【南京消息】 昨天，中国著名的电器零售商苏宁电器与尚奇（中国）上海悦明电子科技有限公司签订协议，为苏宁的销售网站提供策划与功能咨询。此项服务将对苏宁的网站的实质性提高起到重要作用。

 

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    No.6: 美国在线/时代华纳( AOL/Time Warner )收购广告集团( Advertising.com)，2004年，4亿3千5百万美元。

    2004年发生了很多有趣的事情，时代华纳公司又遭受健忘症的困扰吗？或者某种类似的困扰？美国在线和时代华纳进行了合并，合并后形成规模庞大的集团公司，它正在设法冲销他们巨大的800亿美元市值。在这之后，人们或将认为时代华纳的高层管理者决不会听到这样的话“你触网了吗？”。但是不知何故，在2004年，发生的一切就是这样，美国在线/时代华纳收购了广告集团(Advertising.com)，整个收购案耗资4亿3千5百万美元。

    在收购发生之前，互联网世界正在广泛的流传着这样的谣言：Advertising.com正在设法在美国纳斯达克交易所上市融资。正是这些谣言促进了AOL公司管理层进行收购的动机，更加坚定了他们收购的决心。其时，他们在促成一个类似于Yahoo收购Overture公司一样的交易，但是这次交易却发生在互联网在线广告领域。把一家互联网出版公司与一家互联网营销服务公司组成一个合作伙伴，AOL将能够在它的网络配置Advertising.com的广告技术，并且有效的在其它的出版商网站上销售商品目录。

    Joe Germscheid，一位Zentropy媒体公司的买主，发出这样的感叹：听到这样的消息，我十分激动。这应验了这样一句话，如果你不能打败你的敌人，就把它买过来。这项交易对AOL/Time Warner公司来说，是一件伟大的交易。

    关于这项交易的得与失问题，互联网搜索引擎优化公司Did-It.com首席执行官Kevin Lee说：这项交易，使我震惊的第一件事情就是：因为广告集团 (Advertising.com)在自己的系统内，有如此多的广告客户，以致于AOL和其父公司时代华纳集团很容易把他们的内容转化为金钱了。通过最大最优的利用商品目录系统，他们能够让Advertising.com以这种方式快速成长。

    今天，Advertising.com为AOL集团产生了巨大的营收，我们也知道时代华纳在互联网的发展非常成功。例如，在2006年第3季度，作为AOL一个运作网络广告的分部，Advertising.com增长了90%，毫无疑问的是，这个增长应该很容易变得更高。当然， 也有人认为，有很多可以代替Advertising.com的类似公司也会产生同样的影响力，这倒是一个值得讨论的问题
  (源绿编译自biz.yahoo.com/seekingalpha)

 

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Can Half a Billion
Chinese Be Wrong?
The NBA Hopes Not

As the Chinese national team recovered from three straight losses to squeak into the second round of the World Basketball Championships in Japan this week, U.S. basketball officials might be forgiven for having a certain rooting interest in Yao Ming and his teammates against the likes of Senegal and Slovenia.

The reason has to do with a couple of nice, round numbers: 500 million Chinese fans who bought 400 million "branded pieces" of National Basketball Association products, from jerseys to basketballs, last year.

As in many businesses, the most populous country in the world is already an important NBA market and a tantalizing area for growth. In addition to 25 merchandise partners, the league counts 15 marketing partners there, from the American (Coca-Cola and McDonald's) to the European (Nokia) to the Chinese (China Mobile). When NBA Commissioner David Stern visited China recently -- he's been there three times in the past two years -- he even met with a company that produces Inner Mongolian milk about possibly sponsoring the league.

"We have been on the air since 1987 but never done anything this big. This raised the bar, made us sort of real to the Chinese fans and kind of set the standard for sports events in China," said Mr. Fischer. More exhibitions are planned for 2007.

Team USA also drew notice with exhibitions in China last month. The 12,000-seat Guangzhou arena nearly sold out despite ticket prices of between $50 and $450, which are steep for China. The games also aired on national television.

Still, marketers are hedging their bets on basketball. Anheuser's Mr. Ponturo says his company has purchased ad signage in Chinese characters at Manchester United's Old Trafford Stadium to try to reach soccer fans tuning in for English Premier league telecasts back in China.

* 全文引自今日《华尔街日报》。

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Google retained its commanding lead of the U.S. search engine market in June, when it handled almost half of all queries, leaving competitors such as Yahoo and Microsoft to fight for the remaining usage share, Nielsen/NetRatings said Friday.

Google processed almost 2.67 billion queries, or 49.4 percent of June's total, while Yahoo followed in a distant second place with 1.24 billion, for a 23 percent market share.

Microsoft's MSN unit (10.3 percent), Time Warner Inc.'s AOL LLC (6.9 percent) and IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ask.com (2.3 percent) rounded out the top five.

