Tim Kauffold

Tim Kauffold, Oneupweb’s director of business development, explained to Sarah Mahoney, "One of the things that surprises marketers – particularly those who have been using the media for several years – is how the costs are rising.  They think, ‘Why doesn’t the same dollar buy me the same volume it used to?’  But there are really big inflation numbers with cost-per-click.  It’s still a great avenue, but as more folks jump in, costs are going higher."

Oneupweb found that 48 percent of all U.S. online advertising spending in 2007 went towards paid search.  Also, paid search grew by 32.2 percent in 2006, whereas traditional media climbed by only 0.5 percent.

These trends are likely to continue; Oneupweb confirmed that, when integrated with a natural SEO campaign, paid search offers a better ROI than most other forms of advertising.  "It increases conversion rates and suggested sales, and even improves brand recognition," stated Lisa Wehr, the company’s CEO.

People and companies interested in paid search will probably do best to stick with it, then, despite rising costs.

Oneupweb specializes in online marketing strategies, and despite what some may see as a conflict of interest, seems to have given an honest evaluation of twelve campaigns.  The success of one was up in the air, while six were portrayed as winners, three did less well, and to finish up the group, two pretty much abandoned their experiments.

We’ll just talk about those last five, since they may need the most explaining.  First: with coffee competitors on every corner, a change of CEOs, and all other sorts of large forces at work, Starbucks’s social media campaign may not deserve all the blame for its lack of success.

Target, meanwhile, seems to have betrayed some trust when its string-pulling was revealed, and Webkinz also lost some friends when it shoved advertising into a previously ad-free space.

Taryn Rose, a shoe and handbag company, apparently gave up on a MySpace profile, blog, and video-centric press page.  And the author of A Thousand Splendid Suns cut off communications, as well.

A full 43-page report explains how several missteps could have been avoided, and what other companies did right (it’s at this point that, although the assessments are accurate, a little bit of Oneupweb’s self-promotion may come into play).  Still, for the average onlooker, the takeaway message may be that using social media to market things is still tricky, and other ways of pushing products may be safer.