In-text advertiser Kontera has introduced a new advertising platform that aims to make text advertising dance, if you will.
The new ContentLink Rich Media system lets publishers embed video and animation-based ads into the text of a web page. Kontera’s system scans a participating web page, revealing keywords which can then be replaced with relevant advertising that appears when a user hovers their mouse cursor over them.
With the new system, Kontera is adding several new ad formats including the 300 x 250 ContentLing Flex size that includes video and Flash interactivity that can be used to get input from customers. The added interactivity was designed for use in lead generation campaigns.
“We are launching ContentLink Rich Media in response to the increasing demand we have received from our customers who want to combine brand-building creative with the contextual relevancy,” said Bryan Everett, Kontera’s SVP of sales, in a statement. “ContentLink Rich Media creates an online advertising vehicle that is the best of both worlds.”
The new platform is available immediately for Kontera in-text advertisers.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
GOOG marketshare
Internet market share – data out from comScore – GOOG gains again in domestic share, but growth decelerates; GOOG posted a solid 20bp gain in market share in Jan ’07 vs. Dec ’06; GOOG grew search queries 44% in Jan, sig. better than industry ღ%, but a sig. deceleration from the ჾ% in Dec ’06. We note this is the first time GOOG’s Y/Y search growth rate dropped <50% since Apr ’06. YHOO posted 40bp shr loss M/M. MSN and AOL posted moderate gains. Overall online search market remains strong.
Monday, February 19, 2007
2007 Ad Network Predictions
This will be one of the most active years for the ad network industry as it goes through a much needed transition thanks to new, exciting ad inventory opportunities. As a matter of fact, ad inventory will dictate new ad network models as each ad network begins to concentrate around its core strength.
As the profit margin for general interest (horizontal) ad networks gets smaller, I predict they will move to an Ad Exchange model that will play to their strength and expertise in remnant inventory. As 2006 proved to the industry, ad exchanges are no longer sketchy business models and can provide a significant value for publishers selling remnant or second or third-tier inventory.
But the ad exchange model presents general interest ad networks with a chicken and egg dilemma: how they can get the most number of publishers and advertisers to use their exchange (which one is more important the publisher or the advertiser) and how to create the best common ground for the two. It would come as no surprise to me if established traditional exchange giants such as eBay join the ad exchange game.
Online video will present contextual ad networks with the opportunity to move beyond textual content and take on the challenging task of understanding and monetizing video content. It will be a rat race with a big prize of becoming the “AdSense for Video.” Though Google is the prime candidate to win the race, it is by no means a trivial task with a set winner.
2006 saw the rise of a new breed of advertising network as vertical ad networks proved they can help brand marketers fill the large void left by general interest horizontal ad networks and present an attractive alternative to the brand-name web properties and large portal ad buys. In 2007 as the branding TV dollars continue the shift to online, vertical ad networks could capture the lion’s share of it by focusing on their core strengths of brand protection, brand engagement, transparency and helping brand marketers connect with their high composition audiences. The key for vertical ad networks in 2007 is to continue demonstrate to marketers that they attract highly targeted, affluent audiences as well if not better than the free standing brand-name sites and portals.
With the enormous pressure behind social networking sites to monetize their reach, behavioral ad networks have a great opportunity to prove their value proposition by segmenting these trendy target audiences into ad packages that both sales reps and media buyers can understand and feel safe with. The key battle will remain the same and that is who can cookie the most sites through strategic partnerships.
With the latest addition of Verizon Wireless to the mobile bandwagon, 2007 is shaping up to be a make or break year for a number of new and existing mobile ad network start ups. With the release of Windows Mobile and the continued adaptation by mainstream users, this will be the year when there will be sufficient mobile ad inventory for the medium to have a chance to prove its value. There will be lots of test mobile ad buys but whether they will translate into value for marketers will depend on how consumer’s react to ads on their mobile devices and if providers can deliver enough reach to become real competition to other proven ad media.
As online ad inventory continues to move from textual and web space to all forms of the digital medium, ad networks will continue to play an ever more significant role in our industry and as each newly established platforms go through their maturing process and new and better ways of monetizing them is discovered, we will continue to see both the evolution of ad networks as well as the birth of new ad networks that present real value for online marketers.
