“The new ‘local’ solution is a natural addition to our growing enterprise search business, and is based on collective feedback from dozens of customers”, said Sivan Metzger, General Manager, KENSHOO Local.

Screen shot 2009-12-17 at 1.24.11 AM.pngThe technology is designed to meet a growing need among agencies and retailers alike: maximizing paid search campaigns for the long tail as it relates to local search. As local search grows, the task of manually managing paid search campaigns is canceling out revenues earned through such efforts. Technology such as Kenshoo Local streamlines the process of bid management.

One such process is filtering out which keywords are profitable. Kenshoo Local will automatically determine which long tail keywords are performing best for a campaign and adjust bids accordingly.

Another key aspect of the technology is conversion attribution. Kenshoo acknowledges that there is a process to conversion. People don’t usually just search, click and buy. Instead, they research, compare, click here, click there, and then buy. They also may call or visit in-store.

Kenshoo Local offers advertisers the ability to determine what a conversion consists of – and allows attributions to various sources that contributed during the entire process.

Not only does this demonstrate an evolution of the understanding of marketing and consumer behavior within the search industry, but Kenshoo’s pursuit of local demonstrates the growing recognition of search as it pertains to the online marketing space as a whole.

“CMO’s and agencies can now manage holistic marketing strategies that span their national or global brand strategy in tight correlation with their online marketing execution plan, all the way to the single dealer, franchise or brick and mortal store, by leveraging the tight integration between Kenshoo’s enterprise and local solutions,” concluded Metzger.

With local search on the rise, driven by both mobile and increasingly web-savvy searchers, companies such as Kenshoo are smart to expand their services. Kenshoo is entering the inevitable rat race early, which should bode well for them when similar companies are jumping on the local search bandwagon in the not-too-distant future.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on December 17, 2009 1:12 AM

In the wake of the storm of blogging reactions to Eric Schmidt’s comments on privacy, Benjamin intends to document the results of taking an extreme counter position to CNBC’s Mario Bartiromo question to Schmidt, “People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they?”

Embarking on a week long experiment to see how one might live if they absolutely did not trust Google and had to block it out of their lives, Benjamin reports from his blog Day 1 of living without Google. You can follow his activities from there.

Amongst other things, what he finds is that Google is deeply embedded in his favourite Mac products and the tension between Apple and Microsoft prohibits him from easily switching to another search engine. What a shame that entrenched rivalries seem to prevent strategic alliances over new battlegrounds.

The Google Analytics API was launched last April and then updated with a few more features in September. Now, developers are getting access to additional advanced features.

Here’s what’s included in the API update:

Support for Advanced Segments – Originally unveiled over a year ago, developers are getting two ways to use advanced segements via the API:

1. Create them on the fly by specifying their expression directly through an API query.

2. Use advanced segments created in the Google Analytics web interface through the API.

Goal 5-20 and Configuration Data – Analytics recently increased the number of goals allowed from 5 to 20. Developers can now access 48 metrics regarding goal performance.

Custom Variables – 10 new dimensions are now available to access custom variable data.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on December 15, 2009 2:21 AM

Google has updated the Keywords user interface in Webmaster Tools. The update includes:

* Daily data updates
* Details on how often specific keywords were found
* Displaying up to 10 URLs that contain a keyword
* Significance column comparing each keyword’s frequency to the most popular keyword’s frequency

This tool really helps you know how Google sees your site. You can quickly recognize problem areas or address hacked content.

Have you checked out the new user interface? Let us know your first impressions of the update by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 12, 2009 3:30 PM

Google AdWords has unleashed a heap of updates, so let’s dive right in and see what’s going on.

Product Listing Ads

This is a new type of ad that will be included in shopping-related results on Google.com. The ads are Cost-per-Action (CPA). Advertisers will only pay when users click through and make a purchase. It works in conjunction with an advertiser’s Google Merchant Center account.

Because of the Google Merchant Center connection, advertisers don’t need to find keywords or create ad text. Google will cull all that information for you and serve up the ads when the relevant keyword is searched. (Of course, you’ll still want to do keyword research and make sure you get the right keywords in when you’re setting things up in the Google Merchant Center).

Ad Planner Updates

Google’s media buying tool, Ad Planner, has received some updates:

* Subdomain data – View data such as traffic and demographics for publisher subdomains
* Ad placements – View specific sections of a website where advertising can be purchased.
* Reach and relevance at a glance – New interactive graph shows which sites in your planned campaign will perform the best
* More detailed publisher data – Since publishers and advertisers can share Google Analytics data with Ad Planner, more data points are available such as page views, unique visitors, total visits, average visits per visitor, and average time on site.

DART for Advertisers Updates

DART for Advertisers (DFA) is the DoubleClick platform and it has a new Analytics feature that’s been launched into beta. Google is touting the features and benefits over at the AdWords Agency blog:

* Quick insights. Interactive reports with charts and graphs.
* Fast reports. Reports update frequently – every few hours – and the new user interface enables you to access your data quickly.
* New Report Types. Geographic delivery data as well as additional reports that show delivery data by bandwidth, browser, and operating system.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 12, 2009 3:43 PM

Microsoft’s Bing grew its number of queries from U.S. users by over 22 percent month-on-month during August, making it the fastest growing major search provider, according to data from Nielsen. The engine, which was re-launched in June, now accounts for 10.7 percent of all U.S. searches.

Market leader Google managed growth of 2.6 percent in comparison, behind an overall average of 2.9 percent for the sector, but continues its dominance with 65 percent of searches.

Yahoo, meanwhile, saw its volume of searches drop by 4.2 percent, but continues to hold second place in terms of overall share with 16 percent. Rounding out the top four, AOL experienced growth of 2.9 percent, accounting for 3.1 percent of total searches.

Under the Opportunities Tab, Google has added alerts for keyword and budget ideas.

If you’re using conversion tracking, you can now set up a custom alert to notify you of changes in conversion volume, conversion rate, and cost per conversion.

So far, custom alerts are only available for individual accounts, but Google says they are working on rolling out custom alerts for accounts linked through My Client Center (MCC).

Okay, so News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch didn’t really tell Google to drop dead. That’s just an attention getting device like the classic headline in The Daily News back in the 1970s: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

What Murdoch did say in a Sky News interview today was that his company is considering blocking Google from being able to search its Web sites.

Rupert Murdoch.jpg Murdoch said, “I think we will (block Google), but that’s when we start charging. We have it already with the Wall Street Journal. We have a wall, but it’s not right to the ceiling. You can get, usually, the first paragraph from any story – but if you’re not a paying subscriber to WSJ.com all you get is a paragraph and a subscription form.”

In the past, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said, “In general these models (paid online content) have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity. So my guess is for niche and specialist markets … it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news.”

If you want to watch the interview for yourself, check it out on YouTube — which, ironically, is an independent subsidiary of Google Inc.

Now, would Google really “drop dead” if News Corp. blocked it from crawling its websites?

Bill Tancer, the General Manager, Global Research at Experian Hitwise, took a look at this question in a blog post entitled, “News Corp. Google-less?”

According to Hitwise data:

* On a weekly basis Google and Google news are the top traffic providers for WSJ.com account for over 25 percent of WSJ.com’s traffic.

* Over 44 percent of WSJ.com visitors coming from Google are “new” users who haven’t visited the domain in the last 30 days.

* Twitter and Facebook sent 4% of US visits to News and Media sites in October 2009. (via @Hitwise_US)

* The percentage of upstream traffic from Facebook and Twitter to News and Media sites is up 490% year-over-year.

So, maybe Murdoch should think twice before pulling the plug on 25 percent of WSJ.com’s traffic. Although the amount of traffic from social media like Facebook and Twitter is growing, it won’t offset the upstream traffic from Google and Google News.

Or, who knows, maybe the tables will be turned someday and we’ll read a headline like: “Google to Murdoch: Go Ahead, Make My Day.”

Today, Google and the Association of American Publishers were supposed to have reached a new settlement, but instead asked for another extension. Judge Denny Chin, who has been presiding over the case, granted the request.

In September, Judge Chin granted the publishers’ request for a delay of the originally scheduled October hearing. The book settlement was announced last spring, but was coming under increased scrutiny from outside groups and the government.

The new deadline is this Friday, November 13.