Google takes in nearly 77% of the total search advertising spend, as of Q4 2007, and raked in 97% of all ad spend increases, according to a study by Efficient Frontier. Despite Nielsen’s recent report that Google search share had slightly decreased, numbers like these on the advertising revenue side could mean good things for a flagging Google stock price. We’ll know more about that when Google releases its earnings report on Thursday. Efficient Frontier conducted its study by tracking campaigns of clients between Q4 2006 and Q4 2007, covering 17 billion ad impressions and 270 million clicks on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The clients were advertisers in the Finance, Travel and Automotive sectors. Google Leads In Search Spend and CPC Inflation Google’s share of the search spend increased by 8.6% last year, growing from 70.5% to 76.6%. ROI on Google increased by 7.5%. That kind of dominance is a blessing and a curse for advertisers as Google’s search share presents a cornered market and larger audiences, but Efficient Frontier also says Google’s universal search and expanded broad match updates didn’t do much to affect campaign performance. Thanks to increased competition and a change to the AdWords algorithm in August, top positions have become costlier in terms of CPC bid prices. In fact, Google led the other two search engines in CPC inflation last year as CPC prices spiked 22%, half of which occurred in Q4 following the AdWords algorithm update.  The AdWords algorithm update did not appear to have an effect on click-through-rates, which remained steady in 2007 until a 12.5% increase in CTR in Q4 2007. Google penalizing sites with poor landing pages is thought to be a direct factor in the increased CTRs. Despite the increased cost on Google, Efficient Frontier still names Google as the engine of choice because of the sheer volume of referrals it generates. Yahoo ROI Up, Search Assist Kills CTR It sounds like mixed results for Yahoo. While advertisers enjoyed a 39.4% increase in ROI since Panama was completed in February 2007, the overall ad spend on Yahoo declined by nearly 4%, leaving the company with just 17.9% of the search spend. The ROI wasn’t enough to make up for the declining volume of searches on Yahoo, which led to lesser investing in Yahoo search advertising. In addition, Yahoo Search Assist, which allows users to refine searches, possibly led to a 34% drop in CTR last year. MSN Is King of the Molehill The good news for MSN is that it leads the other engines in ROI and CTRs. The bad news is, hardly anybody using it, which means there’s less competition affecting ROI and CTR. MSN pulled in 5% of search engine ad spending last year. But things are looking up. Though CTRs were 50% higher on MSN than Google last year, that statistic actually declined 16.5% between Q4 2006 and Q4 2007. Efficient Frontier suggests increased competition as a reason for declining CTRs on MSN.        

Internet hackers brought down the Web site of Panama’s National Assembly and briefly posted an American flag there, after the legislature voted in as its president a man accused of murdering a U.S. soldier. Unnamed officials at the assembly said the site has been down since January 9, when a U.S. flag briefly appeared there. They believe the attack originated in the United States. Pedro Miguel Gonzalez was elected president of Panama’s legislature in September, even though he is wanted in the United States for the 1992 murder of U.S. Army Sgt. Zac Hernandez. The U.S. strongly opposed his candidacy and high profile U.S. congressional figures, including Sen. Hilary Clinton have promised not to ratify a pending free trade agreement unless Gonzalez steps down from his position Reuters is reporting. The Web site went down on "Martyr’s Day" in Panama, when the country remembers the deaths of about 20 people in 1964 I clashed between anti-U.S. protesters and American soldiers protecting the Panama Canal Zone. 

Internet hackers brought down the Web site of Panama’s National Assembly and briefly posted an American flag there, after the legislature voted in as its president a man accused of murdering a U.S. soldier. Unnamed officials at the assembly said the site has been down since January 9, when a U.S. flag briefly appeared there. They believe the attack originated in the United States. Pedro Miguel Gonzalez was elected president of Panama’s legislature in September, even though he is wanted in the United States for the 1992 murder of U.S. Army Sgt. Zac Hernandez. The U.S. strongly opposed his candidacy and high profile U.S. congressional figures, including Sen. Hilary Clinton have promised not to ratify a pending free trade agreement unless Gonzalez steps down from his position Reuters is reporting. The Web site went down on "Martyr’s Day" in Panama, when the country remembers the deaths of about 20 people in 1964 I clashed between anti-U.S. protesters and American soldiers protecting the Panama Canal Zone. 