As the profit margin for general interest (horizontal) ad networks gets smaller, I predict they will move to an Ad Exchange model that will play to their strength and expertise in remnant inventory. As 2006 proved to the industry, ad exchanges are no longer sketchy business models and can provide a significant value for publishers selling remnant or second or third-tier inventory.
But the ad exchange model presents general interest ad networks with a chicken and egg dilemma: how they can get the most number of publishers and advertisers to use their exchange (which one is more important the publisher or the advertiser) and how to create the best common ground for the two. It would come as no surprise to me if established traditional exchange giants such as eBay join the ad exchange game.
Online video will present contextual ad networks with the opportunity to move beyond textual content and take on the challenging task of understanding and monetizing video content. It will be a rat race with a big prize of becoming the “AdSense for Video.” Though Google is the prime candidate to win the race, it is by no means a trivial task with a set winner.
2006 saw the rise of a new breed of advertising network as vertical ad networks proved they can help brand marketers fill the large void left by general interest horizontal ad networks and present an attractive alternative to the brand-name web properties and large portal ad buys. In 2007 as the branding TV dollars continue the shift to online, vertical ad networks could capture the lion’s share of it by focusing on their core strengths of brand protection, brand engagement, transparency and helping brand marketers connect with their high composition audiences. The key for vertical ad networks in 2007 is to continue demonstrate to marketers that they attract highly targeted, affluent audiences as well if not better than the free standing brand-name sites and portals.
With the enormous pressure behind social networking sites to monetize their reach, behavioral ad networks have a great opportunity to prove their value proposition by segmenting these trendy target audiences into ad packages that both sales reps and media buyers can understand and feel safe with. The key battle will remain the same and that is who can cookie the most sites through strategic partnerships.
With the latest addition of Verizon Wireless to the mobile bandwagon, 2007 is shaping up to be a make or break year for a number of new and existing mobile ad network start ups. With the release of Windows Mobile and the continued adaptation by mainstream users, this will be the year when there will be sufficient mobile ad inventory for the medium to have a chance to prove its value. There will be lots of test mobile ad buys but whether they will translate into value for marketers will depend on how consumer’s react to ads on their mobile devices and if providers can deliver enough reach to become real competition to other proven ad media.
As online ad inventory continues to move from textual and web space to all forms of the digital medium, ad networks will continue to play an ever more significant role in our industry and as each newly established platforms go through their maturing process and new and better ways of monetizing them is discovered, we will continue to see both the evolution of ad networks as well as the birth of new ad networks that present real value for online marketers.
Pheedo Powers New Ad Platform
With the launch of its FeedPowered Ad platform, Pheedo is now allowing its marketing clientele to send text and video content via RSS to customers. Now, Pheedo’s advertisers can engage large amounts of customers with content, and levels of engagement can also be tracked with the new platform.
FeedPowered Ads will provide updated information in the form of a text, audio, or video format from any RSS feed within an on-site advertisement. Consumers can then subscribe to the RSS feed or choose options like Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit and others to provide feedback.
With FeedPowered Ads, publishers are no longer waiting for subscribers, as the latter group can be targeted through other outlets, and even spread the RSS information themselves. Through FeedPowered Ads, program ads are automatically updated as RSS feeds change.
In a press statement, Bill Flitter, founder and VP of marketing of Pheedo, says, “Marketers are always asking us how they can do more with RSS once they have created feeds, and FeedPowered Ads are the answer. FeedPowered Ads change the way marketers communicate with potential customers by putting consumers in control of how they want to interact with content.” Flitter continues, “We are in a world of fragmented media where customers demand control, and marketing products and strategies, such as FeedPowered Ads, that embrace this concept will prove to be the most successful. FeedPowered Ads give marketers and publishers a way to extend the reach of their content and leverage the power of RSS to move content easily around the web to engage new audiences and customers.”
Yahoo Organization Email
From: Sue Decker
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 9:01 AM
Subject: Update on APG Organization
Yahoos,
In December, Yahoo! announced the formation of the Advertiser & Publisher Group (APG), and today I am excited to provide more details with you about how we will be structured and the talented team that will lead APG.
