Google announced today that it will begin reviewing paused ads the same way it reviews active ads. “We’re proactively reviewing paused ads to eliminate unnecessary delays in getting your ads approved and ultimately enhance your ability to plan and manage …

When Microsoft and Yahoo partnered in a search alliance just over 2 years ago, there were some naysayers, but there was also some optimism. The companies hoped that it would put them in a better position against Google.

In case you’re wondering if your paid campaigns are cannibalizing clicks from your organic search results, the answer is: not so much. That is If you take Google’s word for it anyway. Google says its statisticians have run over 400 …

Online advertising spend showed a strong second quarter across all channels despite continuing uncertainties from the economy and higher gas prices, according to a new report from IgnitionOne. The report is based on a survey of digital media that showed …

Google has launched Instant Previews on AdWords ads. You may recall when Google launched Instant Previews for search results. These let the user click the little magnifying glass to get a visual preview of what the site will look like …

Back in the fall of 2009, Adobe announced it was acquiring web analytics software provider Omniture. As a result of that acquisition, Adobe runs SearchCenter+, a paid search campaign management tool. 

Adobe announced today that SearchCenter+ now allows users to integrate data from both paid search campaigns and organic SEO. 

As you may know, the Yahoo and Microsoft advertising transition is complete. Yahoo and Microsoft paid search advertisers must use adCenter to manage their campaigns. But how smooth has the transition been for advertisers? 

"Whether you prefer to tweet, post a question in our forums or pick up the phone and speak to a real person, you’ve got several options for getting help with all things adCenter," says Microsoft’s Tina Kelleher. 

Google announced that AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE) is rolling out globally. ACE was announced in June as a tool designed to optimize AdWords accounts by letting advertisers test and measure changes to keywords, bids, ad groups, and placements. 

Yahoo has begun testing organic and paid search listings from Microsoft. Up to 25% of its search traffic in the U.S. may see organic listings from Microsoft, and up to 3.5% may see paid listings from Microsoft adCenter. I guess you could say that the early stages of the Search Alliance’s transition have begun.

Will you place more emphasis on Bing optimization as it integrates with Yahoo Search? Let us know.

Microsoft and Yahoo have released a new video illustrating how the two companies intend to create a "powerful new choice in search" with their Search Alliance, due to begin making its way to customers before the end of the year.

There is not much in the way of news about the alliance to come from the video, but it does put its goal into a simple, easy-to-understand 2 minutes without going into all of the specifics.

American Express has launched a new search marketing tool for small businesses via its OPEN forum. The tool, powered by Clickable, is called SearchManager, and lets business owners manage paid search campaigns across Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter, and Facebook ads from one dashboard.

A study from a couple of NYU Stern professors has found that organic search engine results can play a direct role in whether or not a paid listing is clicked. Basically, if this research is any indication, if your business has both a paid result and an organic result appear at the same time, you have a better chance of your paid result getting clicked than if the organic result had not appeared.

Update: Google says its new ad formats are "the next chapter in search advertising", and its "AdWords New Ad Formats Initiative" will focus on two themes:

SearchIgnite has released a report, which indicates that paid search spending in the United States was flat year-over-year in the third quarter, yet up 10% quarter-over-quarter. This comes largely from multi-channel retailers, who increased paid search spend by 40% in the quarter, according to the firm. This is despite flat conversion rates and average order value.

Yahoo has given Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers the ability to have their ads shown in filtered searches. When Yahoo launched its new search results pages last month, they added the ability for users to filter results by site. Relevant ads are now appearing with these results.

A study that the Rimm-Kaufman Group began in early August set out to find out if certain regions and specific zip codes play significant roles in paid search conversions. The thinking was that low-population areas with fewer brick and mortar stores are usually more successful for catalogs, so perhaps the same would be true with paid search.

Yahoo has decided to drop some knowledge on Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers about a tool it has that it says will speed up their campaign optimization. If you are not familiar with it, it’s called the Bulksheet.

Warren Buffet may eat a banana right before he buys a yacht, but luxury yacht builders would be making some pretty bad conclusions if they tried to connect the two events.  A session at SES San Jose examined whether or not the practice of last click attribution (which often points to paid search) fails in a similar manner.

On Friday, the Interactive Advertising Bureau announced that the US had reached $5.5 billion in online ad revenue for the first quarter. This was down a bit from last year, but that’s not too bad considering the state of the economy. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find other ways to advertise your business that are as cost-effective.

Companies that have made it this far should feel hopeful about the future; we may finally be coming out of the recession.  Not everything’s back to normal, though – just ask General Motors – and so if you’re in the position of needing to justify the use of paid search (or just wanting to get better at it), a session at SMX Advanced aimed to help.

Microsoft has posted a FAQ page for adCenter advertisers wondering just what Bing has in store for them. One question pertained to Bing’s algorithm, to which Microsoft’s Carolyn Miller responded: