Conventional search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo direct Web visitors to some of the sites related to their search query. Since about two years, specialized search engines now offer paid listings on their own search results pages.

A good example of this would be comparison shopping search engines such as Biz Rate, Yahoo Shopping and Froogle. Comparison shopping search engines act as online “traffic destination sites” to help shoppers find the products they are looking for. Such shopping portals also help compare prices on specific items, lengths of manufacturer’s warranties, sizes, colours, etc.

On comparison shopping search engines, merchants and their individual sites are defined as the content. Participating merchants have the option of engaging further, by buying additional search results, or participating in a PPC campaign.

By definition, on traditional content websites or informational portals, the information on them is considered the content. Such sites are usually very topic-oriented and can simply act as specialized or vertical market search engines for certain types of specific advertisers.

When prospective clients or visitors perform a search in Google or Yahoo, these people could represent a high percentage of your selected target audience and those are the ones you really need to concentrate your marketing efforts on.

Vertical market search engines are gaining in popularity

Once misunderstood and neglected, today’s specialized markets and vertical search engines have gained significant popularity in the past two years and more online advertisers are taking notice.

For example, people looking to buy a book or CD online usually go to Amazon.com and can be reasonably assured they will find what they came for. When people need to bid on certain products or perform an auction, using the convenience and speed of the Web, they usually go to e-Bay. Also, there’s a few more search portals that are all equally gaining in popularity.

Specialized vertical market search engines such as Amazon.com and e-Bay and many more are expected soon. Over time, a growing number of them will sell keyword-based advertising to online marketers and advertisers. How can a small business get involved in any of this?

Last year, in association with Ad Marketplace and a few select partners, e-Bay launched their “Keywords on e-Bay” marketing program. By simply ordering and buying keyword banner ads, e-Bay’s partners can drive targeted traffic to their merchant’s sites. In relatively three simple steps, e-Bay partners can get on this popular ad program with just a few clicks of the mouse.

The program works in a way that the e-Bay partner that wishes to bid the most for a click gets the higher preference, along with an incre

ased frequency in which their banner ads will be shown. For these e-Bay partners, keyword advertising seems to be working well in deed.

Focussing on your target market

Today, e-Bay and Amazon.com represent just a small portion of the specialized and vertical market search engines available online. Advertising executives and marketers now have thousands of content-relevant websites to start looking and researching for potential advertising channels or networks.

If you want to save time in researching who your potential advertising channels might be and to increase your productivity, an online intelligence company called Hit Wise can help. Hit Wise can supply competitive reports that include detailed traffic data of major businesses which fall into almost 200 different categories. You can then contact the websites within your category about a specific keyword ad program.

If you want to save some money, you can visit the Open Directory Project (ODP or DMOZ) or Yahoo and make a compilation of specialized or vertical market sites that appear to be relevant to your business. Using these resources won’t save you time, but they will bring you cost savings, while you sift through for new marketing channels.

Partner with the leaders and win market share

You can realize important savings by teaming up with the market leaders. As an example to this, more than 900,000 Amazon.com affiliates drive traffic to merchant products on Amazon’s website.

What’s more, Amazon.com buys media ads across the Web, further strengthening their brand and their reach in many market segments, vertical or otherwise.

Besides Amazon.com and e-Bay, there are a lot more vertical market portals that sell keyword-related ads. What’s more, some of them spend hundreds of thousands, and some even millions in both online and offline advertising. You should always carefully evaluate and select partners that invest heavily in their sites, as well as in their advertisers.   

Conclusion           

Specialized markets and vertical search engines can make a difference in the overall ROI of your online marketing efforts, while at the same time help increase your market share over your competitors.

Large companies such as Amazon.com and e-Bay have access to large advertising budgets year-round and that constitutes an important market advantage over a smaller, under-capitalized company.

If partnering with such a leader can mean a big difference for your online company, then you should go ahead with it. In the next 12 to 18 months, it is expected that specialized markets and vertical search engines will constitute a significant percentage of all online sales done on a daily basis.

Reference:  “Search Engine Advertising” by Catherine Seda. 347 pages.
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