The mission of the Advertiser & Publisher Group is to lead the transformation of how advertisers connect with their target consumers and businesses across the Internet, thereby driving more value for more advertisers and more publishers than any other company. We believe we have the right combination of assets to capitalize on the market opportunity and drive long-term strategic growth for Yahoo!. Our primary objectives in designing this organization are driving customer-centricity, maximizing accountability and facilitating fast, smart decision-making. To that end, we have organized APG around three key critical functions:
* Demand Channels: focused on providing marketing solutions to our advertising customers
* Supply Channels: focused on strategically selecting and serving our publishing customers
* Marketing Products: focused on matching every advertising offer from our demand channels to the best piece of advertising inventory from our supply channels, whether that is on Yahoo! or on one of our publishing partners' sites.
Marketing Solutions (Demand Channels). Consistent with Yahoo!'s organizational focus on being customer-centric, we have chosen to organize our demand channels around two primary sets of advertisers: those who interact with us through a direct sales relationship (Direct Sales Channel) and those that interact with us primarily through a self-service online model (Online Channel).
The Direct Sales Channel will be led by Greg Coleman, EVP Global Sales, who will continue to manage our industry-leading direct Internet sales organization focused on delivering the most effective marketing solutions to our larger customers. Wenda Harris Millard and David Karnstedt will continue to report to Greg and lead Yahoo!'s direct sales organizations. Greg and his team will also continue to drive our international sales growth, working in tandem with the sales leadership in local markets. The sales operations team will largely remain in Greg's organization as well, while we will be moving yield management and inventory optimization to a new group on which I'll elaborate below.
The Online Channel will be led by Rich Riley, who has been promoted to SVP Online Channel & Small Business Services. Rich will lead this team in enhancing and delivering value to those businesses that interact with Yahoo! primarily through a self-service online model, whether they are looking for marketing solutions, publisher products or merchant solutions.
Yahoo! Publisher Network (Supply Channels). Our publishing customers are a critical component of the ad network ecosystem, and we are committed to driving and expanding monetization opportunities for this important customer segment. I have asked Hilary Schneider to lead the Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN) organization. I also want to thank David Karnstedt, who stepped in to lead this group while also leading direct search sales, and enhancing the overall connection and strategy of this group to be more aligned with advertising customer objectives. This team will be instrumental in developing and executing our global strategy of becoming the leading search, display and listings-based ad network by securing ad inventory on off-Yahoo! publisher sites. This off-Yahoo! inventory will complement the Yahoo! network inventory and enable our demand channels to offer our advertising customers not only the broadest array of marketing products but also the most robust and high quality audiences as well. As part of his responsibilities for the online channel, Rich Riley will drive the strategy around customer acquisition and retention of small publishers, supporting Hilary in this capacity.
Marketing Products Division (MPD). The Marketing Products Division is the "magic in the middle" that connects the two customer-centric functions described above. This division is responsible for developing the marketing products and ad marketplaces that will drive the greatest effectiveness for our advertising customers and the highest monetization for our publishing customers. MPD will achieve this by optimally connecting the marketing offers generated by the demand channels with the ad inventory generated by the Yahoo! network and YPN with speed and scale. We are currently searching for the head of this division. MPD is comprised of the following:
Search and Listings Marketplaces: Tim Cadogan has been promoted to SVP, Search and Listings Marketplaces and will be responsible for business and product strategy, marketplace design and matching, business operations and policy for several marketing products, including sponsored search, domain match and the submit family of listings products.
Display Marketplaces: Todd Teresi has been promoted to SVP, Display Marketplaces and will be responsible for business and product strategy, marketplace design and matching, business operations and policy for several marketing products, including display and content match. As the mission of MPD is to optimally connect offers to inventory, yield management and inventory optimization will move from Sales Ops into this team.
As we move toward a more centralized model for product management in order to drive our key objectives, two key organizations will support these two ad marketplaces teams:
Product Management: Mark Morrissey has been promoted to SVP of APG Product Management and will have global responsibility for the product requirements and prioritization of all advertiser and publisher marketing products, including sponsored search, domain match, content match, display advertising, advertiser applications, publisher applications, and mobile monetization. In the past, our products have been largely managed separately – search vs. display vs. listings, advertiser apps vs. publisher apps, small biz vs. YPNO. To align around super-serving our customers by creating more seamless experiences with our products and leveraging the breadth of our ad products, we are moving toward a much more centralized product management structure by adding display advertising, content match, and publisher applications to Mark's current responsibilities.
