Bigmouthmedia search engine news: affiliates

It looks like Ask.com is planning on having words with its competitors

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:00:00 GMT

It's been reported that Ask.com has agreed to acquire privately-held Lexico Publishing - the company that owns word-heavy sites Dictionary.com, Thesauras.com and Reference.com - for an estimated $100 million.

According to the Guardian, the move will increase Ask.com's traffic by 11% globally and 9% in the UK, an increase that the company will hope could push them closer to the Search World's biggest players and which would justify the price tag - although the exact figure has not been confirmed by the search engine.

Ask.com claimed that March figures from comScore revealed that Ask Network (comprising all of the company's web properties), received around 145 million monthly unique users. Putting them ahead of sites such as Facebook and ranking them as the ninth most popular website in the world. The addition of Ask.com's reported 15 million visitors in the same month must have proved tempting.

The benefits of the acquisition for the search engine could be numerous, Dictionary.com sells ads and Ask.com has an advertising deal with Google - so Ask.com may be able to increase ad revenue. Moreover, the deal could serve as a way to generate more traffic for Ask.com as the sites will attempt to cycle traffic between them.

Apparently the search engine plans to create reference synergy, a fair point when you discover that 'dictionary' was the second most searched for term on the site last year. Jim Safka, Ask.com's chief executive said:

"More than 30% of all searches conducted on Ask.com are in the reference category."

This is just the latest move in Ask.com's offensive to drag itself out of forth place in the search engine rankings - languishing behind Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft at first, second and third respectively. Recent attempts have included plans to focus on a predominantly female market with limited success - maybe this acquisition will give them the clout they needs to continue snapping at Microsoft's heels.

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UK affiliate spending hotspots revealed for first time

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Britain's first survey of affiliate spending on PPC campaigns has been published by bigmouthmedia.

Broken down to regional level, the research provides a fresh perspective on the affiliate map of the UK. Compiled using data from a comprehensive range of networks, the survey reveals that while London and the South East continue to dominate the marketplace, spending elsewhere is beginning to reach significant levels.

"It's very encouraging to see that Scottish affiliates drive 10% of the PPC spend when the 2007 Affiliate Census showed that just 6% of affiliates were based in Scotland. With so many of the affiliate networks based in the South you could be fooled into thinking that this is a London based industry but the spread throughout the UK shows that Affiliate Marketing is an industry where geography doesn't matter," said Fraser Edwards of www.affiliateblog.co.uk.

"Networks & merchants would do well to take note of the results of this survey and ensure they offer the same events and support to affiliates in the UK's regions as they do in London."

Conducted during the first quarter of 2008, the research shows that affiliate spend is fairly evenly spread across the country. While a gap exists between areas like Northern Ireland - where affiliates expend the lowest amount of money on PPC - and high-spending London, in other regions expenditure is now broadly comparable to the size of their local populations and economies.

The analysts behind the report point out that a low percentage of the overall spend does not necessarily equate to a lack of regional affiliate activity however. Instead of investing largely in PPC, many networks are now promoting their sites through search engine optimisation, email marketing or social media.

"It is notable that more than two thirds of all UK affiliate spend identified in the bigmouthmedia survey was from outside London and the South East. We see this as a reflection of the fact that whilst there is still a general London centricity in terms of the affiliate networks themselves, most of the investment and enterprise that is actually driving the process comes pretty well evenly distributed from all corners of the UK," said ClickAngel Director Ed Wilkinson.

View our complete UK affliates PPC spending survey here.

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Microsoft 'to unseat current Yahoo! board'

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:00:00 GMT

With the deadline for Yahoo! to accept Microsoft's takeover proposal now past, Microsoft may be set to unseat the search engine provider's board, it has been suggested.

According to a report in the Telegraph, the software and internet giant is "understood to be preparing to wage a proxy battle against Yahoo!".

The publication states that the move is "part of [Microsoft's] next step to attempt to wrestle control of the business as it aims to go head-to-head with Google in the lucrative internet search market".

If Microsoft was successful in taking over control of the board, it would use the newly appointed directors to rescind a current Yahoo! clause which prevents an investor from purchasing more than 15 per cent of the firm on the open market - a rule intended to prevent hostile takeovers.

Microsoft has already identified ten directors to replace the current Yahoo! board, the Telegraph reports.

They include Edward Meyer - former head of Grey Global Group - and John Chapple, who used to be chief executive of Nextel Partners.

Last week, Chris Liddell, Microsoft's chief financial officer, stated that the failure of Yahoo! to enter into negotiations would cause Microsoft to examine its alternatives.

He stated: "These alternatives clearly include taking an offer to Yahoo! shareholders or withdrawing our proposal and focusing on other opportunities."

Meanwhile, Scott Kessler, a technology analyst at Standard & Poor's, added that he does not expect Microsoft to walk away from a possible deal.

He commented: "This is something Microsoft has been thinking about and working towards for the better part of two years. Microsoft's the kind of company that says what it does and does what it says," the Guardian reports.

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Cox Enterprises buys online ad network Adify

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Media company Cox Enterprises has purchased online ad start-up Adify, it has been revealed.

Set to be announced today (April 29th), the deal is said to be worth $300 million and is part of Cox Enterprises' move into the web advertising market.

According to reports in the Associated Press (AP), the agreement is an all-cash transaction.

A self-service advertising network intended for firms interested in developing their own network, Adify enables publishers to negotiate ad rates, as well as to reject advertisers.

It helps media firms to form networks of websites based on a variety of topics, including travel and parenting, which allow marketers to reach readers on a large number of like-minded sites through a single purchase of ad space.

In return for its services, Adify gets around 20 per cent of the revenue generated through the transactions.

Reportedly, its clients include such media organisations as the Guardian, NBC WeatherPlus and Forbes.com.

Speaking to the AP, John Dyer, executive vice president for finance at Cox Enterprises, said: "We're absolutely convinced at Cox that online revenue is continuing to grow.

"If you look at Cox's history, we've not necessarily been the first into a space, but we've prided ourselves in the course of history in being early investors."

According to Russell Fradin, chief executive officer of Adify, the start-up will continue to operate as an independent company.

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Google and eBay 'may be in discussions over Skype'

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Internet giant Google may currently be engaged in talks with eBay concerning the online auction site's Skype service, it has been suggested.

Bought by eBay in September 2005, Skype is a software program that enables users to make telephone calls over the internet to other Skype users free of charge, as well as to mobile phones and landlines for a fee.

According to internet blog TechCrunch, new information has come to light which suggests that Google may be considering either a partnership or an outright purchase of the service.

Reportedly, a decision may be announced "in the near future".

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington states: "It's clear that eBay wants to either unload Skype, or significantly drive performance. Google, by contrast, is just beginning to think about how to dominate the voice space."

He also said that Skype has been a "financial albatross" around the neck of eBay since it was bought.

Mr Arrington went on to state that, while Google's "core team" concerning voice over internet protocol (VoIP) should currently be at the CTIA Wireless Conference in Las Vegas, they are either not showing up at their scheduled meetings or are not present.

He commented: "That doesn't mean the team is busy working on a partnership or acquisition of Skype instead of attending the conference. But given that we've heard from sources close to the deal that something is happening between the companies, it's not a stretch, either."

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Airtel launches new web portal with Google

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Indian broadband and telephone service provider Airtel Telemedia Services has announced the launch of a new web portal in partnership with Google.

With the search engine provider co-branding the initiative, the portal will provide Airtel's customers with free access to the Google Apps suite.

Described by Airtel as a "new all-in-one internet portal" for its customers, the initiative is said to mark the first time a telecommunications firm in India has made Google products officially available on its portal.

Named airtellive.com, the site will provide consumers with access to Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and the start page feature which enables users to create a customised homepage.

As well as partnering with Google, Airtel has collaborated with other firms over the new site, including shaadi.com, 24x7guru and naukri.com.

In a statement, Atul Bindal, president of Airtel, commented: "airtellive.com is a milestone in Airtel's broadband strategy and it builds upon the current broadband ecosystem infrastructure to establish an internet destination for web applications.

"It underlines our commitment towards simplifying and adding value to our broadband customers and driving the adoption of broadband in the country."

According to social networking news blog Mashable, Google's participation in the initiative is indicative of its goal to "expand across international reaches", particularly in Central and Southeast Asia "where broadband access is very much still in an early stage of distribution".

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Affiliates4U gets a makeover

Mon, 21 May 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Affiliates4U, the hub of the affiliate industry in the UK has had a facelift - and quite a significant one at that! The Affiliates4U site has historically been a forum for members of the industry to meet, discuss and develop all aspects of affiliate marketing.

