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Last week, Google launched Google Merchant Search. This week, Edward Cowell, Director of digital marketing agency Guava; says, ““Google Merchant Search will truly put the cat amongst pigeons for some of Google’s biggest search advertisers, the financial services comparison websites.”

Price comparison websites are big business in the UK and all the major industry players
advertise heavily on Google. Research by Resolution Foundation shows that 45% of UK adults used a comparison site to help them make a financial decision in the last year and that the price-comparison market is estimated to be growing at 30% a year.

That’s why the launch of the new service comes at a critical time for Google and its financial services advertisers. Says Cowell, “Most big financial services websites are just coming to terms with a marked increase in their paid search advertising budgets due to the recent changes in Google’s trademark bidding policies, so Merchant Search could be rubbing salt into the wound.”

Sites such as Ebay have boycotted Google Adwords by withdrawing its adverting when Google attempted to encroach on PayPal’s territory. So, uprisings are not unheard of in the search arena.

That’s why Cowell and the rest of the industry is waiting to see how the price comparisons companies react to the launch of Merchant Search.

Clickable is the latest Software-as-a-Service offering for Search Engine Marketers. SmallBusinessComputing.com’s Gerry Blackwell had the chance to get insight from one of the private beta testers selected to test the product.

Pam Emery, marketing specialist at outdoor gear supplier Backcountry Edge, found that Clickable streamlined her SEM efforts, which are just a part of the four-year-old companies’ overall marketing strategies. Emery engaged in a learn-as-you-go method when it came to paid search advertising. But now she’s finding that Clickable helps her manage PPC campaigns with ease.

Clickable is able to explain tricky paid search analytics in plain English. It can make suggestions such as “Bidding more for this word will improve your return.”

Emery says that instead of dealing with different interfaces for different search engines, she can now rely on just one – at least for Yahoo and Google. Clickable has a plugin for both of the top two search engines with one for MSN on the way.

Clickable’s interface is web-based and uses the company’s servers, relieving customers of additional IT burdens. Emery told SmallBusinessComputing.com that it’s too soon to tell if Clickable improves sales over her previous efforts, but it has given her confidence in her newly gained paid search strategies.

Related Reading:

SalesForce, Google “Deep Integration” May Improve Google Analytics
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Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

• Microsoft Wants to Buy Yahoo: Convergence, Continued
  There have been rumors of late about some sort of Microsoft/Yahoo hookup — and here it is. Microsoft just tendered a $31/share bid for Yahoo. All of Yahoo.
• Paid Search Advertising Drives Microsoft Bid for Yahoo
  More relevant search results and social media innovations won’t solve the problem of Google’s dominance in paid search advertising.
• MSN and Yahoo Merged: How Would It All Mash Up?
  Aside from the potential effect on Yahoo/MS investors and the American Economy (which will be reported on ad nauseum), the implications for the search marketing industry could be massive and exciting.
• Yahoo Board, Sans Semel, to Consider Microsoft Bid
  Former CEO and chairman Terry Semel stepped down as chairman last night.
• The Other Side of the MS/Yahoo Deal
  What would this merger mean in term of a search experience, organic results and news content?
• Super Bowl Advertisers Mostly Unprepared, Search-wise
  Advertisers pony up big bucks to create and air an ad during the Super Bowl, then fail to prepare for the inevitable searches for their company and ads.
• SEW Experts: Why All Links Are Paid Links in the Travel Trade
  The paid links debate isn’t so black and white. The question of what truly constitutes a paid link, and what qualifies as advertising, will continue to be a huge point of contention.
• SEW Experts: Rewriting URLs: SEO for CMS, E-Commerce, and Dynamic Sites
  There’s as much confusion and controversy surrounding URL rewriting as Darwin’s theory of evolution.
• SEW Experts: Optimizing the Planet: SEO on a Global Scale
  When building an SEO team to provide global services, it’s necessary to recruit skilled, multilingual SEO experts — no easy task.

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The Microsoft conference call yielded little new information about the details of the Yahoo bid. Steve Ballmer stressed that scale and efficiency in online advertising platforms would drive the success of the deal. Microsoft execs said R&D innovations would drive breakthroughs in vertical search, mobile search, social search, and natural language search.

Nice thought; won’t work in the marketplace.

More “relevant” search results and social media innovations won’t solve the problem of Google’s dominance in paid search advertising. Microsoft-Yahoo still need to beat Google brand equity and searcher loyalty. Search is a habit. For some, search is an online addiction.

Switching costs may be low –and search engine alternatives are “one click away” - but Microhoo will still need to win over the Google ravers and junkies.

When Microsoft or another suitor finally buys Yahoo , no one need feign surprise. The Redmond giant finally went public with a formal buyout offer because the Yahoo board (sans Semel) won’t fight back. The last bid was rumored to be $50 billion. Today’s offer comes in at $44.6 billion because Yahoo stock price dropped below $20 per share.

Look for other bidders to force Microsoft to pay a higher premium. While display advertising is a key driver for creating two super-portals on one efficient ad serving and ad management platform, Microsoft-Yahoo would never win government approval unless Google had achieved what some call near-monopoly leadership in paid search.

Yahoo Panama – Yahoo’s paid search auction algorithm and search ad platform would move to Redmond even if the Yahoo engineers remain in Silicon Valley. MSN adCenter is innovative, but Yahoo Panama improved topline revenue — although not as much as Wall St. and Jerry Yang would have liked.

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Search engine marketing technology firm SEMDirector today rebranded as Covario to reflect the depth and breadth of its performance management technologies. Covario’s platform enables global brands to manage not only search advertising but other interactive media, including display advertising. For the search industry, it’s a wakeup call that “SEM” as a specialized service faces increasing [...]

Performance Pricing alleges in a federal lawsuit that the four Internet players they have sued infringe on a patent the company holds, in relation to paid search advertising.The patent in question, 6,978,253 (253 for short), covers, “A method of doing business over a global communications network.” Performance Pricing filed its patent application in June 1999, [...]

The next improvements to search marketing could come from Yahoo Research, where scientists look for all the meanings to be found in data.“Look,” whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.)Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out. — the Mark V finishes its [...]

Close to nine in 10 U.S. search marketers now measure campaign return on investment (ROI), according to iprospects’"Search Marketer Measurement & Performance Study," done by JupiterResearch.

Study participation was regulated to search marketers who out sourced the management of their search engine optimization campaigns and used paid search advertising.
The study revealed that 86 percent of search [...]

AOL changed their strategy last year by shifting from a subscription-based service to offering most of their services and content for free. In doing so they focused their energies on advertising.
Once the largest Internet provider they now have 12 million subscribers, trailing Comcast who has 12. 1 million and AT&T who is the biggest provider [...]

This isn’t a typo: Yahoo!7 is running the search Alpha beta Down Under, offering a customizable start page people can equip with content modules from Yahoo’s properties and others.It’s new, it’s pastel blue, it’s Web 2…dot 0. It’s Yahoo Alpha (beta), ha ha.
Until Amit Agarwal posted the news about Yahoo Alpha at Digital Inspiration, [...]