Engineering: Qi Lu, EVP, Engineering will lead all engineering efforts for APG and will partner with Mark Morrissey in Product Management to ensure development and delivery of leading edge products. Qi continues to report to Zod with a dotted line into APG. In his new role leading the SDS-APG solutions team, Dev Patel heads the group that will continue its key role as the data solutions provider to APG, working with both engineering and product management.
Steve Mitgang and Lisa Morita have decided to leave the company to pursue new challenges. Steve's existing product management and marketing teams and Lisa's existing Customer and Content Solutions team have become part of key groups in the new APG organization. With Steve's departure, all of product management (formerly under Steve) will now report to Mark Morrissey . Product marketing in Steve's org will be organized with product strategy reporting to Tim and Todd in their respective product areas and channel marketing reporting to the demand/supply channels. With Lisa's departure, Customer Solutions will report to Rich Riley and Tim Cadogan will lead Content and Product Policy, Product Quality and Analysis, Content Solutions and International CCS, on an interim basis. Steve and Lisa have been tremendous assets to the company, and I sincerely wish them both well in future endeavors.
In addition to the Demand and Supply channels and the Marketing Products division, APG includes the Local Markets & Commerce Division and Strategic Marketing and Major Initiatives.
Local Markets & Commerce Division (LMC, formerly Marketplaces). Hilary Schneider has been promoted to EVP of LMC and the publisher network. She will continue to run the Marketplaces businesses (Shopping, Travel, Autos, Real Estate, Local, Hot Jobs, Personals), which are being re-branded Local Markets & Commerce and, as discussed above, she will also oversee our publisher strategy. Hilary has extensive experience managing the operations of large publishing companies in both digital and print media, including Knight Ridder and Red Herring, and I am confident in her ability to lead and grow both the YPN and LMC organizations.
Second, I will look to hire a leader for Strategic Marketing & Major Initiatives. This person will work closely with various groups to pull together APG's customer and market segmentation understanding, competitive benchmarks, and marketing and communications strategies. He or she will manage a small APG incubation team to generate ideas and implement plans for new segment-specific offerings.
Primary Support Functions
There are several key roles and teams that will serve in support functions to extend my capacity to manage this new and dynamic organization. I am happy to announce Jeff McCombs has been promoted to chief of staff for APG. Jeff and I have worked closely for almost two years on a variety of projects at Yahoo!, including most recently in his capacity as the finance lead for the eBay deal, Yahoo!'s initial foray into the graphical ad network business and he is already well-versed in the new APG organization and many of its priorities.
I'm also pleased to announce a new addition to Yahoo!, Mark Rubash, who will join Yahoo's finance team as SVP of Operations Finance for APG. Mark will report to me until we identify and hire our new CFO and will partner with Rachel Glaser to cover all of the operating groups in the new structure (see separate email). David Windley is leading the HR function for APG. David joined us recently from Microsoft where he was the HR executive supporting the Chief Operating Officer. Mary Grant will head up the talented legal team supporting APG, and Mary's experience during her tenure at YSM will be invaluable to this group.
As with any changes of this scale, we are evolving the organization over time. For example, we are still evaluating how we will organize for global delivery, including our U.S. based employees that help us deliver our products internationally. Additionally, to strengthen accountability and streamline decision-making, the UED team will transfer its reporting into one of the executives in the Marketing Products Division. Until the leader of this group is named, the team will continue to report through Larry Tesler.
Moving forward we are focused on finding the best ways to achieve our mission with speed and scale to deliver the best experience for all of our customers. Your leadership team will be facilitating the transition of the organizational changes outlined in this email in the coming weeks.
Please plan to join the APG all-hands today at 2 p.m. We invite all Burbank employees to attend in person at the Burbank Marriott. For those in other offices, you can access the live webcast from the front page of Backyard. If you would like to submit a question to be answered at this all-hands, please email question@yahoo-inc.com: .
We have structured APG with the singular focus of driving more value for more advertisers and more publishers than any other company. I am incredibly excited by the opportunity ahead of us, the amazing assets we have to build upon, the ability of the APG leaders and their tremendously talented teams. Now, it's game time! I look forward to all that we will accomplish together in 2007 and beyond.
