keep your content and subject headers targeted and personalized.

9. Article marketing. As part of your SEO distribute articles to relevant directories, of which there are 100’s online. Remember to maximize the article for search engines and place the same article on your website.

10.Go viral. The huge success of viral marketing, including the most recent “Elf Yourself” program and Cadbury’s drumming Gorilla video, has shown just how consumer action can promote a brand. Catch their eyeballs with a video or application for them to use or share.

by Kristina Knight

The collaboration is hoped to better behaviorally target consumers in the mobile realm. To that end, the carriers are sharing some consumer information so that they can target relevant mobile ads to the users. A third-party company, which is as yet unnamed, collects the information into a central database for the advertisers use. The partnerships will eventually made available for advertising to SMS/MMS messaging, mobile gaming and mobile video.

Henry Stevens, GSMA’s director of media and entertainment, says they are working to protect consumer’s privacy at the same time the mobile providers are sharing information.

eMarketer is forecasting the mobile messaging (SMS, MMS, IM and email) will grow from $1.5 billion in 2006 to more than $11.5 billion (worldwide) by 2011. If those numbers are reached, message-based advertising will account for 11% of the mobile ad market.

The European partnership has been running for several months. The GSMA reports that they are in talks with several US mobile carriers to install a similar program in the US in the coming months.

by Helen Leggatt

MindShare Interaction has calculated that Russia’s Internet advertising market totaled $369 million in 2007, a 97 percent increase on 2006. This year, MindShare forecasts the country’s Internet advertising spending will reach $685 million.

The spend in 2007 was quite evenly split between contextual advertising comprising $210 million (57 percent) and display advertising at $159 million (43 percent).

Russia’s two largest Internet companies, Yandex and Rambler, are forecast to have combined 2007 revenues of $232 million which accounts for 63 percent of the Russian Internet advertising market.

Google has an estimated 3 percent share of Russia’s Internet advertising market, and just 5 percent of its contextual advertising market.

The majority of top advertisers in Russia came from the mobile telecommunications, automaker, technology and consumer goods sectors. Automakers were the biggest spenders with a quarter of total spend.

by Kristina Knight

“With blue chip publishers and top tier operators, and a legacy of campaign optimization through analytics to create a high-performing solution for advertisers,” said Vice President and Head of Nokia Interactive, Mike Baker.

The platform allows advertisers to place ads on quality mobile sites like Reuters, operator mobile pages and Nokia’s own properties to reach the more than 100 million Nokia users around the globe. An advertising team from Nokia creates the ads.

Last October Nokia bought out mobile ad management firm Enpocket. Prior to that purchase, Nokia launched the European mobile platform Nokia Ad Service. This platform offers marketers the ability to create targeted mobile ad campaigns. Also in 2007, Nokia launched the Nokia Advertising Gateway, a platform which relates ads to specific applications. For example, an ad could be targeted to users watching television, reading maps or even listening to music.

A recent survey from Advertiser Perceptions indicates that text messages are the most popular mobile ad format. The survey found that 70% of mobile users used text messages prior to the survey and 69% said they would use text messages within the next six months.

Yahoo’s OneSearch will be the exclusive mobile search tool for T-Mobile’s eleven European Markets, starting the end of March. The companies are also working together on services such as mobile messaging, e-mail, and social networking.

The Yahoo and T-Mobile deal follows an announcement yesterday by Nokia that it will include Google in its search application. Google will sit alongside Yahoo and Microsoft Windows Live on four new handsets, which will extend to additional Nokia models in the future.

The deal, announced today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, follows a string of mobile search partnerships from Yahoo over the past year or so, and demonstrates its increasing focus on the mobile sector.
Speaking with ClickZ News, a Yahoo spokesperson described mobile search as a “key area in the future of Yahoo.”

The company now has partnerships with more than 29 network operators spread across Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America.

According to Yahoo these networks have a total of over 600 million mobile subscribers, placing it in a potentially strong position for garnering more traffic to its ad-supported mobile search results as users become increasingly familiar with accessing the Web on their mobile devices. Jack Marshall, The ClickZ Network, reports