Advertisers spend tremendous amounts of time, money, and effort determining demographics of target markets to best aim their ad campaigns. Sometimes more market research is performed than entire time product being prepared for market spent in research and development.

Large market survey companies have evolved to assist advertisers in this process. Many pay participants for their opinions to gain wide and valid data regarding responses to products and their advertising messages.

At same time, publishers, broadcasters, cable companies and a whole other host of folks who sell advertising time or space perform similar demographic research to better assist advertisers in reaching their "target markets". They note which shows are most watched, which columns are most read, which drive times are most listened to. They record which population segments are receiving these audio, video, and printed messages.

All this information is combined to provide a better opportunity for advertisers to get their targeted marketing message to their target market.

On internet, there is an additional way to target your marketing message. The internet has changed numerous facets of marketing world. Thanks to speed with which information can be gathered and then re-distributed, internet has even changed way we view marketing information. Whole new terms for marketing and advertising have evolved: spam, mass email, pop up and pop under windows, exit windows, banner exchanges, and more. Do you notice that all these terms have a negative connotation to internet user? Not so with topic of today's article.

Portal Marketing is development of advertising messages which are displayed to very targeted groups of internet users.

First, you have to understand what a portal website is. Portals are webpages that serve as mini-directories on very targeted subjects. Portals may be made up of specific groups of web sites who are paying for their advertising or listing on portal site, or they may be made up of web sites added by portal owner because he or she felt they were of value to other internet users interested in portal's topic. Or they might be made up of a combination of both.

Portals do not attempt to catalogue entire internet. Portals are much like hub or center of a wagon wheel. They are a jumping off point for links or spokes to numerous web resources on a like subject.

So what does that mean for advertiser?

As means of introduction, Adam is Group Product Manager for Lycos InSite and is in charge of building a comprehensive suite of search marketing tools. He has general management responsibilities for vision, execution, and delivery of Web-based platforms.

Adam explained further,

“I am charged with building a search marketing platform for Lycos. We launched our first product based on paid inclusion into FAST Web index in February of this year. We were very quickly able to prove that by nature of our brand and presence, search marketers would come to visit for search marketing services.

“Two weeks ago, we launched our second product, InSite AdBuyer, a cost-per-click ad auction engine. Both of these products are designed around concept of contextual advertising, so that a searcher is presented with highly relevant information when performing a search.

“While our platform is currently focused on our own index, we seek to provide one-stop access for all search marketing needs, including multiple index submission and multiple bid-management capabilities. All of these are designed to drive traffic (i.e., customer acquisition). We are also looking further down visitor experience to ROI side to encompass campaign management.”

The following are questions asked by Academy students to Mr. Soroca.

Question: “I see when I do a search on Lycos that there is an 'advertisement' on right side. Is this InSite AdBuyer?”

Adam: “Correct. Those are AdBuyer cost-per-click ads. Our advertisers bid to be in 1st, 2nd or 3rd positions.

“These are highly targeted ads as they are exact match keyword driven. So behind scenes, advertisers are involved in a bidding auction to vie for that space.”

Question: “When someone clicks 'place your ad here' link, does it show what bids are for keywords in question, so you know what you have to bid against?”

Adam: “No, actually we don't display prices on front end. To view prices for particular keywords, advertisers must sign up for an account and view that in advertisers’ area.”

Question: “What results does FAST supply to Lycos?”

Adam: “FAST currently provides Lycos with our search results. Our paid inclusion platform enables Web site owners and marketers to guarantee that their Web content is included in Web index and frequently refreshed. This differs from paid placement in that paid inclusion customers do not necessarily show up in top of results just because they paid us. This content is viewed by relevancy algorithm and displayed appropriately.

“Currently this program is available to small/mid size companies for an annual subscription. For larger companies, it will be available at a cost-per-click (those sites >1,000 URL’s). Paid placement and paid inclusion are two separate products. If you bid for placement, you pay for actual clicks. If you buy paid inclusion, that means that your pages are guaranteed to be in Web index (spiders can't find everything), and content will be updated every 24-48 hours. So, if your content changes, index will reflect that much more quickly. With an index of 2.1 billion documents, it can take FAST a while to recrawl entire index. This program guarantees you are in there.”

Question: “So, you have to pay for inclusion before you bid for placement? Is this what I understand?”

Adam: “They are two separate programs. The paid inclusion relates to FAST and Web index. The paid placement relates to three ad panels that display on Lycos Search.”