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Salesforce Report Looks At Social Media Ad CPM Trends

Salesforce released its Social.com Q1 2015 Advertising Benchmark Report, analyzing data from over a trillion ad impressions and hundreds of millions of dollars in ad spend across Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

According to the report, the overall CPM decreased by 11% globally to #3.30, which the company says reflects normal seasonal trends (with higher costs in Q4 due to the holidays). In the U.S., the overall CPM for Facebook decreased quarter-over-quarter to #3.72, while CTR increased to 0.86%, suggesting a “healthy engagement” level with Facebook ads.

Here’s a look at global Facebook ad trends:

“Mobile apps are a critical component of how consumers spend their time; according to Yahoo, 88% of the time that consumers spend on mobile devices is spent in apps, totaling 37:28 hours per month, according to Neilsen,” writes Zachary Reiss-Davis on the Salesforce blog. “Overall, New Zealand and Sweden were the most expensive countries to run mobile app install campaigns in Q1, at $6.16 and $5.28 respectively. After that is Australia ($5.22), Canada ($4.72), and then a cluster of European countries ranging from Germany to Spain. The United States ($3.04), and Japan ($2.79) follow.”

Here’s a look at how mobile app install ads, CPM & CPI vary by country:

The study found that in Q1, Desktop Feed CPM was significantly higher than Mobile Feed CPM in the U.S.

“Consumers are increasingly spending time in Facebook on a mobile device, which increases the available inventory of impressions on mobile,” says Reiss-Davis. “Several types of advertisers still focus on desktop ads, including eCommerce companies which are still using traditional re-targeting solutions on Facebook that are desktop-only instead of the brand-new Dynamic Product Ads. At the same time, the percentage of Facebook users who only use the desktop app continued to drop, reaching a low of 14.7% in Q1, down from 16.2% in Q4 and 24.1% in Q1 2014.”

While still fairly new to the game, the Facebook Audience Network also gets a look in the report:

You can find the full report here.

Images via Salesforce

July 8, 2015
This Ad Tool Just Won Facebook’s Innovation Competition

Facebook announced the winners of its annual Innovation Competition aimed at recognizing Facebook Marketing Partners who have “developed new solutions to solve unique obstacles for advertisers in different verticals.”

The top honor went to adMixt for its creation of self-serve ad tool Flightplan. The product combines dynamic product ads and local awareness ads to promote locally-available products to people when they’re near a physical store.

“Using local inventory data and dynamic retargeting, Flightplan empowers retail companies with multiple locations to build national and global ad campaigns with local relevance,” Facebook said. “Flightplan earned the top award for helping to solve a pressing problem in the retail industry: connecting the online and offline retail experience.”

In a celebratory blog post, adMixt said this about the tool: “Known for their white-glove managed-services, Flightplan is the first SaaS platform from the adMixt team. Providing programmatic management for retail and e-commerce campaigns, Flightplan leverages the latest native ad formats to drive conversions using dynamic product retargeting and geo-fenced local awareness ads. Rather than compete against general-purpose marketing toolsets, Flightplan distills adMixt’s years of experience into a solution purpose-built for commerce.”

Flightplan is currently in beta, and advertisers can apply for access.

Facebook also recognized the following for “excellence in innovation”: Brand Networks’ Collision Management, Datalogix’s Relevancy Engine, Kenshoo’s Digtizing Circulars, and Smartly.io’s Dynamic Image Template.

Images via Facebook, adMixt

July 7, 2015
Google Adds Engagement Columns In Reporting For Lightbox Ads

Google announced that it is adding three new columns to AdWords Display reporting later this month. It says these will give advertisers who use Lightbox ads an easier way to view engagements, engagement rate, and average CPE metrics.

Google said in a note on the AdWords Google+ page:

These new columns will help advertisers easily differentiate engagement metrics (when someone expands your Lightbox ad) from click metrics (when someone clicks on your Lightbox ad in the expanded state).

For all your Lightbox ad campaigns, the following metrics will be moved into the new columns:

+Expansions will be moved from “Clicks” to the Engagements column.

+Expansion rate will be moved from “CTR” to the Engagement rate column.

+Average cost of expansions will be moved from “Avg. CPC” to the Avg. CPE column.

The company also notes that Click metrics columns will now refer to clicks from the Lightbox ad in its expanded state to a landing page. Advertisers are not billed for these.

Learn more about creating Lightbox ads here.

Images via Google

July 7, 2015
Bing Ads Home Page Gains Highly Requested Features

Microsoft had added customized modules and period-over-period comparison features to the Bing Ads homepage. According to the company, these have been the two most requested features since a recent Bing Ads revamp.

The new features are designed to make it easier to do more in less time when it comes to monitoring accounts and finding ways to improve performance.

“You can define your own modules to customize your performance data by applying filters, making campaign maintenance faster and easier,” explains Microsoft’s Bella Jin. “And now when you create and save a filter in the Campaigns page, it will appear as an optional new module in the Home Page. Use these custom modules to get a more detailed snapshot of your account performance and the metrics that matter to you most.”

Custom modules can be created by creating and saving a filter in the Campaigns page and adding the module to the Home Page by checking Show.

“Many of you are frequent users of the period-over-period comparison functionality in Bing Ads’ Campaign Page and Reports suite, which compares your ad’s performance between two periods of time,” says Jin in a blog post. “Now, the Bing Ads Home Page also offers period-over-period comparisons so that you can view performance over time for your account’s top performing KPIs and identify trends.”

More on this and other tracking features can be found in the help center here.

July 6, 2015
Facebook Points To Neuromarketing Research To Illustrate That Mobile Is More Effective Than TV For Ads

Facebook recently released a study it commissioned from neuromarketing agency SalesBrain looking at how people’s brains respond to ads on smartphones versus televisions. It’s certainly worth noting that much of Facebook’s business depends on people buying mobile ads, but the findings indicate that smartphone-based content tends to resonate more.

Specifically, the study looked at how the brain responds via engagement, attention, emotion, and retention. They divided participants into two groups. The first group was shown ads ranging from movie trailers to brand ads at 30 to 120 seconds in length, first on televisions then on smartphones. The second group viewed the ads in the opposite order.

According to Facebook, people were more attentive and felt more positively toward what they saw on smartphones compared to TV. They found that people were more distracted and had to work harder to process what they were consuming on TV.

“We found that overall mobile was on par with TV with regards to emotional intensity and engagement,” said Helen Crossley, Head of Audience Insighs at Facebook IQ. “Having said that, emotions and engagement were significantly higher for a couple of the ads. People were equally likely to be as engaged on mobile as they were on TV. As an added layer on top of the neuro research, we also saw an uplift in message recall when participants viewed the stimuli on TV followed by viewing it on a smartphone.”

“We did not expect that the mobile viewing experience would produce more positive emotions. This was surprising,” said Dr. Christophe Morin, Founder and CEO of SalesBrain. “You would assume that because the TV screen is larger than a smartphone screen that the bigger screen would yield a more positive emotional response. It seems that when viewing a stimulus our neurological systems don’t really require a grandiose experience to feel a response. Overall, the more data that we seem to be exposed to, the more effort is placed on our brain. And, in some way, due to its size, the smartphone may provide a more efficient, less energy-demanding experience.”

“It is our conclusion that the smartphone experience is more immersive than the experience of TV viewing overall,” he added. “When the same ad stimulus played on a smartphone, the reaction was greater than TV on both attention and positive emotion, and, to some degree, on engagement, which was quite remarkable.”

While the conclusions drawn by the study definitely suit Facebook’s best interests as a business, they also make sense when you think about how likely you are to look at your phone while you’re watching TV. How often has your phone distracted you from your TV viewing? How often has your TV distracted you from your phone? I bet the former has happened a lot more.

The people behind the study discuss it more on the Facebook IQ site.

