When launching a campaign, consider more than the website's content -- consider what URL will reel audiences in.

Traditionally, generic domain names such as Vodka.com or Seniors.com were not sought after by established companies because the companies did not understand the benefit of using domain names to extend their brand or web presence. This has changed as companies now have integrated campaigns, using important keywords to drive traffic online. For example, Russian Standard Vodka purchased Vodka.com for $3 million and is now using it for a teaser campaign.

There are a number of reasons why utilizing a generic domain name in addition to the company or brand name can make a marketing campaign more effective. For one, using a keyword in the domain name can help drive traffic through "direct navigation." Vodka.com provides a good example of this, as a web surfer interested in Read the complete article on online...

mages, video and press releases are optimized for natural search. A new study, published Monday by search agency iProspect, indicates searchers using the major engines are more likely to click on image, video or news link within the main, blended search results page than vertical-search results. (An example of a vertical search would be searching within the Google Images tab for a photo of Warren Buffett.) Vertical offerings from the major engines historically have been largely ignored, according to the study.
The survey, conducted online by JupiterResearch in December and January, found more than a third (35%) of search engine users do not use vertical search at all, and 25% do not recall if they have clicked a result after using vertical search. JupiterResearch said there were 2,404 respondents to the survey.

When it comes to image search, 31% of users click image results within blended search, while Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Google has hit an all-time high in market share, commanding 67.25% of all U.S. searches in March, according to Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence company. That was up from 64.13% in March 2007.

Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com last month had shares Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

One of the reasons in-text has such strong appeal among users is because it's seen more as information than marketing. Here's why.

There has been a fair amount of interest surrounding in-text advertising as of late, and Vibrant Media has taken the pole position in the space.

In-text advertising -- for those of you who aren't familiar with it -- is essentially advertising that is embedded within the text of a page of online content. This is beyond simple editorial adjacency for display advertising. It is actually having an ad unit married to a word or phrase on a page, within editorial. The way it works is this: I'm an advertiser of, say, soap. I approach an in-text advertising provider and tell them I want to own the words "soap," "shower," and "clean."

The executed buy will be these words in articles or within content on sites the in-text advertising provider has relationships with all across the web, underlined and highlighted. Every time a visitor to a page -- with these highlighted words or phrases -- mouses over the highlighted text, my soap advertisement will show, popping up in a sort of "talk bubble," like those seen in pop-up video or a comic book.

Some providers of this sort of advertising, like ContentLink, do text advertisements. Others, like Vibrant, will actually run video.

Vibrant Media is the largest provider of this kind of advertising, with more than Read the complete article on online...

The subject of search engine marketing click fraud made headlines last year. Advertisers and publishers alike criticized the search engines for not doing enough to combat the problem. But the topic has not been in the spotlight recently. Does that mean click fraud is no longer an issue?
BtoB recently spoke with Dan Robbins, director of marketing at Lyris, a marketing software company, about click fraud and what marketers can do to avoid playing the victim.

BtoB: Is click fraud still a problem?

Robbins: It depends on your vertical. In mortgage and finance categories, you’re paying a lot more for a click. For the lower end, general market is less of an issue. But marketers need to pay attention to it. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Question: What is the best way to optimize search marketing for international markets?

Answer: As the evolution of the Internet continues, b-to-b marketers are reaching a crossroads in determining what tactics have worked in the past to attract traffic to their sites versus what approaches will work in the future. According to Internet World Stats, two-thirds of global Internet users are non-English speakers. This growing volume of search activity means that marketing opportunities will continue to evolve on both regional and global levels.

So how can b-to-b marketers capitalize on this trend? Is the answer as simple as translating all Web pages to the targeted country's language?

Translation is one component of optimizing for international markets, but it's in no way the end-all answer. A word-for-word translation of a Web site is ambiguous. Instead, Web sites should be translated according to concepts. A simple translation does not take into account cultures, customs and preferences specific to various countries. Additionally, a simple translation loses targeted keywords. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Despite online’s reputation as the most measurable of all media, marketers continue to grapple with how much to invest in the medium because of the sheer abundance of data generated and the myriad ways to measure them. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Digital revenue for b-to-b media companies is expected to grow 18% to 22% in 2008, according to Gordon T. Hughes II, president-CEO of American Business Media.

Hughes presented the revenue projections Tuesday morning at ABM’s Top Management Meeting. Magazines revenue, he said, is expected to drop 2% to 7%, while face-to-face revenue is expected to grow 7% to 10%. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

On the eve of the start of a two-day “Town Hall” hosted by the Federal Trade Commission titled “Behavioral Advertising: Tracking, Targeting and Technology,” privacy groups are calling for an online “do not track” list, an Internet version of the popular Do Not Call Registry, according to reports.

