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A little bit of data from the Efficient Frontier Q4 2009 Search Engine Performance Report has been made available, and it’s completely un-shocking in that it shows search marketers are still more than happy to spend their money with Google.  The interesting thing, though, is that Bing seems to have gained a little ground on the search giant.

To give credit where it’s due: Nathania Johnson is the one who got an early look at Efficient Frontier’s report (which is supposed to be released tomorrow).  It’s thanks to her, then, that we know Google’s market share in terms of search advertising spending fell 1.0 percent on a year-over-year basis to 74.5 percent.

Meanwhile, Yahoo’s share stayed steady (at 20.4 percent), and Bing’s increased by 1.0 percent (to 5.1 percent).

From Microsoft’s perspective, that represents a move in the right direction, at least.  And it’s interesting, too, that Bing managed to draw revenue away from Google instead of its partner-to-be in Sunnyvale.

As for the future, Johnson wrote, "Bing is expected to grow 30% in 2010, giving them a 6-7% share of paid clicks."  The outlook for the whole industry seems fairly bright, too, given that she stated, "SEM spend will grow 15-20% in 2010."

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The Search Engine Marketing (SEM) industry continues to stabilize in the third quarter of 2009 and included some positive sings for the fourth quarter, according to a new report from Efficient Frontier.

"The third quarter results and a look beyond provide some encouraging signs for the Search Marketing industry as well as the overall economy," said David Karnstedt, President and CEO, Efficient Frontier.

"While certain sectors, such as travel, have continued to lag, other categories such as retail have picked up as we head into the fourth quarter, which is a critical time for online marketers."

SEM spend was up 5 percent compared to the previous quarter while year-over-year saw a 5 percent decline. Year-over-year (YoY) declines were driven by continued Cost Per Click (CPC) weakness with Google’s search CPC dipping for the fourth straight quarter. Return on investment (ROI) remained stable as marketers continue to focus on efficiency.

While continuing to hold a dominant 70 percent plus share position, Google lost ground in terms of Spend Share both on QoQ basis a YoY basis by losing 1.78 percent and 0.83 percent respectively.

Yahoo’s Paid Click Share was up slightly QoQ, but it lost both Spend and Click Share YoY. Yahoo’ s Spend Share was down 0.07 percent and Click Share was down 2.43 percent YoY.

In contrast, Bing continued to grow since its launch in June. QoQ Bing saw gains in Paid Clicks and Spend Share by 0.68 percent and 1.02 percent, respectively. Bing numbers shows category growth across travel, finance, autos and retails with the most significant gains in travel and finance.

The travel sector saw a 14 percent loss QoQ and 39 percent loss YoY. While the QoQ loss is partly due to the seasonal nature of the travel industry, the YoY loss points to continued weakness in this space.

The finance category has stabilized with positive growth in consumer demand, with a 1 percent decrease QoQ and a 7 percent increase YoY.

Retail is the clear key going in the fourth quarter and the report forecast search will outperform the general holiday season spend.

The company expects strong consumer activity to continue and aggressive advertiser competition to follow as marketers look to capture interest and more importantly, sales. The net result of better conversions, improving ROI, and higher CPCs, will likely be seasonally strong spend increases for the retail sector in Q4 2009. 

Google has people riled up with its latest local search effort Google Place Pages. Place Pages are a Google Maps feature launched last week, which serve the purpose of providing everything you want to know about a place (a city or a business) in one spot. For example, if you search for a specific restaurant, you should get web pages, directions, reviews, images, street view imagery, business hours, etc. Google lets businesses submit specific categories they want to include.

There is concern from some that Google is trying to eliminate the need for users to leave Google and even visit a small business’ web site. WebProNews reader Doug Stewart, who wonders if this is an "assault against the small business website," commented, "Google wants people to spend more time on Google. Yahoo wants people to spend more time on Yahoo. Facebook wants people to spend more time on Facebook. Several of these large online "media" [companies] are doing everything in their power to keep the eyeballs on their website (unless you pay them for an outbound link)."

Do you think Google’s Place Pages are good or bad for business? Tell us what you think.

Google has always claimed to do everything with the user’s experience in mind. Unfortunately for SEOs and webmasters, however, it also could mean that people have less reason to go to their sites.

To me, this would really depend on the information that the searcher is hoping to acquire. It’s going to be about finding the right balance of useful information and providing an incentive to still go to your site (if that is your goal). The Place Pages would certainly bring a new element to the online reputation management table. You’re going to want to keep an eye on what’s showing up on your Place Page, and address the situation accordingly. They can include user-generated content.

Another concern that has been voiced about Place Pages, is that Google could start ranking them in natural search results – outside of Google Maps. In fact, Erick Schonfeld points out that this is already occurring for at least the Burdick Chocolate Cafe (the example Google used when it announced the feature).

This could theoretically reduce clicks to actual sites, but again, this would just emphasize the need to manage your reputation on your Place Page. Your site is likely to be easily located from the Place Page anyway.

Blogger Eric Fredline says Google’s Place Pages are "designed for optimization," but that something is missing. "For one, Google would need local merchant’s to define some sort of ‘conversion event’.  This is conceptually as easy as defining a new ‘block type’ that will appear on the landing page and be optimized," he says. "For example, a restaurant might view a phone call or an Open Table registration as a conversion event.  If it’s a phone call, I imagine the merchant could be encouraged to use Google Voice to provide a closed loop analysis of the conversion event."

"Perhaps more likely than having individual merchants doing this (at least in all cases) would be a small army of SEO and SEM experts doing it on the businesses’ behalf – but within a closed looped system managed by Google," he adds. "Google could potentially create a whole new eco-system."

Another interesting factor of Google’s Place Pages is the fact that they have sponsored results on them. This could raise more concerns, such as competing ads showing up on a business’ place page. In Google’s chocolate Cafe example, the Page is showing ads for chocolate companies like Godiva and Ghirardelli.

There are a lot of questions about the Pages, and answers will likely come in due time. In fact, Google Place Pages will be discussed in more than one panel at next week’s Search Marketing Expo, which WebProNews will be attending. We should have more information on it then. 

The Place Pages come with their own structured URL. The example Google gives is http://maps.google.com/places/us/cambridge/brattle-st/52/-burdick-chocolate-cafe. You can see how it is structured by places/country/city/street/address/business name. Google discusses the feature here.

Google says that while not all businesses have a place page yet, they will soon. Businesses can update their info through Google’s Local Business Center.

What is your take on the role of Google’s Place Pages? Share your thoughts.

Google has people riled up with its latest local search effort Google Place Pages. Place Pages are a Google Maps feature launched last week, which serve the purpose of providing everything you want to know about a place (a city or a business) in one spot. For example, if you search for a specific restaurant, you should get web pages, directions, reviews, images, street view imagery, business hours, etc. Google lets businesses submit specific categories they want to include.

The place pages also come with their own structured URL. An example Google gives is http://maps.google.com/places/us/cambridge/brattle-st/52/-burdick-chocolate-cafe. You can see how it is structured by places/country/city/street/address/business name. Google discusses the feature here.

Do you think Google’s Place Pages are good or bad for business? Tell us what you think.

The riling comes with the unanswered questions about what this will mean for search engine optimization. For one, some people are speculating that Google is trying to keep people from having to leave its results, which would in fact enhance the user experience. Google has always claimed to do everything with the user’s experience in mind. Unfortunately for SEOs and webmasters, however, it also could mean that people have less reason to go to their site.

To me, this would really depend on the information that the searcher is hoping to acquire. It’s going to be about finding the right balance of useful information and providing an incentive to still go to your site (if that is your goal). The Place Pages would certainly bring a new element to the online reputation management table. You’re going to want to keep an eye on what’s showing up on your Place Page, and address the situation accordingly. They can include user-generated content.

Another concern that has been voiced about Place Pages, is that Google could start ranking them in natural search results – outside of Google Maps. In fact, Erick Schonfeld points out that this is already occurring for at least the Burdick Chocolate Cafe (the example Google used when it announced the feature).

This could theoretically reduce clicks to actual sites, but again, this would just emphasize the need to manage your reputation for your Place Page. Your site is likely to be easily located from the Place Page anyway.

Blogger Eric Fredline says Google’s Place Pages are "designed for optimization," but that something is missing. "For one, Google would need local merchant’s to define some sort of ‘conversion event’.  This is conceptually as easy as defining a new ‘block type’ that will appear on the landing page and be optimized," he says. "For example, a restaurant might view a phone call or an Open Table registration as a conversion event.  If it’s a phone call, I imagine the merchant could be encouraged to use Google Voice to provide a closed loop analysis of the conversion event.

"Perhaps more likely than having individual merchants doing this (at least in all cases) would be a small army of SEO and SEM experts doing it on the businesses behalf – but within a closed looped system managed by Google," he adds. "Google could potentially create a whole new eco-system."

