Search-Related Ads Rely on Poetry of Words, Numbers
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — When Kiesha Ramey tells people she works for Google Inc., they usually think she's a computer geek.
She's more like a commercial poet.
Ramey, 30, is part of Google's in-house advertising agency, a team called the Maximizers that helps clients navigate the complex world of search-related advertising.
Her mission is worthy of a haiku writer.
She crafts text ads to intrigue Web surfers because advertisers don't pay Google unless the ads are clicked on. She has only three short lines -- of 25, 35 and 35 characters each -- and a link to make her pitch.
"I've learned to speak in 95-character sentences," she said.
Google and its advertisers wouldn't provide many examples of ads they've written, afraid of giving away their secrets to competitors. But it's a lot like writing a personal ad, in which seduction lies in the art of few words. A recent Google search for "surf camp," for instance, pulled up this:
Surf Trips for Everyone
Trips to Costa Rica and Mexico
Yoga, massage, culture and more!
www.solazadventures.com
Search-engine advertising has swelled to a $5-billion-a-year business, enabling the Internet to become the first medium to post consecutive years of 30% ad growth since broadcast television in the early 1950s. Google reaps 56 cents of every dollar spent on search ads, according to research firm EMarketer Inc.
The market is based on a simple concept: Targeted ads appear when people type queries into search engines. Advertisers bid for placement. The smallest business can jump in by opening a $5 account with Google.
As with EBay Inc.'s online marketplace, though, a basic idea can be maddeningly complicated to carry out with any level of sophistication.
"It's like playing three-dimensional chess with one arm tied behind your back," said Fredrick Marckini, chief executive of IProspect, a search-engine marketing firm.
The continued growth of search advertising depends on its ability to teach the biggest advertisers how to play that game better so that they devote more of their marketing budgets to the Internet.
Here's how it's played: After signing up for an account, an advertiser starts selecting keywords. Every time someone types those words into Google, the advertiser wants his ads to appear in the box above or alongside the regular search-engine results. The ad links to his site.
