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Omniture has come a long way in Analytics in a very short time span, and although much of my experience with their company comes via technical support calls and escalating minor annoyances, their SiteCatalyst Excel Client should really be praised for it’s innovation. Many of us have become accustomed to getting metrics online through a web interface, compiling reports through Ajax or Java and having them scheduled for delivery. Omniture does away with that.

That’s right, if you didn’t think cell phones were a bad enough influence on drivers, there’s more bad news on the way from Wired.  According to Wired, mobile internet users (more specifically iPhone users) are avid Googlers.  It’s not all doom and gloom, it may help some drivers search for instructions on how to use their turn signal.  In all seriousness, this news should come as no surprise to the search marketing community, but does offer up some serious food for thought on how to get those surfers to convert.

Although Yahoo has rejected a $31 per stock bid by Microsoft to buy the company, they had planned to inflate their true market value with surges of recent growth.  It’s an interesting story of two big names, but two small “Davids” in advertising compared to the “Goliath” that is Google.  Where is Google in all this?  Probably taking the advice of numerous industry insiders telling them to stay out of it.  Here’s why…

Last year I blogged about the importance of excluding content network placements that resulted in abnormally high click through rates. I also blogged about how advertisers should be aware that certain political regions block access to many corporate sites. It took three months but the evidence is undeniable: exclude the bad, and usher in the good. What does that mean?

Only a few days after getting notification that my application to the Adwords Demographics Targeting Beta had been received, I noticed a notification in one of my client accounts that the feature had been enabled. The demographics interface itself is not unlike Microsoft Adcenter, aside from being somewhat simpler and clear cut: typical Google style. So, did it work?

Normally big news such as a Microsoft purchase of Yahoo would be left to normal news sites, but since the acquisition would have profound effects on the pay-per-click advertising market, I can’t pass up the chance to comment on it. From a holistic perspective, Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo comes as no surprise, as Yahoo has been floundering financially in recent months. From an online advertising perspective, Microsoft will try to position themselves as the only viable alternative to Google Adwords. Or so they think!

Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I was thrilled to be chosen as a participant in the Google Adwords Demographics Beta Test group. I feel that demographics targeting is the last piece of the puzzle the Adwords team needed to retain their dominance in pay-per-click marketing. While targeting by age group, gender, and possibly other personality traits can be an attractive prospect, it will undoubtedly have some limitations.

The rumor bin has been active lately with rumblings of an upcoming interface change for Google Adwords. In what many might consider as a topic that should fall into the “if it ain’t broke…” category, I’ll take a look at what improvements Google might make to the current Adwords interface.

There can be a definite rift between corporate search marketers and affiliate marketers.  The animosity can sometimes elevate to a point where it’s almost laughable, with name calling (try searching for “affiliate cockroach”) and flame wars.  The problem is that both sides share common ad space, and compete with each other for clicks and conversion.  Sometimes what both sides fail to notice is that they really do need each other.

Yesterday’s post hinted that many businesses are now testing campaigns in Google Adwords and other cost-per-click programs with new online marketing budgets. Many marketers don’t realize that pay-per-click campaigns can quickly get out of control. Traditional marketing metrics can usually be measured over the course of several weeks and months, whereas online marketing metrics can spike on an hourly basis. In this post, I’ll discuss the safeguards you can use when running new PPC campaigns in Google Adwords.

Many online businesses expected a slower than average December in 2007, thanks in part to less than optimistic economics figures indicating a slowdown in e-commerce spending over the holidays.  Although that may be true for a few of the larger, more established brands, it may foreshadow the emergence of several new upstarts vying for attention in the e-commerce space.

My first post discussing Facebook was published December 3rd, entitled “Facebook Advertising Sure Needs Work,” I discussed cost-per-click opportunities for advertisers.  Although the Facebook team has done little to improve their CPC advertising program, I have to admit that their sponsored company groups are a step in the right direction.  One of the first on the scene was Febreze, launching their “I Tell Febreze what Stinks” campaign.  Want viral?  Look no further than Facebook.

Starting sometime in the past week or so, Google Adwords starting inserting actual businesses addresses into advertiser’s display ads.  In the past, it wasn’t uncommon to see the State or Province below your regionally-targeted ads in Google.  The impact of the change has yet to have sufficient time to filter down into analytics, so it’s too soon to say whether showing a business’ actual address is good or not.

Google’s Q4 product development schedule included a major upgrade to the campaign geo-targeting options that went live sometime last week. Aside from an actual map overlay using the powerful Google Maps API, it also includes a new exclusion feature that lets the advertiser decide whether they want to target a big territory, but exclude individual towns or regions that may not convert. Christmas just came early!

Although hardly considering myself the amateur, but surely not the master of all things pay-per-click, I’m going to have to say that the folks at Facebook have to take a long hard look at their platform in order to reign supreme in the online advertising game. After boasting the power of their 50 million-strong user base and allowing both MSN Adcenter and Google the right to display ads, there is little hope for Facebook powered ads until a major player steps in to take over. So what makes Facebook CPC/CPM a nightmare?