Images via Facebook

July 6, 2015
Interstitials May Start Hurting Your Search Rankings

Ahead of Google’s mobile-friendly update in in April, there was talk around the SEO industry that interstitials (content that appears over top of a page, which impedes the process of getting to the desired page) could be looked upon as hurting the mobile user experience, and therefore hurt webmasters in in rankings as Google started to take into account the mobile experience.

Do you think sites should be penalized in search results for interstitials? Let us know what you think.

Eric Enge at Stone Temple Consulting posted a new interview with Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Mariya Moeva. They talk about a number of topics related to mobile apps and Google’s treatment of them. At one point, Enge asks if implementing an interstitial to drive people to sign up for your app will negatively impact mobile rankings, and if that’s something people should stay away from. Here’s Moeva’s response:

Speaking as a user myself, I have yet to see an interstitial that brought me some useful info and was more important than what I was originally trying to do. They’re disruptive and can be frustrating, especially if you show them right on the first page the user ever sees from your site. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so (:

We see app install interstitials bother users, so we’re looking into ways of addressing that; stay tuned for more news.

As Enge points out in an editor’s note, Google’s Maile Ohye talked a little about this at the recent SMX Advanced search conference. Here’s an excerpt from a blog post by Jennifer Slegg about Ohye’s comments:

We have known for a couple of months that Google was planning to add interstitials as a negative ranking factor in an upcoming mobile friendly algo, but it appears that the same will be coming to the regular search results too.

Maile Ohye from Google warned webmasters at SMX Advanced that they will also be bringing up the issue of interstitials and how pages that use them will be affected. “Interstitials are bad for users, so be aware this is something we are thinking about,” she said.

She then continued on to say that content hidden behind interstitials would be devalued.

In its mobile SEO guide, Google explicitly says to “avoid interstitials.”

“Many websites show interstitials or overlays that partially or completely cover the contents of the page the user is visiting,” it says. “These interstitials, commonly seen on mobile devices promoting a website’s native app, mailing list sign-up forms, or advertisements, make for a bad user experience. In extreme cases, the interstitial is designed to make it very difficult for the user to dismiss it and view the real content of the page. Since screen real-estate on mobile devices is limited, any interstitial negatively impacts the user’s experience.

It is strange then that on its Think With Google Site, the company touts “Interactive Interstitial Ads,” which it says can “Make your brand stand out” as the ad “appears inside apps and gives users a full screen experience.”

That page tells you that you’d use interstitials for two reasons:

– Rich media ads engage more uers than basic text or image ads

– Google’s app interstitials offer mobile advertisers great interactivity in eye-catching placements.

Another mixed message from Google.

Either way, interstitials are employed by many websites and apps. They can help the viewability problem in advertising and are a key component in getting sign-ups. If businesses have to worry about losing their search visibility as a result of using them, it could be a major blow to those who have seen significant results from them in the past.

Interstitials are often directly linked to monetizing content – particularly higher quality content as it’s more expensive to produce. Sometimes they actually go so far as to provide the entry to that content by way of logging in for sites that require subscriptions. Sites like this, at least when it comes to media publications, tend to have high quality content, because if they didn’t, users would have no reason to subscribe. Google is supposed to be all about the high quality content, right?

Do you think interstitials should lead to content being devalued in Google? Let us know what you think.

June 30, 2015
Facebook Has a New Video Ad Option That Only Charges Advertisers After 10 Seconds of Viewing

What amounts to a video “view” on Facebook? For regular videos, Facebook will give it an official view if it’s watched for three seconds. For video ads, a “view” is really an impressions for advertisers.

Facebook’s video ads structure charges advertisers for each impression their ad receives. And since Facebook autoplays videos in the news feed, all someone has to do is scroll past an ad and the advertisers is charged.

As a marketer, it’s easy to see why this isn’t exactly an ideal situation. There’s really no way to know if that “impression” really amounts to any viewing time – or simply a blip as someone hastily scrolls past.

That all changes today, as Facebook has made a bold play to grab the attention of potential video advertisers.

