Marketing Pilgrim

While Yahoo is busy slurping, Google keeps sucking market share like an out of control turbine powered Hoover vacuum cleaner. Sucking the ad dollars right out of Yahoo’s pockets, that is. Great news for MSN though! In Q2 2008 versus Q2 2007, Microsoft Live Search only lost $0.01 on every search dollar spent while Yahoo lost $0.09! Guess who picked up that additional $.10? Why, it was GoogleVac! This according to Mountain View, California based Efficient Frontier.

They may not allow domain tasting, however Internet regulator ICANN has voted unanimously to expand the number of top level domain names, as the BBC reports.

The decision provides companies the opportunity to turn their brands into web addresses, while individuals could potentially use their names. A second proposal, that would introduce domain names written in scripts such as Asian and Arabic, was also approved.

“We are opening up a new world and I think this cannot be underestimated,”

said Roberto Gaetano, a member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Two weeks ago, Andy brought you the B2B Lead Generation handbook. Without further ado, we now bring you B2C.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Email marketing are the two best bets for your marketing dollar, according to a new report from UK Based eConsultancy in conjunction with Clash-Media. “Viral marketing” landed on the other end of the spectrum based on the feedback of 600 companies.

Some of the highlights from company respondents:

• A greater proportion of lead generation budget is being spent on online (on average, 53%) than offline (44%).

Remember when I wrote about little known search engine, Searchme, earlier this month? They had just announced another round of funding and in my post I waxed a bit poetic about the “The Beauty of the UI”. Some of the naysayers commented – “Nice, but not practical”.

Two things you should know about investors. First – they typically don’t throw a boatload of cash at zippo. Second – they play to win. So, it was a safe bet that the high profile group of investors must have seen some features they liked prior to anteing up another $12M. Two of those features were revealed today.

…and the PPC and banner ad crowd goes wild! The IAB has announced that Internet Advertising Revenues are up over 18% year over year, or $5.8 Billion smackaroos for the first quarter of 2008. That’s just off the pace of the $5.9 Billion record set in Q4 ’07.

Source: (excluding Borat) PwC/IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report (www.iab.net)

The really good news for internet marketers? Growth is expected to continue. Just listen to what Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB and Daniel Silverman, partner, Assurance, PricewaterhouseCoopers have to say, respectively:

November 4th Update: We’ve added a widget so you can track the results as they come in:

The 2008 US Presidential Election truly represents the first time the Internet will push a specific candidate “over the top” and on to the glory of being endlessly criticized by the public, roasted on SNL and all of the other wonderful benefits that come with the office.

Check ‘em out, y’all! Lunar shuttle tickets. I got smokin’, non-smokin’, first class, coach, by the window, by the aisle. Lunar shuttte tickets.

Anticipating its pursuit of world domination will be complete sometime during the second quarter of 2010, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has booked a round trip ticket to outer space, with a launch date set for  2011.

Andy’s Update: AdWords TV Ads is not the announcement, as a Google spokesperson clarifies to us: “What we announced last week was an integration between Google Analytics and Google TV Ads (an offering within Google AdWords). Google Analytics has added a TV Ads report for AdWords advertisers who use both TV Ads and Google Analytics.”

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Surely you didn’t think Google would stop at YouTube when it comes to organizing for world domination the world’s information?

Last week, Google Analytics announced “AdWords TV Ads,” an all-digital system that distributes advertisers’ TV ads to participating channels nationwide.