Online Advertising News

MIVA Case Study

2006-09-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

MIVA has been slacking of late but looks to turnaround its past 3 quarter losses with a profit. Check below to see another press release:

MIVA, an independent online ad network, presents a case study on how NewCars.com used an advanced keyword strategy to yield higher PPC conversions.
As one of the first car companies to hit the internet, NewCars.com has been a leading source for online car quotes over the last 10 years, and is well aware of the competition entering its online domain. This competition comes mainly from websites that provide similar offerings of estimated online car quotes -- based on a variety of search parameters -- that make finding a new car more accessible for the average consumer.
NewCars.com was looking for a way to stand out from the pack, as well as increase new car leads and overall business growth. They needed to drive visitors who were serious about obtaining quotes for new car purchases to their site -- visitors looking for the specific products and services that NewCars.com offers its users.
Running a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign with MIVA was NewCars.com's means of achieving their desired business objectives. MIVA, a leading independent online advertising network, operates a PPC ad network, akin to Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing, where advertisers bid on keywords relevant to their site and only pay when an internet user clicks on the Ad. MIVA runs an auction pricing model; the cost of keywords varies, and price is set by the market demand. However, unlike Google or Yahoo!, MIVA is not a destination site, but rather, a network of industry-specific partnering websites and portals. With MIVA, advertisers' PPC ads are distributed onto the company's vast network of websites, creating a more targeted match between the advertisers and the partner site on which the PPC ad is displayed.
The key is keywordsThe backbone of any successful PPC campaign is in its keyword selection. PPC campaigns contain various keywords and phrases that describe a website's main offerings-- from products and services to promotional offers. NewCars.com's MIVA PPC campaign focused on defining effective, applicable keywords that would deliver highly targeted visitors to the Newcars.com website at competitive keyword bid rates.
NewCars.com's keyword strategy was developed with a clear objective in mind: to ensure consumer relevancy at cost-effective bid prices. For NewCars.com, three distinct keyword categories were identified, which comprised approximately 35,000 keywords.
Generic keywords: this list included generic phrases, such as "new car," that tend to drive high traffic levels.
Auto makes: this list focused on specific auto makers, such as "Mercedes Benz," for users who might have a brand in mind, but not a particular model.
Auto models: this list was focused on a more detailed set of specific terms, such as "Mercedes Benz C 230 Sport 4 Door Sedan," aimed at highly targeted users.
To comprise these three distinct categories, keywords were selected using MIVA's keyword generator tool, which highlights the number of times specific keywords were searched for. The search statistics were derived across the MIVA Ad Network. Using the tool, MIVA ensured that NewCars.com's PPC Ads were relevant to the consumer experience, which in turn provided targeted leads to the NewCars.com website.
Adding relevanceWhile keyword selection forms the foundation of any successful PPC ad campaign, it is equally important to ensure that internet users are directed to relevant sections of the a website after clicking on a PPC ad. In NewCars.com's case, Deep Content URLs, which are links that send users directly to a targeted page -- not a homepage -- were used. For example, if a user clicks on a keyword for a certain car, a Deep Content URL could take them to a page with either relevant information and/or an option to buy that specific car. For NewCars.com, this ensured that once a user clicked on an ad and was directed from the MIVA Network, they were taken straight to relevant sections of the NewCars.com website-- where they could then easily find the information they were searching for, whether it was on a specific model, trim or price range. Deep Content URLs ensure a better user experience, meeting an original objective of the campaign.
Through the use of PPC, NewCars.com was also able to gauge consumer interest by reviewing the number of clicks and website visits they received. By tracking hits, the company could closely monitor what keywords work and what words did not. Then by removing keywords that are not producing results and further leveraging those that do, the opportunity to create a highly targeted keyword database containing all proven terms was presented. More relevant keywords resulted in higher traffic being delivered to their website. This result was an increase in website hits, augmented sales and an ultimately higher ROI.
ResultsThe results of the NewCars.com/MIVA campaign speak for themselves. NewCars.com experienced an increase in targeted sales leads at a lower cost-per-click. By ensuring keyword relevance, they were able to drive more cost-effective bid prices. The campaign delivered 15 percent of all traffic to the NewCars.com website, converting into approximately 6 percent of their leads. NewCars.com's MIVA campaign cost approximately two-thirds less than their average combined cost per click on other PPC networks for the simple fact that since all keywords were highly relevant, they were able to reduce costs by driving more cost-effective bid prices.
"We are very pleased with MIVA's online campaign and its cost-effective leads," said Isabel Schoenberger, vice president of search for NewCars.com. "The conversion rates and return from advertising have proved invaluable to our success."
Effective keyword tactics and competitive bid prices are two ways for companies to easily increase online visibility and to increase quality lead generation. The internet is become more and more saturated with new websites, all claiming to be the authority on what they do. The NewCars.com's campaign on MIVA demonstrates how a company can stand out from the competition and effectively leverage pay-per-click advertising to generate impressive results.
Additional automotive resources: Leaping from Carat Fusion to Jumpstart
Chrysi Philalithes is the VP of global marketing & communication for MIVA. Read full bio.

Online Advertising News - TOP STORY

2006-09-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

EBAY in BED WITH GOOGLE????

eBay, Google Align, Extend Reach To Another Traditional Form Of Marketing: Talking

At a time when both companies have been moving aggressively to extend their reach to offline advertising media, search engine Google and auction site eBay Monday announced an advertising alliance that would create a new means for online advertisers to communicate directly with consumers: by talking to them. The centerpiece of the alliance calls for the development of a new "click-to-call" advertising system that would exploit Google's Google Talk service and eBay's Skype to enable consumers to click on Web ads to speak directly to marketers. The plan marks a new twist in the Internet's expanding role in the direct response marketing world, and moves it to a new front - telemarketing - at a time when the traditional telemarketing industry is still reeling from the effects of the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act in 2003, which enabled consumers to put themselves on lists to avoid telemarketers. By leveraging their online voice technologies, eBay and Google may have found a way around the problem, while at the same time creating an entirely new marketing platform that combines text-based advertising with telemarketing.

http://www.publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=47348

Pay Per Click

2006-09-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

Pay-Per-Click or PPC is a form of online advertising that is basically paying for a click. Advertisers pay for visitors on a per click basis. These advertisements are seen throughout the internet as contextual or text ads. A publisher can generate income by adding these paid links to their sites, and driving some of their website traffic to advertisers who often specify how much they would like to pay for that visitor.

Pay Per Click is a marketing system on the Web in which the advertiser pays when the user clicks on its advertisement and goes to its site. This is a more interactive, results-oriented method compared to paying for just the placement of a banner ad on a Web page regardless if anyone clicks on it.Pay-per-click search engines, such as Overture, MIVA.com and Searchfeed.com, are search sites that return the results of a search based on how much the advertiser bid for placement. The one that bid the most gets its offering to appear first in the results list; the second-highest appears second, and so on. After all paid advertisers are displayed, all the other results appear just like regular search engines. If the user clicks on a paid advertiser's offering to go to its Web site, the pay-per-click search engine charges the advertiser's account for the bid amount. For more information, visit www.payperclicksearchengines.com or www.Searchfeed.com

Welcome To Online Advertising News

2006-09-01T10:10:00.000-07:00

Hello! This blog is to teach all interested participants and search travelers about Online Advertising, Online Affiliate Programs, CPC campaigns, CPA campaigns, CPM advertising and much more. I will have updates on the definitions of each form of Online Advertising on a daily/weekly basis. So please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions :)