Second Chance for Search Advertising

Big news for online advertisers and media buyers: There is a new alternative to search ads… Read on!

Search Ads: The Holy Grail of Online Advertising

Advertisers seek engagement and openness and while most ads get very little of both, it is when people search for something that they are giving their full attention. This is how search advertising, or subtly named sponsored results, became the holy grail of online advertising and still yields the highest conversion rates for advertisers. In case you’re not sure what I’m referring to, search with Google again – most of the results on the page above the fold are actually ads purchased by advertisers.

Google Takes it All

We Google. It’s hard to imagine our lives without the mega search engine. 90% of online searches are done with Google (and I actually think the number is higher, but other search engines buy searches). And so the biggest and by far the monopoly for search advertising, which is also sometimes referred to as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), is managed by Google – the almighty pay per click marketplace – Google AdWords. This single marketplace handles most of the World’s online search advertising budgets, billions of dollars. And the fierce competition in this single marketplace drove prices up until placing an ad for a specific search term can costs several dollars – and we’re talking about a single person who will view this ad.

Second Chance for Search Ads

Advertisers need and want search ads, but the highly expensive Google AdWords marketplace can’t accommodate all the requests.  And yet, it is the specific searching users that we want… How can we get another chance to advertise to them? It took some time, but we finally have an answer… A special dynamic ad unit within websites that targets search visitors. It’s a true second chance for advertisers on the same search query. Not clear enough? OK…

The Infolinks Search Widget

Infolinks, the advertising network that I work for, now offers publishers a new ad unit that opens as a banner on the bottom of the page and targets search visitors. From the Infolinks blog:

Search Widget targets only visitors arriving to your website from a Search Engine (such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and others.) Our new widget will appear for those visitors only, and will present them with ads related to their search. It’s a guaranteed click magnet!

How Search Widget Works? Let’s say the term “Gourmet Chocolate” is entered in a Google Search and the visitor arrives at a website empowering Infolinks Search Widget. Then the following banner unit will appear at the bottom of the page:

SEM Opportunity

For search engine marketers and online advertisers, the new search widget is a huge opportunity. If you want to target Gourmet Chocolate on Google AdWords, it may cost you $3 per click and more, and you may miss the click in many opportunities. But then, if the user went on to visit a foodie blog about chocolate, Infolinks will open the search widget within the blog, suggesting another sponsored search result to the same exact term that the user initially typed and in fact is looking for. Once this user is finished with reading the blog, you may get the next click through the banner. And the cost? Well, in the growing Infolinks marketplace prices are still much lower than Google’s.

At the moment, from initial results from Beta advertisers, it seems that the results are very good. This is no surprise – advertisers get clicks from users who actually typed their search query and have knowingly clicked on an ad unit looking for more. Publishers are also happy with the new search widget because the click trough rate (CTR) is high and they get a new ad revenue source on top of their existing monetization tools. Want to learn more? You’re always invited to contact me directly or visit the Infolinks blog.