By Jennifer Laycock -
The success of contextual based advertising options like Google's AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher's Network hasn't gone unnoticed by other companies looking to cash in on the contextual advertising craze. Last week performance marketing network and interactive agency AdValient released a new suite of contextual advertising tools dubbed Advario. The new program is designed to give publishers a new way to place advertising contextual advertising on their web sites.
At first glance, AdVario appeared to me to be nothing more than the latest varient of TopText or Gator ads. Users respond to ads by mousing over underlined text which launches a pop-up version of an ad. The TopText and Gator systems were widely criticized as "scumware" a few years back because they worked by overlaying advertising on web sites without the site owner's permission. The ad system worked by running through a browser add-on that was (usually) installed on a user's system without their knowledge. It then worked to overlay the ads on every page that a user visited.
After taking the time to check out AdVario a little more thoroughly, I was relieved to see that this system works by allowing site owners to offer the ads through their own site. Thus, the appearance of ads is completely controlled by publishers. There's no fear here of having an ad pop up on someone's web site without their permission.
AdVario CEO Peter Bordes is looking to offer up a way for both advertisers and publishers to capitalize on contextual advertising without having to go through a search engine system. "At AdValiant, we're creating innovative, relevant and intelligent performance products for marketers while providing new ways for publishers to monetize their fallow inventory," said Bordes. "While web marketers have funneled an increasing amount of money into performance campaigns, the vast majority of this money has been directed to search engines, not to web publishers. We anticipate that AdVario could help change that."
Advertisers have the option of running text links, HTML or Flash ads and to link those ads to landing pages for further information. Ads can be targeted contextually or behaviorally. (For an example of a site running AdVario advertisments, check out carcredit.com.)
Publishers are given control over the types of campaigns that run on their site in by allowing them to control the type of advertising that runs on their site and by allowing them to control the categorization of ads that they show. Advertisers are given the power to run text, HTML, Flash or rich media ads on a CPC, CPA, CMP and CPL basis.
วันศุกร์ที่ 26 ตุลาคม พ.ศ. 2550
Yahoo Shares Specs on Planned Pay Per Click Upgrade
By Jennifer Laycock
Coming right on the heels of Microsoft's adCenter launch, the team at Yahoo has finally decided to publicly release some details of the updates they plan to launch this fall to their own pay per click advertising platform. In an email sent to Yahoo advertisers, the company laid out plans for more than half a dozen new features designed to give advertisers more control and better returns for their campaigns.
An overview of new features from the email:
Easy-to-Use Control Panel
A completely redesigned, easy-to-navigate control panel will help you see what's working and what's not--at the level of detail? you choose--so you can take action and get even better results.
Fast Ad Activation
Most new ads will go online within minutes, allowing you to connect with customers quickly, and easily make changes to your ads whenever you need to.
Ad Testing
Easily test multiple versions of an ad to find the message that works best for your customers and provides the greatest return on your advertising investment. You can then choose to shift impressions to the ad that performs best.
Geo-Targeting
Display your ads broadly or narrow your geographic distribution to better target your customers, customize your ads and control your costs.
Campaign Budgeting, Forecasting and Scheduling
Create, budget and schedule individual advertising campaigns for greater control over your advertising strategy and spending. Review forecasts of your potential clicks based on your bids and budget and see how many clicks you're leaving to your competitors.
Visibility
Understand how well your ads are performing relative to your competitors with the new Quality Index displayed for each ad. You'll also see the bid range necessary for premium placement at the top of the search results page.
Easy-to-Use Control Panel
A completely redesigned, easy-to-navigate control panel will help you see what's working and what's not--at the level of detail you choose--so you can take action and get even better results.
"While the enhancements to our platform are dramatic and will provide immediate benefits to our advertisers, we ultimately rebuilt our system with the future in mind," said Steve Mitgang, Yahoo!?s senior vice president of advertising platforms and products. "Once the first version of the core platform is in place, we will be able to move quickly to build in capabilities that ultimately will provide search advertisers deeper access to Yahoo!?s more than 420 million users, broader advertising capabilities, proven targeting expertise and global distribution network."
Yahoo! has also released the API for the new system so that companies that rely on API technology for paid search management will have time to build new versions of their software before the updates are launched later this year.
Existing advertisers should expect to see a series of new emails from Yahoo that will provide some types and information on getting your account ready for the changes. They'll also be adding a new blog to cover tips, news and information about Yahoo! Search Marketing.
Once Yahoo has launched the changes outlined above, they'll begin another feature rollout designed to rank ads based on a quality index. This change will result in Yahoo having a ranking system that more closely resembles the one in Google's AdWords. Currently, Yahoo paid search ads are ranked based solely on the bid price of the advertisers. The new system, while still unknown, will incorporate things like ad text, click through rates and geographical region to help make sure that the most relevant ads rise to the top of the listings.
Yahoo has stated that it also plans to roll out "additional distribution options" and new ad targeting based on either demographic information, online user activity or other features. The launch dates for those features is still unknown.