Internet hackers brought down the Web site of Panama’s National Assembly and briefly posted an American flag there, after the legislature voted in as its president a man accused of murdering a U.S. soldier. Unnamed officials at the assembly said the site has been down since January 9, when a U.S. flag briefly appeared there. They believe the attack originated in the United States. Pedro Miguel Gonzalez was elected president of Panama’s legislature in September, even though he is wanted in the United States for the 1992 murder of U.S. Army Sgt. Zac Hernandez. The U.S. strongly opposed his candidacy and high profile U.S. congressional figures, including Sen. Hilary Clinton have promised not to ratify a pending free trade agreement unless Gonzalez steps down from his position Reuters is reporting. The Web site went down on "Martyr’s Day" in Panama, when the country remembers the deaths of about 20 people in 1964 I clashed between anti-U.S. protesters and American soldiers protecting the Panama Canal Zone. 

Internet hackers brought down the Web site of Panama’s National Assembly and briefly posted an American flag there, after the legislature voted in as its president a man accused of murdering a U.S. soldier. Unnamed officials at the assembly said the site has been down since January 9, when a U.S. flag briefly appeared there. They believe the attack originated in the United States. Pedro Miguel Gonzalez was elected president of Panama’s legislature in September, even though he is wanted in the United States for the 1992 murder of U.S. Army Sgt. Zac Hernandez. The U.S. strongly opposed his candidacy and high profile U.S. congressional figures, including Sen. Hilary Clinton have promised not to ratify a pending free trade agreement unless Gonzalez steps down from his position Reuters is reporting. The Web site went down on "Martyr’s Day" in Panama, when the country remembers the deaths of about 20 people in 1964 I clashed between anti-U.S. protesters and American soldiers protecting the Panama Canal Zone. 

As Yahoo’s new Panama search marketing system took over the contextual ad duties for Yahoo properties, clients of the company witnessed plenty of changes through 2007. Yahoo’s lamentable search advertising capabilities drew commentary from throughout the industry leading into 2007. It had even been suggested at times that the company should either let an outsider (ie, Google) handle contextual search ads, or sell off the search monetization side outright. But Yahoo has stuck to its in-house development of Panama, and spent plenty of time in 2007 releasing updates and tweaking its features. The Yahoo Search Marketing blog called it a "bumper crop" of updates and enhancements. Those updates included tools like the Campaign Tune-Up booster, custom reports, low-quality ad advisories, and assistance in writing high-quality ads. Low ad quality had vexed both advertisers and more importantly, potential customers who were put off from clicking through ads that were not relevant to their queries. Yahoo opened a Quality Center and brought in Reggie Davis as VP to head up the Network Quality operation. One useful little post may have been missed due to its cheeky Acro-Gnome premise. That post detailed several of the more common abbreviations found in SEM, um, search engine marketing. It’s a useful post for the new marketer.  

TheYahoo! Panama team has been working on new methods through which advertisers can fine-tune their ad campaigns. The details of these enhancements to their service are available at the YSM blog. Here is a brief about the new features: Campaign Bid Tune-Up – This provides advertisers a tool for optimizing Sponsored Search campaigns. It’s a self-service tool that gives you suggested keyword bids and daily spending limit. This is really ideal for folks who don’t have access to or do not use Campaign Optimization. Saved Preferences – This feature enables advertisers to move from page to page in their account without having to reset column views. Preferences will stick even after they log out and log back in. Saved preferences will work in the Campaign Summary, Campaign Detail, Ad Group Detail sections of the account. It seems Yahoo! Panama is really on the move to further enhance their service. Comments

