Contextual Ad Wars: Google vs. Overture
The Google AdSense Stink. There are increasing complaints among Google advertisers about the Google AdSense program.
What do you think about AdSense?
AdSense allows you to place ads on sites related to a given keyword, while AdWords allows you to advertise directly in the Google results.
Right now you can advertise on AdWords alone, or in AdWords and AdSense, but not AdSense alone.
The stink is that if you’re buying AdWords and AdSense clicks you’re paying the same price and the AdSense clicks are, according to many advertisers, worth far less.
Here’s how a Google spokesperson defended their decision to keep the AdWords and AdSense prices the same: “In order to minimize complexity in bidding decisions, at this time we aren’t asking advertisers to make separate bidding decisions for contextual and search advertising…”
In other words, “our advertisers are willing to pay more money for less value so long as it’s easier for them.” Right.
Nate Elliot of ClickZ thinks they’re not allowing this separation of bids because they’re giving too much money to the sites who publish Google ads. This policy brings them a wide reach as content sites flock to the AdSense program, but ultimately shorts advertisers who receive less value at the same cost as AdWords.
Overture Content Match: Giving you a choice. Coming soon at Overture – the division of contextual listings and paid listings. Dina Freeman, Overture representative, said that the official launch date for Enhanced Content Match is “sometime in January 2004.” I just hope their contextual ad placements are more precise than their scheduled launch date.
I asked her about how they pick the sites that run their ads (it’s Google’s strategy to partner with just about every content provider on the web, including personal blogs). Overture has a combined editorial and algorithmic process. She wouldn’t tell me the official percentage of editorial to algorithm decision making.
Right now they’re publishing ads on MSN, Yahoo!, Away, My Family, Edmunds, Knight Ridder, Homestore, advertising.com, and more. They’re still in the process of selectively signing partners.
Kanoodle Kontext. I spoke with Jim Jacka of Kanoodle about the Kanoodle Kontext program, another contextual advertising alternative.
Kanoodle’s answer to AdSense also allows separate bidding on search listings and in-context listings. For now they only have an alliance with CBS MarketWatch though, so don’t bother unless you’re a financial site.
I’ll keep you posted as they add more sites to their roster.
Their on-site search engine uses Inktomi’s results.
Further Reading. Nate Elliot’s AdSense rip, in which he says, “AdSense is a house of cards, built on a foundation that forces advertisers to overpay for contextual ads.
Andrew Goodman’s Blog about Nate Elliot’s Article (a partial rebuttal).
2003’s Most Wanted Search Terms, from SearchEngineWatch.
Enjoy!
Garrett + The Murdok Team
Garrett French is the editor of Murdok’s eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.