Coming right on the heels of Microsoft's adCenter launch, the team at Yahoo has finally decided to publicly release some details of the updates they plan to launch this fall to their own pay per click advertising platform. In an email sent to Yahoo advertisers, the company laid out plans for more than half a dozen new features designed to give advertisers more control and better returns for their campaigns.
An overview of new features from the email:
Easy-to-Use Control Panel
A completely redesigned, easy-to-navigate control panel will help you see what's working and what's not--at the level of detail? you choose--so you can take action and get even better results.
Fast Ad Activation
Most new ads will go online within minutes, allowing you to connect with customers quickly, and easily make changes to your ads whenever you need to.
Ad Testing
Easily test multiple versions of an ad to find the message that works best for your customers and provides the greatest return on your advertising investment. You can then choose to shift impressions to the ad that performs best.
Geo-Targeting
Display your ads broadly or narrow your geographic distribution to better target your customers, customize your ads and control your costs.
Campaign Budgeting, Forecasting and Scheduling
Create, budget and schedule individual advertising campaigns for greater control over your advertising strategy and spending. Review forecasts of your potential clicks based on your bids and budget and see how many clicks you're leaving to your competitors.
Visibility
Understand how well your ads are performing relative to your competitors with the new Quality Index displayed for each ad. You'll also see the bid range necessary for premium placement at the top of the search results page.
Easy-to-Use Control Panel
A completely redesigned, easy-to-navigate control panel will help you see what's working and what's not--at the level of detail you choose--so you can take action and get even better results.
"While the enhancements to our platform are dramatic and will provide immediate benefits to our advertisers, we ultimately rebuilt our system with the future in mind," said Steve Mitgang, Yahoo!?s senior vice president of advertising platforms and products. "Once the first version of the core platform is in place, we will be able to move quickly to build in capabilities that ultimately will provide search advertisers deeper access to Yahoo!?s more than 420 million users, broader advertising capabilities, proven targeting expertise and global distribution network."
Yahoo! has also released the API for the new system so that companies that rely on API technology for paid search management will have time to build new versions of their software before the updates are launched later this year.
Existing advertisers should expect to see a series of new emails from Yahoo that will provide some types and information on getting your account ready for the changes. They'll also be adding a new blog to cover tips, news and information about Yahoo! Search Marketing.
Once Yahoo has launched the changes outlined above, they'll begin another feature rollout designed to rank ads based on a quality index. This change will result in Yahoo having a ranking system that more closely resembles the one in Google's AdWords. Currently, Yahoo paid search ads are ranked based solely on the bid price of the advertisers. The new system, while still unknown, will incorporate things like ad text, click through rates and geographical region to help make sure that the most relevant ads rise to the top of the listings.
Yahoo has stated that it also plans to roll out "additional distribution options" and new ad targeting based on either demographic information, online user activity or other features. The launch dates for those features is still unknown.
Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission
By Kalena Jordan
Google AdSense is fast becoming the preferred way for people to earn an income online. Forget eBay and multiple affiliate programs - Whether you are a work-at-home mom trying to make a little extra cash or an Internet entrepreneur with hundreds of monetized websites, AdSense is truly the easiest way to earn money.
Simply sign up for a free account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much money AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions!
The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee. You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you buy their e-book, sign up for their seminar or purchase their newsletter. But I'm going to share all their AdSense tricks for free. Here they are:
1) Color code your ads to match your web site palette *exactly*. Don't use frames around your ads. Instead, in the AdSense code generation interface, make sure you choose the same color as your page background for the ad frame and the ad background.
When choosing the ad heading colors, match them to the *exact* color of your page headings. Use the exact same ad background shade as your page background. Use the exact same ad text font and color as the text on your pages. You can see an example of this color-matching on my search engine advice blog notice the 4 link ad unit and skyscraper text ad unit on the left hand side under the headings Ads by Google as you scroll down the page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette used throughout the rest of the page.
Near enough is NOT good enough. If you can't quite get the color matching right, use Google's built in color palette together with the RGB to HEX or vice versa color converter on this page. That handy little tool was a life saver for me.
This is probably the one single tweak that made the most difference to my commission levels.
2) Try not to use the traditional horizontal banner style or leaderboard image ads because people are blind to them.
3) Use Google's own AdSense optimization tips and visual heat map to assist you in deciding where on your page to place your AdSense ad code.
4) Research competitive keywords using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery or grab a list of the most popular keywords from various sources and use them in your web site pages where relevant. This article is a good source of frequently searched keywords. Targeting popular keywords should trigger AdSense ads on your pages that utilize those keywords. The more popular the keyword or phrase, the higher AdWords advertisers are generally willing to pay per click for it so the higher your commission on those clicks.
5) Incorporate the AdSense code into your page so that the ads look like a regular part of your site. You can see an example of this on the Internet Dating Stories site where link ads are incorporated within the regular left hand navigation of the site under the heading "Feature Links".
6) Use Google's new 4 and 5 link ad units wherever possible. They seem to have a much higher Click Through Rate (CTR) than regular ad styles. You can view all the AdSense ad formats here.
