August 9, 2005

According to a new study by Jupiter Research, advertisers will spend almost $19 billion on online advertising in 2010, up from $9.3 billion last year. The biggest increase will be in search engine marketing, while sales of banner ads and classified ads are also predicted to grow very quickly. The amount of rich media and streaming video advertising is also expected to increase sharply.

June 3, 2005

Google has unveiled a new service for webmasters called Sitemaps. Using this service, which is still Beta, operators of web sites can improve the quality of their search listings in the Google index by keeping Google informed about all of a site's web pages and any changes to those pages. For Sitemaps to work properly, web administrators need to place a Sitemaps configuration file on their web server.

May 2, 2005

Search engines and others are moving into the local advertising space, targeting small businesses who want to reach customers in their communities. Experts agree that switching small businesses from print advertising to online advertising is difficult, but the $60 billion spent on advertising each year by small businesses is a very tempting prize indeed. Companies like Verizon with their SuperPages.com service may have a head start, but look to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others to move agressively into this space. Start-ups like InsiderPages.com are also moving quickly to try and capture a piece of this lucrative market.

April 29, 2005

According to new data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), internet advertising rose by 33% in 2004 to a record $9.6 billion. These numbers surpass levels seen during the dot-com boom. According to the IAB, internet advertising will grow at a similar rate in 2005. Some other statistics from the IAB report: paid search listing revenue increased 40% to $3.9 billion, banner advertising climbed 19% to $1.8 billion, rich media ads grew 10% percent $1 billion, and online classified ads grew 18% to $1.7 billion.

April 27, 2005

Google is testing a new service that allows blogs using RSS or Atom feeds to carry AdSense advertising. Other companies like Kanoodle, Moreover, BlogAds, and Yahoo either already offer or are testing similar services.

April 25, 2005

Starting today, Google is letting advertisers display images and animations on third-party partner sites using a new feature called Site Targeting. Advertisers can choose the sites where their ads will appear, in addition to using keyword based placement. In order to take advantage of these new features, advertisers must bid for placement on a cost per impression (CPM) basis, rather than a cost per click (CPC) basis. The move puts Google in direct competition with display ad networks like DoubleClick, Fastclick, ValueClick, Tribal Fusion, and Advertising.com.

April 19, 2005

According to a recent survey, in-game advertising revenue is expected to grow to $1 Billion per year by 2010, and to $2.5 Billion per year a few years after that. These projected revenues depict three different types of game related ad revenues: product placement in console and online games, games designed around specific products, and advertising placed in cell phone games.

April 10, 2005

Beyond banner ads, beyond contextual text links, beyond permission-based e-mail, there exists the virgin frontier of RSS. The audience of RSS readers is growing very fast, and where there are eyeballs, the ad men will surely follow. This article from ClickZ explains how online marketers are getting ready to conquer this territory.

April 8, 2005

A new study conducted by MediaPost and Deutsche Bank provides some interesting statistics about online media spending by top advertisers. In addition to total increased ad spending, statistics also show that 35% of spending went to targeted niche web sites, 21% went to Yahoo!/MSN/AOL, 13% went to local media sites, 11% went to advertising networks, and the rest to various other sites. Spending on sponsored search engine listings has also increased, and use of pay-per-click advertising continued to rise, with Google and Overture taking in more than 80% of all PPC ad spending.

March 20, 2005

Online web sites are taking an ever bigger bite out of classified ad spending and making newspapers very nervous. According to a recent report, spending for online classifieds reached almost $2 Billion in 2004.

March 18, 2005

Microsoft has unveiled a beta version of AdCenter, a service for selling keyword-based ads on the MSN search engine. Based on recent reports, the company is moving aggressively into a market currently dominated by Google and Yahoo's Overture division.

March 15, 2005

Microsoft's MSN division is rolling out a new advertising system to directly compete with Google's Adwords and Yahoo's Overture networks.

March 14, 2005

As Yahoo gets ready to roll out its Adsense clone, some are wondering what it will take to beat Google.

March 5, 2005

The problem of click fraud seems to be growing despite efforts of search engines and advertisers to crack down. Two distinct types of click fraud exist: the first type is used for monetary gain, and the second type is used for hurting business competitors. Horror stories of advertisers losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in very short periods of time are not uncommon.

February 28, 2005

Kanoodle has launched a new advertising network designed specifically for RSS feeds.

February 18, 2005

Google's browser toolbar has a new feature called AutoLink that has many web site operators hopping mad. The feature creates artificial links on displayed web pages and directs traffic towards destinations selected by Google. For instance, ISBN numbers are converted into links to Amazon, addresses are converted to links to Google Maps, and so on. Web site operators are extremely concerned because the AutoLink feature does two highly unethical things. First, it alters both the content and the look & feel of a site, which may in fact be a violation of copyright law. Secondly, and more importantly, AutoLink steals web traffic away from web sites without their owners' permission.

February 18, 2005

Sony, Activision, UbiSoft and other game makers are starting to deploy in-game advertising and online ordering. Players of Everquest II will be able to order pizza from Pizza Hut just by typing "/pizza" within the game. In addition, upcoming releases of Splinter Cell will have similar in-game marketing capabilities.

February 15, 2005

Pay-per-click advertising networks and their clients are facing an ever increasing amount of click fraud. Although relatively small at this point, it is increasing steadily. If allowed to grow, the problem threatens to undermine the very business models of companies like Google and Yahoo!.

February 10, 2005

Wired.com takes a look at the shady side of affiliate marketing. Spammers and blog vandals are turning a once promising source of income for small businesses into a nightmare for everyone.

January 20, 2005

SiliconAlleyWatcher is reporting that Google is about to unveil a completely revamped Adwords/Adsense program, which will have suite of tools that provide greater control, management and monitoring data to advertisers.