Affiliates4U was originally launched in 1999 by Matthew Wood, the founder of the forum's parent company Existem. With the relationships between affiliate networks and merchants key to the success of affiliate marketing, the forum was able to thrive immediately as it provided the platform necessary for these relationships to blossom. Since this time, its membership growth has continued steadily.

With its re-launch, the Affiliates4U forum now has a full social networking facility, with the addition of member generated communities, user and provider profiles, integrated blogs and an increased number of forum verticals.

Some of the major players in the UK affiliate marketing industry voice their opinions on the forum, including a few original super-affiliates. A4U has always been seen as a place of learning in the affiliate community, with a wealth of information available. In the spirit of continuing to amass such valuable information, the new site also boasts the addition of affiliate and merchant universities.

Members are able to add their thoughts to the site in true Web 2.0 style, and these are displayed in a simple thought-bubble to the rest of the community.

Expert bloggers can integrate their blogs into the site and are able to post articles. Community members can then 'back' or 'slap' the article to show their support or disdain for a particular standpoint, in a manner very similar to 'Dump or Bump' on Bumpzee.

The forum currently has just over 14,000 members and it's expected that the re-launch will see the A4U community increase significantly. Affiliates4U will continue to be seen as an unbiased source of information and an integral part of the Affiliate Marketing industry in the UK.

Existem are also responsible for the first Affiliate Marketing dedicated exhibition, the A4Uexpo, to be held later this year in London.

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Affiliates concerned over impact of Google Checkout

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Google Checkout has been causing a bit of a stir amongst the affiliate community in the last few days.

Google Checkout allows users to purchase from websites quickly and easily and then track all information on those purchases in one place. It offers a secure way to purchase goods from multiple sites, with one centralised account - very similar to Paypal. For e-commerce sites, it provides an alternative way to accept payment for goods or services. And with Google currently offering substantial discounts to users and advertisers, many are looking to implement the system.

At present, Google Checkout is being rolled out across the UK with a handful of merchants participating in the scheme. The potential benefit for online marketing is generally obvious; but the possible impact on the affiliate marketing community has already been recognised.

For affiliate sales to be tracked by the affiliate network, the network's tracking code must be present on the transaction confirmation page. Google has so far only formally authorised one UK affiliate network to place their tracking code alongside Google Checkouts' own tracking.

In essence, this means that affiliate sales will not be tracked by the network if the sale was made using Google Checkout. The impact of this on affiliates and networks is an obvious loss of revenue. Merchants may also see a loss of revenue, as affiliates are likely to leave affected programs whilst this huge leakage channel is left unaddressed.

Currently, this isn't a major issue. Only four or five merchants in the UK running affiliate programs have implemented Google Checkout. Equally, other UK networks are actively seeking authorisation from Google to be a tracking partner.

As Google Checkout increases in popularity, it's imperative that merchants appreciate the implications that it will have on their affiliate program before signing up. It's also important for the remaining UK affiliate networks to actively push Google for authorisation.

Once all UK networks have been approved, it is possible that Google Checkout will benefit affiliates, bringing an increase in conversion rates and a higher number of users repeatedly shopping online.

The new partnership between Yahoo! and Paypal, announced this week, may face similar obstacles.

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Google launches CPA model for advertisers in the US

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:00:00 GMT

There has been many a long discussion in the internet marketing world as to the direction in which Google will evolve its paid advertising format. On Tuesday 20th March 2007, Google gave us a further clue about their plans as they launched a CPA model for advertisers in the US. The model has undergone testing since the summer of 2006, but now a beta format has been released. This switch to beta is worth noting as, with many of Google's new products, it indicates that the CPA model is heading for a full release in the near future.

Google's CPA model allows publishers to display adverts and be paid on a completed action basis. Previously, Google has limited this form of advertising to a 'per click' (Adsense), or occasionally a 'per impression', basis. It allows the advertiser to set a fixed amount that they are willing to pay per action - or your cost per acquisition (CPA). Importantly, advertisers do not need to be signed up to the content network to operate CPA ads.

Some immediate limitations have been identified by affiliates and publishers, notably the stipulation that publishers can not use PPC to promote pages where Google CPA ads are displayed - but the extent to which this is enforced by Google remains to be seen.

