Breaking news on the paid advertising scene is Google`s deal with Seth MacFarlane, creator of television gems like Family Guy and American Dad! Gone are the days of Saturday morning Nickelodeon cartoons, as MacFarlane plans to release his Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy exclusively to the Internet in September, and it`s funded by Pay Per Click!

What interests us as a search engine marketing clan, is that Google plans to advertise Cavalcade via AdSense video clips, which will run on their content network. Thus, ads for the cartoons will appear on sites that already update with fresh content and partner with Google to display AdWords, while MacFarlane, his production company and the search engine take a share of the advertising fees. In some cases there will be a “preroll” of ads that viewers will have to watch prior to the clip, and in others there will be a “brought to you by” foreword, which will justify advertising expense.

Google have changed their Trademark Rules and are now allowing companies to bid on their competitor`s Trademarks. The associated ad copy cannot contain any reference to this Trademark name though.

Why are Google doing this? Are they enhancing the user experience? Opinions definitely seem to differ on this topic. Some think that Google is simply trying to make money by forcing companies to bid on their own Trademarks. Others argue that Google is increasing the user experience by offering them more choice.

Personally I think that companies like Tesco, who are refusing to bid on competitor keywords on ethical grounds, need to be congratulated.

If I had to enter the search term ‘Tesco` and see sponsored links for Sainsbury, Waitrose or Morrison’s appear ahead of Tesco, I would be immensely annoyed . Maybe it`s just me, but if I am searching for a particular Trademark term, that is what I`d like to find. Not one of their competitors.

I recently read of Google`s release of a search feature update of including video ads in search results. VP of search product and user experience, Marissa Mayer commented how Google used text ads to flow with the format of search, but now with universal results, video results are common and definitely attract the eyes of searchers, who by now have adopted the condition of “banner blindness” for text ads.

Marissa`s is quite a dubious conviction, as she didn`t go into depth about the technical challenges involved. Surely the fact that the search results have been text based up until “blended/universal search” suggests that the task of determining relevance in video or even images subject matter is a highly complicated issue? And this is without simply associating dozens of tags to a piece of such media.

So what is the best way to advertise and gain trust from new users looking to buy your product? Some might say it is paying for online ads and having your site show up for a certain product search. Others will go for viral marketing and rely on word of mouth to gain trust.

When a customer reads what previous users of a certain product had to say about it, their attention will be caught more quickly than just a basic advertisement. Searchengineguide explained a survey by Nielsen, in which consumer recommendations and opinions were two of the most trusted marketing techniques while search engine ads were third from the bottom with a mere 34% trust factor.

Why would a client choose you over your competition? Do you have extensive experience? Do you have a lengthy list of client references and proof of results?
Or, like the majority of firms in this industry today, do you have to convince them that you are a promising young firm that they should utilise?

Let the client realise that you know all the latest strategies and tactics to enhance their PPC Campaign, and don`t be afraid to let them know what they are doing wrong. Don`t give them the specifics of exactly how you are going to solve the problem or too much detail on exactly which parts need to be amended. Just give them enough to let them know that you know how to make their campaign more profitable.

If you are not checking your paid advertising campaigns regularly, you should probably consider outsourcing your PPC. Of course, this is a rule of thumb and does not apply to everybody, as you may have a very small budget with limited campaign coverage.
If you are, on the other hand, spending a fair amount on PPC and not checking your campaign constantly for new competitors, competitor keyword bids etc., it might be worth your while outsourcing you campaign. In this way, you entrust your ROI to a company that deals with paid advertising every day, and knows all the latest tricks and tools in the industry.

There are a few more points to take into account before deciding to outsource.

Think about the following:

To begin with, B2B and B2C pay per click is pretty much the same thing. It still requires that marketers develop a highly targeted keyword list, write clear and compelling ad descriptions, design a landing page experience that is optimised for conversion and continually track the results. The differences lie specifically in those results, and have been divided up into four problems (summarised here):

Number one: you are advertising more complex services. It’s easy to understand the needs of your run-of-the-mill customer who is buying shoes. It’s not so easy meeting the needs of a client who is going to make quite a big investment in your business solution. B2B marketing targets the corporate searcher who is looking to invest in e-commerce in order to reach new goals and establish new clients.

In a recent report by the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) and PricewaterhouseCoopers, online advertising has grown by 41% in the first half of 2007. This makes it a market share of 15%. It has been reported that it could reach 2.75 billion pounds by the end of the year. This is a new high for online advertising.

In total, British advertising has grown by 3.1% due to this rise. Online Classified ads have grown by a staggering 72% year on year, with display advertising following at 33%. Paid-for-search has risen by 44%. British advertising has now reached 9.1 billion pounds in total.

The report also showed that more women and people over the age of 50 are spending more time on the Internet. This change is making more businesses advertise online, as the target audience just got larger.