With the majority of data leads sold over the LeadPoint exchange generated from Internet searches it is important (particularly for lead sellers, but also lead buyers) to pay attention to U.S. Internet search engine trends.

July 2009 total U.S. searches increased 5% over June 2009 figures, according to data from The Nielsen Company. In absolute searches this amounted to 10.5 billion searches in July versus 10 billion in June. What is interesting is that Google’s share of the total search market decreased from 66.1% to 64.8% despite the fact that Google’s absolute searches grew 3% from 6.6 billion to 6.8 billion.

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In his bestselling book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Friedman analyzes how globalization has leveled the competitive playing field between industrial and emerging market countries. A key contributor to this “flattening” is technology, primarily the Internet.

In a section of the book focusing on search engines, Friedman highlights how technological innovation has made information more accessible to a wider group of people than ever before. Further, not only is information more accessible, but the pace that information is being distributed is increasing!

“Never before in the history of the planet have so many people, on their own, had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people,” writes Friedman. Friedman points out that the growth of search engine searches is tremendous. Using Google as an example, Friedman states that the company (at the time of the book’s publishing in 2006) “now processes roughly one billion searches per day, up from 150 million just three years ago.”

So you are probably wondering, “Why are you bringing up Friedman’s book The World Is Flat and what does it have to do with Lead Generation?”

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There are four primary advertising campaigns used to generate Internet leads. These include:

1. Pay Per Click
2. Organic Search
3. Display Advertising
4. Email Marketing

Pay per click
In this model advertisers generate leads typically by purchasing keyword phrases on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. When consumers look for a service and enter in the purchased phrase in the search field, the ad from the direct marketer shows up within a paid search section on the page. The advertiser pays the search engine a fee each time the listing is clicked.

For Google, this is generally the top three placements on a page or additional listing on the right side of the page. Consumers who click on these pages are taken to a web page created by the advertiser where they are encouraged to enter their information to be contacted about the service they are interested in.

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