Interview with Craig Wax, Senior Director Marketing, Overture
"Content Match, Integration of Alltheweb & Altavista & International Expansion"
By Lennart Svanberg, Editor, Right on the Spot
L(ennart): Thank you Craig for taking time to do this interview. It’s the first issue of Right On The Spot – a News Letter for 3,500 International Marketers.
C(raig): Thank you Lennart for having us. A lot is happening at Overture so I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.
L: Overture launched Content Match in June of this year. Quote from press release “Content Match links will be placed in various locations on partner Web site pages and embedded within their content, appearing on the side or bottom of Web pages.
It has now been 2 months since the launch of Content Match. What are the initial reactions from advertisers and distribution partners?
C: The overall response is fantastic; our advertisers are getting more leads to their sites and the distribution partners have found a new source of revenue. It’s a win-win situation.
In order to get advertisers to try Content Match they have received 20% off the ordinary bidding price in the United States (a “dollar bid ” from a paid placement listing only costs 80 cents on Content Match) and this has worked really well. Our advertisers tell us that their return on investment from Content Match is good.
What is very exciting for us is to see how sites with great content have found Content Match as a way of receiving more revenue. For example our partnership with MyFamily.Com makes it possible for many small, but highly valuable sites to earn revenues. We consider our network of contextual partners to be the best with partners like MSN, Yahoo, MyFamily (as previously mentioned) and Advertising.Com.
The combination of high-volume sites with small, but high quality content sites, makes it very exciting to advertise with Content Match.
L: If I own a site that I’d like to have contextual advertising on, what are the criteria for being approved in Overture’s Contextual network?
C:. Today there are no fixed criteria, it is decided on a case by case basis. The most important criteria is the quality of the site’s content Then we look at the amount of page views. If you’re interested in becoming a Content Match partner, don’t hesitate send us your site for review.
So far we have only scratched the surface with Content Match. We think that Content Match is going to be an important part of Internet Marketing for both advertisers & publishers. It opens up a completely new opportunity for Web sites to earn advertising revenue.
L: This year Overture bought 2 crawler-based search engines. Quote from Overture Press release “Through this combination [Overture, Altavista, Alltheweb], Overture expects to be at the forefront of the industry in offering a full suite of paid placement, paid inclusion and algorithmic Web search products and services for syndication to portals, ISPs and other search destination sites.” Can you after six months see the synergy effect of this offering [paid placement, paid inclusion and algorithmic web search] or is it too early to tell?
C: Absolutely, the advertisers are ready for more products that drive targeted leads to their sites, and our distribution partners like Lycos (who changed from Google results to Overture), Sympatico & Knight-Ridder Digital see this combination of offerings as the future.
The ability to both bid for placement as well as making sure that thousands of URL’s are being indexed correctly is of vital importance both for the advertisers and the searchers.
L: Even being in the Industry it’s sometimes hard to understand the meaning of some terms. What is the difference between Trusted Feeds and Paid Inclusion?
C: The overall term is Paid Inclusion. This means that you’re paying to be included in the Search Engine’s index. Trusted Feed is a term for those who have more than 500 URL’s that they want indexed and use XMLfeeds instead of “manually” submitting their URL’s.
L: How are you positioning the three brands: Overture, Altavista & Alltheweb?
C: Well, as we integrate the AltaVista and Alltheweb products and services into Overture, we’re maintaining all three brands. It’s up to the users to see what service they think serves them best.
L: Ok, great answers. Now a topic that is very close to my heart. Overture is launching in Sweden later this year. Can you give us an update on your International Expansion plans?
C: Yes, in the year of 2003 Overture has focused on International Expansion. So far we have launched in United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, South Korea, and Australia. Later this year we will also launch in Austria, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway & Finland.
L: What is your experience so far of this expansion?
C: It has been a different reception in each country. Some countries, like South Korea, are highly educated on search in general and in some countries it takes a longer time to educate the advertisers.
L: One issue raised is that there needs to be a certain amount of advertisers for each keyword in order to get a bidding process. In smaller markets, do you think there are enough competitors?
C: It’s still very early on and we’re learning about each market. What we do know is that time and time again our advertisers are reporting to us that they are getting incredible Return on their Investments from Overture.
L: Thank you Craig Wax, Senior Director of Marketing as well as Al Duncan, Director of Media Relations for making this interview possible. Do you have any final words to our readers?
C: Yes, I’d like to thank our advertisers for their continued business. We appreciate their support.
fr.: http://www.rightonthespot.com/0310.html#interview
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