The move has been labelled by some as a direct threat to affiliate networks. However, Google will not provide certain key attributes that are provided by affiliate networks. These are:

Exact commission amounts - similar to Adsense, publishers will be paid within a fixed range.
Tailored adverts - CPA ads will keep the Adsense format.
Choice of advertiser - Google will determine who is shown on publisher sites, unlike an affiliate network where affiliates can promote specific merchants.
Support - a USP of most affiliate networks is that they provide advice to affiliates and publishers to help achieve conversions for the merchant.

If Google gets close to this model of support and relationship building, they lose completely the self-service, hands-off approach that has allowed them to access the mass-market.

However, this is also an argument that may see publishers preferring to remain pay per click. Why would a site with a decent source of income via Adsense, risk the switch to the CPA ads only for the merchant sites to convert poorly?

For advertisers, Google's new CPA model provides another measurable tool to test. There will be almost unlimited potential for advertisers to format offers mixed with variable CPA base rates. It should not be confused with a pure affiliate program, however. These are still just 'ads'. They are not banners, coupons, vouchers, cashback incentives, email templates or any other resource that allows affiliates to integrate a merchant into their site.

If Google can now be called an 'Affiliate Network', then it should have been given this name many moons ago when it launched Adsense, a model which many view as a pay per click affiliate program.

Google's CPA model may provide an immediate threat for smaller affiliate networks in the US, but for larger organisations, like Commission Junction and LinkShare, their offering is too great for affiliates and publishers to turn their back on. However, Google may take a huge hit to their profits to achieve market share, at which point networks may have a real battle for publishers and affiliates on their hands.

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Hitwise search intelligence by paid and organic search terms

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 12:00:00 GMT

Hitwise's 'real-time competitive intelligence' continues to expand upon its service to provide insights into ways to empower your online marketing with its recent release of the Search Intelligence 4.0 tool. And it's feature worth exploring for it's paid and organic tracking abilities. Our bigmouth reporter toot this new tool out for a spin and came back with the following points.

Hitwise provides what they call 'real-time competitive intelligence' in their featured products through which their intelligence is filtered. These include the following:

Search Intelligence

Hitwise Search Intelligence offers marketers some insight into an effective provision of search options, for products and services within a wide range of industries, through its reporting tool. This facility helps marketers to make important decisions about search terms and increase their opportunity for improved return on investment (ROI) in their campaigns.

Ranking

Among and within the 160 industries that Hitwise support there will be much vying for position and flat out competition. One particular KPI that can be used to demonstrate how this is realised is ROI. With its Ranking product, Hitwise provides a facility whereby marketers can easily access information about the main players in their industry and the companies and sites that are excelling, offering marketers a benchmark by which to measure the strengths, weaknesses, successes, and failures of their campaigns compared to their competitors.

Clickstream

Clickstream is an additional feature whereby, through the data reports provided, users can access detailed traffic reports. The marketer can select which information they wish to be included in the report. Sites that users are visiting before and after going to a particular website, and competitive websites, are among the criteria that can be specified.

From the facilities above, as well as many other provided by Hitwise, a new tool has recently been released. This tool combines the power and aptitude of Search Intelligence, Ranking and Clickstream. This new tool is called Search Intelligence 4.0 and is currently available in Australia and the UK. Hitwise intend to expand the remit of this technology to the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand.

Through this new feature, marketers can monitor their competitors, at both a pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy level, relying on keyword data. The most essential detail here is that through this tool, the distinction between PPC and SEO search terms and traffic can now be made. Previously, reports were not available through Hitwise to marketers where they could breakdown results and provide discreet results for each search option.

This new product release is currently available only on the Website Search Terms Report and, pending on the success of this, will be extended to the Industry Search Term, Search Term Suggestion and Search Term Analysis reports.

Search Intelligence 4.0 is guaranteed to deliver for a variety of uses, including:

Using the tool to ascertain who could be a potential online partner.
Realising effective approaches to maximise your campaigns and the development a strategic marketing campaign.
Increasing sales online.
Simply saving time and increasing traffic though realised strategies.

Hitwise has revealed in a blog that they believe this feature will be important to the travel industry, where having access to competitors' business strategies and traffic results on certain terms will greatly benefit businesses. That said, any business stands to benefit from having insight into information on their competition.

This new tool measures the search behaviour of the, as Hitwise has identified, 8.43 million internet users in the UK - measured across all major search engines including Google, Yahoo! and AOL.

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