For the first time within the Google (GOOG) Search Ad Network of any company, AOL (TWX) is now offering AOL-branded versions of Google's search ads, an option not available before now.
AOL will now be able to sell text search ads direct to advertising partners, rather than through Google. Many advertisers prefer their ads appearing on AOL's network of sites rather than Googles, as they considered many of the many of the lower-level sites not too productive.
Chris Winfield, president of 10e20, an online ad placement company said, "It's really exciting for advertisers to be able to advertise directly with AOL because the quality of traffic [and] the quality of the conversions there is much higher than in other places."
The costs could also be up to 50 percent less as Danielle Leitch, executive vice president of client strategy for More Visibility said, "It could be 50% less in some instances. There is obviously going to be tons more people in Google than in AOL at least in the near future. It's the same kind of traffic, you are just now buying it cheaper."
With the recent actions by Google to take care of some of the domain parking arbitrage Adsense advertisers, it may be connected to the increasing dissatisfaction associated with the irrelvancy and cost of these types of sites, and the demand for advertising from AOl which won't be connected to them in any way. The ROI is very low on these types of arbitrage sites.
Even so, Google will still draw income from the agreement based upon their 5 percent stake in AOL, which affords them a portion of all the sales connected to Google ads.
Advertisers also like AOL because it draws a more Internet savvy crowd, which spends more on the Web. AOL draws the fifth most traffic of all Web brand in March, with 94.9 million visitors, not that far behind Google's number one ranking of 108.3 million.
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