Sue
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 9:01 AM
Subject: Update on APG Organization
Yahoos,
In December, Yahoo! announced the formation of the Advertiser & Publisher Group (APG), and today I am excited to provide more details with you about how we will be structured and the talented team that will lead APG.
The mission of the Advertiser & Publisher Group is to lead the transformation of how advertisers connect with their target consumers and businesses across the Internet, thereby driving more value for more advertisers and more publishers than any other company. We believe we have the right combination of assets to capitalize on the market opportunity and drive long-term strategic growth for Yahoo!. Our primary objectives in designing this organization are driving customer-centricity, maximizing accountability and facilitating fast, smart decision-making. To that end, we have organized APG around three key critical functions:
* Demand Channels: focused on providing marketing solutions to our advertising customers
* Supply Channels: focused on strategically selecting and serving our publishing customers
* Marketing Products: focused on matching every advertising offer from our demand channels to the best piece of advertising inventory from our supply channels, whether that is on Yahoo! or on one of our publishing partners' sites.
Marketing Solutions (Demand Channels). Consistent with Yahoo!'s organizational focus on being customer-centric, we have chosen to organize our demand channels around two primary sets of advertisers: those who interact with us through a direct sales relationship (Direct Sales Channel) and those that interact with us primarily through a self-service online model (Online Channel).
The Direct Sales Channel will be led by Greg Coleman, EVP Global Sales, who will continue to manage our industry-leading direct Internet sales organization focused on delivering the most effective marketing solutions to our larger customers. Wenda Harris Millard and David Karnstedt will continue to report to Greg and lead Yahoo!'s direct sales organizations. Greg and his team will also continue to drive our international sales growth, working in tandem with the sales leadership in local markets. The sales operations team will largely remain in Greg's organization as well, while we will be moving yield management and inventory optimization to a new group on which I'll elaborate below.
The Online Channel will be led by Rich Riley, who has been promoted to SVP Online Channel & Small Business Services. Rich will lead this team in enhancing and delivering value to those businesses that interact with Yahoo! primarily through a self-service online model, whether they are looking for marketing solutions, publisher products or merchant solutions.
Yahoo! Publisher Network (Supply Channels). Our publishing customers are a critical component of the ad network ecosystem, and we are committed to driving and expanding monetization opportunities for this important customer segment. I have asked Hilary Schneider to lead the Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN) organization. I also want to thank David Karnstedt, who stepped in to lead this group while also leading direct search sales, and enhancing the overall connection and strategy of this group to be more aligned with advertising customer objectives. This team will be instrumental in developing and executing our global strategy of becoming the leading search, display and listings-based ad network by securing ad inventory on off-Yahoo! publisher sites. This off-Yahoo! inventory will complement the Yahoo! network inventory and enable our demand channels to offer our advertising customers not only the broadest array of marketing products but also the most robust and high quality audiences as well. As part of his responsibilities for the online channel, Rich Riley will drive the strategy around customer acquisition and retention of small publishers, supporting Hilary in this capacity.
Marketing Products Division (MPD). The Marketing Products Division is the "magic in the middle" that connects the two customer-centric functions described above. This division is responsible for developing the marketing products and ad marketplaces that will drive the greatest effectiveness for our advertising customers and the highest monetization for our publishing customers. MPD will achieve this by optimally connecting the marketing offers generated by the demand channels with the ad inventory generated by the Yahoo! network and YPN with speed and scale. We are currently searching for the head of this division. MPD is comprised of the following:
Search and Listings Marketplaces: Tim Cadogan has been promoted to SVP, Search and Listings Marketplaces and will be responsible for business and product strategy, marketplace design and matching, business operations and policy for several marketing products, including sponsored search, domain match and the submit family of listings products.
Display Marketplaces: Todd Teresi has been promoted to SVP, Display Marketplaces and will be responsible for business and product strategy, marketplace design and matching, business operations and policy for several marketing products, including display and content match. As the mission of MPD is to optimally connect offers to inventory, yield management and inventory optimization will move from Sales Ops into this team.
