Affiliate Network Z

Google Looking At Multiple Previous Queries To Tailor Search Ads

Saul Hansell from the New York Times reported on an interesting discover that uncovered that Google may look at more than just your previous query to tailor the ads you see on the search page. Now, Google may look back several past queries to tailor your search ads. Yes, this is a major difference – let me explain how.

Obtaining the previous query of a searcher is technically different then obtaining a query conducted five searches ago. Obtaining the latest query does not require cookies to be assigned and tracked for that search. But to track a query from five searches ago, you will need to assign a cookie to that searcher and track his queries. Then Google can use that ‘cookied’ data to tailor the ads from a query done several searches ago.

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Visual Search The Future? Spare Me The Eye Candy

About two years ago, I wrote an article called
Why Search Sucks & You Won’t
Fix It The Way You Think. In it, I explained various ways people have
tried to make search "visual" and why those have largely failed. That’s
mainly because "list view" or "10 blue links" still works for lots of search
activities. But visual search has picked up some attention recently with new
players coming in. Is visual search the future, where we’ll be flying
through our results Minority Report-style? Maybe in years, but for now, I
still see a lot of eye candy and no real breakthroughs.

I looked at
Searchme,
Viewzi and
PicLens, all of which have been
reviewed recently in various places. For each, I purposely went into them without reading any of the help
information. As a result, I might be missing out on some cool features or
capabilities they have. But then again, so too are the typical people these
services hope to attract. No one is reading how to search at Google.
Even fewer than no one will read how to use these places.

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Online Video Ads: What Small Business Advertisers Need To Watch For

According to comScore, U.S. Internet users watched 11.5 billion online videos in March, 2008. The average viewer watched nearly three hours of video online. These statistics make video an attractive means for advertisers to reach their audience, and in turn, a potential windfall for online video hosts such as YouTube and Google. So far, however, online video sites are finding that users want to be entertained with online video and not necessarily watch commercials. So how do small business advertisers effectively tap into the online video craze and relay their messages to target audiences? Well, that opportunity is here but is not always easy to figure out.

Here are some things that advertisers will want to consider as they ponder their first—or next—online video advertising campaign.

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Sorry, Ask.com — I Still Don’t Think You’re Focused On Core Search

Back in March, after Ask.com seemed to be
pulling away from
search to some people, I
wrote that
Ask "killed the search engine," was no longer an innovator in search and
couldn’t expect to compete against Google. Recently, I spoke with Ask.com
CEO Jim Safka, who hoped to change my mind. He failed to do that, in the
end.

Safka’s been reaching out to a number of the "digerati" who came out against
Ask, after the March news. Lisa Barone,

who wrote about giving up on Ask,
was contacted.
Danny Sullivan’s had a call and plans to write a piece from that. My turn
was about three weeks ago.

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Google Finds A CFO From "Old Media"

Google has finally filled the CFO spot being vacated by George Reyes, the outgoing CFO who has been with the company since roughly 2002 (pre-IPO). The new CFO (and SVP) is Patrick Pichette, who was President of Operations at Bell Canada.

He will report directly to Google CEO Eric Schmidt. There are likely dramatic cultural differences between Pichette’s old firm and his new employer. In keeping with Google’s preference for high GPAs and award winners, Pichette was a Rhodes Scholar.

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Search Marketing Meets Congress: Now In Video

Rob Snell, likely the first search marketer to testify before the US Congress, has done his duty. He emailed me, “We ran over the alotted time by 15 minutes or so, but they let us keep talking.” So I guess Congress likes SEM, they really like it. Below, you can watch a video of his testimony.

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Keeping Visitors Engaged With Site Search

B2B sites tend to be more difficult for visitors to find what they’re looking for. Perhaps it’s because things don’t always fit neatly into more intuitive consumer categories. Perhaps it’s because B2B sites are often laden with so much diverse information. While site owners can engineer enhanced usability, better optimize and structure content, or create better organic landing pages, none of these options is a quick fix. Google’s Site Search offers a quick, inexpensive way to keep visitors engaged and (hopefully) get them quickly to their destination on your site.

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Behavioral Targeting Under Fire As ISP Backs Away From Tracking Subscriber Activities

Privacy is dead, get used to it. In the effort to rescue display advertising from its historically dismal performance and so-called “banner blindness” behavioral targeting (BT) was born a few years ago with Tacoda. It has both increased in popularity and infamy since that time. Consumers prefer more “relevant” ads but they also dislike being tracked. That’s the paradox and the problem with BT.

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