Inauguration rental sites gained fast widespread attention, largely due to paid search advertising

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

Yesterday, the country welcomed a new administration and leader of our country into the White House, President Barak Obama.  In the weeks leading up to this historic day, local DC residents knew that millions of spectators would travel to the city and there would not be enough hotels to accommodate them.  As a result, several rental sites were created, such as InaugrationRent.com, a site allowing for local homeowners or landlords to post available houses and rooms for rent.

The success of these sites, however, came to depend largely on Google Adwords campaigns which brought significant exposure and awareness to their services.  Companies promoting inauguration-type services began to see the value in capitalizing on paid search as it works extremely well when fast or short-term attention is needed.  Immediately after the election, searches for the keyword “inauguration” grew.   At first, on the week following the announcement of our new president only one sponsored ad appeared for a search on the keyword “inauguration.” It didn’t take long, however, for other companies to begin optimizing on this keyword.  Google spokespersons noted that searches for “inauguration” increased 75% last week and are up over 75% from when Bush was inaugurated in 2005.  Today, a search I made on the keyword “inauguration” only yielded two sponsored ads.

According to JupiterResearch, paid search spend continues to grow and will reach over $26.8 billion by 2009.  Despite this projected growth, a survey by Microsoft Advertising reveals that most companies are “intimidated” by search engine advertising.  In addition, JupiterResearch reports that even the bigger companies that have the budget to run paid search campaigns still have trouble managing them on their own.