As we move toward a more centralized model for product management in order to drive our key objectives, two key organizations will support these two ad marketplaces teams:
Product Management: Mark Morrissey has been promoted to SVP of APG Product Management and will have global responsibility for the product requirements and prioritization of all advertiser and publisher marketing products, including sponsored search, domain match, content match, display advertising, advertiser applications, publisher applications, and mobile monetization. In the past, our products have been largely managed separately – search vs. display vs. listings, advertiser apps vs. publisher apps, small biz vs. YPNO. To align around super-serving our customers by creating more seamless experiences with our products and leveraging the breadth of our ad products, we are moving toward a much more centralized product management structure by adding display advertising, content match, and publisher applications to Mark's current responsibilities.
Engineering: Qi Lu, EVP, Engineering will lead all engineering efforts for APG and will partner with Mark Morrissey in Product Management to ensure development and delivery of leading edge products. Qi continues to report to Zod with a dotted line into APG. In his new role leading the SDS-APG solutions team, Dev Patel heads the group that will continue its key role as the data solutions provider to APG, working with both engineering and product management.
Steve Mitgang and Lisa Morita have decided to leave the company to pursue new challenges. Steve's existing product management and marketing teams and Lisa's existing Customer and Content Solutions team have become part of key groups in the new APG organization. With Steve's departure, all of product management (formerly under Steve) will now report to Mark Morrissey . Product marketing in Steve's org will be organized with product strategy reporting to Tim and Todd in their respective product areas and channel marketing reporting to the demand/supply channels. With Lisa's departure, Customer Solutions will report to Rich Riley and Tim Cadogan will lead Content and Product Policy, Product Quality and Analysis, Content Solutions and International CCS, on an interim basis. Steve and Lisa have been tremendous assets to the company, and I sincerely wish them both well in future endeavors.
In addition to the Demand and Supply channels and the Marketing Products division, APG includes the Local Markets & Commerce Division and Strategic Marketing and Major Initiatives.
Local Markets & Commerce Division (LMC, formerly Marketplaces). Hilary Schneider has been promoted to EVP of LMC and the publisher network. She will continue to run the Marketplaces businesses (Shopping, Travel, Autos, Real Estate, Local, Hot Jobs, Personals), which are being re-branded Local Markets & Commerce and, as discussed above, she will also oversee our publisher strategy. Hilary has extensive experience managing the operations of large publishing companies in both digital and print media, including Knight Ridder and Red Herring, and I am confident in her ability to lead and grow both the YPN and LMC organizations.
Second, I will look to hire a leader for Strategic Marketing & Major Initiatives. This person will work closely with various groups to pull together APG's customer and market segmentation understanding, competitive benchmarks, and marketing and communications strategies. He or she will manage a small APG incubation team to generate ideas and implement plans for new segment-specific offerings.
Primary Support Functions
There are several key roles and teams that will serve in support functions to extend my capacity to manage this new and dynamic organization. I am happy to announce Jeff McCombs has been promoted to chief of staff for APG. Jeff and I have worked closely for almost two years on a variety of projects at Yahoo!, including most recently in his capacity as the finance lead for the eBay deal, Yahoo!'s initial foray into the graphical ad network business and he is already well-versed in the new APG organization and many of its priorities.
I'm also pleased to announce a new addition to Yahoo!, Mark Rubash, who will join Yahoo's finance team as SVP of Operations Finance for APG. Mark will report to me until we identify and hire our new CFO and will partner with Rachel Glaser to cover all of the operating groups in the new structure (see separate email). David Windley is leading the HR function for APG. David joined us recently from Microsoft where he was the HR executive supporting the Chief Operating Officer. Mary Grant will head up the talented legal team supporting APG, and Mary's experience during her tenure at YSM will be invaluable to this group.
As with any changes of this scale, we are evolving the organization over time. For example, we are still evaluating how we will organize for global delivery, including our U.S. based employees that help us deliver our products internationally. Additionally, to strengthen accountability and streamline decision-making, the UED team will transfer its reporting into one of the executives in the Marketing Products Division. Until the leader of this group is named, the team will continue to report through Larry Tesler.
Moving forward we are focused on finding the best ways to achieve our mission with speed and scale to deliver the best experience for all of our customers. Your leadership team will be facilitating the transition of the organizational changes outlined in this email in the coming weeks.
