Internet Marketing Weekly News Update #031 January 20, 2010

Continued growth of Google News presents more options and decisions for advertisers.

According to ComScore, there were 99,761,000 unique visitors to Google News in November of 2009. As Google News approaches the 100 million mark, the appeal to advertisers is obvious, but reaching a mass audience isn't the only option. As the number of regional and foreign language editions of Google News also continues to grow, advertisers are presented with new target marketing options.

Hitwise reports on Google's share gains, and click ratio by length of search.

According to market researcher Hitwise, Google gained market share in December of 2009, while Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.com all lost. Google now represents 72.25% of the search market. On a different subject, Hitwiseth that number declining sharply as queries got longer. reported that shorter searches usually produce the highest percentage of clicks: one-word queries yielded a 24.34% click ratio.

Real estate projected to be a drag on online ad growth in 2010.

A report from Borrell Associates estimates that online advertising spending by the real estate business will drop by 4% in 2010, an even greater decline than the 1% drop suffered in 2009. The sluggishness of the real estate sector is a significant concern because the real estate business represented 19% of total online advertising spending in 2009.

Google wins the most visitors, but Facebook captures their time.

Nielsen figures which aggregate site visits by parent company showed that Google led the pack with over 155 million unique visitors in December of 2009, while Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook also exceeded 100 million. The clearest difference was in average hours spent--while Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all captured between 2 and 3 hours of the average visitor's time in December, Facebook clocked in with an average of over 6 hours.

Survey on tech usage shows generation gap among moms.

A recent survey showed that 42% of mothers online were interested in how technology could make them a better parent, but enthusiasm for technology was higher among younger moms. 49% of "millennial moms" expressed interest in technology that could help them raise their kids more effectively, vs. 35% for Generation X moms. 33% of millennial moms already feel technology has helped them do a better job, vs. 24% of Generation X moms.

Retailers continue to ramp up e-mails.

Marketing e-mails by top online retailers jumped by 12% in 2009. Volume increases over 2008 levels were evident throughout the year, with the biggest rate of increase occurring in November as more retailers tried to get a jump on the holiday shopping season.

New online entertainment network gets off to a fast start.

VEVO, a new online entertainment network backed by heavyweights such as Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, was launched on December 8th and reached more than 35 million unique visitors by the end of the month, according to comScore figures.

Retailers spend more on search ads as customers become harder to reach.

A report on retail advertisers by Efficient Frontier showed that they spent 17% more on search advertising in the 4th quarter of 2009 than in the corresponding period of the previous year, even as consumers became more elusive. Click-through rates declined year-over-year, as did the average customer purchase size.

MySpace cedes social networking space to Facebook.

The decision by MySpace to use Facebook Connect to generate traffic for its entertainment content indicates just how much ground MySpace has lost to Facebook as a social networking site, resulting in their decision to concentrate on entertainment content.

Google postpones the launch of its mobile phone in the Chinese market.

The latest sign that Google is serious about its dispute with the Chinese government over censorship and privacy issues is that Google has postponed the launch of its Nexus One phone in the Chinese market.