Advertisers could end up paying 22% more for search terms on Yahoo if the Web giant’s proposed paid search partnership with Google comes to fruition, according to new data from SearchIgnite.
The search management tech and services firm released the “Potential Impact of a Google-Yahoo Partnership & Cost to Marketers” report just hours before the two companies’ top legal brass met with the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee to make the case for their deal.

Today’s New York Times discusses a declining online advertising industry and credits the economic downturn for the industries woes.  The article cites the following statistics:

• According to PubMatic, between the months of March and April prices paid to networks for online ads dropped 23 percent; and for larger publishers the decline was steeper at 52 percent.
• AOL’s display advertising declined by 18 percent, to $191 million.
• Internet ad revenue growth at The New York Times Company slowed to 16 percent in the most recent quarter from 20 percent a year earlier
• WebMD Health and Weather.com experienced shorter buying commitments from advertisers; a result of wanting to test ad products prior to prolonged commitments.

While banner investments on ad networks have declined, search engine marketing appeared unaffected.  Google’s revenue in the United States was up thirty percent from last year, while Microsoft’s and Yahoo!’s online revenue jumped 29 and 9 percent respectively.  A majority of search engine revenue comes from search advertising.

Read the entire article here.

The author of the book The Art of War, Sun Tzu, once said, “Every battle is won before it’s fought.”  With everyone talking about the recession and rising gas prices, it seems that businesses will have to do “battle” in order to get through this downturn.  In my last blog entry, “Recession: Blessing in Disguise?” I talked about the MarketingSherpa report and how businesses can leverage online marketing during these uncertain times.  However, that report has a second part which talks about strategies that marketers are using to get through the slump.  In this blog post, I’m going to talk about those strategies, plus add some data from eMarketer that backs them up. This post will explain how local businesses can use these strategies to their advantage.  It can be your “business battle plan” if you will. (more…)

I read with interest the Wall Street Journal’s article this week, “More Gloom in Newspaper Ad Sales” – in the online edition, of course. Online media and Internet-based search continue to grow at the expense of their offline counterparts, newspapers and magazines. (more…)