300m - 9:17 pm on Dec 23, 2008 (gmt 0)

Why do so many people have the preconceived notion that it is the fault of the major corporation that we see increased cost and less in ROI from a year ago?

I am not saying that is what you are trying to say, but it made me think that there are a lot of people that are blaming so many different things on the poor numbers this year compared to previous. It was in Time magazine recently that Google will be seeing a 2%-3% decline in 2009 and that anyone who depends greatly on online advertising should see a similar decline.

It’s not just the United States that is having economic issues, its global. So we are in the very early stages of a global decline in online spending. At least that’s what they are saying in the media.
Even knowing hat to be the case, some may have forgotten that there is one common similarity with all of these issues in the online marketing world. Google is the puppet master and its going to dictate to each of us how we will spend our money as long as they remain the top dog.

I thought about this for several months and am of the opinion that it would not be an unreasonable thing to see Google turn the dial closer to our max bids to squeeze a little more out from all of us. I mean after all a little here and there from each AdWords advertiser is not a huge amount individually, but when you look at the bigger picture and take those individual advertisers as a whole you will see entire segments of Google’s advertising base paying just a little more with similar results in revenue they saw prior to the increase.

That makes just as much sense to me as the corporate players not budging.

And on that note, can you blame corporations for not budging? It is costing them just as much money, but many have more to lose if they are not #1. A good example would be if someone had a company creating widgets and had a trademark on widgets, but because Google permits conquest ads competitors and affiliates are crowding and forcing the creator of the widget to raise their bids and its forcing everyone around them to raise their bids.
Nobody is going to benefit from that with the exception of the one company who stands to gain the most from it, Google.

Just my two cents.