What with running Marketing Pilgrim, consulting, speaking, and writing my own book, you’d probably expect me to have no time to read. Well, when Mona Elesseily asks you to take a look at her new book Mastering Panama, with the promise to teach me everything I need to know in just 87 pages–I find the time to fit it in. Mastering Panama is a “semi-book”. Not an e-book, but not a bound paperback either. Still, it’s well presented and very easy to follow. Elesseily (I’d normally call her Mona, but Elesseily makes me sound like a professional book reviewer!) does a great job of covering ALL you need to know about Yahoo’s Search Marketing platform. Here are some of the topics covered in the book: Drill down: new geotargeting capabilities Understand match types and MatchDriver technology Y!SM service tiers and certifications Streamlined editorial review process Improve ROI with the new quality index Yahoo! 2010: new advertising products Ad copy rotation: run better tests Keyword research: Time saving tools Click volume forecasting If you think that sounds somewhat dry, a quick scan of some of the chapter titles will convince you otherwise. My favorite? “New Panama Features to Delight & Amaze Your Friends (…or at least yourself).” The book really is well thought out. Novices will learn all the basics–Elesseily walks you through the new dashboard and even explains keyword research. There’s also enough stuff for any “pros”–with tips on Yahoo’s new “assist” concept and landing page advice. The book will set you back $87–that’s a dollar per page–but hand it over to anyone that needs YSM training, and it will be the best $87 you’ll spend this year! Comments

Sponsored searches in Taiwan may have just gotten a bit better – Yahoo introduced the upgrade known as Panama.  Unfortunately, this will once again lead us towards something resembling a geographical “Who’s on First?” routine. Yahoo Takes Panama To Taiwan Unless, of course, we ignore the “Panama” moniker, which is exactly what The China Post’s Dimitri Bruyas did.  I admire his style, and his quotes from Hung Hsiao-ling, the general manager of Yahoo Taiwan. “Since 2005, sponsored searches in the United States and Korea have been steadily increasing,” said Hsiao-ling.  “In 2007, sponsored searches constituted 43 percent of all searches in the U.S., and 62 percent in Korea.”  Bruyas points out that paid searches are only at 36 percent in Taiwan, though, and the possibility of improvement was likely a motivating factor behind the introduction of Yahoo’s upgrade. The last place in which we saw Panama take hold was Australia; prior to that, our own David Utter covered a round of improvements, and Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing wrote, “Panama is catching up to Google AdWords in features pretty quickly.”  Google, meanwhile, has been testing different homepages in various Asian markets. Hat tip to Search Engine Journal’s Loren Baker.

Ah, the Web cam. So simple, so abused. But they can be used for good, and though you might assume the Internet (as in, the collective online population) uses them mostly for nefarious and seedy peeping-Tom purposes, that’s not really true, not mostly. Given, adult cams are in the top 10 in the SERPs, those back-alley neighborhoods aren’t what the majority are looking for when cruising for voyeuristic fun. For the most part, they seem to like beaches. And not topless ones, either. For the Internet, web cams are for checking out things you don’t get to see every day. I imagine people from Panama City might be interested in checking out Alaska, or those in Vegas might like to see live deer. It’s an interesting facet of human nature, I think, that we ignore the glory that is around us and seek other glories. I live amongst the natural beauty of Kentucky, but rarely see it. When I lived in Japan, I passed Mt. Fuji every day as Fuji-san sat on the horizon like some ancient guard or some subdued, placated monster. Eventually, I didn’t notice it either. At the base of Fuji was a forest called Aokigahara, or "Sea of Trees," a popular suicide destination as the magnetic field around the volcano disabled compasses, and people would go into it, basking in the symbolism of being lost and never find their way out again. It was said to be haunted by thousands of ghosts. They should set up a Web cam there to see if it’s true. Ghost cams, according to Yahoo’s Erik Gunther, are the second-most sought after types of cams, right after live beach cams. If you’re thinking of setting up some kind of Web cam site, these are the top 20 things surfers are looking to escape to: 1.    live beach cams 2.    ghost cams 3.    key west cams 4.    las vegas web cams 5.    zoo cams 6.    alaska web cams 7.    myrtle beach web cams 8.    panama city beach cams 9.    live traffic street cams 10.    live deer cams 11.    hawaii web cams 12.    galveston web cams 13.    yellowstone web cams 14.    cruise cams 15.    animal cams 16.    alaska weather cams 17.     jackson hole webcams 18.    volcano cams 19.    panda cams 20.    colorado web cams