Getting Granular: The DigitalGrit Blog

New York Times: Yahoo Text Ad Sales, Shares Down

From the Times:

Shares of Yahoo fell to their lowest level in nearly two years in after-hours trading yesterday as it reported weak revenue from Internet search advertising in the second quarter and a delay in a critical project that is meant to increase search revenue.

While Yahoo, which runs the world’s most popular Internet site, has a booming business selling graphical advertising, it has been struggling to rebuild its search service.

Google, which continues to increase its share of both users and advertising revenue, produces 40 percent more revenue from each search than Yahoo does, industry experts say, thanks to software that is better at selecting relevant text advertisements to place on a page of search results...

Read the whole thing.

In other Yahoo news, ClickZ has agreat article on their behavioral marketing solutions.

New York Times: Yahoo Text Ad Sales, Shares Down

From the Times:

Shares of Yahoo fell to their lowest level in nearly two years in after-hours trading yesterday as it reported weak revenue from Internet search advertising in the second quarter and a delay in a critical project that is meant to increase search revenue.

While Yahoo, which runs the world’s most popular Internet site, has a booming business selling graphical advertising, it has been struggling to rebuild its search service.

Google, which continues to increase its share of both users and advertising revenue, produces 40 percent more revenue from each search than Yahoo does, industry experts say, thanks to software that is better at selecting relevant text advertisements to place on a page of search results...

Read the whole thing.

In other Yahoo news, ClickZ has agreat article on their behavioral marketing solutions.

Microsoft Launches Analytics Site Today

MediaPost reports that Microsoft is launching an analytics site for marketers today. The site, adCenter Labs, features a host of tools from Keyword Detection (like Wordtracker) to Behavior Targeting.

They're pretty serious about competing!

As they state on the site, "our goal is to deliver smarter, more relevant advertising to the right people at the right time. Our continual commitment will be to the success of our advertisers and their customers. "

Microsoft Launches Analytics Site Today

MediaPost reports that Microsoft is launching an analytics site for marketers today. The site, adCenter Labs, features a host of tools from Keyword Detection (like Wordtracker) to Behavior Targeting.

They're pretty serious about competing!

As they state on the site, "our goal is to deliver smarter, more relevant advertising to the right people at the right time. Our continual commitment will be to the success of our advertisers and their customers. "

AOL's Advertising.com Reports that Behavioral Ads Yield Fewer Clicks, Higher Conversions

Here's some interesting news -- we haven't talked our heard about behavioral in some time. We always knew it converted well, but it just hasn't been, well, trendy lately. (See our case study on the topic. It won us an WebAward)

So imagine our excitement when we saw this article in AdWeek. Perhaps the well-done behavioral ad will be back in vogue...

Research from AOL's Advertising.com found that behavioral targeting ads produce lower response rates than run-of-network placements, but those clicking them more often open accounts or complete a registration form.

In the personal finance category, behavioral-targeted ads drew a click-through rate 56 percent below untargeted ads, yet they had a 90 percent higher conversion rate than untargeted placements. Similarly, targeted auto ads had a 64 percent lower click rate but 323 percent higher conversion rate. For education ads, clicks declined 22 percent and conversions rose 105 percent.

"What is happening is the advertising is more relevant to them," said Lauren Weinberg, associate director of research at Advertising.com. "There are less wasted clicks."

Read the whole article (may require registration).

AOL's Advertising.com Reports that Behavioral Ads Yield Fewer Clicks, Higher Conversions

Here's some interesting news -- we haven't talked our heard about behavioral in some time. We always knew it converted well, but it just hasn't been, well, trendy lately. (See our case study on the topic. It won us an WebAward)

So imagine our excitement when we saw this article in AdWeek. Perhaps the well-done behavioral ad will be back in vogue...

Research from AOL's Advertising.com found that behavioral targeting ads produce lower response rates than run-of-network placements, but those clicking them more often open accounts or complete a registration form.

In the personal finance category, behavioral-targeted ads drew a click-through rate 56 percent below untargeted ads, yet they had a 90 percent higher conversion rate than untargeted placements. Similarly, targeted auto ads had a 64 percent lower click rate but 323 percent higher conversion rate. For education ads, clicks declined 22 percent and conversions rose 105 percent.

