Archive for the ‘Internet Advertising’ Category

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Pay Per Click Under Criticism Again

Friday, May 4th, 2012

Research from BloomReach puts the bounce rate (the percentage of viewers that leave a website without making a purchase) after a non-branded paid click at 55%. Over half the time a click on a paid ad goes through it fails to produce a conversion. Other studies put the bounce rate anywhere from 10% to 90%.

pay-per-click

Raj De Datta, who runs BloomReach, has a recommendation for this abysmal failure of the main (across all channels only 2.5% of a site’s visitors convert) way the social media agency does paid advertising. De Datta suggests big data is the saving grace for the social media agency. Big data, which is able to see where customers are also looking and what the demographic and past search histories have been, is able to measure exactly what the customer is looking for. The context surrounding what the customer wants is better predicted by the digital marketer.

Big data can navigate the twin polls of scale, the number of people being brought in by an ad, and profitability, which focuses on making a sale to each customer. There are an increasing number of big data apps that can offer instantaneous results about what each customer is looking for. Ideally, the ad would be creative and draw in as many people as possible and then landing page would then, via the big data app, be tailored to that unique visitor matching what that customer wants.

The main problem with the big data apps is their cost. Because most of the content on the internet is still about two years old, access to the data and mining it is still nascent and difficult. This puts successful big data apps well within the purviews of large brands. But as more time passes and the as the social media agency focuses more and more on the data that economy of scale is slipping. De Datta argues for pursuing these apps and helping to drive down the costs. Until then even the small firm can act like a big data purveyor by testing with ads and testing with landing pages narrowing to smaller and smaller distinctions among a websites users. It’s labor intensive, but the only way to combat the 55% bounce rate that plagues digital advertising.

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Handbook For Buying Brand Keywords in Search

Friday, May 4th, 2012

Brand names receive a higher CTR on search results than a generic equivalent (think ‘Kleenex’ instead of ‘facial tissue’) and so it is a common practice to input a brand’s name (even if that name is not the advertiser in question) as a keyword when buying ads. The FTC does have some rules governing mentioning a competitor by name in an ad, but the keyword buying method does not broach those rules. There are however, some best practices to follow when engaging in this method. Ted Ives is an SEO expert and he has some suggestions for the social media agency that engages in this practice.

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There is some fuzziness about what qualifies as a trademark. Google has an unwritten policy that it does not investigate the issue as long as the potential trademark is not used in the copy of the ad or if there is not a complaint filed. Despite the haziness it is a common practice to keyword a brand name, a competitor’s product name, a website and model numbers of a competitor. One error often seen though is that brands do not double-check their keywords for alternate meanings. This double entendre will create impressions that have zero chance of being clicked on, a waste of resources.

Another issue that is significant is the use of a brand’s own trademarked information within a keyword. This does sometimes happen, but it is cautioned against because it eats away at the organic potential for returns in a search engine. If the competition is tight between, then it may be worth the hit to organic listings. If the brand in question is not well known or is in a saturated market (restaurants), then it is probably worthwhile as long as the other necessary keywords are covered.

It is a complex and interesting field about managing search ads and the social media agency needs to be aware of those complexities. While the Ted Ives essay is not quite comprehensive it is a fantastic starting place with links to other more comprehensive guidebooks.

Guidelines to bidding on competitor’s brands and trademarked phrases

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Posted in Internet Advertising, advertising, google | No Comments »

AdWords for Video Now Open To All

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

Google’s AdWords for Video is the service that brings video ads to brands. Until recently, however the service was available only to large brands, but now Google has opened the service up to anyone and is particularly interested in finding small businesses to begin advertising with the service.

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YouTube offers advertisers two methods of payment. One is that the advertiser only pays if the ad is watched. Viewers are given an opportunity to opt out of an ad after a certain amount of time has ben reached. The second charging option for advertisers is to be charged only if the viewer watches at least 30 seconds of the video.

AdWords is also updating its service to help brands, especially the smaller ones that are not as experienced with the new formats. AdWords will offer an estimate of views given a certain set of advertisement parameters. The platform has also been updated to look more like the normal AdWords platform, so there is less confusion when adopting the new service. The final update is an ability to see what the viewer does after the ad is seen. If the user moves on to the brand’s channel and subscribes, then that is reported.

All of these changes will help the social media agency. Video is an increasingly effective and lucrative form of advertising. The new changes not only open up the service to many social media agencies but also allow brands to see what other actions of value might be related to individual videos.

