When Will Ask.com’s Ad Campaign Start Paying For Itself?
Erick Schonfeld
28 comments »
After sprucing up Ask.com earlier last summer, parent company IAC began spending $100 million this year on marketing to raise awareness of the Ask brand. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been seeing a lot of Ask.com ads on TV lately. (And I pretty much only watch TiVo, yet they are so ubiquitous that they still catch my eye as I fast-forward through the commercials). So how is that ad campaign doing?
Taking a look at IAC’s earnings today, it is not clear whether or not the expensive ad campaign will even pay for itself. Out of IAC’s $1.5 billion in total quarterly revenue, its media and advertising businesses (of which Ask.com is a part, along with CitySearch and Evite) accounted for only $190 million. While those revenues were up 40 percent from last year, the search portion of that saw a greater contribution from the Ask network (search results it powers on other sites) than from Ask.com itself. In other words, IAC’s media and advertising businesses saw a $54 million bump in revenues last quarter. Not all of that was due to Ask, and of the part that was, more than half came from traffic outside of Ask.com. The point of the ads, of course, is to drive traffic to Ask’s main site.
At least Ask is not losing market share. According to comScore, the search market share of Ask’s network as a whole nudged up 0.2 percent in September versus August to 4.7 percent (compared to 57 percent market share for Google, 23.7 percent for Yahoo, and 10.3 percent for Microsoft). Both Google and Yahoo still gained more share in September than Ask.com, although it did take some share away from Microsoft. And if you look on Compete.com, traffic to Ask.com itself does look to be picking up.
UpdateIt’s been pointed out to me by someone who know that the $100 million is the total amount the search engine is spending on marketing worldwide, including much more than the TV spots (such as online ads, agency fees, and internal marketing salaries). The TV spots are still a significant chunk of it, but not the majority. Also, the most recent TV ad campaign just started in September. This Hitwise graph suggests that it contributed to a nice 23.7 percent jump in Ask’s share of executed searches from August, 2007
So it could just be too early to tell whether the TV ads are driving enough traffic to Ask.com to be worthwhile. But if they don’t show up more significantly in the numbers next quarter, those ads will be seen as a boondoggle. They are entertaining, though.
Enjoy the latest one, which pokes fun at Google (and which makes you think that maybe Ask won’t be renewing its search advertising relationship with Google when the deal expires at the end of the year):
I do have to say, since the Ask.com redesign and even the ads, I have started to use the site more than I used to, and I’m finding it surprisingly pleasent.
I like to see how Ask.com trying hard to bring people to its search engine. Too bad I’m not in its demographic group. I care more about the search algorithm more than the other stuff.
As long as Google keeps neglecting search to concentrate on OpenSocial (or whatever it is), and Gphones… Ask, or any other search engine has a chance…
Nice Ad. I don’t think Google will be angry about that.
You know what? Let them waste money on these ads, because we’re getting some entertainment value out of watching the poor company suffer.
Is it really working for them? Probably not.
Do their employees realize this? Absolutely.
Matter of fact, they agree that their ads are a lame waste of company resources, yet they’re doing it to “raise awareness” for the brand; not so much to bring them more traffic. (or at least, this is what they tell me)
And it doesn’t help that IAC is just sucking with CitySearch and Ask… they just can’t manage to keep up with the new ways of the internet.
“After sprucing up Ask.com earlier last summer, parent company IAC began spending $100 million this year on marketing ”
I don’t think it will pay off. Ask could buy our search tech license for a fraction of that and it would pay off a million times more. But like arrogant super prudes, they won’t even take a look at it. C’est la vie.
Hey Chris, I’ll give you $20 for it. final offer.
note that this is an awful lot to pay for a sight-unseen vaporware product that may or may not exist, but i’m willing to take that risk.
“Hey Chris, I’ll give you $20 for it. final offer.
note that this is an awful lot to pay for a sight-unseen vaporware product that may or may not exist, but i’m willing to take that risk.”
Actually, I’m tentatively making it so that everyone can have $5-10 of free keyword advertising when they sign up after filling out a buyer profile and enter the credit card data. That way they can buy more keywords when they run out without thinking about it too much.
