To keep current on conducting your PPC campaigns, you should know that both Google and Yahoo announced changes in their pay-per-click advertising programs. Google has a new metric in AdWords and Yahoo Panama is requiring shorter descriptions. Additionally, Google just launched a Pay-Per-Action program beta.

Google AdWords Impression Share

Google AdWords will start providing a new metric, Impression Share. According to Google, this statistic is available at the campaign and account level for search.

• Campaign Level: If you have more than one campaign competing in the same target market, the resulting impression share for any one campaign won’t be penalized if it loses an impression opportunity to another campaign from within the same account.
• Account Level: Reports at this level will not penalize your impression share from the competition across all your campaigns.

More details available at the AdWords Help Center.

Over One-third (36 percent) of U.S. Internet users go to Wikipedia for information, according to a new nationwide poll by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. As you know, Wikipedia is the citizen-generated online encyclopedia that shows up consistently for so many search engine queries.

The survey also shows that Wikipedia is more popular among well-educated users than it is among those with a lower level of education: 50 percent of those with at least a college degree consult the site, compared to only 22 percent of those with a high school diploma. Naturally, it’s popular with students: 46 percent of users aged 18 and older who are full- or part-time students have used Wikipedia, compared to 36 percent of the general Internet population. For more details, you can read and download the study here. It’s only 7 pages.

The mobile ad network AdMob, along with mobile web designer Andy Moore, have launched a free mobile plug-in that can be used with the WordPress blogging tool. Announced Wednesday at ad:tech San Francisco, this tool makes it easy for users to create mobile-friendly WordPress blog content.

So far, over 150 WordPress bloggers have been testing the new plug-in, which extends blog content reach to mobile phones. If you run ads within your blog content, the AdMob code for bloggers gets integrated into your blog. Blog owners can also get their pages configured to .mobi and W3C standards, along with the automatic insertion of AdMob ads.

In other words, the plug-in allows your blog to adhere to W3C standards without requiring any extra knowledge or expertise on your part. That makes it a win-win for blog owners and the AdMob network.

Consumer privacy groups led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to block the merger of Google and DoubleClick based on privacy concerns.

The groups want the FTC to force Google to adopt stricter privacy guidelines regarding the amount of personal data organizations are allowed to collect and store. These restrictions would be similar to those existing in Canada and the European Union.

The complaint asks the FTC to assess Google’s ability to record, analyze, track, and profile the activities of Internet users with data that is personally identifiable, as well as data that is not personally identifiable, asking the FTC to halt the merger unless such steps are taken.

The complaint states in part, “Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world.”

Google recently added new features that further personalize Google queries for users logged into a Google account. These new features reduce the need to type in specific queries to get the information you want. Both of these are available to Search History users.

The new features enhance your level of personalization and are tied to your past search behavior. They do not actually alter the SERPs you get with a search query. You can enable them, and then click for the additional personalization to take place.

The first is a recommendations button on the Google Toolbar that resembles a pair of dice. When you click on the dice, Google takes you to a site that could be of interest based on your past searches. If you want more recommendations, just keep clicking the dice. You can get up to 50 new recommendations per day that might be of interest. You must have the latest version of the Google Toolbar to add the recommendations button to your toolbar

Internet retailers are spending more to get better results with search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC). Internet Retailer surveyed 245 web merchants and found they prefer search marketing to other marketing channels including affiliates, email marketing and direct mail because of better performance.

When this same study was conducted two years ago, researchers found that search marketing was used by relatively few. Only 21 percent of web merchants had used SEO or PPC advertising for over 4 years, 40 percent were using search less than 2 years, and 13 percent had no experience with search. Other findings in 2005, showed that only 20 percent of chain retailers, catalog companies, virtual merchants and consumer brand manufacturers spent more than 50 percent of their online marketing budgets on search, and 42 percent devoted less than 10 percent to search.

This has changed radically today, as indicated by the current findings, summarized below:

In spring, a young dude’s fancy turns to love. However, a chick’s fancy turns to shoes. You can get shoes galore on the web, and retail consumers have a host of choices. They can even get bargains like free shipping and discounts – that’s the beauty of the web

However, when it comes to shoe wholesalers, you want to buy from trusted sources. You look for quality brands and convenient packaging. Every retailer has his or her favorite suppliers, and among these are Nafta Traders and Footwear Packs.

If you’re looking for athletic brands like Adidas, Converse, Fila, New Balance, Nike, Puma, Reebok and more, you might want to check out NaftaTraders.

Exports Around the Globe

Nafta Traders supplies distributors with hot closeout merchandise around the globe, — from Africa to South America and from Mexico to the Caribbean. Nafta specializes in hot-selling athletic footwear, as well as branded athletic apparel and accessories.