Overview

Google recently announced that starting June 15^th, advertisers will be allowed to use trademark terms in their ads even if they do not own that trademark nor are an approved reseller/partner.  Currently, advertisers have complete control over who can place their brand name in the headline and/or description line in order to ensure competitors are not using such brand name as leverage.  Advertisers who own their brand name manually grant companies permission to use these terms in the ad copy on a case by case basis.  Google will be rolling out an automated tool to properly scan landing pages and allow use of brand terms in ad copy based off of the following advertiser criteria:

1.       Resellers or partners:  Tool will scan the landing pages to ensure branded product is sold.  An example is Best Buy selling Belkin routers on the landing page.  The tool would allow ‘Belkin’ to be displayed in the ad copy

2.       Informational sites: Sites that compare and or review products, but do not sell such products.  For example, CNET as an advertiser may have a page dedicated to comparing routers.  They will be able to run ads saying “Looking for a new router? Compare Belkin to D-Link and….”

This change has no affect on keywords: anyone can currently bid on any term in AdWords.  Google’s Quality Score will bring the most relevant ads and landing pages to the top rank.

Why?

It appears that Google is making the marketplace more accessible to all advertisers by automating this feature.  However, the technology rolled out will ensure that competitors will not be allowed to fall under the 2 categories above.  Google’s goal (and that of the search landscape) is to connect the audience with qualified ads and, in effect, connect the user to the right page as quickly as possible.

Impact

The trademark update will obviously give companies less control over who can use their brand terms in ad copy.  However, the direct effect of this change will depend on the brand.

Clients with Resellers/Partners

Companies with a large manufacturing base (i.e. several resellers) may see an increase in cost per clicks as the paid search marketplace increases on both brand and general terms.

Clients’ Products on Informational Sites

On the other hand, informational sites, in time, could be quite beneficial to all advertisers.  Although ad dollars are moving towards the lead gen aspect of search, there are still a large percentage of users researching before they buy.  These sites may take away clicks initially, but these users are becoming more educated about your product and, if it is a good fit, will be more likely to convert - and convert faster.  This means a potential increase in conversion rates and return on investment.

What to do?

Clients with Resellers/Partners

Keep track of your clients’ resellers–which keywords they are bidding on with your brand in copy.  There won’t be much you can do to change their copy, but it is best to avoid click cannibalization and increasing CPCs.  In some situations, you may be able to work with your resellers or partners to keep this from happening.

Clients’ Products on Informational Sites

See which informational sites are displaying your client’s brand in their ad copy.  This could be an upsell opportunity for some premiere display placement, especially if the information is positive for your client.

So mark June 15^th in your calendar as Duplicity Day.  You may start to see your brand more than expected!

~Daniel Romotsky

J. Crew could not have asked for better promotion, and now they’re cashing in. Just look at the Google results for “michelle obama”:

Simple, effective, topical, and piggybacking on America’s hottest brand (the Obamas), it’s the Holy Grail of paid search ads.

In this tough economic time, even online retail (previously an area of meteoric growth) is taking a major hit. But connecting your brand with America’s hottest couple — the Obamas — is sure to pay off. Numerous studies have reinforced the importance of branding during recessions. As soon as young women have some extra money to spend, they are likely to head to J. Crew, rather than its competitors. After all, the future First Lady shops there.

*Excerpts from MediaPost Publications’s Search insider, July 23 by Aaron Goldman

I’m Snoozing, I’m Snoring

In the style of It’s Raining, It’s Pouring

I’m snoozing, I’m snoring,

Your search results are boring.

Your market share

is barely there.

Will Cashback get you roaring?

Bostock and Yang Went to Great Pains

In the style of Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill

Bostock and Yang

Went to great pains

To avoid an outright acquisition.

They played tough,

$44 billion wasn’t enough.

Then they retreated their position.

Yankee Google

In the style of Yankee Doodle

Yankee Google took over the town,

It’s PR spin smooth as a zamboni.

Stuck creative in its cap,

Scaring Mad Ave cronies.

Yankee Google keep it up,

Automating media, that’s dandy.

