SES Talks on Tier 2 Engines and Contextual Ads
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Written By Reprise Media | March 3, 2005 | Share This
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Today was the final day at SES and if the bags under everyone’s eyes didn’t give it away, the increasing number of empty chairs did the trick just fine. Despite the thinning crowd, our managing partners were pleased at the chance to speak in a few of today’s sessions.
Peter Hershberg took the morning shift in […]
Today was the final day at SES and if the bags under everyone’s eyes didn’t give it away, the increasing number of empty chairs did the trick just fine. Despite the thinning crowd, our managing partners were pleased at the chance to speak in a few of today’s sessions.
Peter Hershberg took the morning shift in a session called Search Ads Beyond Google and Overture, where he gave props to Tier 2 engines as a way to build volume and leverage lower minimum CPCs in a less competitive, more customer-service friendly environment than Tier 1 engines like Google and Overture. He took the crowd through a few sample searches to drive this point home even further. He also discussed the value of vertical and shopping engines toward achieving many of these same goals.
Be cautious, Peter warned, as Tier 2 engines aren’t without their pitfalls. The distribution isn’t always quality, click fraud continues to be an issue, and many Tier 2s lack clear editorial guidelines, making self-policing a necessity. Marketers should also keep in the mind that searcher behavior differs by engine and that Tier 2s often lack the tools of more sophisticated engines.
The parting thought? Test everything.
Joshua Stylman was up next in the Dealing with Contextual and Other Non-Search Ads session. He opened with some comments on a pet subject, The Long Tail, and made the distinction between contextual and behavioral marketing, citing AlmondNet as a company to watch.
What’s next for PPC? According to Joshua, it could be listings within text, similar to Vibrant Media, though he admitted many are sketched out by this practice. Embedded advertising within RSS feeds could be another avenue, though he says no one has yet produced a winning revenue model. The good side to that - feeds have a little more time left before they go the way of email (i.e. spam, irrelevant ads, etc.).
That’s all for now, we’ll be back to blogging as usual starting tomorrow. Please feel free to share your thoughts on these sessions or the SES New York experience in general, we’d love your feedback.
Topics: Advertising: Behavioral, Advertising: Contextual, Blogging, RSS, SEM: Paid Search, Search: Innovations, Search: Local |