Google, Moving to Offline Advertising

Business Week writes an interesting article about the latest update of Yahoo Search Marketing (a service similar to Google AdWords). We find out that Google makes between 19 and 21 cents for each search, while Yahoo earns around 10-11 cents per search. Yahoo hopes to improve its performances with this update code-named Panama, that delivers better targeted advertising.

While Yahoo tries to catch up with Google in search advertising, Google is eager to move offline. The experiments with print ads have exceeded the expectations. The service is targeted at small advertisers that usually don't pay for ads in newspapers. "Advertisers would go online and bid on the excess ad inventory of daily newspapers, giving them a much-needed revenue boost. (...) Google is selling only small display ads -- not color or full-page ads, which bring in the most money. In some cases, Google bundles a few small ads into one larger space. There is no indication to the reader that Google helped place the ad."

Google does the same thing in radio, helped by dMarc, a company acquired this year. "Until recently, Fred Yazdizadeh, owner of the Simi Valley, Calif., company, said radio air time was too expensive and the process of creating an audio message had been too daunting to consider. But under a new program being tested by Google, Yazdizadeh's ad was affordable and easy to manage. And, more important, it generated calls from potential customers living in the areas where the ad was broadcast," reports Washington Post. Unlike text ads, effective radio campaigns need a good voice and a script, so advertisers may use voice-over marketplaces.

A popular video site was one of the requirements for implementing video ads. Google Video didn't grow fast enough, so Google had to buy YouTube. For the moment, Google Video shows short ads at the end of some videos whose producers have a revenue-sharing deal with Google. But these video ads are a rehearsal for TV advertising, an interesting market where Google could bring contextual, relevant ads. The deal with BSkyB, a satellite broadcaster, is a start.