Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

According to a recent blog from Yahoo, they have been testing a new service called Rich Ads that lets advertisers add video, images and custom search boxes to Yahoo search ads (view example). The results appear as “Promotional Results” that can combine the relevance of search with the impact of rich media.  A small group of advertisers tested it in the fourth quarter of 2008 and saw click-through rates (CTRs) rise by as much as 25%. Yahoo further states that these advertisers have also seen improved brand exposure and conversion rates.

The Rich Ads in Search program is currently only being shared with a small number of brand advertisers at this time and enables them to:

• Post images and video, which can increase the branding impact of search advertising.
• Create deep links to relevant pages, which can help drive conversions directly from the Yahoo! search results page.
• Include boxes within the listing that lets users search for their desired product or a store location directly without additional navigation.
• Show their logo, which enhances user trust.

This service should eventually be available to all advertisers. The Rich Ads appear as “Promotional Results” next to the search listing.

I suspect that we are in the midst of the Great Online Video Revolution. YouTube has already taken the world by storm and has been testing video advertising with YouTube Sponsored Videos. However, Google has not yet made the jump to include video ads within search results. However, I suspect it is just a matter of time. Yahoo is first to market with this concept, but if and when Google chooses to move, they will likely takeover the online video advertising market. It will be fun to watch this evolve over the next several years. If you are looking for custom web video production, Webivore has done a nice job with videos for several of our clients.

More about Brad

The Daytona 500 finished early due to rain. Though #17 Matt Kenseth walked away as the official race winner, I think the real winner was Ask.com. If NASCAR fans hadn’t heard of them before, they certainly have now.  

Just last month, Ask.com finalized a deal with NASCAR to sponsor #96 Bobby Labonte and make Ask.com the “Official Search Engine of NASCAR” for this season. That is an interesting approach that just may help Ask.com reach a new and significant audience, with an estimated 75 million NASCAR racing fans. This could provide a badly needed boost for Ask.com’s struggling search engine.

Ask.com currently ranks a distant 4th in Search Engine Market Share, receiving 2.4% of all searches in December, 2008. This equates to 265 million monthly search queries, a decrease of 10% from the year prior (in the same time period, Google grew by 49%, now receiving 7.9 billion monthly search queries). It appears that Ask.com needs to do something. So, maybe NASCAR is the answer, especially since there was no sight of Google, Yahoo or Microsoft anywhere at the event.

Ask.com currently offers PPC advertising via its “ASL network”, consisting of 90+ syndication partners, across a multitude of search properties, portals and meta search sites that include (but is not limited to) Excite.com, iWon.com, CNET.com, Mamma.com and Lycos.com. When I last tried it, I was not particularly impressed with results, but admittedly, that was some time ago.

As far as the Daytona finish, don’t Ask! It was quite disappointing, finishing with an incredibly lack luster rain delay. It will be tough for Daytona to ever come up with a finish like 2 years back, where a last lap crash led to an insane finish with one driver, Clint Boyer, actually crossing the finish line upside down (view video).

However, that is not to say the race did not have its moments. Fan favorite, Dale Earnhardt Jr. caused an accident that took out 9 of the leaders (some say intentionally). Too bad for Ask.com that they can’t just as easily eliminate their competitors; they only need to take out 3.

JumpFly previously had the pleasure of working with NASCAR via relationships with McGlynn Racing in the Cup Series (view pictures) and Key Motorsports in the Truck Series in past seasons. Maybe one year JumpFly will win the Daytona 500. On that note, the driver for McGlynn Racing when JumpFly sponsored them was Derrike Cope, who actually did win the Daytona 500 in 1990.

More about Brad

This season’s PPC Advertising Super Bowl Winner is Google AdWords Content Match. Just last season, the masses were scoffing at Content Match and its lackluster results. However, this season, that has all changed. Google AdWords Content Match has risen from relative obscurity to now offer many advertisers a valuable avenue for attaining clients. We’ve recently mentioned this before here at JumpFly, but now more than ever, Content Match has proven to be a successful and critical part of many advertisers’ campaigns.

All account managers here at JumpFly have witnessed improved success rates with Content Match over the past six months. In fact, a handful of our clients actually receive 30 – 40% of their traffic and conversions from Content Match.

One particularly useful recent AdWords enhancement, Placement Targeting, enables advertisers to reach specific targeted content partners. When properly identified, successful partners can be isolated and focused on. Just yesterday I was looking at an account we manage where one specific content partner is isolated in an ad group with a high bid due to its success, and this single content partner is responsible for providing the majority of overall conversions for this particular client. Properly identifying and reaching this particular content partner for this advertiser was critical and proved to be the major factor contributing to this client’s success.

So if you have neglected to consider Content Match at Google, I suggest you reconsider. Content match advertising requires a different style setup than search engine advertising, and requires using different reports to fine tune and adjust results. However, the extra effort just might give your business the edge it needs to succeed in today’s increasingly challenging economy. Hopefully this highly coveted PPC Super Bowl victory will help give AdWords Content Match the respect it so badly deserves.

More about Brad