7) Place arrows or images next to your ads to draw attention to them. You can see two different versions of on this search engine article library page at the top (where a pointing hand directs your eye to the ad) and the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to each of the three AdSense ads.
8) Use the full allowance of multiple AdSense ads on each of your pages - 3 regular AdSense ads, plus 1 link unit. Use careful placement of these ads so they blend into your site and don't distract from your content. Clever use of this allowance can be seen on this page about bad Internet dating stories where you see:
- 1 horizontal 4 link ad unit towards the top of the page under the first paragraph
- 1 vertical skyscraper text ad unit about halfway down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"
- 1 vertical skyscraper image ad unit down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"
- 1 horizontal text banner unit at the bottom of the page with images above each ad to draw attention to them.
You can also include 1 AdSense referral button in addition to the 3 other units.
9) Tailor your page content to a particular niche or focus. Page content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely to trigger AdWords ads that closely match the content and are therefore more likely to interest your visitors and inspire them to click. Don't create pages merely for the sake of placing AdSense ads. Visitors (and search engines) can see through this ruse in an instant.
10) Use custom Ad Channels for each of your ad placements, for example, "Top 5 Link Unit Blue Palette" or "Left Side Navigation Image Skyscraper" etc. Tweak, track and measure the success of each of these custom channels so you know what gives you the highest CTR. Some ad formats and colors will work better than others, but you won't know which until you test, test and test some more!
Google AdSense is fast becoming the preferred way for people to earn an income online. Forget eBay and multiple affiliate programs - Whether you are a work-at-home mom trying to make a little extra cash or an Internet entrepreneur with hundreds of monetized websites, AdSense is truly the easiest way to earn money.
Simply sign up for a free account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much money AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions!
The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee. You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you buy their e-book, sign up for their seminar or purchase their newsletter. But I'm going to share all their AdSense tricks for free. Here they are:
1) Color code your ads to match your web site palette *exactly*. Don't use frames around your ads. Instead, in the AdSense code generation interface, make sure you choose the same color as your page background for the ad frame and the ad background.
When choosing the ad heading colors, match them to the *exact* color of your page headings. Use the exact same ad background shade as your page background. Use the exact same ad text font and color as the text on your pages. You can see an example of this color-matching on my search engine advice blog notice the 4 link ad unit and skyscraper text ad unit on the left hand side under the headings Ads by Google as you scroll down the page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette used throughout the rest of the page.
Near enough is NOT good enough. If you can't quite get the color matching right, use Google's built in color palette together with the RGB to HEX or vice versa color converter on this page. That handy little tool was a life saver for me.
This is probably the one single tweak that made the most difference to my commission levels.
2) Try not to use the traditional horizontal banner style or leaderboard image ads because people are blind to them.
3) Use Google's own AdSense optimization tips and visual heat map to assist you in deciding where on your page to place your AdSense ad code.
4) Research competitive keywords using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery or grab a list of the most popular keywords from various sources and use them in your web site pages where relevant. This article is a good source of frequently searched keywords. Targeting popular keywords should trigger AdSense ads on your pages that utilize those keywords. The more popular the keyword or phrase, the higher AdWords advertisers are generally willing to pay per click for it so the higher your commission on those clicks.
5) Incorporate the AdSense code into your page so that the ads look like a regular part of your site. You can see an example of this on the Internet Dating Stories site where link ads are incorporated within the regular left hand navigation of the site under the heading "Feature Links".
6) Use Google's new 4 and 5 link ad units wherever possible. They seem to have a much higher Click Through Rate (CTR) than regular ad styles. You can view all the AdSense ad formats here.
7) Place arrows or images next to your ads to draw attention to them. You can see two different versions of on this search engine article library page at the top (where a pointing hand directs your eye to the ad) and the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to each of the three AdSense ads.
8) Use the full allowance of multiple AdSense ads on each of your pages - 3 regular AdSense ads, plus 1 link unit. Use careful placement of these ads so they blend into your site and don't distract from your content. Clever use of this allowance can be seen on this page about bad Internet dating stories where you see:
- 1 horizontal 4 link ad unit towards the top of the page under the first paragraph
- 1 vertical skyscraper text ad unit about halfway down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"
- 1 vertical skyscraper image ad unit down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"
- 1 horizontal text banner unit at the bottom of the page with images above each ad to draw attention to them.
You can also include 1 AdSense referral button in addition to the 3 other units.
9) Tailor your page content to a particular niche or focus. Page content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely to trigger AdWords ads that closely match the content and are therefore more likely to interest your visitors and inspire them to click. Don't create pages merely for the sake of placing AdSense ads. Visitors (and search engines) can see through this ruse in an instant.
10) Use custom Ad Channels for each of your ad placements, for example, "Top 5 Link Unit Blue Palette" or "Left Side Navigation Image Skyscraper" etc. Tweak, track and measure the success of each of these custom channels so you know what gives you the highest CTR. Some ad formats and colors will work better than others, but you won't know which until you test, test and test some more!
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