Monetizing Vertical Search

Outsell forecasts total U.S. advertising spending will grow 5.8 percent in 2007, with advertisers planning to increase their online advertising by 17.8 percent in 2007 — faster than for any other major media type.

Within the online category, the major areas where advertisers are planning to increase expenditure are:

search engine advertising by 39%
sponsored content by 38%
trade Web site by 30%
vertical search by 18%
email marketing by 11%

Within this environment, where search engine advertising already accounts for the largest share of online advertising and seems set to further extend its lead, publishers who target specialist communities have an opportunity to increase their online revenues through vertical search in a number of ways:

Search keyword targeting increases yield

It should be expected that search traffic can be monetized at generally higher rates than run-of-site, because search requests can be used to precisely target advertising. The vast majority of advertisers already understand this proposition and, indeed, the massive success of Google and other Web search engines is testament to the effectiveness of keyword targeting. The niche publisher can combine this type of targeting with a guaranteed demographic, and deliver the best of both worlds to its core advertiser base.

Search histories can help increase yields generally

As behavioral targeting becomes a mainstream online advertising technique, those publishers with search history information about their target audience can expect to increase yields more effectively all across their Web sites, and not just on search results pages.

Search keyword targeting increases advertising reach

Keyword bidding systems allow self-service by advertisers (where appropriate) or alternatively can be used to enhance the operational efficiency of an in-house sales department while allowing smaller advertising transactions to be conducted at large scale, profitably. Convera's service provides a built-in, unbranded keyword advertising system, and this can be used to extend the publisher's advertiser base into the long-tail.

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