Prospect of Search Ads on P2P Site Rattle SEMs

Ok, so this doesn't exactly "rattle" me, but it does make me think of Danny Sullivan's keynote speech in San Jose last year. Danny made a good point by saying "contextual advertising is not search."

But Contextual advertising is sold by the search engine, it can use the same creative as search advertising and is bought based on keywords. But let's get real - all contextual advertising is is an updated version of the great banner networks of a few years back. Heck, Google's even about to roll out CPM pricing for these ads - placing them in "demographic buckets" instead of keyword contextual buckets. In Contextual, we find that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. You have to test.

As far as branding implications from ads being on P2P sites - well, those are there. Google now lets you filter out sites where you don't want your sites to appear - but that process can be very time consuming...and requires more time than most are willing to spend. So my opinion is, bring on the P2P networks for some, but let us opt out if need be. I'd also love the ability to get a list of sites where we "can" advertise and be able to add new ones instead of being put on a group of sites by default and then having to widdle away at them one by one. You see, sometimes I like to sleep.

Prospect of Search Ads on P2P Site Rattle SEMs