Check out
Pawfun.com

Follow me on
Twitter
Services
Bio
Contact
What Works Now



Why Keyword Advertising Will Soon Be a Thing of the Past For All But the Wealthiest Companies

vacuums.pngMichelle Slatalla makes an interesting point today in a New York Times (sub required) article about vacuum cleaners.

She searched www.vacuum.com and www.vacuums.com "only to find that both had become useless domain name parking sites full of automatically generated ads relevant to the word “vacuum.”

What happened? Put "vacuum" into Yahoo! and it produces 47 million results. You'll get 74 million results in Google. Coming up in the top of those searches consistently is expensive. Keyword advertising is over-saturated, expensive and tired as an ad medium.

The store owner who'd been smart enough to buy both urls in 1993, gave up and now uses his company's name instead. He says he still sells a lot of vacuums online.

When only the biggest companies can afford keyword advertising, it will fade into the sunset of outdated marketing tools. And for vacuum cleaner sellers, that has already happened.


Categories: Ad targeting
BL Ochman | Feb 15 07 2:57 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I don't really buy this because the example is a really generic word that potentially hundreds of companies could be bidding on. So it's worthwhile to set up some silly spam site like that because even if it brings in a dollar a day, do that enough times and it starts adding up.

But a lot of the keywords out there that are more specific are just a few cents a click and they bring in traffic. Others are $2 a click but they bring in customers willing to spend a grand or two. So unless it suddenly stops working and stops being measurable in terms of bottom line ROI, THEN people will stop using it. Where are the signs that's happening?

Posted by: Paco at February 16, 2007 11:50 PM

It has happened for several of my clients. Rates start at, say 50 cents a click, and then a competitor sees that they're getting good placement and the next thing you know, they bid the word up to $5.

There are less expensive ways to drive sales, and blog advertising is on the top of my list.

Posted by: B.L. Ochman at February 17, 2007 4:56 PM

BL,

This is just one more example of what I termed crackvertising http://www.grokdotcom.com/2006/07/26/crackvertising-are-you-addicted/
.

Thanks for pointing this one out.

Bryan

Posted by: Bryan Eisenberg at February 18, 2007 6:14 PM

Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)





Email this story to a friend







TrackBacks

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.whatsnextonline.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3666

Search


Join the What's Next Blog mailing list
Email:

Contact: BL (at) whatsnextonline (dot) com
212.369.8312


blog advertising


About BL Ochman
BL Ochman
B.L. Ochman, Managing Director of Emerging Media for Proof Intergrated Communications, the digital marketing arm of Burson-Marsteller, has been helping Fortune 500 companies strategically incorporate new media into their marketing mix since 1996.

She contributes to Ad Age Digital Next, Mashable, Business Week and others. On Twitter, she is @whatsnext.

She is co-founder of the pet lovers' site and blog, Pawfun.com - where you can create and send free photo e-cards of your pets and create a variety of great products featuring your pet’s photo.

This is my personal blog, where I share my own thoughts and opinions, which do not represent the views of Proof or its clients.






top 25 marketing blog

B.L.'s flickr photos




    Categories