Google Advertizing - Cut down Overture marketshare from 80-50%

What are the factors of success?

[heini]

According to this Article [palmbeachpost.com] Google has cut down on Overture's marketshare from 80-50% in just a year.

Where is the webmarketing world heading? Is it going to be a one player market?
What are the main factors for this success?

[albert]

Thanks for the link.

Most important pros of Google Adwords IMO:
- less money needed to start
- better configuration and targetting options
- configuration interface more user friendly, more simpatico

[bigjohnt]

I read somewhere that when you factor in AOL, Yahoo and partners, the Big G has 78% of search wrapped up.

Ease of use, speed of setup to usage, a market already educated in PPC.. lots of reasons for the big success.

I even see a higher conversion, since clickers know they are being "sold".

All in all a very attractive advertising package. IMHO of course.

[antirack]

Don't laugh, but I didn't know overture. I have signed up for a trial which came through the snapnames.com mailing. However, they didn't take my ads which run on google without any problem.

I find their system very confusing, and although I am in the business (I am not a pro, but I know a lot) for years, I'd prefer not to work with them.

After I explained that for the superlatives I am using in the ads I have third party validation, and it shows up on the site too, they just replied with a standard email which clearly mentions at the end that they can't refund my GBP 60 paid up front ;-) And the main topic of the email was that I should not use superlatives, and try to submit my ads again... (their system seems not to allow editing, so I'd have to TYPE in all of them again).

Considering they "only" have a small share of the advertisers, they seem pretty busy with emails, forcing them to send out standard replies and threatening the customers with 'no-refund'... reminds me a lot of network solutions a few years ago...