Google AdWords for video is now open to small and medium size businesses

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Cross Channel Analytics Need To Be Implemented

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

While more difficult than the standard metrics for digital advertising ROI, Cross Channel Analytics are worth the added effort and cost. It is not uncommon for an ad on FaceBook to be clicked and then on the next few pages the customer is led astray while eventually making the sale. Few customers click on an ad and then make their way directly to the page where the sale is made but, traditional metrics measure that click and then measure a sale and draw a line directly between the two.

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Cross Channel Analytics measure the intervening steps between the sale and the initial click onto the site. The metric will measure research the customer doe, and the distractions that the customer has to fight through on the way to the sale. These metrics will also better allow the social media agency to know where a customer went astray and how to combat that distraction. This notion is Funnel Analysis and it is necessary to know how to refine early funnel and late funnel pages.

A more comprehensive analysis will also allow brands to identify unnecessary links within the funnel. The question is one of attribution, which links are doing the best work and which are the least responsible for getting the customer to a conversion. The social media agency needs to look into who can best provide these metrics. Until a more sophisticated set of metrics is employed the old metrics, clickthroughs and impressions, will still lead the agency astray.

Too Many Clicks Can’t be Tied to Revenue

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Posted in Facebook, Internet Advertising, advertising | No Comments »

Time to Reevaluate Clickthrough Rates

Friday, April 27th, 2012

The debate over the value of clickthrough rates (CTRs) is heating up. Always looking for a new and better metric has been the firm comScore and now there is a new report to back up its argument. The new study contends that there is almost zero correlation between clicks and conversions. Instead of looking to CTR, the social media agency ought to instead look at hover time and ad viewability.

Clickthrough Rates

This new study only measures the metrics for display advertising. Even though there are other types of ads, display ads dominate the market so the flaw may not be significant to the study’s findings. The scope of the study is quite large: 263 million impressions over nine months and 18 advertisers.

An average of 31% of the impressions were never seen partly because they were below the fold. On some websites that number was as high as 91%. The study then measured four metrics on conversion rates. Clicks showed a correlation of .01, which is not at all close to significance. Gross impressions fared better but a still anemic .17. Viewable impressions was .35 and the top performer was ad hover/interaction at .49.

Of course, there has been mounting evidence for years, 2008 was the first serious criticism of CTR, and yet the click remains the measure by which prices and charges are given to advertisers. The social media agency may need to wait until TV-like metrics are finally deployed for internet viewers.

Clicks Don’t Correlate With Conversations

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Posted in Internet Advertising, Online Shopping, advertising | No Comments »

Google’s Trusted Store Badge

Thursday, April 26th, 2012

Google is rolling out a new icon on search results. Certain vendors will appear in search results with a medal immediately to the left of where the URL is. The medal icon is Google’s tip to the searcher that the site is a trusted store. A trusted store is supposed to make customers more at ease for ecommerce by demonstrating the site adheres to certain standards for customer protection including purchase protection.

Google Trusted Store Badge

To qualify for the status there is an application process. The business must then turn over a range of data to Google so the process is fair, not arbitrary and consistent among all the qualifying vendors. At the moment not all qualified stores are showing up with the badge, ostensibly so Google can test click results for the badges and not badged results. Google does say that participation in the program will not affect ad rankings in the AdWords process.

This is another good development for the social media agency. A small badge that can help users know firms have been transparent and satisfied certain criteria will helps users become more confident. As they have more and more beneficial experiences with ecommerce, then their overall willingness will also increase regardless of the ‘trusted store’ status of vendors. This is also not part of any new trend for unwilling vendors. The internet is increasingly making every business more transparent and this process should be encouraged. Overall it makes marketing in the internet more important, helping the social media agency.

Google Tests Trusted Store Program With AdWords

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SaveLocal Offers a Groupon Like Coupon With a Twist

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

SaveLocal is a new Groupon like service, but there is a difference that makes it different and possibly more lucrative. Groupon and Living Social are well known for their ability to bring in many new customers, because they have large databases of local customers. Of course, they also keep a hefty portion of the revenue, forcing the actual vendor to rely on upsales and sometimes unreasonable margins to cover the costs. Another issue many businesses have with the large players is the lack of data about the customers they pass along to the vendor.

savelocal

SaveLocal offers a slightly different business model. The offer is sent out only to the vendor’s email list. All of the customer data is turned over and the surcharge on the revenue is slight. SaveLocal does provide recipients of the offer a social media ability to share the offer to friends. The service is closer to what is provided by the social media agency than to what Groupon or Living Social offers.