The Wall Street Journal reports that advertisers will now be able to choose another payment structure – one that allows them to pay only when their ads are viewed for at least 10 seconds.

Ten seconds is a lifetime when it comes to social media posts.

But Facebook, in confirming the report, says that the new 10-second option isn’t the best option, in its opinion.

“We strongly believe in giving marketers flexibility over how they buy video ads, and we listened to feedback which is why we’re offering the new cost-per-view option. We don’t believe it’s the best option in terms of capturing the best value and brand objectives marketers care about, but we want to give them control and choice over how they buy,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

Of course, the 10-second ad option could end up costing advertisers more during the auction phase. And that’s probably what Facebook’s getting at here.

But when you think about it, advertisers could end up reaping five to nine second views on their video ads and not being charged. And if someone watches your video ad for 10 or more seconds, at least you know you might’ve made a real impression.

It’s a big play against YouTube, but YouTube still offers more options. YouTube’s TrueView option, for instance, let’s marketers only pay if a viewer sticks around for 30 seconds. Plus, advertising on YouTube means you can place your ad inside videos that people are there to watch anyway. On Facebook, it’s much easier to avoid video ads – for now. Facebook is investing in much more content that would better house video advertising.

Twitter has also recently defined their video ad structure. The company just introduced autoplay, and will only charge advertisers when a promoted video is completely in view (not cut off at the top of bottom by a user’s scrolling) and when it is played for at least three seconds.

June 30, 2015
What Marketers Should Know About The AOL-Bing Deal

Microsoft and AOL announced a major agreement which sees AOL assuming management and sales responsibilities for all of Microsoft’s display, mobile, and video ad inventory across the U.S., U.K., Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan. AOL will run the ads across Microsoft’s MSN homepage and verticals, Outlook Mail, Xbox, Skype, and in apps.

The two companies also made a ten-year global search and search advertising deal, which sees Bing power search for AOL (across all screens) starting at the beginning of next year.

Will this deal have any impact on your approach to search marketing? Share your thoughts in the comments.

“We have enjoyed a terrific relationship with Microsoft, and this expanded partnership is a win for both companies and our advertiser partners as our industry continues to rapidly transform and evolve,” said AOL President Bob Lord. “This collaboration further validates our leadership position in digital advertising and the shift to automation, while also allowing Microsoft to focus on what they do best: industry leading services and search innovation.”

“This deal is further evidence of the quality of Bing results and the performance of the Bing Ads marketplace,” said Rik van der Kooi, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft. “And we will continue our focus on delivering world class consumer services and content and look forward to partnering with AOL to market them.”

Bing controls 20% of the search market share in the U.S., and this will serve as a key partnership for growth. There hasn’t been much change in the market for several months. Google still has 64%.

Google has been the search engine powering AOL search for many years, so this is another significant partner that Google is losing. It already lost Firefox (in the U.S.) to Yahoo.

Danny Sullivan, who has been covering the search industry as long as anyone, recalls: “When Google first won the AOL deal back in 2002, it was a huge deal for that company. Google was still up-and-coming; AOL had substantial search traffic. Google managed to renew the deal every time it came up since, such as in 2010. But no more.”

“That’s no great loss for Google, however,” he adds. “AOL has only about 1% of the search traffic in the US, versus Google’s 65%. Google will likely not notice the loss. Potentially, the company didn’t even fight for or hard to renew the deal. The loss even helps Google argue that it’s not as completely dominant in search as it’s often criticized for.”

He still goes on to say that it’s a “great win for Bing”.

To me, it doesn’t seem like anything that’s a great win for Bing should be downplayed too much for Google, particularly considering that it is losing other distribution partners, and Apple is moving further and further into its own universe.

Keep in mind that as of last week, AOL is owned by Verizon, so there may be a lot of new opportunities for AOL to get its various offerings in front of more people. It’s not unthinkable that its search functionality, which will eventually be powered by Bing, could see an increase in usage.

What Does This Mean for Marketers?