The 2007 Forrester Research Study just released through American Business Media simultaneously examined more than 800 marketers who operate in the business media space and 800 end-users to provide an assessment of the current state and value of business-to-business media.

In summary, the report finds that:

• Business decision makers (BDMs) are shifting to digital media use at a faster rate than B2B marketers are adopting this media

• Industry-specific media are more effective at reaching BDMs than general business media

• While each of the key industry-specific media demonstrates unique strengths, they are most effective when used together in an integrated manner

• Industry-specific media extend the reach and effectiveness of the B2B marketer’s sales organization

• B2B marketers plan to underutilize industry-specific media in their future spending compared to BDM’s expected use of these media

Download the presentation from the American Business Media website.

Highlights of the findings:

Google, which built a multibillion-dollar empire on Web ads spanning four lines of simple text, is aggressively branching out in new areas of online advertising including interactive units, mobile ads and video text-overlays.

These initiatives and others are aimed at helping Google continue its rapid growth, which relies almost entirely on advertising revenue. Google has tentacles reaching into nearly every aspect of advertising—not just the Web and mobile but print, TV and radio as well.

For b-to-b marketers and ad buyers, the challenge is to figure out which Google directions are worth following, particularly in a b-to-b market where targeting is often more important than mere reach. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

While broad-based ad networks have taken center stage as the darlings of the media industry, vertical b-to-b networks are slowly gaining traction with marketers that want to reach more targeted audiences.

In the last six months, there has been a frenzy of deals in the consumer ad network space, including Google's acquisition of DoubleClick in April for $3.1 billion, WPP Group's purchase of 24/7 Real Media in May for $649 million and AOL's acquisition of Tacoda in July for a reported $275 million.

But behind the scenes, smaller advances have been made by targeted b-to-b networks looking to reach industry-specific segments. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Integrating customer data is the greatest challenge for marketers, according to a survey of marketing industry executives by Alterian. The enterprise marketing software company conducted the survey at its Annual Summit last month.

Forty-three percent of respondents said their e-mail marketing channel is integrated with offline channels such as direct mail, according to Alterian, and 12% said it is integrated with online channels such as search, Web sites and RSS. A third (33%) said e-mail is a standalone channel for them. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Each year, BtoB selects 10 b-to-b Web sites that do an exceptionally good job of communicating with their audiences. These sites find innovative and compelling ways to share product and services information and, just as important, they make that information easy to find. Though they use different means, the end is the same: meeting the user's needs. As simple as it sounds, it's an approach that's too rare in the world of business marketing. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

When enterprise infrastructure software and services provider Novell debuted its "Your Linux Is Ready" campaign last August, the objective was twofold: to introduce the company's SUSE Linux platform and to establish Novell as a serious player in the Linux market. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Some search executives say click fraud in search marketing is getting worse, not better; others contend things have improved over the past year.Click fraud occurs when a person or a computer program clicks on an ad to generate a fraudulent cost-per-click charge. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

There are multiple steps in managing sales leads, such as qualifying prospects, sending them what they request (fulfillment), getting sales on board with a willingness to report results, analyzing success and failure, and reallocating resources. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

James W. Obermayer is president of Sales Leakage Consulting, and co-author of "Managing Sales Leads" (Texere, 2007). BtoB recently asked Obermayer about trends in lead management. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Everyone’s talking about analytics. Some are even applying it with varying levels of success. But if a company really wants to understand its customers, make a connection and gain a competitive advantage, analytics needs to be more than just.... Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

New York—Direct navigation—typing a generic category plus “.com” directly into a Web browser—is growing, according to an Opinion Research Corp. survey for LeaseThis.com, a company that leases domain names at a flat rate. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Any marketer worth her salt knows that the most powerful word used by marketers is “free,” and when that word is used to market to a marketer, they are often every bit as tempted as any other customer. However, in the case of free Web tools, the... Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

After using Web analytics across its product line for a little more a year, security software maker Symantec Corp. is now doing a lot more than simply measuring click-throughs. The company is using data pulled from its Web site, as well as other... Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Identify your b-to-b audience and understand the messages that will connect with them, recommends the search engine land blog. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Targeting prospects based on previous actions can have significant impact on marketers' conversion rates. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

San Diego—Online marketers are not doing a good job of marketing themselves online, according to a study by the Online Marketing Coalition. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

The objective of this white paper is to help technology industry marketers and advertisers improve their success online by presenting proven strategies, industry research and examples of successful creative specific to marketing to electronics industry professionals. Download this document…

An Intelligent Content Strategy leverages the Internet to gain experiential data – data that provides additional value because it shows what actually happened, as opposed to predictive data, which is what you expect to happen– revealing how the content of marketing materials is sought, shared and used among people involved in buying technology products and services. It also identifies other sources (such as competitors, partners and analysts) these same people are using as they evaluate solutions. Download this document…