"What is happening is the advertising is more relevant to them," said Lauren Weinberg, associate director of research at Advertising.com. "There are less wasted clicks."

Read the whole article (may require registration).

Splog Reporter - Superhero of the Blogosphere?

Heard it from the RSS Blog:

Spam blogs (or Splogs) are a growing problem in the blogosphere -- and well-intentioned bloggers, AdSense participants, SEO experts and Web marketers are paying the price.

Enter the "Splog Reporter" - a new reporting system for spam and fake blogs. The main page is a form by which the good guys can report the bad guys. From their launch press release:

The call to clean up the blogosphere was answered today. Splog Reporter is a new Web site that encourages good-willed bloggers to take the front line in the flight against spam blogs, or splogs.

Splog Reporter allows users to submit splogs they encounter to its database. The data is complied, confirmed and made available for purchase to search engines that wish to optimize search results for their users. Ultimately, the users who submit splog to Splog Reporter benefit from the accumulation of this data through search engine improvements.

“The idea behind Splog Reporter is simple, but there is a great need for a monitoring process in the blogosphere,” said Frank Gruber, creator of Splog Reporter. “Splog Reporter functions like the a blog-community’s trash can, where good-willed bloggers can come together to combat the existence of splog. The response has been encouraging.”

Within its first 24 hours of existence, Splog Reporter received an estimated 1000 hits.

According to the RSS Blog, Doc Searles believes the site is an Ice Rocket project. Could also be Technorati, if you look at Sifry's recent call to clean up the blogosphere. But hey, Doc Searles is a lot smarter than I am.

So, The Splog Reporter. While it's interesting that they're creating a database of splogs that they'll sell to the likes of Google and Yahoo, who's to say they'll buy it? And who's policing it? Couldn't I very easily put one of our competitor's blogs into that database? (If I wasn't so petrified of the bad marketing karma, I just might!) Do they do enough fact-checking to know that I've done that? And - hey! - couldn't our competitors do that to us??

Remains to be seen. The site's about two weeks old, so...proof is in the pudding and we've barely boiled the milk at this point. (Is that a good metaphor?)

Splog Reporter - Superhero of the Blogosphere?

Heard it from the RSS Blog:

Spam blogs (or Splogs) are a growing problem in the blogosphere -- and well-intentioned bloggers, AdSense participants, SEO experts and Web marketers are paying the price.

Enter the "Splog Reporter" - a new reporting system for spam and fake blogs. The main page is a form by which the good guys can report the bad guys. From their launch press release:

The call to clean up the blogosphere was answered today. Splog Reporter is a new Web site that encourages good-willed bloggers to take the front line in the flight against spam blogs, or splogs.

Splog Reporter allows users to submit splogs they encounter to its database. The data is complied, confirmed and made available for purchase to search engines that wish to optimize search results for their users. Ultimately, the users who submit splog to Splog Reporter benefit from the accumulation of this data through search engine improvements.

“The idea behind Splog Reporter is simple, but there is a great need for a monitoring process in the blogosphere,” said Frank Gruber, creator of Splog Reporter. “Splog Reporter functions like the a blog-community’s trash can, where good-willed bloggers can come together to combat the existence of splog. The response has been encouraging.”

Within its first 24 hours of existence, Splog Reporter received an estimated 1000 hits.

According to the RSS Blog, Doc Searles believes the site is an Ice Rocket project. Could also be Technorati, if you look at Sifry's recent call to clean up the blogosphere. But hey, Doc Searles is a lot smarter than I am.

So, The Splog Reporter. While it's interesting that they're creating a database of splogs that they'll sell to the likes of Google and Yahoo, who's to say they'll buy it? And who's policing it? Couldn't I very easily put one of our competitor's blogs into that database? (If I wasn't so petrified of the bad marketing karma, I just might!) Do they do enough fact-checking to know that I've done that? And - hey! - couldn't our competitors do that to us??

Remains to be seen. The site's about two weeks old, so...proof is in the pudding and we've barely boiled the milk at this point. (Is that a good metaphor?)