Don't Drown in the Holiday CPC Wave

MarketingToday has a short article on an annual CPC trend.

Search marketers know that the holiday season is the busiest - and can be the toughest. Average CPCs are higher than usual during this time due to the influx of new advertisers trying to attract holiday shoppers.

Read Up on Verticals

There is an article on Pay Per Click Analyst discussing some different verticals to try in a PPC campaign.

With the bigger engines starting to get into a big fight against each other, the smaller guys are trying to reach niche marketplaces. Two smaller programs discussed in the article are Quigo and Industry Brains. While advertisers won't get nearly the same volume they would with Google or Yahoo!, certain search campaigns can get a small boost from using these PPC programs (name a company who will turn down extra profits).

Google Upgrades Driving Up Costs

Have you been noticing your PPC costs going up? With Google's new ad changes, many advertisers are having their once stable campaigns get tossed around more than a young child's playtoy.

With the new bidding rules, there has been an influx of new advertisers for many keywords. However, as with any other type of competitive marketplace, only the strong will survive. The companies who know what they're doing will slowly get out of the way when they see certain keywords are just not meeting their metrics and the ignorant or stubborn marketers will continue to bid up irrelevant keywords until either they go broke or finally realize they are fighting an unbeatable battle.

Just like with the housing bubble that is on the verge of bursting, the prices will once again fall, however, they will still be higher than they once were still making it more important to analyze and optimize accounts.

Yahoo Content Network Randomizing Number of Ads Displayed

It looks like Yahoo! Search Marketing is displaying different numbers of ads at random times on their content network - most likely to find out what the optimal number of ads to show on a content partner's site is.

This is a concern for search marketers because knowing what position is needed to be displayed is vital to get shown within Yahoo's content network. So far, marketers can only be certain to show up if they are in the top position.

There are screen shots on SE Roundtable.

Search is More than Just the Engines

Many search marketers only look at online results and metrics, but there is more to search than just analytics.

CMO Magazine has an article that talks more about the importance of external factors to a marketing campaign.

Basically, news about Paris Hilton's latest escapade could give you a spike in clicks, and costs, if you manage any search campaign dealing with Paris, France or even Hilton Hotels, Hilton Head, etc. Being aware of these factors can help you manage your search campaigns and be prepared to capitalize on external events rather than be hurt by them.