According to Piper Jaffray, the cost to acquire a customer is about $8.50 for search, $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. Data for television was not included.

Web search advertising revenue $8 billion in 2005 Global search advertising revenue, which was $369 million in 2001, is expected to hit $7.9 billion this year, according to research from Piper Jaffray & Co. WebTrends data suggesting that 60 percent of marketers do not measure sales, leads or key actions resulting from campaigns. [This is a dangerous number because that means you are competing with people who don't know what things are truly costing them. You need to be extra analytical when going head to head with this guy.] Based on Universal McCann's 2005 advertising outlook, the Big Four U.S. television networks will attract nearly two times Piper Jaffray's global search spending estimate. U.S. direct mail spending is expected to hit $57.2 billion this year. [even though it costs them more per lead]

4/21/2005 12:51:00 PM|W|P|Sage|W|P|TNS/CMR: Ad Spending Grew 9.8% in'04 I'm always curious to know where people are spending their money. This article covers that and also points out the change from '03 to '04. Did you know that local newspaper advertisement ruled the ad buying roost? Amazing! I've also taken the liberty of putting their numbers in a handy chart for you here: |W|P|111410586301023323|W|P|TNS/CMR: Ad Spending Grew 9.8% in'04|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com4/21/2005 09:07:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Handy or creepy. You be the judge...

"My Search History lets you easily view and manage your search history from any computer. This feature of Google web search enables you to find information you thought you lost. And over time, you'll see an increasing number of relevance indicators in your search results that help you find the information you want."

Google - My Search History|W|P|111409245427078327|W|P|Google - My Search History|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com4/20/2005 07:46:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|As we discussed here: SageRock Web Marketing Weblog: Study: Consumers Delete Cookies at Surprising Rate We weren't sure that users were truly deleting cookies at the rate at which was reported. Well, that study has been challenged here: Cookie Death Small Potatos, More Product of Spyware Measures ? MarketingVOX This is being discussed here: Cookie Deletion Study Exaggerated -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum Sorry for the quick rap up. But I wanted to tie those articles together for you. I have to run!|W|P|111400116440516844|W|P|Deleted Cookie Study Debunked|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com4/19/2005 08:42:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|"Link Popularity Building Best Practice: Vary Your Anchor Text " Increasingly, link building for a site needs to be handled with greater levels of finesse. It used to be (as in 6 months ago) that you would just buy hundreds of links with the same title and description which honed in on your main targeted key phrase. That technique is easily distinguished by the engines and consequently is getting people excluded from the indexes for those very phrases. So the moral of the story is: Mix it up. Use multiple variations of your title and description for link building. Anything that is replicated over and over again is going to probably do you more harm than good. LSI and Link Popularity|W|P|111391813678668304|W|P|LSI and Link Popularity|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com4/18/2005 02:36:00 PM|W|P|joe|W|P|I'm a huge fan of Macromedia's products, so I'm a little nervous about what could happen to my beloved Studio MX. Then again, combining two giants might yield even better products and better service. For $3.4 billion Adobe is going absorb the company to expand it's creation of digital documents.

Adobe (Research), best known for its Acrobat Web document-sharing software, said the deal would help it meet rising customer demand for wider-ranging applications with audio and video options, which are compatible with hand-held devices. Macromedia (Research) gives Adobe access to the dominant animated graphics software on the Internet, which is also aggressively expanding into mobile phones.

With Adobe's handheld services and Macromedia mobile phone technology, we may be whitnessing the birth of a totally new media.

CNN.com || Adobe to buy Macromedia for $3.4B|W|P|111385351142201510|W|P|Macromedia to be absorbed by Adobe|W|P|joemabraham@gmail.com4/18/2005 11:53:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Fredrick Marckini gives another interesting article this week at ClickZ. He's debating the worth of affiliate links in regard to link popularity. The important notes that bear repeating come as he discusses the Google algorithm that was highlighted in the Google patent filing. These are items that are confirmed ways to slow or permanently exclude your site from Google:

• If too many new links appear in too short a timeframe, the site may be penalized, or even banned, by Google.
• Google watches how many new links with identical anchor text emerge.
• Google monitors the rate at which links disappear to identify the degree of relevance and sort out spam.
• If Google does these things, you should assume other engines do something very similar.

If you are interested, check out: United States Patent Application: 0050071741 How Affiliate Programs Can Affect Search Rankings|W|P|111384318121748177|W|P|How Affiliate Programs Can Affect Search Rankings|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com4/18/2005 09:43:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|I have mixed emotions about this name change. On one hand, people are confused enough about search marketing. Constantly changing names on them isn't overly helpful. But maybe this change will be more helpful in the long run. Calling it Yahoo! Search Marketing is pretty clear. You know exactly who you are paying and where you are getting listed. Never mind that you will also be on MSN until 2006 and 100's of other partner sites. You can see the name change here: Advertiser Login|W|P|111383539509300062|W|P|Overture now Yahoo! Search Marketing|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com4/14/2005 08:46:00 AM|W|P|joe|W|P|All over the world, people have discovered the power of blogs. Not only are they a great way to keep a diary or express your opinions, they have also created a worldwide community. This community has grown in power on the net, making them a valuable ally to the web marketing field.

Blogs in existence in April 2005: 50.75 million worldwide Multinational Blogging Services Google: 8 million according to Persus MSN Spaces: 5 million Persus + Scoble Six Apart Live Journal/ TypePad/ MT: 8.2 million from LJ 14Apr (6.8m) + SixApart claimed 1.2 million for MT and TypePad when it acquired LJ which was 5.3m at the time, allows for 200,000 conservative growth figure for MT and TypePad Other hosted (US): 9 million based on Persus study WordPress: 250,000 at best an educated guess, over 100,000 downloads of WP 1.5 and 266,000 links to WordPress on Google Other DIY: 100,000 again, an educated guess, and this would include CMS packages that are utilizing blogging plugins

The Blog Herald || Number of blogs now exceeds 50 million worldwide|W|P|111348681723860793|W|P|Over 50 Million Blogs Worldwide|W|P|joemabraham@gmail.com4/11/2005 11:10:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|If you sell online, be sure you are indexed at Become.com. The more listings of your site, the better.

"Currently, Become.com crawls U.S. sites that provide product and buying information. The site is free to use; no registration is required."

Become.com Launches Shopping Search Engine: |W|P|111323584099347967|W|P|Become.com Launches Shopping Search Engine|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com4/07/2005 08:33:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|This is a topic we've been revisiting here at the office. This is the debate we've had here at the office, which was the debate at this conference:

"Cox suggested two strategies for making Flash sites more receptive to Google indexing. One is to offer the site in both Flash and static versions, an already common practice. His second suggestion was to embed Flash files within multiple static pages. One participant noted that Flash had a feature for exporting text into a Web site's metadata--invisible information describing the page to search engines--for easier indexing. Another participant volunteered with an assessment of this approach. "It doesn't really work at all," he said."

My personal feeling is to just go with two seperate sites. But not everyone agrees with me... especially from a branding standpoint. Flash authors ponder Google pitfalls | CNET News.com|W|P|111288078254535614|W|P|Flash authors ponder Google pitfalls|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com4/01/2005 08:46:00 AM|W|P|Sage|W|P|Check out this creative way to design your site based on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Kiersey Temperament Sorters. It's a very good idea to consider. Motivating Your Web Site Visitors To Take Action: Personality Targeting|W|P|111236318410721448|W|P|Motivating Your Web Site Visitors To Take Action: Personality Targeting|W|P|sagerock@gmail.com