Search campaigns on Google will now move at a dizzying pace thanks to a slew of changes with AdWords, but advertisers looking for an old-fashioned publisher relationship will want to call on LinkedIn.

Word of another ad network isn't always news, but when LinkedIn kicked off the week with its LinkedIn Audience Network, advertisers took notice, in part because that's exactly what they asked for from the professional-focused social network.

Working with Collective Media, LinkedIn will now be able to sell advertisers access to its 27-million-member audience as they move across the web. That's good news for advertisers who will now be able to extend their reach through LinkedIn, but according Steve Patrizi, LinkedIn's director of advertising sales, the new ad network adds value to publishers and users as well.

"We're very interested in the idea that the information our users supply to us on LinkedIn has the ability to make the rest of their web experience better," says Patrizi, adding that the company has inked deals with publishers like The New York Times and CNBC to supplement their content with insights from LinkedIn users.

All quiet on the data front?
Meanwhile, information -- whether gathered implicitly or explicitly -- has become a hot-button issue with the ongoing privacy debate. But amid that maelstrom comes BlueKai, a new startup that hopes to serve as a data exchange where users can see what information has been collected about them, and advertisers, ad networks and publishers can buy and sell online data points to achieve the scale necessary for effective targeting.

"BlueKai's vision for a data exchange stemmed from solving a fundamental online advertising challenge: the ability to assemble truly qualified online audiences at significant scale," says Omar Tawakol, CEO of the newly launched company. "At the core, the industry lacks a standard for defining audience quality, and it has become acceptable for audience definitions to be vague and inconsistent."

Buyers in the BlueKai data exchange include advertisers, publishers and ad networks that bid at auction for the data to influence ad targeting across existing campaigns, or as a way to boost the quality and scale of existing behavioral segments.

Big changes with AdWords
It's not often that Google tells advertisers that prices are likely to increase, but that's exactly what the search giant did this week when it announced a slew of changes to its AdWords program.

The spike in prices will likely come from Google's decision to do away with its "minimum bid" feature and replace it with "first page bid estimates." That means prices for very popular keywords are going to increase. But according to Google, advertisers are expected to see better performance on their campaigns.

But that's a mixed bag for a lot of search marketers, who are intrigued by the new tools and worried at the prospect of increasing keyword prices.

"This should increase competition significantly," says Jon Parker, a search marking specialist at nFusion. "The first page bid system will flood the market a bit and drive up competition for a lot of keywords because it means so much to be on the first page of results. But when Google actually says in writing that it's going to up the bid, that's like a red flag."

While some observers question Google's motives in reshaping the SEM ecosystem, the changes are widely seen as positive overall, especially the decision to calculate Quality Score in real-time.

Although the rating system still leaves much to be desired, according to Emily Las, associate director for search and emerging media at Morpheus Media, the overall takeaway is that dynamic Quality Score will help improve relevance for advertisers and users alike.

"This is a victory for search engine marketers who take a more hands-on approach," says Las. "With a dynamic Quality Score, search marketers will have to approach the space the way they would any other marketing channel."

Google is expected to rollout the changes over the next week, and according to Las, it will be some time before search marketers will be able to fully assess the new program. However, a faster moving, more human-focused SEM environment is likely to be a boon for agencies, which will be better able to bring to bear their professional insights.

Michael Estrin is deputy editor at iMedia Connection.