Periscopix Asks: 'Are We In Need Of A ‘Search’ Overhaul?'

Published 10th March 2008

Recent research by ComScore has indicated that Google’s PPC ads in the US have declined – whether this is accurate or not is irrelevant. Periscopix, the UK’s leading Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign design and management company, believes that overall search volumes are probably not growing very fast today, especially in developed countries. It suggests reasons for this could be an element of fatigue setting in, or that people are becoming more skilled at searching - doing less to find what they need. In addition, the quality of the results may have improved – which makes it easier for them to find what they are looking for. Given these factors, it’s probably not surprising that volumes on last year haven’t risen.

Periscopix also provides some ideas on how this could change:

Changing the presentation of ads in the results pages to encourage more people to click on them. e.g. size, positioning, colours, inclusion of graphics. We know that the original ad concept was the making of Google, but perhaps it’s time to take the leap into something new!

Consideration of the changes in people’s search/click habits should be made. Although many still don’t like clicking on ads, over time people are becoming more accustomed to them and there is growing awareness that organic results especially are heavily influenced by optimisation.

Take up the opportunities to make greater inroads in ‘branded advertising’. Although Google does already syndicate ads to third party websites in formats that are more brand-orientated (e.g. image or video ads) these currently account for only a very small proportion of traffic and revenue. This could represent one of Google’s largest opportunities to secure revenue growth.

If you would like to speak to Simon about this or any other online advertising related issues, please contact Kate Alexander or Nicola Males at Vanilla PR on 020 8946 3739 or kate@vanillapr.co.uk.