The Seattle-Search.com Blog

Does Amazon know for sure that I’m a search marketer who might be interested in buying ads for clients on Amazon product pages, or is it just the fact that I’ve purchased The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords in the past, or more recently, Shane Atchison and Jason Burby’s Actionable Web Analytics?

In either case, instead of  being cross-sold a robust espresso maker to help me manage those complex PPC campaigns long into the night, Amazon is inviting me to go down to the River.  ClickRiver to be precise.

Dear Larry,

As an Amazon.com customer who purchased Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords, we think you’ll be interested in a new program that lets you extend your pay-per-click marketing efforts to the tens of millions of customers per month that have made Amazon.com the leading online marketplace.

Clickriver Ads, offered by A9.com, works just like the sponsored link programs of the major search engines. You bid on the keywords you want, and pay only for actual clicks to your own web site. Your sponsored links appear both on Amazon.com’s search results pages and product detail pages.

What differentiates the Clickriver program is the audience. Customers who visit Amazon.com aren’t in search mode. They’re in shopping mode - the best time to introduce them to your product or service. That’s why we think Clickriver is the perfect way to extend your marketing reach.

Visit Clickriver.com to sign up now; you can have your sponsored link up and working for you in minutes. Registration is free, so it’s a zero risk proposition, and we think you’ll be very pleased with the results.

Next, they’ll be suggesting that those Who Purchased ClickRiver Search Advertising were also interested in Yahoo! Sponsored Search or perhaps Google AdWords. Hey, interested in a good used Google Advertising campaign?

Seattle-headquartered EarthClassMail, the postal mail digitizer that converts your paper mail into scanned images delivered to your email account (making it the ultimate PO box replacement for anyone who wants to exchange trips to the letterbox, eliminate junk mail from their lives) has officially changed its Web domain from RemoteControlMail.com to EarthClassMail.com.

The new online home for Earth Class Mail is http://www.earthclassmail.com

Trusted by thousands of subscribers in 80+ countries, Earth Class Mail services work for personal mail use, business mail use as well as enterprise mail receiving and forwarding.

Rabid video gamers could get some help keeping in touch with the outside world this weekend as Nintendo Co. launches an online news service through its popular Wii console.

The Wii News Channel, scheduled to debut Saturday, will primarily feature top news stories and photographs from the Associated Press.

Consoles with a broadband Internet connection and the Opera Web browser will be able to access the free news channel, which will offer AP news in multiple languages.
There were no immediate plans to sell advertising space, said Perrin Kaplan, vice president for marketing at Nintendo’s U.S. headquarters in Redmond, Wash.

News will be displayed through an interactive map, which users can navigate with the Wii’s wireless controller, Kaplan said.

In a complaint to be filed today, the Center for Digital Democracy asks for investigation into the Internet industry’s practice of targeting advertisements to Web users based on demographic information and online behavior.

The complaint asserts that companies are deficient in disclosing how they gather and use data about people who visit their sites. It singles out Microsoft Corp.’s advertising system in particular, citing the way the company targets users based on browsing habits and data such as gender, age and location.

Ad targeting works in part by gleaning clues about users from the Microsoft sites they visit. It also uses personal data that people submit when they sign up for programs such as Hotmail and MSN Messenger, which require the use of Microsoft’s log-in systems, Passport and Windows Live ID.

Microsoft claims it infirms users that it may use the personal information it gathers about them to deliver “content and advertising that are customized to your interests and preferences.”

For its part, the Center for Digital Democracy doesn’t believe Microsoft is specific enough about the company’s online advertising practices. Its director assert it’s not enough to merely link to a privacy statement online.