Please plan to join the APG all-hands today at 2 p.m. We invite all Burbank employees to attend in person at the Burbank Marriott. For those in other offices, you can access the live webcast from the front page of Backyard. If you would like to submit a question to be answered at this all-hands, please email question@yahoo-inc.com:
We have structured APG with the singular focus of driving more value for more advertisers and more publishers than any other company. I am incredibly excited by the opportunity ahead of us, the amazing assets we have to build upon, the ability of the APG leaders and their tremendously talented teams. Now, it's game time! I look forward to all that we will accomplish together in 2007 and beyond.
Sue
Thursday, February 15, 2007
More Email Marketing Planned in 2007
A new survey of 1,500 marketing professionals by Datran Media reports that, while sixty percent of consumers who make immediate purchases from email messages did so because messages contained products they were already considering, only one-third of promotional email marketers said relevance was one of their top-three goals.
The study quotes Jupiter Research Vice President and Lead Analyst David Daniels, as saying, in the Jupiter report ROI of Relevance, "Despite additional campaign costs, relevant campaigns increase net profits by an average of 18 times more than do broadcast mailings."
Focusing on marketers' plans to employ email marketing, the survey found that 72 percent of the marketers surveyed indicated that they plan to employ email marketing more in 2007. Specifically indicating email marketing's importance as a CRM and acquisition channel:
70.5 percent reported plans to increase spending on email acquisition
63 percent on retention campaigns
Among the leading brand marketers who participated in the survey, Art.com Director of CRM, Kelsey Lowitz, said "Email marketing is a powerful communication and revenue channel that allows us to engage in real-time, relevant conversations with repeat and new buyers alike. To date, we've seen our email marketing programs result in increasingly satisfied and loyal customers who return and refer us to friends as well as a corresponding increase in new customer registrations."
In addition to boosting email marketing programs, the survey also found that:
More than half of the respondents outsourced email marketing
Email optimization techniques, including landing pages, subject line testing and triggered messaging, were unanimously ranked as "very important."
83 percent of respondents indicated they were confident that email ROI will increase during the new year
You may view the original press release as a PDF document, or see the complete study results here.
The study quotes Jupiter Research Vice President and Lead Analyst David Daniels, as saying, in the Jupiter report ROI of Relevance, "Despite additional campaign costs, relevant campaigns increase net profits by an average of 18 times more than do broadcast mailings."
Focusing on marketers' plans to employ email marketing, the survey found that 72 percent of the marketers surveyed indicated that they plan to employ email marketing more in 2007. Specifically indicating email marketing's importance as a CRM and acquisition channel:
70.5 percent reported plans to increase spending on email acquisition
63 percent on retention campaigns
Among the leading brand marketers who participated in the survey, Art.com Director of CRM, Kelsey Lowitz, said "Email marketing is a powerful communication and revenue channel that allows us to engage in real-time, relevant conversations with repeat and new buyers alike. To date, we've seen our email marketing programs result in increasingly satisfied and loyal customers who return and refer us to friends as well as a corresponding increase in new customer registrations."
In addition to boosting email marketing programs, the survey also found that:
More than half of the respondents outsourced email marketing
Email optimization techniques, including landing pages, subject line testing and triggered messaging, were unanimously ranked as "very important."
83 percent of respondents indicated they were confident that email ROI will increase during the new year
You may view the original press release as a PDF document, or see the complete study results here.
Dialing for Small-Biz Dollars
Pay-per-call ads are luring to the Web service-oriented businesses that don't have Web sites and prefer calls over clicks to rack up sales
Three-year-old Rhode Island-based roofing company AS Enterprises had a big, albeit common, problem: not enough customers. Owner Ann Marie Appleton had tried offering free estimates in local circulars and flyers, but her competitors were doing the same, and the resulting leads were lukewarm at best. She considered an ad in the SuperPages yellow pages, a division of Verizon (VZ) spin-off Idearc Media (IAR), because of its large distribution and solid reputation, but the next edition wouldn't be delivered to homes for eight months.
Eventually, Appleton's sales representative sold her on the idea of a monthly agreement for the company's new Pay For Call service, where businesses pay for each call made to their business via SuperPages' online local search results.
