Specifically, the online education vertical has experienced the strongest increase and interest with advertisers either starting new campaigns or ramping up existing campaigns for online education programs. Leveraging off that fall ‘Back-to-School’ feeling, online education sites heavily promote distance learning programs and online adult continuing education programs, with an annual starting mark at beginning of August. This trend is validated by findings in a recent study.

According to a ClickZ report, State of Continuing Education Marketing: How Does Your University Size Up?, “Revenues for continuing education rose 67 percent at responding institutions since the previous survey in 2004. The growth in distance learning is driven by the growth of interactive marketing.”

While the study does not note a specific time of year for increases, we can still note online advertising is a major force that fuels its growth. During the back to school period, we also see heavy increases in traffic relating to online shopping for children’s clothes, including fall jackets and accessories such as backpacks and lunch boxes.

With all seasons, back-to-school being no exception, there are few campaign tips that advertisers should heed.

First, take advantage of the generated interest and increase the marketability of your website by adding seasonal keywords. For example, if you an online retailer selling luggage, include a keyword and listing phrase that stands out to potential customers with a promotion, a qualifier and call to action. For example, with the keyword “children’s backpacks,” create a listing like – “Buy now and get a 10% discount until September 30, 2006 on school backpacks for boys and girls.”

Second, be cognizant of the bidding landscape. It is important for advertisers to note that bid amounts tend to increase with specific verticals affected by the season. For example, now we are seeing an increase on keywords such as “online education programs” and “advanced degrees online.”

Our research confirms that typically 70 percent of all clicks take place in the first three-to-five positions. Consequently, if you want to be competitive — it is prudent to increase bid amounts on seasonal keywords to gain or sustain visibility in top positions.

Third, advertise online throughout the year. While the busy season is over, it is still important to maintain an online presence. The key is to monitor your campaign, especially the bidding landscape. Bidding gaps create opportunities. Oftentimes, advertisers set bids higher because of a busy season, but do not realize they can lower them and still be in the same position as demand decreases after the season is over. For example, if the leading position is $1.19 per click and the second position is $0.79, a significant bid gap has been created, as there is a notable difference between the first and sequential positions.

Therefore, it is not only important to monitor bids relating to seasonal trends, but competitors’ bids as well. Tracking a campaign and having a full understanding of what works and what doesn’t can help to ensure a competitive advantage. There are also free tools available from many PPC advertising firms, including Searchfeed.com, that automate the bidding process and help avoid overspending and bid gaps.

In the end, it is about aligning the online world with the offline world by reflecting seasonal trends, such as the Back-to-School period, within Pay Per Click campaigns.

Searchfeed leverages its thousands of established relationships with leading websites and portals to provide a cost-effective, easily-tracked method of generating pay-per-click sales leads for small- to medium-sized web publishers. The company will integrate its services into Webplus’ ecommerce offering, which currently includes software, hosting, store setup, shopping cart application, and other related services.

“Searchfeed.com’s services are a natural fit for Webplus’ online merchant client base,” said Jacob Lakhany, business development manager, Webplus, Inc., in a press statement. “We setup an ecommerce-enabled website for store owners, and Searchfeed.com can help bring targeted customers to that online storefront, which we hope will result in increased sales and overall success for users.”

In the near future, Searchfeed plans to expand the relationship by providing more advanced content integration. Eventually, they want to be able to completely monetize the exit traffic on every search that complements a client’s business model.

“This partnership provides members of the I.A.W.M.D. increased access to content provider services that correspond with their sites’ needs,” said Christopher Cyriax, Searchfeed.com senior business development specialist in a press statement. “Searchfeed.com offers a PPC partner program that provides webmasters with more control over added content and more control over a site’s revenue stream.”

Searchfeed.com’s services will be available through IAWMD.com. Webmasters that join Searchfeed.com through the I.A.W.M.D. will receive a 10% increase in revenue share to further monetize their current site traffic through the addition of relevant search results. Advertisers signing up through this offer can also receive a 10% match on initial deposits up to $500.

Through the Affiliate-Talk.com forum, Searchfeed.com aims to provide a broad span of Internet users and network members with continually updated PPC affiliate information, commentary from Searchfeed.com executives and access to network members’ feedback. The Affiliate-Talk.com website also includes general affiliate discussion topics and reviews of affiliate sites and PPC affiliate companies.

“Our forum has been created to help Internet users learn more about the industry, while giving them a chance to get involved, express their opinion and interact with network members to share knowledge on the most successful content integration implementations being used today,” said Christopher Cyriax, Searchfeed.com senior business development specialist.

Searchfeed.com originally launched the forum initiative in November 2005, and has since made the offering more robust, recently linking the forum back to the main Searchfeed.com site for improved accessibility.