It gives a very useful snapshot of detailed historical impression data, something that Yahoo! doesn’t offer and Google only offers visually with no numerical data. Here are a few screen shot examples of the search term impression data:

search term “real estate websites”

multiple search terms “real estate websites; realtor websites”

The side by side impression comparisons of search terms are very useful in identifying effective keywords. The demographic data is also very interesting, but I still question how reliable this data is. Overall, it’s an impressive tool, coming from adCenter, and hopefully they can continue to innovate and offer useful resources to online advertisers.

]]> http://www.eharborinc.com/blog/2007/02/15/adcenter-keyword-forecast-tool/feed/ http://www.eharborinc.com/blog/2007/02/10/more-home-buyers-are-searching-online/ http://www.eharborinc.com/blog/2007/02/10/more-home-buyers-are-searching-online/#comments Sun, 11 Feb 2007 01:31:24 +0000 Jordan Real Estate http://www.eharborinc.com/blog/2007/02/10/more-home-buyers-are-searching-online/ The cover story of USA Today’s Money section, sheds light on the fact that more and more home buyers are turning to the Internet in their quest for a new home. 80% of buyers used the Internet to help find a home last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

This is an important point that a majority of our potential clients have a difficult time embracing.  A quote from the article gives insight into a possible reason why:

The Internet is a significant threat to Realtors, who in previous decades have had iron-grip control over all necessary information for those seeking to buy or sell a home,’ says Stuart Gabriel of the University of Southern California’s Lusk Center for Real Estate.”

The fact is that Internet and search engines use is growing, and more home buyers will continue to use them each year. Those real estate agents who choose not to accept this, will fail to remain competitive.

• Google: 47.3%
• Yahoo: 28.5%
• Microsoft: 10.5%
• Ask: 5.4%
• AOL/Time Warner: 4.9%

Danny drills down even deeper at Live’s decline:

According to comScore, Live’s search market share has dropped nearly 4% in the last year. This doesn’t bode well for Microsoft who, despite increased efforts in the search game, has little to show for its efforts.

The new ranking model closely follows that of Google AdWords. YSM gives the following explanation for the change:

“When users engage with highly relevant ads, advertisers receive interested, valuable potential customers. This new ad ranking model should, in the long run, help bring up the value of our network for everyone: advertisers, partners, publishers and consumers alike.”

Overall, I think the change is a good one. It will essentially allow advertisers with the best ads win, which gives us an advantage over our less experienced competitors

“#3 You learn from talking far more than you learn from listening. Talk all you want, but don’t bother to pay attention to anything your customer says. He’s just a bore.”

“#7 Don’t do it today if you can possibly do it tomorrow. Mañana is your motto.”

“#16 Never apologize, even if you’re totally wrong. Never admit you’ve done anything wrong, no matter what. If you’ve done it, by definition it’s right.”

It’s issues like this one that make us question who our primary ad portal should be moving forward. Yahoo! Search Marketing has always had the most problems between all the different ad portals we use for our clients. Hopefully, with the release of its new CPC model, YSM’s problems will become a thing of the past.