CDW Corporation

Catalogers’ Updates CDW Corp.: The multichannel computer marketer in May was sold to private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners for $7.3 billion. Upon completion of the deal, CDW shareholders will receive $87.75 in cash for each share of common stock. McFeely’s Square Drive Screws: W.W. Grainger’s Lab Safety Supply subsidiary in early June said it had acquired all of the assets of McFeely’s Square Drive Screws, a B-to-B cataloger of specialty fasteners, hardware and tools for the professional woodworking industry. McFeely’s will be marketed as an independent brand by Lab Safety. Casual Male: LivingXL is the name of a new catalog launched in May by Casual

During a session at last week’s ACCM conference in Boston, Anne Vargo, e-commerce supervisor for B-to-B computer products cataloger CDW, and I both concluded that many of the best practices for B-to-B search are the same as consumer. These include comprehensive term lists, smart bidding, focused copy and landing pages, strong tracking and ongoing testing. But we described several unique challenges specific to large scale paid search. We discussed the $6.8 billion CDW’s search program of more than 100,000 active search ads and the “long tail” of search terms, noting that the 100,000 active ads are the “survivors” after testing more than 500,000. Vargo noted