WebProNews

eBay Affiliate Program Goes from CPA to CPC

eBay has announced "Quality Click Pricing" for the eBay Partner Network affiliate program. The company describes this as a new payout structure designed to further reward affiliates who drive incremental transactions on eBay, and who send "value buyers" to the company's sites.

CPC Declines on Big 3 Search Engines, ROI Strong

Average cost-per-click in the US declined last year on the big three search engines according to research from Efficient Frontier. Google's fell 14%, Yahoo's fell 16%, and Microsoft's fell 28% over a year's time (via CNET). Essentially the study indicates that less money was spent per search ad.

Companies Collaborate to Define Clicks

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has announced the release of Click Measurement Guidelines, a document establishing parameters for buying and selling cost-per-click (CPC) adver

Utilizing Match Types Can Save Your SEM Dollars

Google's been offering some great AdWords tips lately. Specifically, they recently discussed the advantages of using the broad match option and the negative keyword option. Mike McDonald also spoke with Ken Jurina of Epiar about the negative keyword option in the following interview at PubCon.

MySpace Announces MyAds

Last month, we reported that MySpace had launched a new self-serve advertising platform, but it was officially announced last night with a name - MyAds (beta). With this platform, users are able to create their own display banner ads with the following advantages working for them (as cited by the social network):

Son of Click Fraud: Cookie Stuffing

A phrase like “cookie stuffing” sounds like it could have only pleasant connotations: Cookie Monster cookie-stuffing his face; ice cream with cookie stuffing; the cream between Oreos. Leave it to a lawyer to run that for everybody.

Clicks Down, Revenue Up On Google

LeeAnn Prescott, EfficientFrontier's director of research and communications and WebProNews's favorite statistician, concurs with comScore's recent bombshell that the number of paid clicks on Google were down in January. Wall Street's pummeling of Google's stock, however, was "an unnecessarily strong reaction."

Google Sacrifices Clicks To Increase Advertiser ROI

Google investors are still at the table eating their losses after comScore's report that paid click revenues were flat in the month of January. Impending recession was the chief suspect among speculators, but nobody finds any real support for that. More astute observers noticed that revenue flattened very soon after webmasters began reporting on decreases in AdSense earnings.

Google Headed Back Towards Average?

I don't usually follow sponsored links when doing research (intentional ad blindness), but people are getting better at getting my attention. Mark Hines at Vestopia targeted GOOG and bragged via AdWords that he sold out at $741. Click and he'll tell you why.

CPC Is Flat, But People Are Still Shopping

Speculation as to why Google's paid clicks have flattened in January has led to further speculation that a recession has caused consumers to do less search-initiated shopping. Hitwise's Bill Tancer has information that suggests otherwise.(It occurs to me also that investors have been spoiled by Google's constant growth, as even when Google grows there is disappointment that there wasn't more growth. And flat returns now might as well be declines. Regardless, I suppose market corrections are inevitable. It just sucks if you bought in at $747 per share.)