AAAA Backs Yahoo-Microsoft Deal, Yahoo Ends The Paid Inclusion Program, Google Updates Analytics, And More

AAAA Backs the Yahoo – Microsoft Deal

In an open letter to the Department of Justice, the American Association of Advertising Agencies is stressing the benefits of Yahoo! and Microsoft’s proposal to join their technologies and search platforms.  They state that a healthy and competitive market for search is crucial to the future of the internet and that combining the two search engines will create that necessary competition.  The AAAA urges the DOJ to bring their antitrust review to a conclusion as soon as possible.

Yahoo! Ending Paid Inclusion Program

Yahoo! has announced that their paid inclusion program, both the “Search Submit Basic” program that charged an annual fee per URL and the “Search Submit Pro” cost-per-click program will be ending as of December 31, 2009.  There has been controversy in the past regarding the paid inclusion program because some believe including paid ads in an organic search makes the results biased.  Yahoo! states that they are focusing on improving other core areas of the search experience and that they will provide those advertisers affected by the decision a sufficient lead time to assist in the transition.

Google Analytics Updates

Google has announced a new set of Analytics features to make it more powerful, flexible, and intelligent than ever before.  These include adding the latest power features, enhancing two of the tools that organizations use to adapt and customize Google Analytics, and creating a tool that can tell you what to pay attention to.

Two new types of engagement goals allow advertisers to track time on site and pages per visit, defining up to 20 goals per profile.  Mobile reporting has expanded with the ability to track mobile apps and websites.  Advanced filters allow for far more advanced analysis, giving you the resources to track things such as the revenue that comes from certain cities and keyword combination.  You can now use Custom Variables to define and track visitors according to visitor attributes, session attributes, and by page-level attributes.  And a new feature called Analytics Intelligence will alert you of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods.  This allows you to focus on taking action rather than figuring out what needs to be done.

Creative to Blame for Unsuccessful Online Ads

A recent study done by Dynamic Logic looking at the highest and lowest performers from their database of over 17,000 online advertisements revealed that it is creative factors that create better brand awareness, ad recall, and purchase intent.  These creative factors are things such as persistent branding, bold calls to action, and human faces, not over-targeted and high profile ad placements.

The online ad research group has found that creative quality is 50 to 75% responsible for a campaign’s success or failure; however, advertisers still spend most of their time trying to optimize and measure campaigns, letting a large percentage of creative fall short of its potential.  Advertisers get sucked in to the complex technology and tracking of online advertising and focus on their delivery systems for their ads.  But to put it bluntly, Scott Briskman, executive creative director of Agency.com states, “It doesn’t matter how good your delivery system is if the creative sucks”.

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Sources:

http://www2.aaaa.org/news/bulletins/Documents/101909_searchletter.pdf
http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-to-drop-paid-inclusion-program-27852
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/10/google-analytics-now-more-powerful.html
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=139795