In terms of usage growth, Ask.com led the pack with 66 percent more queries than in June 2005, followed by Google (31 percent) and Yahoo (29 percent.) MSN and AOL had growth below 4 percent each.

Online ads delivered along with search engine results have become a multibillion dollar market in recent years, almost single-handedly fueling Google's impressive revenue growth and stratospheric stock price.

Drawn by the revenue opportunity, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and Ask.com have all invested heavily in their search engine services and search-based ad offerings.  -PC World

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Zunch to provide Chinese search and online marketing solutions to Italian market

DALLAS, Texas (PRWEB) April 26, 2006 – Zunch Communications, Inc. (www.zunch.com), a world-leading search engine optimization, Website design and Microsoft Certified application development company today announced a strategic partnership with SEMS (www.sems.it), a leading search engine marketing firm in Italy.  SEMS will now provide a new class of search and Interactive marketing services, offered by the Chinese division of Zunch (www.zunch.cn), to Italian businesses interested in targeting the Chinese market.

“The Zunch team of leading industry experts has designed the most comprehensive search engine marketing solutions to help Italian businesses tap into the booming but yet untapped Chinese market,” Zunch Chairman & CEO John G. Sanchez said.  “We are confident this strategic relationship between Zunch and SEMS will greatly benefit clients that are interested in pursuing business in China.  A large part of our international growth strategy is based on establishing such relationships and we’re excited to see how Italian businesses prosper in this market.”

Marco Loguercio, founder and CEO of SEMS, agreed.  “Everyday, more and more Italian firms start seeing China as a source of business opportunities.  The Internet is a strategic medium in order to support them to penetrate this difficult market,” Loguercio said.  “Search engine marketing is the killer application of this media and one of the most cost-effective ways to generate new business either online or offline.  Choosing the right search engine marketing agency to support them is vital and that’s why we decided to partner with Zunch, a market leader, to offer high quality Chinese search engine marketing services.”

The Zunch Chinese search engine marketing services that will be available to the Italian market include Chinese web design & development, Chinese organic search engine optimization and Chinese paid search campaigns.  They also include Chinese Interactive public relations and the translation and localization of website content. 

“With China-EU export trade topping $200 billion in 2005, China has been the European Union’s most important market,” Zunch Director of Asia-Pacific Operations Terrence Ou said.  “This new partnership will enable Zunch interactive marketing services to assist more European countries that wish to enter the Chinese market or increase their current trade with the growing country.”

“We are very happy to have created this partnership out of the SEMPO community,” Zunch San Francisco Branch Manager Massimo Burgio said.  “Our mission as a SEMPO member is to contribute to the growth of the search engine marketing industry worldwide, and in this case, we are helping SEMS grow the Italian search industry through the provisioning of our Chinese services.”

About SEMS
Headquartered in Milan, SEMS (www.sems.it) is one of the leading Italian search engine marketing agencies. It provides a full range of high quality search engine marketing services including natural search engine optimization, PPC campaign management, persuasive search engine copywriting, web analytics and conversion enhancement. SEMS' mission is to maximize online profitability, strengthen brand awareness and help achieve stronger business results. Our approach is not about one-time solutions but it is focused on working closely with companies to ensure they stay ahead of the competition. SEMS' clients include Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Expedia, Fiat, ING Direct, Microsoft, MTV, Nestlé, Siemens, Woolwich and Zurich.  SEMS is circle member of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization and of IAB Italy.

About Zunch Communications, Inc.
Based in Dallas, Texas, Zunch Communications, Inc. (www.zunch.com) is a world-leading search engine optimization, Website design and Microsoft Certified application development company dedicated to achieving measurable results for its clients. Top-ranked worldwide in search engine optimization; Zunch Communications, Inc. is a member of DFWIMA, SEO Consultants, seopros, DFWSEM, topseos and a Circle Member of SEMPO. It has been named Best SEO Company by PromotionWorld.com and top search engine optimization company by topseos.com. 

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下面是尚奇的竞价排名专家Laura Deerfield对PPC广告运作的见解。原文在尚奇的英文博客 blog.zunch.com.

现转贴在中文博客上，以供更多的读者分享。

It's the most common error I see with clients who have been running their own PPC campaign, and the bigger their budget, the more likely they are to make it: They want to be #1 - and they want to be there for anyone who might possibly be searching for what they offer. I can't blame them. It does intuitively seem like being in the number one spot would be ideal. It does, after all, generate significantly more traffic, and often a high click-through rate. Just think, if you have enough money, of all the people you could direct to your site if you can afford to be in the number one position for your most general term! An auto dealer that's #1 for "car," or a home loan site that's #1 for "mortgage" - assuming they have enough money - surely would benefit tremendously from this kind of placement. And because of this, it can be difficult to convince a client that their favorite position, as sexy as it seems, may just be the least fruitful.

