PPC

Respondents to the Practical eCommerce survey conducted in April 2009 overwhelmingly said that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising was a successful method for promoting e-commerce stores and improving sales. These respondents also stated that advertising was an essential part of their e-commerce business.

79.3 percent of participants from the survey said that pay-per-click (PPC) advertisement was a successful way of increasing sales, whereas 27.6 percent said that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising was “very effective.” In this survey, Practical eCommerce readers were asked to rank various advertising means, based on their effectiveness for increasing web traffic or increasing online sales.

The queried advertising methods included banner advertising, PPC ads, online video, online rich media, print advertising, podcasts, television ads, radio ads, direct mail and catalogs. However, pay-per-click (PPC) greatly surpassed the options as one of the most favoured means for both closing sales and driving web traffic. When asked whether the respondents purchased any particular type of advertising, 85.7 percent of them said that they purchased pay-per-click (PPC).

The survey also explained how essential advertising is to the e-commerce retailers. When asked whether advertisement was important, respondents collectively said that advertising was very important. Amongst all the advertising methods, pay-per-click was one of the most used techniques.

Amazon Associates, one of the most popular and well-known affiliate sales programs in the online world has decided to scale back on its ad-based referral program.

From 1 May 2009, Amazon will no longer pay its members referral fees for search traffic. In simple terms, this means that members will not be rewarded for sending visitors to the website of Amazon Associates – amazon.com, endless.com. amazon.ca - through keyword bidding on popular search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo.

The official announcement by the company did not give any explanation for the move but speculation is rife that the leading online retailer has finally understood that it can do its own keyword bidding and does not need any middle-man to do it. Whatever be the reason for this change, the associate members of Amazon are not happy with it.

Many online marketing specialists who make a huge amount of money through affiliate marketing are lamenting this change. Being linked directly to Amazon through paid search was an easy way for anyone having a strong knowledge of pay-per-click to make easy money. But with this decision from Amazon would mean a pay cut for many people.

Without a doubt, this new policy of Amazon from May 1 will leave a lot of associates unhappy.

Internet giant, Google has always been an unlimited source of information for the layman. However, doctors are asking the company to reform its advertising policies in order to prevent links for unproven remedies that appear when users search for medical information. Recently, Italian researchers from the Faculty of Medicine at Florence University wrote in the BMJ and claimed that sometimes Google’s sponsored links are to web pages that hold worrying medical claims.

In fact, the BMJ was the one that said previously when it ran advertisements through Google’s AdWords service on bmj.com, it had been terminated after readers complained that matches between advertisements and editorial content was inappropriate.

Researchers of the project said that Google’s AdWords allowed advertisers to select the search words that they would prefer their advertisements to be matched with. The doctors asked for Google’s filters to be improved in order to prevent unsuitable links or Google from displaying links in the results of searches on medical products.

Google however told E-Health Europe that the terms and conditions regarding what advertisements were allowed are strict. A spokesperson also added that the company does not permit ads with miracle cures. Furthermore, online pharmacy websites that advertise on Google are required to be registered with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

Paid search in Q4 2008 showed an overall increase of almost 11% in the UK; though according to the performance report of the Efficient Frontier’s Q4 Search Engine, 40% of the paid search revenues were lost by Yahoo over the last 12 months. Considered as one of the giant search engines, the share of Yahoo in the market was around 13.9% in Q4 2007, which drastically dropped to 8.4% in 2008 during the same period.

Google has now become the most dominant search engine as far as the UK PPC search advertising market is concerned. This search engine has picked up its market share from 82.6% to 88.2%. Google has witnessed such significant growth mainly due to the contribution of its content network, which kept increasing in popularity with each passing year. The content network on Yahoo has now admitted to failure in Europe, as the site plans on offering a huge amount of its focus on its search and displays in 2009.

Google’s content network will prove beneficial to the site, especially if search advertisers prefer advertising through this network with a view of diversifying their work. In such a case it would be better for Yahoo to focus on a single approach.

Barclay’s Capital stated that spending on internet advertising is increasing by the day. Internet analyst Douglas Anmuth of Barclays was quoted in Forbes that sell off in Google shares has been overdone time and again, and that it was time to buy the stock. Whilst the bad news was being taken into account, he also said that Google was trading at 12x ‘09 pro forma EPS.

Google has also launched SearchWiki to offer their users extra control over their search experiences. The features of this new service allow the users to add, re-sort and delete results which will help to create a list of finds that can be customised to their respective needs. People who are looking at search engine optimisation may find this feature extremely interesting.

According to the AdWords blog, last month Google made an announcement that includes two changes to its quality score and rank advertisements. Ads in the higher positions would be made more visible to the user’s stated Google. There will also be a progression in the way the advertisement is seen on the yellow section of the search results.

Small as well as large businesses can greatly benefit from Pay Per Click campaigns in the current economic downturn.