So perhaps you can save that $20 and use it after your trial runs out.
The mini-search we are launching with is actually done. This is the tech I would license ask if they knew that they needed it. The keyword purchasing interface is not complete. I am working on that now. AKA bids for higher advert ranking ect…
I am sorry an off colour comment turned into this though, I would encourage the convo to get back to why ask’s advert campaign ultimately is failing.
whats odd, Ask HAS a good search algo… its better than MSN and I personally think its better than Y! , what they lack is capacity . Their indexed site volume is weak. Which means that they fall short on more specific searches.
100m buys a lot of database storage
Ask need to come forward with more payout to their publisher and better ROI to their advertisers.
ASK has really improved dramatically.
But how does one chose among Google Yahoo and Ask -
Most searchers will use Google
Most portal browsers will use Yahoo and MSN
Ask may be trying to become an alternative to going to the 2nd or 3rd page is the first page does not bring up the results one wants.
Unlike Yahoo or MSN it is strickly a search homepage - so there is no multimedia entertaiment or news buz intrigue
they would have rather spent 100m to re-do a search engine..
At least they dropped that whole “Its the algorithm” campaign.
I have the customize google extension and will frequently use it to hop on over to ask and live and yahoo. They are all about equal in my opinion.
I had not seen the commercial before. I like it.
I think Ask.com has the nicest UI of all the portals. Part of the problem lies in “brand”. Knowing that ultimately you are using Google search (via Ask.com) this is self defeating. Although $100M is a rounding error on the balance sheet of IACI, I really believe they could use a different strategy that would give them a better ROI/IRR, search market share and revenue. The strategy still leverages the search assets they already own, but, it takes them down a path that translates into “real” measurable results. What is keeping them from achieving this is ONE acquisition…oh ya, and execution.
Somebody get me Barry Diller’s email address.
When they stop spending so much.
We might poke fun on this topic but I believe this is a rather interesting business case. The ask.com commercials clearly show features not available in Google and I am sure internally their marketing folks are wondering why people aren’t switching on the basis of those cool features. The thing they need to know is that one reason people aren’t making the switch is because Google works just fine. While features are cool I don’t see any reason to leave Google as long as it lets me get all the information I am looking for.
check this blog site and get an idea
http://lapnol.blogspot.com
it won’t fly.
Like Matthew, I too checked out Ask to see what the fuss was about. I thought the ads were good and they made me want to check it out. So I did a search. Couldn’t find what I wanted. I knew it was out there because I was searching for an actual web page I had hit a day or so earlier. No matter what I tried, no dice. So then I gave Google a shot. Guess where my result was in the returned list? #2. So sure, the ad campaign is dandy, but do you think I’m going there again. The real issue in my opinion is that unlike other services; side-by-side comparisons are not only easy; they are inevitable. So unless the “core” search results improve, the fluff around the edges is moot.
Its gonna take something big to get me to switch to Ask - and advertising isn’t gonna do it. When you have a pretty presentation but no real substance, you fail. People might stick around for a few weeks - but then they ask themselves why.
I agree with Dave and David above. It’s going to take something substantially huge to give them the shift they need. The results just aren’t as relevant as you would expect to find. A great concept and attractive UI don’t make up for the overall consumer experience.
What they need to do is get webmasters to stick Ask search bars on their sites. That’s how Google grew their market share, back in the day when AltaVista reigned supreme.
Ask needs to adopt Cost Free Economics, a patent pending economic technology that changes commerce as we know it. It can convert search to a meaningful targeted result that benefits the consumer directly and ultimate consumer self interest. This converts search to real purpose with results that actually address what a user is searching for as opposed to most results that are ranked in some way with false SEO optimization. Ask.com needs to develop a consumer benefit business model search. A search widget that gives access to any consumer to the “save all you spend ” economics process would create an unstoppable, perpetual growth economic search engine that would benefit all parties. Ask search users, the sites and the markets will all benefit if this shopcostfree.com economic technology goes mainstream.
Simple was nice, but that’s passe.
Ask.com has an amazing interface, and will continue to gain market share in my opinion. It’s like kijiji will gain over craigslist, just by giving a much richer user experience. I also like HelpGlobe.com.
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