Another interesting factor of Google’s Place Pages is the fact that they have sponsored results on them. This could raise more concerns, such as competing ads showing up on a business’ place page. In Google’s chocoalte Cafe example, the Page is showing ads for chocolate companies like Godiva and Ghirardelli.

There are a lot of questions about the Pages, and answers will likely come in due time. In fact, Google Place Pages will be discussed in more than one panel at next week’s Search Marketing Expo, which WebProNews will be attending. We should have more information on it then. 

Google says that while not all businesses have a place page yet, they will soon. Businesses can update their info through Google’s Local Business Center.

What is your take on the role of Google’s Place Pages? Share your thoughts.

eZanga is a company that prides itself on providing online advertisers with local, regional, and national advertising with high ROI. The company has now launched display advertising with search.

CEO Rich Kahn tells WebProNews about the significance of this, and talks about why things are looking bright for online advertising, and specifically display advertising.

You’ve probably heard before that search and display advertising can compliment one another nicely. Kahn backs up this notion. "Research has shown that exposure to both search and display ads from the same advertiser results in a 22 percent increase for conversion rates over search alone," says Kahn. "We launched eZanga Display in order to capitalize on both of these key Internet marketing channels to help our clients reach their bottom lines faster and more efficiently."

So why turn to a company like eZanga, when Google has such an incredible amount of the search market share?

"Google is large, but it is not the only player out there," says Kahn. "Our new eZanga Display product is not only another place to buy display on premium sites (Yahoo, LinkedIn, CNN.com, BusinessWeek, Facebook, etc) but also offers our customers some advanced optimizations.  We can optimize a campaign based on the phone calls we generate, online sales, leads or fill in forms.  We are not here to focus on impressions or clicks (any network can do that) we are here to focus on conversions, both online and offline."  emphasis added.

"In addition, each and every one of our customers, big or small, is assigned a dedicated Account Manager, which is backed by a highly trained and successful Sales Manager, which is backed by our veteran Director of Sales, which is finally backed up by own industry expert with around 17 years of experience.  Customers will have access to extremely knowledgeable staff to make sure they get the most out of their campaigns."

On the State of Online Display Advertising

"Online advertising will continue to grow as more and more companies continue to move budgets from dying industries like Newspapers and Yellow Pages to online," says Kahn.  "Display has traditionally been used for branding campaigns; however, we have learned that when you combine SEM with Display, you get an increase in conversion over SEM or Display alone.  This is why we use a total approach to advertising online so, when budgets allow and customers agree, we use all of our products in combination: SEM, PPC, Display and Contextual; to get the best performance for our customers."

"Even though this recession has impacted the industry, we are finding that more and more companies are eager to market their products and services online rather than continue investing in traditional advertising on the same scale as they did before the recession," he continues.

Kahn says that his company has increased in business so much that they have recently moved into a larger office. The company is also seeking to fill 50 positions within a year. In addition, they’ve opened another office up in another state.

Not a bad testamonial for online advertising.

the Association of National Advertisers along with B2B Magazine released results from a survey, which found that marketers are increasingly using social media platforms. No surprise there. What’s more interesting is how they are using them.

According to the results, about 66 percent of marketers utilized social media this year, up from just 20% in 2007. Half of those surveyed use viral videos, up from a quarter in 2007.

Top social networks used by marketers according to the survey:

- Facebook (74 percent)
- YouTube (65 percent)
- Twitter (63 percent)
- LinkedIn (60 percent)

The most effective newer media platforms in 2009 according to the survey:

- Search engine marketing (SEM) (65 percent)
- Own Web site (59 percent)
- SEO (55 percent)
- E-mail marketing (45 percent)

"As more media platforms become available, it is imperative that all marketers continue to assess their capabilities and select the platforms that are best suited to help them meet their brand’s goals and objectives," said Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA. "With this proliferation of media, marketers must work harder, survey the entire landscape available to them and create their brand’s most optimal media mix."

The survey highlights the differences in social media use among B2B and B2C marketers. B2C use more mobile and Facebook marketing, while B2B use LinkedIn and even Twitter more. B2C marketers get more out of search engine marketing, while B2B marketers get more out of webinars.

When it comes to paying for social media campaigns, 55 percent of those surveyed shifted funds from their traditional media budgets, while 48% shifted funds from other marketing communications budgets. Only 26% created an incremental budget. ROI and metrics are still the top concerns companies have about social media.