And now finally some transparency,

Now this is really handy.

One could ask if a user watches videos online that fit into their true interests or if they primarily watch pieces that are considered viral (have you seen the water skiing chipmunk?!)?  For YouTube this may be true, but Veoh offers the largest library of online TV resulting in more interest based viewership.  Veoh is even claiming that during beta the program’s ads preformed twice as well as the non-targeted versions.

It will be very interesting to see how this technology develops and what it does to Veoh’s position in the industry.

What does this mean for the internet as we know it? Does Google really need control?

Any thoughts?

UPDATE: 3:26  Yahoo!  announces a non-exclusive online advertising agreement with Google

Of course, there’s been a lot of discussion of Microsoft’s ‘cash rebate’ plan for search ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24760487/) over here at GearyI. A few comments in Kim’s innovation session down here in San Diego today made me ponder it’s wider implications. We were briefly discussing marketing cultures of scarcity vs. abundance. (i.e., the scarcity model says “there are (x) many customers, and we MUST COMPLETE LIKE CRAZY for them.” Abundance model says “customers come to great ideas – and the entire customer pie grows beyond expectation when we create a good ecosystem to attract them. We do not focus as much on competition as we do on creating great ideas that attract customers.”)

Now if that doesn’t sound like Microsoft and Google going at it, I’m not sure what does.

One interesting post in the blogsphere commenting on all this: machinist blog on salon.com:

http://www.salon.com/tech/machinist/blog/2008/05/23/microsoft_books_search/index.html

It’s an excellent example of the scarcity model (Microsoft) vs the abundance model (Google) at work. As Farhad points out – some monetary effects are less obvious than others. To paraphrase: “If you were a programmer, do you want to work for the visionary company . . . or the one who’s stated focus is their revenue goals?”

If markets are ecosystems, so are companies. And having goals that keep employees inspired – and attract ones with inspiration – is a competitive advantage. Believing that advantage translates to revenue? Well, that’s the whole abundance model, isn’t it? It goes a little outside the spreadsheet.

Sarah

As the subprime crisis hit in the third quarter of 2007, Bankrate’s advertisers faced hard times.

Even during that difficult quarter, organic traffic accounted for 75% of Bankrate’s traffic. Meanwhile, paid search brought in 14% of traffic, and partner traffic brought in the remaining 11%.

In the face of the recession, Tom Evans, Bankrate’s CEO, didn’t just maintain his company’s search engine budget — he increased it. And he’s laughing all the way to the bank.

“We believe that organic traffic is less susceptible to competitive market dynamics, and is reflected in driving higher margins to our bottom line,” Evans explained. “Organic traffic continues to grow at double digits …[unique visits] for every single month this year have been higher than the same month last year.”

Furthermore, Evans remarked, “I think the reason we do so well in SEO is we have an enormous amount of content. We have an enormous amount of tools and calculators, and I think we have done a good job from SEO with, we have got literally millions of links into the site and out of the site, and I think that it really helps.”

In other words, rather than gaming the system, Evans recognizes the value of giving searchers — and search engines — lots of great content that naturally attracts incoming links. With its wealth of interactive content, Bankrate is in a great position to continue capturing a superior share of search traffic and qualified leads.

Even in a recession, sites like Bankrate can capture search engine marketing leads at a relatively low cost per acquisition. Realizing this fact is helping Bankrate survive and even thrive during the subprime crisis.

For more about Tom Evans’ take on the value of search engine marketing, visit SearchEngineWatch.

Geary Interactive continues to prove it’s ability to provide digital marketing solutions for a wide variety of clients. Geary Interactive was named one of the top b2b agencies by B2B Magazine, and our newly acquired search marketing firm Fathom Online was also named a top search engine marketing vendor.

…however, the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. People are shorting Yahoo stock thinking they will say no to the unsolicited offer. It will be fun to follow how it pans out. It seems like a very complex deal, with a mix of cash and stock, and it will need to get approved by the FCC and EU.

On the bright side for Google, it may speed up and guarantee the EU’s approval of the DoubleClick Google buyout.