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Index analyzes actual search engine marketing programs; Q3 data suggests rising keyword prices and costs, more diverse goals, and other search trends

New York, November 22, 2005 – Performics, the performance-based marketing division of DoubleClick Digital Advertising Solutions, today announced the latest Search Trend Report, featuring the Performics 50 index, the only index of actively-managed, ongoing search engine marketing campaigns. The Performics 50 offers insight and illustrates trends based on data from July 2004 through September 2005 related to cost-per-keyword (CPK) and other search advertising metrics.

“Our in-house search experts live this data every day, but with the Performics 50 index we offer the market a stable platform for benchmarking trends over time and help advertisers better understand where their program falls within a larger context,” said Chris Henger, vice president of marketing and product development at Performics. “Search advertisers can apply these insights to accomplish more or increase efficiencies with their search engine marketing program.”

With the release of Search Trend Report DoubleClick Q3 2005, Performics provides additional insight on CPK, a metric introduced in the initial Performics 50 release in August to measure the quality of growth in a search marketing campaign. CPK addresses the total cost of “ownership” for the average keyword. CPK is a scalable metric, which can be used to evaluate the performance of individual keywords, groups of keywords or an entire search keyword portfolio. The Search Trend Report is available at http://www.doubleclick.com/knowledge_central.

Key Takeaways from Search Trend Report DoubleClick Q3 2005:

• CPK rose gradually in the third quarter, from approximately $20 in July to approximately $26 in September. CPK speaks to the total cost of “ownership” for the average keyword in a given month and illustrates how actively consumers are searching and clicking for that keyword and how marketers are valuing that keyword, rather than just how the most aggressive competitors are bidding on the word.

• CPK vs. CPC: While CPK within the Performics 50 showed a gradual rise from July through September, click prices rose more sharply.
• There exists a separate class of first-ranked keywords that hold the top spot almost exclusively for certain paid search terms. Dubbed pure first place (PFP) keywords, these terms behave differently than other top-ranked terms, and earning this distinction has become increasingly difficult in 2005.
• Lower ranking keywords convert increasingly well: The percentage of total conversions originating from keywords in a second place or lower ranking rose by nearly four percent from July through September, but keywords that maintain top position the majority of the time still drove 70 percent of conversions in September.
• The role of lower ranked keywords: Lower ranked keywords (fifth place or lower) drove far more impressions than conversions, suggesting an increased use of lower ranked keywords for branding or other non direct purposes.

The search marketing industry relied almost entirely on cost-per-click (CPC) as a primary metric before CPK was introduced, but CPC does not capture the overall search media costs associated with click volume in a given month. A keyword with a CPC of $.80 that receives ten clicks in a month, for example, costs an advertiser less than a keyword with a CPC of $.50 that receives 20 clicks. CPK incorporates both the supply and demand components of all keywords in a campaign, measuring what an advertiser actually paid for their keyword positions and resulting click traffic. Using the index as a benchmark and monitoring CPK, advertisers can compare their individual return from search (sales and ROI metrics) against the directional movement of keyword costs, similar to comparing the individual performance of a stock against the broader performance of the Dow Jones Average.

The index is a subset of the more than 150 search campaigns currently under management with Performics. The campaigns included in the Performics 50 are a mix of e-commerce and lead-based campaigns, and the names of the advertisers included in the Performics 50 will not be released but will be recalculated on a quarterly basis. The campaigns analyzed and included in the Performics 50 provide a representative sample of actively managed, direct-response oriented and mature but growing search campaigns.

About DoubleClick Digital Advertising Solutions
Performics is the performance-based marketing division of DoubleClick Digital Advertising Solutions and is a leading provider of Affiliate, Search and Data Feed Marketing Solutions.

DoubleClick Digital Advertising Solutions, an operating unit of DoubleClick, provides technology and services that empower marketers, agencies and Web publishers to work together successfully. Its focus on innovation, reliability and insight enables clients to improve productivity and results.

Since 1996, DoubleClick has empowered the original thinkers and leaders in the digital advertising industry to deliver on the promise of the rich possibilities of our medium. Today, the company’s DART and Performics divisions power the digital advertising marketplace. Tomorrow, it will continue to enable clients to profit from opportunities across all digital advertising channels as consumers worldwide embrace them.

DoubleClick has global headquarters in New York City and maintains 21 offices around the world to serve its more than 1500 clients.

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