As you probably know, I work in Internet Advertising. I’m the first to admit that you have to catch on to the “next big thing” in online advertising before the guy next door does, in order to make your money. Here’s a perfect example.
While I’m not condoning this at all, it’s what we’ve come to expect from the Internet and it’s fast-paced marketing ways.
Searching for “Terri Schiavo Case” on Google or Yahoo returns AdWords for companies offering living wills. I guess LegalZoom.com (one of the primary results) has been using this keyword (and other related words) for a while, other advertisers have tried to jump on the band wagon. [ Read the Mediapost article ]
I’m not sure how familiar you may be with the “auction-style” use of google adwords, but here’s the gist: Similar to e-bay ddvertisers bid as to how much they’re willing to pay per click for a particular search term. So for example, if LegalZoom buys 100 clicks for 10 cents each, and XYZ Law firm buys 50 clicks for 11 cents each, XYZ will serve their ads until they’ve reached the 50 clicks — then it moves to LegalZoom who was the next highest bidder. LegalZoom can go in at any time and change their bidding price and click amount they’re purchasing, they just have to keep an eye on these things.
So, while this case may be helping the prominence of companies offering living wills, it’s also costing them a lot more to do so.. new players are popping up driving up the CPC (cost-per-click) price for legal zoom.
The reason I bring this up, I guess, is just because I think it’s fascinating that people raced to their computers on Sunday night (when the Senate was instructed to validate the court’s decision on the case), to input their bids on keywords for the case.
Now, I’m not justfying making a quick buck at this woman’s expense. Not at all. It’s been shown in the past few days, that the number of people interested in purchasing living wills has increased significantly since this case became such a hotly-contested topic. These companies are just trying to put their names out in front when people are looking for these types of services. Someone who’s interested in the Terri Schiavo case could very well be interested in a living will as well.
