Kozlen Communications

Nielsen NetRatings reported 115.2 billion online ad impressions in November, down roughly 7% from October. The largest number of impressions came from e-mail sites, with 26.7% of total impressions – up more than 20% from November 2004. Community sites accounted for 11.5% of total impressions – up from last year’s 4.8%. Portals and search engines accounted for 12.3% of ad impressions, which is down from 15.5% in 2004. Financial services advertisers accounted for most impressions (20%) in November, with telecoms a close second (19%).

A recent study by Frank N. Magid Associates showed that only 22% of small and medium sized businesses use the Internet for marketing. The survey included over 1,000 for-profit small and medium sized businesses. Of those that use the Internet for marketing, about 60% use e-mail marketing, 56% use search engine optimization, 36% have banner ads, and 25% use pay-per-click advertising – and 74% of these are planning to increase their online marketing spending. Only 43% of those who are not using online marketing say they are planning to in the next 6 months.

A related study by Interland showed that small and medium sized businesses rate non-Web related factors as more important – or just as important – when it comes to business success. A little over half (55%) felt that community relations were critical, compared to 47% who cited a Web site. Public relations, direct mail and yellow pages were all seen as more important marketing tools than e-mail marketing.

I apologize for the lack of updates recently, as I’ve been out of town on business. I’ll get back to semi-regular updates upon my return.

With search engine marketing (SEM) increasing in popularity and in budget, the term Cost Per Keyword (CPK) has emerged, in addition to Cost Per Click (CPC), Clicks Per Thousand (CPM) and Click Through Rates (CTR). Recently DoubleClick reported that CPK and CPC averages have steadily increased throughout the third quarter. They attribute greater competition to the increases in cost. Both are likely to continue increasing during the fourth quarter as costs typically rise throughout the holiday online shopping season.