Appleton couldn't be happier with her choice. The service costs around $600 a month, depending on how many times her ad is served and how many calls she gets. AS Enterprises totaled more than $240,000 in sales in 2006, up from just $60,000 the year before, and Appleton says a good 70% of that business came directly from her pay-per-call advertising.
Calls Over Clicks
People used to call just for the free estimate, says Appleton, but those who call from SuperPages are ready to do business. Her closing rate on calls went from 25% to between 60% and 70%, and her call volume has tripled. Since the service requires that she bid against other businesses, each call costs about $25, but Appleton says she'd gladly pay twice that. "It pays for itself with just one job, and I get between four and eight good jobs a month," she says.
Princeton (N.J.)-based research firm The Kelsey Group estimates that the pay-per-call market will more than double each year for the next five years, with revenues reaching $3.7 billion by 2010. "Call tracking will live side-by-side with pay-per-click, e-mail tracking, coupon prints, and other measurable consumer actions. For off-line businesses in the service sector (painters, roofers, etc.), calls will have a higher importance than clicks," says Matthew Booth, senior vice-president and program director for interactive local media at Kelsey.
Small-business customers like Appleton say it offers a better return on investment than pay-per-click advertising and suits the needs of businesses that often can't close a sale via the Web only (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/29/07, "Small-Biz Ads: The Year of the Web").
Dropping the Dime
Still, the acceptance of pay-per-call by no means signals the end of pay-per-click; in fact, that market continues to grow. But some small-business advertisers are getting outpriced by their larger counterparts (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/22/07, "The Small Fry Sour on Search Ads"), leading them to look for alternatives.
Most pay-per-call advertising services work like this: First, companies bid for placement on keyword searches. Then their ad is served to the user based on location, and the company is charged each time a user calls; the ad itself is placed for free. When companies register with most providers, their site is assigned a unique phone number that appears in the ad, so that the company can track how many calls actually come through the pay-per-call advertising system. Businesses only pay when someone searching for their product or service picks up the phone and calls them.
Some companies think that the local nature of the product will bring in loads of new advertisers. Ingenio, a San Francisco-based local search advertising company with 110 employees and more than $100 million in annual revenue, is one that's betting that the torrid growth rates of pay-per-click advertising can't continue forever. "Everyone focuses on the 500,000 U.S. businesses targeted by pay-per-click, when there are 13 million businesses not engaged online at all, and 70% of them don't have Web sites," says Ingenio Chief Marketing Officer Marc Barach.
Serious Callers
Therein lies an untapped demand that's making companies like Ingenio salivate. Through their bidding system, Ingenio, like SuperPages.com, has created a virtual market that dictates its own pricing, much like the pay-per-click model. Barach says prices vary across different industries and for different services. Legal-service ads draw higher prices than those from hair salons, for example. And when tax time is peaking, Barach says the price of placing tax-service ads on portals such as AOL (AOL) and MSN (MSFT) goes through the roof.
Barach thinks the advertiser's return on investment more than makes up for the higher initial price of pay-per-call vs. pay-per-click. He says the average conversion rate on a pay-per-call ad is three to five times more successful than a pay-per-click ad in a field like legal services, and that rate grows to eight times for smaller purchases like flower shops. "The reason is that people who are clicking to read Web sites are in the research phase, and people who are calling the merchant aren't doing it for entertainment. Hence, these things convert more."
Get Them Talking
Google (GOOG) is currently at work on its own pay-per-call service, which already works as a part of Google Maps but hasn't yet been offered to U.S. small businesses. In that system, users click on an icon for a restaurant, enter their numbers, and an outside provider connects the user and the establishment. The company has already launched a formal pay-per-call product in India, says Rohit Dahawan, a product manager for Google that oversees the click-to-call and pay-per-call products. And they're working on more such products, to be launched in the next several months in the U.S. They've also started tracking calls as part of their updated small-business AdWords service.
When deciding with whom to advertise, small businesses try to keep in mind the eventual placement of their ads and the amount of traffic that will see it. SuperPages.com had 2.8 billion searches in 2006; Ingenio's network of AOL and MSN reached more than 1.1 billion searches. Says Robyn Rose, vice-president of Internet marketing for Idearc Media, "Having a heritage in the yellow-pages business, we know that about 70% of companies are service-based. Most want to conduct business over the phone."
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