ClipBlast Aims To Simplify Video Search Process

Web video search platform Clipblast is adding a number of features to its proprietary engine in an attempt to simplify what many consumers feel is an inefficient process. ClipBlast's Video Navigator, which crawls the entire Web for video content, now lets viewers browse video in several different ways. They can select categories ranging from animals to wellness and major content providers from ABC to YouTube. For example, die-hard India fans can choose Cricket as a category and ESPN as a provider to return real-time clips of the day's games, as well as all previously released videos.

ClipBlast's Navigator is specifically designed for video viewing, as it augments the search toolbar to zoom in on the most pertinent video. The toolbar approach is effective for text search, where users expect to zoom in with laser-like focus on a particular piece of information. On the Video Web, viewers still search for information, but they also spend time browsing, watching and being entertained.

Users can also build their personal Video Clip Library by saving their searches, preferred categories, favorite providers and individual video clips. They can sign up to receive email as new, similar clips become available. Built-in contextual search helps ClipBlast deliver future results and recommendations based on past behavior. To avoid the legal issues plaguing so many video aggregators today, ClipBlast's Video Navigator delivers search results that link viewers directly to content provider sites. Not only does this protect copyrighted material, it also allows content providers to grow Web traffic, control the viewing experience and monetize their own content.

Source: MediaPost

Google Tests Cost-Per-Action Ads

Search giant Google has launched another limited beta of Pay-Per-Action (PPA) advertising, a model that allows advertisers to pay for a specific consumer activity, like signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.

The cost-per-action ads will appear only on the AdSense publisher network. Partner publishers are allowed to choose whether they want CPA ads to appear on their sites. Over the next few weeks, Google will begin inviting publishers and advertisers to participate.

Google first began testing Pay-Per-Action ads in June 2006. During that test, the CPA ads did not compete with regular AdSense ads. They were displayed on a different network, dubbed the Content Referral Network.

CPA ads offer publishers a lower volume-higher-cost option on their AdSense ads. While there will likely be fewer actions, the revenue realized per event will probably be greater and much greater in some cases. Publishers have a great deal of choice in the program and will know exactly how much they'll make on any given lead or action originating from their sites.

It will be interesting to see how both advertisers and publishers respond, and whether both sides embrace the program almost uniformly. Google is offering PPA in new ad inventory that complements traditional AdSense, so publishers in the near term won't lose any click revenue as they test the performance of the new program.

Update by Sunny: Well, with the CPA model Google will definitely offer a better ROI to marketers as compared to the traditional CPC model. The big question however remains that, will this model overthrow the traditional model of Paid Advertising and create a new dimension for marketers to explore better search opportunities?

Source: MediaPost

Big Four Portals Grab Bulk Of Ad Dollars

Despite an increasingly fragmented online universe, big-name portals are alive and thriving.The Big Four i.e. Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN will sop up a whopping two-thirds, 66% of the $19.5 billion spent on online advertising.

Traditional marketers tend to find safety in established, mass-market brands. And since advertisers put only 6.6% of their ad budgets online in 2006, the need for established Internet brands will remain strong for several years.

This year, Google accounts for a full 32.1% of all online ad spending, while Yahoo will come in a distant second with 18.7%. AOL which only last year switched from a subscription model to an ad-supported one will take 9.1% of all online ad revenue, while MSN is expected to trail with 6.8%.

The portals' control over online ad dollars has only increased year over year. In 2005, the four captured more than half i.e. 53.7% of that year's Internet ad spending: $12.5 billion. Why are portals still so popular with advertisers? The short answer is tons of traffic, since each of the four averages 100 million or more unique visitors monthly. That translates into 57.4% of ad revenue in 2006 alone. The massive scale and something-for-everyone kind of experience offered by portals will continue to attract a certain type of advertiser and consumer.

Source: MediaPost

Panama provides a boost to CTR's

Big brand advertisers are getting the most so far from Yahoo's Panama upgrade, which was released in February and includes the "Quality Index" ranking ads according to their quality as well as the advertiser's bid. Fortune 500 advertisers are seeing their click-through rates increase to 4.4% from 2.3% according to data released today by SearchIgnite and RBC Capital Markets.
Bigger brands saw a greater increase in click-through rate post-Panama because on generic, non-brand terms, searchers tend to click on brands they recognize. For large-brand marketers, the scale of the positive impact was surprising. It most helped consumer brand marketers with strong brands, because on non-brand terms, people are more likely to click through on terms they know and trust.
On average across all its clients, SearchIgnite reported a 22% increase in click-through rates, to 2.5% from 2%, after Panama was fully released. On average, CPCs rose slightly, to 59 cents, from 56 cents--but larger brand advertisers instead saw a decrease in CPCs, to 16 cents, from 21 cents.
As a result, Yahoo has seen its share of paid search advertising increase slightly, the report stated. Yahoo's market share dropped every month for the last year, from 46% in the first quarter of 2006 to 19.6% in the fourth quarter of that year. It reached a low of 17% during the transition period starting Jan. 1, when marketers were first allowed to start moving to the new system. After Feb. 5, when all campaigns were migrated to Panama, Yahoo's share of search marketing dollars increased slightly to 18.1%.
Yahoo can sustain a higher media spend, based on the numbers that most of our marketers are seeing. The report was based on roughly 13 billion impressions and 140 million clicks on Yahoo, Google and MSN starting Jan. 1, 2006 and ending Feb. 24, 2007, across roughly 500 marketers.

Update by Sunny: As more marketers are finding Panama ROI effective, will this reverse back the trend in Yahoo's favor? An interesting thing to watch out for will be the sustainability of Google in this long Search Marathon : )

Source:MediaPost