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February 22 2008 PrecisionMarketing 33
RSeareporch Markt subjecteting Special Report
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Steve Hemsley
Can vertical
I
t was obvious Larry Page was a smart guy
when he built an inkjet printer out of Lego search
bricks while at the University of Michigan.
This son of a computer science professor went engines
on to form Google with another clever chap
called Sergey Brin, and the business has grown challenge
into a monster of the search world. Its rivals do
not necessarily want to slay the beast, but they the
would love to clip its wings.
According to Web analyst Hitwise, Google dominance
ended 2007 with a record-breaking market
share of search at 66 per cent. This was 2 per- of the
centage points higher than the company’s aver-
age for the year and left its competitors generalist
trailing. Its nearest rival Yahoo! scored a
respectable 21 per cent, with MSN on 7 per cent giants like search engines. PPC lets advertisers bid on engagement. “It has never been a pure direct
and Ask.com on 4 per cent. At the beginning of
February Microsoft announced it wanted to Google and
certain keywords, prompting a short descrip- response medium and it is now clear that the
tion and URL for their site to appear in the channel has considerable potential for con-
buy Yahoo! in a £22.6bn deal to challenge
Google. This bid may have been rejected but Yahoo?
paid listing section. The advertisers then pay sumers to build a relationship with a brand.”
every time someone clicks on their link. He adds: “Advertisers must capitalise on
should marketers care who dominates the There are already many successful vertical this increased awareness and focus on con-
world of search? operators. The blog search engine Technorati sumers’ attitude and stage of purchase as the
Well, search engines remain the principal has boomed as social networking and user-gen- most important factors in working towards
way Web users find what they want online, and erated content has exploded. Its success even conversion to purchase.”
advertisers must target them as best they can. prompted Google to respond with its own ver- The key is to find a balance between volume
The generalist search engines such as sion, Google blog Search. of clicks and quality of audience. Grant White-
Google remain incredibly popular with adver- LinkedIn is a vertical search engine that lets side, technical director at search engine opti-
tisers because of the sheer volume of people business people hunt for contacts, while there misation (SEO) agency Ambergreen, says this
who access them. Yet there is a growing are many industry examples challenging the will only be achieved by combining paid
demand for vertical search engines that allow generalists. Kitchenandbathsearch.com is run search with visible offline activity, investment
marketers to reach more niche audiences. In by The Nielsen Company and taps into the in SEO and strong affiliate marketing.
fact, if the search engine experts are to be knowledge of relevant experts, searchMedica Another report by E-Consultancy claims
believed, the more specialist engines could, col- is for health professionals and Institutional affiliate marketing is now a £3bn industry.
lectively, take a large bite out of Google’s mar- Investor launched searchhedgefunds.com for One network, buy.at, has added brands such as
ket share this year if they get their act together. professionals in that industry. John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Egg, Virgin
According to a recent Vertical Search The downside that these search engines Media and BT in the past year.
Engine report published by E-Consultancy and must address for advertisers is the lower vol- “There will always be a mix of advertisers
sponsored by Convera, vertical search offers umes they generate and the lack of awareness targeting different audiences. Some can afford
significant advantages, particularly for busi- which exists among media planners and buy- to look at volume as a valid key performance
ness users. More than half of the 500 Internet ers, as well as among direct marketers. indicator, especially if they draw valuable
and media executives it questioned wanted The E-Consultancy report reveals that less advertising revenues from their Web proper-
faster access to targeted information and con- than half of respondents currently use a verti- ties,” says Whiteside.
tacts, and eight out of ten of them already use cal engine at least once a week. Even if they do, Advertisers need to know not only which
sector-specific RSS feeds. This is a trend the lack of awareness means many people will search engines will work best for them but also
expected to be followed in other industries. still use general engines such as Google or which keywords their audience is using. In the
The same report claims advertisers will Yahoo! to actually find a vertical alternative. early days, Internet users would type in one
increase their spending on pay-per-click (PPC) Equi=Media search marketing director word when looking for something, but today
and online sponsorship at the expense of offline Matt Mills believes search should never be just they use multiple combinations of words.
media which should be good news for vertical about volumes, but rather about quality and This has led to Long Tail Optimisation
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