One of the main concerns is that customers who are not new and who may have been coming in anyways are now coming in with an unnecessary discount. Of course, this assumes that those customers were already guaranteed to be repeat customers. Despite the criticisms, this is a much better offer for many firms. The social media agency could possibly incorporate this model as a way to gain new clients or, at the least, add SaveLocal to its arsenal of tools to help clients increase their customer base.

New SaveLocal Social Coupon

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Internet Advertising, advertising | No Comments »

youMusic As The New Advertising Hot Spot

Friday, April 13th, 2012

The trend in music is a decline, rapid decline, in music sales and an upswing in music being streamed. As streaming becomes cheaper for the consumer and bandwidth also becomes cheaper, then this trend will only accelerate. Proof of the inevitability of this acceleration is Billboard magazine’s recent introduction of measures from the music streaming services such as Spotify, Rdio and MOG. Billboard only measures the on demand services excluding the randomizing services like Pandora and Last.fm. Social networks are also increasingly aligned with these streaming services. All of this is very important for the social media agency because these services rely on advertising to help subsidize the costs and in some cases provide free services for users.

youmusic-logo

Increasingly these services are looking to advertisements for financial support. In 2011, these services took in $293 million from advertisers and only $171 million from user subscriptions. Spotify had limited its free trial period to 6 months, but after lower than expected conversions to its premium service, it opened up the free service to an indefinite extension. Accustream predicts the market will grow 78% in 2012.

Users want free music streaming and advertising is necessary for that. It is also useful for the advertisers because for a brief moment there is an almost undistracted listener and silent display ads can play almost continuously on mobile devices or on desktop clients of the music service. The other added benefit for advertisers is the accumulated data about user demographics as well as preferences and how those preferences might change depending on contexts. While still nascent, streaming music is and will continue to be a lucrative outlet for the social media agency looking to associate brands in users minds.

New Music Advertising

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Posted in Internet Advertising, advertising, music | No Comments »

Competition Among Online Advertising Raters

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

Both Nielsen and comScore are working on metrics for online advertising, which will propel them to be the premier advertising ratings agency. What is happening in the hunt is something advertisers have never had before: competition. Both have campaigns geared towards measuring reach and frequency while accounting for demographic information. As of now it looks that comScore might have a superior measurement in its Validated Campaign Essentials program, but that will only make Nielsen upgrade its metrics.

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This is all very exciting news for the social media agency. Nielsen’s monopoly of TV ratings has led to some criticisms that there is not an accurate method to measure the reach of TV advertisings. The inaccurate measure then makes advertisers pay more for their ads than they return in sales. Not only does a good metric help digital advertisers, but competition among those metrics will help keep those metrics honest and protect advertiser’s ROI.

Until the latest updates from the different agencies there is one difference the social media agency needs to be aware of. Nielsen has access to FaceBook data and comScore does not. However, that is not a solid tip towards Nielsen as the nighttime viewing hours usually have many members of a family logged into a single FaceBook account. There are other differences among the different metrics, but for now that is the one of most significance to digital advertisers. As the competition heats up, then the firms will revamp and refine their approaches all making for a better environment for advertisers.

Online Advertising Intensifies

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Internet Advertising, advertising | No Comments »

Yahoo Slashes 2,000 Jobs

Monday, April 9th, 2012

Scott Thompson was named CEO of Yahoo three months ago. He came from the world of PayPal and was supposed to be a signal that Yahoo was looking for a reorientation. It’s a no-brainer that Yahoo has lost the battle over search and social to Google and FaceBook, but not necessarily the battle over display advertising. On Wednesday Thompson announced that Yahoo would be slashing jobs as it also slashes its offerings in an effort to be really good at one thing instead of mediocre at 1,000.

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It appears that Yahoo is going after video content and the display advertising panacea that comes along with it. This is not to say that Yahoo is looking to displace YouTube. Rather, Yahoo wants to be instrumental in cord cutting as the destination people go to for their usual TV content.

Yahoo has already inked a deal with ABC News and hopes to do more. There is also original video content in the works. More content, especially original content, will help drive more people to Yahoo and the ad inventory Yahoo displays. The social media agency that advertises with Yahoo should, in time, see improved numbers. There might also be opportunities for the creative agency to help with the original content and drive more people to conversion sites independent of the Yahoo networks.

Thompson’ experience with PayPal, a service more focused on partnerships with other brands instead of the usual stand-alone orientation of Yahoo, should also help the social media agency. We can expect to find Yahoo much more cooperative and interested in helping out partners. It will take time for Yahoo to revamp that orientation and make products more suitable, but the payoff should be nice.

Yahoo Makes Slashes

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