It may simply be scattering their seed on barren earth - and the results it produces may be so costly that they take away resources from more fruitful areas of the campaign. It's easiest, perhaps, to explain why a general term like "car" is not the best term for anyone in a PPC campaign. Simply put, the percentage of people searching on that term who are looking for what you offer is too small. Even if you rule out, with your ad copy, those who are looking for a review or automotive history - there's still far too much variation in what people mean by "car" in their heads, which didn't make it into the search bar. Even if you do have dealerships across the country, chances that you offer every make and model of vehicle are slim. People typing in general terms are also generally early in the buying cycle, and doing research. They don't know yet quite what they want, and are unlikely to decide on this visit to your site. A little harder to grasp is why the number one spot itself is rarely ideal.

I guess the main idea to get across is the behavior of searchers. People type in their search - then click on the first result, often without even reading it. Only after getting to your site, and costing you a click, do they stop to notice that it's not what they had in mind at all. People who click on the results further down are more likely to have actually read the ad, and be thinking about what they want before they click. In other words, lowering position, while it may reduce the number of clicks you get - also is more likely to let your ad copy do its job to pre-qualify those clicks. A recent example - I took a client from the top spot on most of their keywords, costing them several dollars per click, and lowered them to #2 and #3. They saw their cost per click drop nearly in half - but were uncomfortable about the fact that the total number of clicks also dropped dramatically. However, those who clicked were far more likely to remain on the site - with half as many clicks, their page views went up from 37k per week to 40k.

I have had several clients who found that once they moved down to the 4th - 6th position for most terms, their conversion rate went up. Yes, they were getting fewer visitors overall, but a higher percentage of those visitors were making purchases - and at a lower cost-per-click, the cost per acquisition went way down. One other danger of being in the top spot - especially for a general or popular term - is that this spot is more likely to be a target for click fraud. It's simply easier for affiliate-type fraud, to click on the top spot. And for competitor-type fraud, well, everyone wants to take a shot at the big guy. There are some cases, however, where being in the top spot makes sense. That's for the company's own name or brand. Potter Barn could benefit from being number 1 for all terms with "pottery barn" in them. It's not always as cost effective as a lower spot, but it is good branding - and if someone is searching for a specific brand name, especially if they offer their own product for service on their website, chances are good that they will be happy to end up on that company's website.

I would, however, put a cap on the CPC for those terms, as it's not unusual for someone to try to make it prohibitively expensive for a well-known company to buy their own brand name, by making their max bid absurdly high. But it can be scary for the client to let go of that top spot, especially when they see traffic dip - so just make sure you have your tracking in place and can demonstrate the benefit in terms of the bottom line... and be prepared to move them back into the top spot if, by some fluke of fickle search behavior, it turns out #1 really is the most profitable place to be.

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Wonder where I am now? I've been back to Dallas for half month and I brought back what my boss and my colleagues like. Having been away from my buddy Zunchers at Zunch's headquarters in Dallas, I'm kinda missing them much. Now, everyone has got a blessing of good fortune from my little gift from Beijing's famous Silk Street. Walking in Beijing's famous Silk Street where is flooded with world-brand merchandises, you do feel you are a millionaire because you find all of them are dirty cheap! You are temptated to bargin, even on a low low price already for great brands. The Silk Street is a five-floor department-store-like shopping mall where Beijing residents and foreign visitors enjoy shopping for famous brand clothes, bags, jewlery and watches at a fraction of real market prices in the U.S. Walking inside the Mall, you'll see smiling faces around, from foreign travlers, residents and even diplomats!

No matter how Chinese can copy and paste foreign products, there are two things that are difficult to copy or simulate. First, a Meredez or a Boeing. Second, Zunch! Zunch's SEO technology and services are what many Chinese business and solution partners dream of. There is hardly any way to copy Zunch's quality and capacity unless you can clone every Zuncher's brain including mine :). Moreover, you can't clone Zunch's vision. Just like many U.S. companies and even NBA, Zunch is going global. This is our vision and this makes us stay on the top of not just search engines, but globalization of world economy. China is offering such a great opportunity for us!

Believe or not, I did go to Google's office and eBay's China headquarters in downtown Shanghai. There are very good reasons for Google and eBay to fight for markets against their competitors in China. If you are amazed by high-speed Internet access in most hotels in China and Internet cafes at each street corner, you'll see why U.S. search firms and eCommerce providers consider China market as their "Second Battlefield" to win the search marketing war -- a place to let them Win or Go Home! Let alone Chinese local SEM and eBusiness firms are striving for development domestically and worldwide. Listen to what Ma Yun, the head of Alibaba said, "We (Yahoo) will challenge Google. We'll be the best search engine, and we'll be the winner!"

OK, let's bless Ma! Give him a big hand! Please also give us a big hand, too -- our team leader John Sanchez with his fellow SEO crusaders are changing the world of search marketing. Who else can? I am not seeing anyone else yet.

Well, I am working around the clock now to make our dreams come true. Keep your fingers crossed and have a very happy New Year!

Visit http://www.zunch.cn/adtechshanghai.cfm to see highlights of Zunch's punch in China market. Get ready to view my cool pictures!

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