It seems like everyone in the business is making predictions for 2010, so I thought, why not? Here are a few predictions for 2010 that may affect your business:

 

                Anyone could have made this one, right? Probably, but there are a few things that will nearly guarantee it. First, the economy is most likely going to get better. That will stimulate consumer demand and that will entice businesses to advertise more. For right now, Google is essentially a monopoly, so that means more competition for those coveted first page ad positions. And the corresponding increase in price.

 

                But, just in case the economy is flat, Google is hedging its bets.   Google has announced several AdWords features in 2009 and early 2010 that will be available to only a select number of advertisers. The latest that I am aware of is the Contact Form Extensions on AdWords.   Again, this is just in Beta now, but the gist of it is that if you meet their ‘select’ criteria and bid high enough to garner the number one ad position on the search results page….they will reward you with an automatic contact extension on your ad and the corresponding benefits. (For more on this, check this link New Contact Form Extensions Beta from Google. A cool feature, yes, but these bells and whistles also have the effect of driving up everyone’s bids as a trickledown effect from the bidding war for the first position.

 

                And competition for Google AdWords in the form of Bing/Yahoo is still months away….probably the earliest is late Fall of 2010.   I sure hope the Bing/Yahoo engine brings some real competition to the market place. I think Bing, combined with sites like Facebook, may slow the Google costs down a bit.

 

                Facebook is one of the real hidden gems in online advertising, but it won’t stay that way for long. Soon the demand for Facebook ads will drive the price up on that site. So, hopefully it won’t be long before they start displaying more ads to gain additional revenue. I used the word hopefully because I am hoping that this is a win-win for both Facebook and advertisers….they get more revenue and the advertisers get more real estate and a small drop in ad costs.   If that sounds like a paradox, drop me a line and I will be happy to explain in more detail.

 

                Sorry…just kidding. I just put that in there for yucks for the professional campaign managers. However that is one of the reasons that I am hoping for the Bing/Yahoo merger to happen. At least Bing is trying to provide an offline editor.    Here is a marketing suggestion for Bing/Yahoo….offer a Universal  PPC management software package that we could use for Bing and AdWords. It may cause managers to give Bing a look and recommend Bing to their clients.

 

 

Well I better quit just a few predictions….Happy New Year everyone and good luck in 2010.