ARC: Community: ELMAR: Posting

areas: promotion: call

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Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 12:52:18 -0500
From: "Kerem Tomak" <kerem.tomak@mccombs.utexas.edu>

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of
Journal of Electronic Commerce Research on
ONLINE ADVERTISING AND SPONSORED SEARCH

GUEST EDITOR

Kerem Tomak, Principal Research Scientist, Search and Marketplace Design, Yahoo.com, Kerem@yahoo-inc.com

OVERVIEW

According to a recent emarketer report, the number of US search engine users in 2006 grew to 144.5 million and expected to increase to 166.2 million by 2010. This corresponds to a search engine user base of 50.5% of the US population. Advertisers of all sizes see the opportunity in reaching to this mass of consumers. They spent close to $10 billion in 2005 and expected to spend double this amount in 2006.

Such monetization of search also attracts fraud. In recent lawsuits against  Google and Yahoo, advertisers aim to be guarded against fraudulent click activity which leads to artificially inflated ad rates. Businesses around the world can decrease rivals’ margins and exhaust their advertising budgets by repeatedly clicking on pay-per-click ads. Some estimates indicate that  more than 15% of clicks are fake.  One way of detecting click fraud is via data mining tools and techniques. Another way is by changing pricing mechanisms and the way revenue is shared through user activity on web sites.

Online advertising market is expanding at a warp speed yet, research on search marketing as well as online advertising in general remains in its infancy. There is a need for comprehensive research studies on, for example, detecting click fraud, new pricing mechanisms to increase incentives to participate in online ad markets, increasing search relevance among many others. Another related and topical issue is how to design market mechanisms which increase both search relevance and revenues for all participants. In general, search marketing places new and challenging demands on marketplace design in electronic commerce. The primary goal of the proposed special issue of Journal of Electronic Commerce Research is to foster research on the interplay between economics, marketing, computer science aspects of online advertisement.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

We invite scholars and professionals from a broad range of disciplines to submit to this Special Issue. Papers may encompass any or all of the following: theoretical analyses, modelling, simulation, and empirical studies. Authors may examine different aspects of sponsored search and online advertisement in any of a variety of possible contexts. Special topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Economic and computational design of sponsored search auctions
• Detecting Click Fraud
• Search relevance
• Online ad placement on search results
• Understanding why consumers click on sponsored search
• Bid ranking mechanisms
• Use of algorithmic mechanism design in sponsored search
• Pricing mechanisms for selling online ads
• Contextual online advertising
• Local search
• Search engine marketing
• Incentive compatible pricing of keywords online
• Marketplace design for sponsored search
• Efficiency of online advertisements in forming users’ purchase behaviour
• Understanding metrics for assessing conversions online
• Data mining for online advertisement and sponsored search
• Standards for click quality
• Use of machine learning in sponsored search, search relevance and related topics

Important Dates:

Deadline for Submission: March 1, 2007
Paper acceptance/rejection: June 1, 2007
Revised paper submission: August 1, 2007
Final paper submission: September 15, 2007
Publication date: November 2007

Submission Guidelines:

JECR publishes original empirical research, theoretical and methodological articles, evaluative and integrative reviews, field research, business surveys, and application papers of interest to a general readership. A submission based on a paper appearing elsewhere (such as conference proceedings or newsletters) must have major value-added extensions to the earlier version. For conference papers, it should have at least 30% new material.

The submitted  manuscripts should follow the format as suggested in the Submission Guideline found in the journal website:

http://www.csulb.edu/journals/jecr/s_guide.htm

Of particular note is that the manuscript should be prepared in Microsoft Word format. The names, affiliations, and contact information (i.e., phone, fax, email addresses) of all authors should be provided only on the cover page. The submitted paper will undergo a double-blind review. Contributing authors may be asked to serve as reviewers for the special issue. Submitted papers will be screened for fitness and reasonable quality; if a submitted paper does not .fit the special issue or not in publishable format, it will be returned right away.  Authors may submit completed manuscripts electronically at any time prior to the March 1st 2007 deadline. Manuscripts and any questions should be directed to:

Kerem Tomak, Ph.D.
Yahoo! Search and Marketplace
2811 Mission college Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054
e-mail: kerem@yahoo-inc.com
Tel: (408) 349 6513
Fax: (408) 349 3301

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