The more sedate (and decidedly smaller) Jupiter conference in NYC
at the end of July provided a stark contrast to the group-hug
jubilation from AD:TECH just a few weeks earlier.

Was the tension Publishers pitted against Media Buyers? Was it
Brand Marketers vs. Direct Response? Maybe it was just the guy
who did not want his ad inventory referred to as “crap.”

If you could not go, here is what you should know:

-> The big take-away? Contextual Advertising

Although contextual ads (ads served against related content such
as articles or search results) have been around for years,
suddenly they are hotter than hot.

Partly it is because Overture and Google are pushing them big-
time, and partly it is because media buyers are looking an easy
way to buy mass inventory without having to target each
placement by hand on separate sites. It is the rebirth of the
online ad network idea with a search-marketing spin.
The concept is inclusive of all creative formats, depending on
the network you buy from, ads can be text, HTML, rich-media.

There are still some kinks. Do you want your brand caught
up in the controversy a la Gator? Why would your ads for
wall-murals show up alongside a Cuban restaurant listing? Oh,
turns out the restaurant happens to boast a nice wall mural.


-> Hot Terms

o Conquesting: Buying your competitors’ keywords

o “Le wee fee:” Wi-Fi pronounced en Français

o Ad Renaissance: The expectation that online ads will be placed
with more and more relevance to the point that perhaps they
become as relevant as a search query.


-> Projections from the Conference crowd

Display advertising, such as banners can expect a down year this
year, but is projected by Jupiter to rebound in the next five.
(Well, we could have projected that too, with our eyes closed and
hands tied behind our backs.)

However, paid search is looking at a 48% spike in 2003 and
continued growth in the years following, plus is expected to be
the sole catalyst for a near-term ad recovery. How much of this
is Overture trying to look like a really valuable Yahoo
acquisition and how much is reality, we can not say. It is
obvious the search marketing growth trend is here to stay.

The wildcard is local advertising. Online has not figured out the
breakout moneymaker in local advertising beyond classifieds, but
hopefully will. Broadband looms on the horizon.


-> Interesting Numbers

o The “Big 3” (AOL, MSN and Yahoo!) dominate time spent online,
controlling a collective 40% of eyeball hours.

o 20% of paid search comes from $1 million+ ad budgets, which
means 80% is controlled by hundreds of thousands of small,
niche and regional businesses.

o eBay buys 2.6 million keywords

o 4+ billion online searches are conducted each month by 110
million Net users, each averaging 35 searches per month


-> Why do media buyers not buy more online?

"The Internet has 15% of all media usage, yet only 2% of the
advertising pie," proclaimed 24/7 Real Media CEO David Moore.

Why?

The general consensus is that media buyers have established their
corner-office careers buying TV. Online is complex, sold in an
unfamiliar vernacular and has yet to demonstrate itself as a big-
margin buy for agencies.

Translation: Until agencies can make big money selling online, expect
to see the traditional ad buy tilt, regardless of the fact that
online advertising, search in particular, is the most ROI-
measurable of all advertising.


-> Quote-ables:

o “No clicks means you have a creative problem. No conversions
means you have a landing page problem.”
Paul Soltoff, CEO, SendTec

o “Publishers have found a great way to monetize the crap
inventory.”
David Card, VP & Research Director, Jupiter (referring to
contextually-served text ads such as Google's AdSense.)

o “Search will work a lot better if you put branding behind
it.”
Jim Spanfeller, CEO, Forbes.com


o “Just because you can measure it doesn’t mean it is
meaningful.”
Aimee Reker, Media Director, EuroRSCG Circle


Note: Our thanks to Meredith A.C. Roth, KnowledgeStorm's Managing
Editor Publications who covered the show for us. KnowledgeStorm,
with 800,000 unique visitors each month, is the top-ranked
specialty search site for business technology.
http://www.knowledgestorm.com