I want to see these people out of business and I want to see the competition coming and smack them in the face.

1. It is not at all clear to me that the percentage will EVER go to “near zero” even in a highly competitive market - publisher’s and other media content have long paid their sales people 20% (or more) of the ad revenue they bring in - and in general I suspect that few content providers will not gladly trade 20 (or event 30-40%) of sales in exchange for not having to have a dedicated sales force (provided of course that the net revenues meet expectations and needs). 50% perhaps is too high - but it would be instructive to look at it in both percentage and absolute terms (I’d guess that the vast majority of websites hosting googe adsense ads generate less than $10,000/yr in ad revenues - very likely vastly less than that.

2. It is also worth looking at how much online advertising is dominated by “large” advertisers who are buying in essence “run of the network” type ads (i.e. for whom all that “internal” traffic might matter) compared with how many advertisers are specifically using online ads to reach a very narrow and specific niche - in a highly targeted manner, where the net after the costs of clicks generates profits.

As I see it while all three of the ad competitors (as well as smaller networks) are going after “large” advertisers (Ebay, godaddy, major Madison Ave. brands etc) they also have, at least in the case of Google and likely in the case of Overture/Yahoo, a vast network of small advertisers. Who are mostly self-service and who buy ads in small increments, but whose ads are mostly highly targeted and relevant - the types of ads that more so than a generaic link to Ebay, are links that save time while searching or enhance the value of a given website to the visitors. I know that many many times the links on the right in a given Google search have been more useful and immediately relevant for the action I am seeking to take than many of the organic search results (most common when I have been searching for specific items I wish to purchase).

I think that it would be very instructive (if hard to get firm figures) to analyze what percentage of each of the major ad networks online’s ads come from this “long tail” of advertisers and what percentage comes from the “Big” advertisers (perhaps filtered via relationships with advertising firms/media placement firms/white hat search engine optimization firms). I know I’ve read of Google expanding its high end sales force and opening up an office in NYC for ad sales among other activities - so clearly they are major enough to warrant employee time.

[full disclosure, I'm in the midst of launching my own small web company and we're going to be evaluating the best option(s) for online advertising networks to work with to embed ads into our mostly mobile applications. We're also going to be soon in a position to advertise ourselves, likely taking each of the networks up on their free advertising offers - and then continuing with the networks that offer us a net return on investment - i.e. minimal click fraud and highly targeted, relevant placements that visitors who convert to ongoing users]

Shannon

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Your explanation is fine but the problem is apparently MSN themselves did not know what was happening…………

As long as advertisers are stuck (even if they don’t yet realize–yet–that they are) with trying to reach indirectly–and problematically (ie click fraud)–people by merely bidding on the words we all enter into little search boxes instead of (permissively) on our actual traits and characteristics (keytraits), PPC will never reach the lofty level it could . . .

http://www.snap.com/about/spa_.....able_spa=1

How are these guys supposed to eat Yahoo’s lunch? I think that Business Week is either failing to vet their sources properly or deliberately misconstruing the actual competitive landscape.

A technology project that makes your search better (showing more relevant ads to searchers) and makes far more money, and is conceptually simple. CPC*CTR as a profit-maximizing formula isn’t exactly rocket science. So I’m stumped, and wondering how long it will take them to catch up to Google’s next move.

I would like you guys to keep the snap on as it’s very useful tool. I am also using it on my blog and I like it. I just wrote as the first comment was against it.