April 4, 2008 at 2:47 pm · Filed under Search Marketing, PPC
According to a recent PPC Blog post, big changes are in the office for UK advertisers. Rumour has it that Google is to loosen the current rules concerning bidding on trademarks in the UK, to be more in line with those found over in the US and Canada
The move will mean UK advertisers can now bid on trademark terms, when previously they were not able to. However like the US version, advertisers will not be able to include trademarked terms within their content.
Director for Google UK, Matt Brittin said the company’s goal was to give consumers, “greater choices to help them make informed decisions”. Brittin went on to say that since introducing the policy in the US and Canada in 2004, Google had “learned that users found the greater number of ads relevant and helpful”.
Such a move in the UK though is likely to throw the cat amongst the pigeons somewhat and I would suggest further enhancement of SEO campaigns and budgets in response to this is likely, particularly in industries such as the finance sector where the levels of variation in search bevahiour also contributes to a lesser long tail than say the travel sector, and where significant paid search marketing budgets are found. Potentially this is a significant move from Google and one which could have huge knock on effects on the paid search industry as a whole.
A full overview of the proposed changes can be found here:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=92877&hl=en_US.
June 13, 2007 at 11:33 am · Filed under Search Marketing, SEO, PPC, Online PR, Trends
According to a recent survey for the Online Marketing Show, online marketing spend in the UK has continued to see dramatic increases in spend over the course of the last year. The survey follows close on the heels of a recent IAB/PWC report which showed that spend on Online Marketing had broken through the £2bn barrier.
The survey by the Online Marketing Show highlighted that the commitment displayed to the online channel by advertisers over the past year “will continue over the next twelve with over a third of respondents saying they will increase online budgets by up to 25% in the coming year. ”
The survey also highlighted a number of other significant trends
- One in five respondants now spend over 50% of their marketing budgets on Online Marketing
- Agencies look likely to be the primary beneficiaries - with 47% saying that they will increase their spend on Online Marketing by up to 25% over the coming year.
- ROI or Return on Investment is still a primary metric for online marketers with 61% saying they get a better ROI from their online marketing efforts than any other channel, however interestingly a large proportion of respondants highlighted the requirement for more data online
- SEO, PPC, E-Mail Marketing and Banner Advertising were the key areas of investment over the past year
- Social Media and Online PR have grown significantly and are expected to receive more investment than more established investment areas such as mobile and iTV
- Interestingly, 40% of respondants are still having trouble integrating their online and offline communications - however we would suggest this may be due to many of the respondants using a number of different solutions providers rather than one integrated agency
Other Key Findings
- 52% of retailers suggested they would increase their online spend by up to 25% in the coming year
- 27% of travel companies said they would increase their online marketing budgets by up to 50% this year. This does mirror the interest in search as a significant area of investment for the sector with 80% of respondants already actively involved in SEO/PPC and the figure expected to increase to just under 90% in a years time
- 34% of financial services organisations said they would increase budgets by up to 25%. 47% currently invest in search as a lead generation tool, and this figure is expected to grow to 63% over the course of the next year
- and interestingly …. just under 20% of marketing agencies said they would increase spend by up to 75%
To read the full survey, visit http://www.onlinemarketingshow.co.uk/Survey-Results.html
