That $14.9 billion spent by U.S. Internet advertisers during the first six months of this year represents a 23.2 percent year-over-year increase, eclipsing last year’s first-half record of $12.1 billion in revenue, according to the latest Internet Advertising Revenue Report from IAB.

A whopping 23.2 percent increase over last year! Even though Google is still dominating the search market, there are many competitors to Google's display advertising service, with new companies starting all the time. Not only new companies offering display but exchanges that offer the ability to tap into the bigger search marketing display advertising platforms, where you would normally have to start with a $5k or $10k minimum media buy.

All of which show me pretty clearly that online advertising is where its at, where it's going and where you've got to be.

Here's Eric Schmidt giving some interesting stats and ideas about search marketing and display advertising earlier this year;

Eric Schmidt Delivers the opening keynote at the 2011 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting

Eric Schmidt, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Google, shares his vision for technology, mobile, search marketing and advertising, the world and beyond.

Source

Search Marketing

What is Search Marketing? – definition

Well hardly surprising really but the chaps at Google must be rubbing their hands with glee. Why?

It's estimated Google’s full-year search advertising revenue last year rose 20 percent to $25.4 billion.

That's $25,400,000,000.00 folks.

This gave Google a market share of 83 percent in 2010, up from 81 percent in 2009.

Well hoohar! But that's not a bigger market share in number of customers is it? Oh no, they've been kicking paying customers off their platform in the thousands.

The greater market share comes from the big players; those with enormous, so big we dare not track roi and who the hell cares any way old boy advertising budgets.

Read full report here.

Well I have to admit I find it hard to believe that people search for Facebook and related terms but there you go.

Here's an article that describes the details;

New York, N.Y., Dec. 29, 2010 - Experian® Hitwise®, a part of Experian Marketing Services, has analyzed the top 1000 search terms for 20101 and Facebook was the top-searched term overall. This is the second year that the social networking website has been the top search term overall, accounting for 2.11 percent of all searches.1 Four variations of the term "facebook" were among the top 10 terms and accounted for 3.48 percent of searches overall.

Oh and Facebook was the most visited website; doesn;t say it was the stickiest too but I'm sure it was…

Get the full skinny here.

Despite the ailing economy a new record has been set for Internet advertising revenue in the first half of 2010 – $12,000,000,000, that's 12 billion!

Search advertising produced the most revenue, pulling more than $5.7 billion of advertising spending in the first half, an 11.6% improvement over last year.

Display advertising—which includes banners, digital video and rich media accounted for $4.3 billion, up 15.9% over the year earlier-period.

Lead generation dropped from $728 million to $642 million.

Email advertising spending was $120 million.

Here's the full report.

http://www.iab.net

There was a rumor going round a while ago that banners didn’t work anymore. They may have become a bit cheaper, which is a good thing when your handing over a large portion of your budget to the Pay Per Click networks. Advertising.com alone handles 10billion transactions a day!

And all of them with sophisticated targeting systems

http://www.advertising.com 10 Billion transactions a day…

http://www.tribalfusion.com 230 Million people per month

http://www.valueclickmedia.com 28 Billion display advertising impressions  per month

http://www.247realmedia.com – 162 Million unique visitors per month

Just 4 for now so you don’t get bogged down by the choices available…

Twitter is exploding at the moment and everyone is climbing on the bandwagon, blogging about its benefits etc, and you could be forgiven for thinking that this was the new easy way to online success.

In the real world, clients want to talk about search engines, search engine optimization or search engine marketing (Google Adwords / Pay-Per-Click).

Why? The current economic downturn is having an impact on businesses and with the majority of people now using Google (mainly) to find information on an all subjects across the board, many organizations are re-evaluating their online marketing and website strategy. It’s an area that clients in every market are asking for advice on.

Many are now concerned by their visibility to prospective customers. Businesses that previously saw a website as an online brochure are waking up to the fact that online they’re completely invisible to those searching online for the products and services that they offer. Not a good place to be at the best of times, but a business killer in a recession. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been reading recently about some major newspapers requesting, and getting, tax breaks because they are failing in the current economy.

A tax cut has been approved in Washington state; I quote “Newspapers across the country have resorted to layoffs and other cost-cutting moves to deal with a wounded business model and a recession-fueled drop in advertising”

Read about tax breaks here

I really don’t get it. They are even blaming Google for their problems? I’ve been recently checking into advertizing rates for display and other types of ads in local papers and magazine here in Sarasota. They have got to be kidding! Sky high prices, with no way of really tracking results. And yet they are still failing?

I think most people see printed news as largely outdated and cumbersome.

This video post from Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand. I’m off to apply for a bail out too!

Well, they probably don’t get any slower than this do they?

My good friend and business associate Paul Da Costa and I have just started a joint venture with Rev. Keith Lyndon, Certified Exchange Consultant and the man behind the Academy of Creative Real Estate.

His property exchange training manual, 1031 ways to make money in slow real estate markets is now available online for a bargain price!

You can find it here; 1031 ways to make money in slow real estate markets

On Friday 02/06/2009 siteBOSS, TRS Technology’s Internet Marketing Website system, was tested by Microsoft and successfully passed!

That’s quite a mouthful, so what does it mean?

Well, it means a couple things;

1. siteBOSS is built to recognized development standards. This means that the system architecture is correct for a hosted solution, as determined by Microsoft. If you want to find out exactly what that means look at the test guidelines. Go on, I dare you…
2. It means that TRS Technology Group Inc is now a Microsoft Certified Partner.

Of course the system architecture is correct! I’ve been doing this for a long time and with a certain amount of flair. Let me tell you though, it aint easy! Many people think that development is now a fairly simple task, requiring low level skills and the ability to point a mouse and click. Not so my friends. I don’t think it’s gotten any easier, just different.

I also get to brandish a new partner logo, which I’m ok with. I’ve been a Microsoft Certified Professional for years now, so a new designation is cool.

Here is mine and Microsofts, yep, I’m a Microsoft shop and I think Bill Gates is a genius and have nothing but total respect for the man.

I wanted to let you know about this really cool free brand new keyword research tool that runs inside Firefox browser.

Not only is it free to download but it is an nlm opportunity with a twist! We are going to see a lot more services like this coming out.

Its been developed by Brad Callen, the guy behind SEO Elite, Keyword Elite and a number of other research tools. Check out the videos at the link below, its a usefull tool if you’re doing PPC!!

Follow this link and get the free version now! Free Keyword Research Tool