Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: January 11-20 2005

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January 19, 2005

Paid search/online ads -future spend trends

Another interesting article has popped up on Search Engine Watch in relation to the future of online advertising. The article states that online advertising spending as increased from 3.5 billion dollars in 1999, to 8.4 billion dollars last year and it's expected to grow to 16.1 billion dollars by 2009. Other key points:

• During 2004, online ad spending growth outstripped all other forms of media.
• Online advertising will overtake magazine ad spending by 2007
• Rich media spending to quadruple in the next four years
• Paid search spending will double in the next four years.
• Average CPC prices were $0.29 in 2003 and $0.36 in 2004. The forecast is for it to reach $0.40 in 2005 and $0.42 in 2006.

Learn more about PPC advertising

PPC - A beginners guide 
PPC advertising - minimizing the cost 
PPC fraud - detection and prevention strategies

FBI dumps "Carnivore"

This isn't really related to ecommerce or marketing, unless of course you are a slightly paranoid merchant or marketer like myself, but the mention of the words "Carnivore" and FBI always stir my interest. Anyway, a little paranoia is always a good thing when you're doing business online.

Back in the mid-late 90's, there were many whispers around the conspiracy oriented sites and boards of a software application called Carnivore. According to these sources, Carnivore was a high tech "sniffer" used by the FBI to monitor communications between parties over the public Internet. At the time, the FBI would neither confirm or deny it's existence. 

As pressure from the geeks and privacy advocates mounted, the FBI came clean - there was indeed a "Carnivore". Then they changed the name of it to DCS-1000 to give it a better image. Hrm.. this isn't a cola drink we're talking about here.

According to CNN, the FBI has announced that it is now dumping Carnivore for a "commercial" package. The report on CNN also states that Carnivore may have cost between 6 -15 million dollars to develop, and that the FBI had used the technology only 25 times between 1998 and 2000. Given the FBI's track record on this subject, I find that rather hard to believe.

Anyway, Carnivore has gone, the FBI's now using script kiddie tools and we can all sleep safely knowing that the FBI will only use these tools a few times a year ;).

But - what about Echelon??

Now, where's my tinfoil hat..

January 17, 2005

70% of 15 - 22 age group have broadband

According to a survey by media company Bolt, Inc. and as reported by Internet Week, 70% of 15 to 22 year olds had broadband access in the last quarter of 2004. This represents an  11 percent increase over the third quarter of 2004. Other key findings:

• 50% have cable modem access
• 44% access the web via DSL
• 6% have T1/T3 connections
• Half survey spend more than 15 hours per week online

105 pearls of marketing wisdom for 2005

If you're looking for some great marketing tips in easily digested chunks, try Marketing Wisdom from MarketingSherpa. It's a highly enjoyable and educational read, with 105 tips from people in the industry covering such topics as:

• Email marketing - successful strategies
• Search engine marketing tips
• Web site design hints to increase conversions
• Advice for growing an online business

Marketing Wisdom is 45 pages of high quality information and yes, it's free!

Download Marketing Wisdom (PDF 1.26 meg.)

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January 15, 2005

PPC - Holiday click rates/conversions skyrocket

DoubleClick has stated that search engine advertising success rates spiked dramatically for the period December 1 - 24

• The unweighted average number of daily clicks per client in December was more than double 2004's third quarter.
• Conversions, i.e. clicks resulting in purchases, leads or some form of specified action, increased 446%.
• The average price per click in December rose by 23%
• Total gross revenue that search marketing generated for merchants was 375% higher in December compared to 3Q 2004.
• ROI rose 58% in December in comparison to the US summer months

Read more about Clicks, Conversions and ROI during 04.

Google still the darling, but MS/Y! catching up

In a recent study by Keynote, it's been revealed that while Google is still the most popular search engine according to a survey 2,000 consumers, it appears that Yahoo and MSN search are catching up.

Just on a side note, the whisper in a number of SEO forums is that MSN's new search engine will come out of beta on February 1.

Current MSN Search  - Beta MSN Search

If you're using the Beta search, don't panic/rejoice just yet; there's a lot of tweaking going on.

January 13, 2005

Online spending up 26% in 2004

comScore figures for online spending in 2004 have just been released. According to the company, total online spending in 2004 grew by 26 percent to a record level of more than $117 billion.

The figures for travel are pretty amazing.. hrm, time to build another site :).

Read the 2004 online spending report

January 11, 2005

A major attack on the Internet soon?

According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey, of over 1,000 industry experts and analysts questioned, 66 percent agreed with the that a large scale attack on the Internet or an the USA's power grid will occur by 2014.

Amongst other points of general consensus:

• 57% felt that virtual classes will become more commonplace and  students grouped with others who
  share their interests and skills at times, rather than by age.
• 56% agreed that as telecommuting and home-schooling gain popularity, the line between between work and recreation will diminish and have an impact on family dynamics.

Recreation? What the hell is that? ;)

Read the full survey results. (PDF)

Buying/selling text links Buying Selling

Free tool scans sites for security flaws

SiteDigger, a new free tool release by FoundStone, a division of McAfee, searches for security information regarding a web site by sending specific queries to Google's Web database. These searches can reveals flaws and private financial details of some sites' users. I'm a little disturbed by news of companies releasing free tools such as this as they have the capacity to do much more harm than good in the wrong hands, but it appears that if you wish to use it, you must have a Google API License. 

Learn more about SiteDigger

January 10, 2005

Spammers destabilizing DNS systems.

Some industry experts state that legislation is leading spammers to employ new tactics that are destabilizing the Internet's DNS systems. 

DNS (Domain Name Server) machines are used to translate names to IP addresses and vice versa. They also maintain huge lists of domain names mapping the route to your site, passing on the request to the next server along the path. This is repeated until the web site is located. The new tactic used by spammers, which I will not go into detail about as I don't wish to promote the strategy to nitwits looking to make a fast buck, causes massive queues of mail waiting to be delivered.

There is very little that hosting services and ISP's can do except having to purchase more equipment to handle to fallout from the problem.

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