Google Stays On Top

According to Nielsen survey, Google remains atop the leader board for U.S. search at 65% of all June searches.  The folks at MicroSoft are gaining market share at the expense of Yahoo and AOL, and have basically pulled even with Yahoo at 13.4% versus Yahoo’s 13.7%.  The Microsoft/Yahoo Search Alliance roll out is certainly going to keep things interesting over the remainder of this year, as Bing becomes the source for organic results for both portals.  I am looking forward to the completion of the Search Alliance roll out over the next few months, and will be following the Nielsen statistics to see what affect it has on these top three engines, which account for close to 92% of the U.S. search market.  Will the Search Alliance duo be able to gain market share at the expense of Google?

The folks at Google are reported to be pushing their development team toward a new interactive video ad format.  These new ads are going to be like mini-web pages and provide web users with a video, that will allow them to leave comments and see real time updates based on their needs. On-line marketers know that the key to clicks and return on ad spend is via targeting and the precise measurement tools uniquely available to digital ads.  If, due to an engine’s innovation such as interactive video ads, marketers can better target and get their audience to click and engage an ad, they will begin to allocate ad budget to this format.  Right now the budget is heavily geared to the search and display formats, as evident in the breakout below.

This is a great time to be in our industry, with such innovation leading the way for marketers to better position and engage their existing and future clients.