Archive for July, 2010

Google launched a new ad format called Image Search Ads. The ads, which appear only on Google Images, and will allow advertisers to include a thumbnail image as shown on the example below. This comes after the announcement on Tuesday about the  redesign of its Image Search.

You can read more about the image search ads here and how to set it up in your campaigns. As always create separate campaigns and test/test/test.

Google Retail UK did a short but interesting research on the search volumes for the last few weeks. It’s actually one of the rear times in the UK where we had good weather and a major sporting event. The most interesting part is the graph with the volumes and the industries.

Before the start of the world cup in South Africa every e-tailer was waiting to see the effect it will have in search. Since the last World Cup in Germany  a lot of things have changed and as result no-one could predict the results.

EU court judges have confirmed that using other companies’ names as online advertising keywords is not an infringement of European trademark law.  The decision follows a long-running battle between Google and trademark owners (Luxury brand Louis Vitton was fighting the same thing in Paris but for counterfeit product advertisers).

The case involved temporary cabin maker Portakabin and its competitor Primakabin. Primakabin chose the keywords ‘portakabin’, ‘portacabin’, ‘portokabin’ and ‘portocabin’ as its search terms for Google Adwords. They where biddinbg for competitor brand mispellings. Something that most of the adveretisers do after Google lifted their trademark policy.

Great post from the Ignite Social Media blog which published a list of the top 50 branded Facebook pages as of June 10, 2010. Above you can see the top 25. Facebook remains number one.

Some interesting links from the past week.

1) Hitwise UK reports that Times Online see an decrease in traffic following the launch of the new website and paywall. Major competitors (Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail and BBC News) gain market share.

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2010/06/times_paywall_initial_data_and.html

2) Google Acquires ITA travel software.

http://www.tnooz.com/2010/07/01/news/google-ita-software-deal-the-travel-ecosystem-as-google-now-sees-it/

3) How we see Facebook?  Another eye-tracking test to see what Irish people pay attention to when using Facebook.

http://mulley.ie/research/MulleyFacebookStudy.pdf

4) More questions and answers ab0ut the search alliance.

http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2010/07/01/more-questions-and-answers-about-the-search-alliance/

5) Google News’s Makeover

http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/extra-extra-google-news-redesigned-to.html