More than anything, what the deal means for marketers is an increased distribution of their Bing marketing efforts. That goes for SEO and paid search efforts. Here’s a look at an AOL search results page right now:

It’s basically a Google results page with AOL’s logo and some minor cosmetic changes. You can easily imagine this as the Bing alternative.

“Many Search advertisers are growing their audience reach by advertising on multiple publishers,” says Hoiling Wong at Marin Software. “While Google may still be the dominant force in the market, Bing is quickly growing. An April 2015 study conducted by Merkle | RKG shows that spend in Bing for Q1 2015 grew 36%, compared to Google’s 13%.”

With a deal like this, it stands to reason that growth will only continue.

“The extended reach combined with the controls within Bing Ads will give marketers opportunities to reach even more customers at the right ROI,” says Bing in a blog post about the AOL deal. “We’re excited about our partnership with AOL and will continue to evaluate additional partners to bring new opportunities to our customers.”

Microsoft’s Bing Ads business is doing better than you probably thought. The company said this week that it’s a multibillion dollar business, and that it’s critical that it continues to monetize it. That means they’re going to focus on making Bing Ads better and more effective than ever, and with AOL handling the display ad duties, that should be easier for them to do.

Those looking to drop their dollars on search ads look to Bing as the first alternative. That alternative is bound to become more attractive as time goes on.

Do you expect to increase your Bing budget? Let us know in the comments.

Images via Bing, AOL

June 30, 2015
Google Starts Blocking These Types Of Ad Clicks

Google just announced a step it’s taking to reduce the amount of accidental clicks on its mobile ads by blocking certain types of clicks. Specifically, it will block clicks that happen close to the image edge, as well as clicks on the app icon, in addition to adding a clickability delay.

“Even as smartphone and tablet screen sizes get bigger, it can be hard for our fingers to keep up,” says Google mobile display ads product manager Pasha Nahass. “It’s still so easy to click when you mean to swipe or to tap on a link or ad you didn’t mean to. When it comes to mobile ad clicks across networks, recent third party studies estimate that up to 50% of clicks are accidental. For advertisers, this can artificially inflate clickthrough rates and increase costs.”

“As we continue to enhance our display ad formats to make them more engaging, we also strive to maximize click quality,” Nahass adds. “In 2012, we introduced confirmed clicks on banner ads to prompt users to verify that they actually meant to click on an ad. Over the past year, we’ve expanded on those efforts to provide greater automation and require less work from users.”

Now, on mobile image ads, users will have to click on a more central part of the image to get to the advertiser’s site or app rather than hitting the area near the border, which Google has determined is prone to accidental clicks.

On in-app interstitial ads, users won’t be able to click the app icon of an install ad because of its proximity to the ad close button. Rather, users will have to click on the call-to-action button to go to the app store page and install the app.

As for the delay, ads will become clickable only after they’ve been onscreen for an unspecified but “short” period of time, giving users time to look at the ad’s content. Google says this will eliminate accidental clicks from those who didn’t expect to see an ad.

All of this is designed to reduce costs to advertisers so they don’t have to pay for unintentional garbage clicks. As a result, conversion rates should improve. In fact, Google says it’s already seen a 15% average conversion rate hike on ads that have included these updates.

Image via Google

June 25, 2015
New Facebook Ad Format Could Greatly Increase Conversions

Facebook is testing a new ad unit called Lead Ads, which enable users to fill out forms on mobile with a few taps of the finger.

A Facebook spokesperson tells WebProNews in an email, “Until now, filling out forms on mobile has been tedious. Lead ads allows people to avoid a lot of the pain points, like having to leave one app and start a form in another app, and having to enter all of their information from scratch. Just a few taps and people are done.”

As you can see from the image, it’s basically a three-step process for the user, and even the third step is simply completing the action.

The ads automatically populate contact information like email addresses that users have already given Facebook. Some of the ads let people sign up for things like newsletters, price estimates, follow-calls and business info. They use a native signup flow within Facebook.

As the company explains in a post on its business blog, “Like our other ad formats, we’ve built this ad type with privacy in mind. People can edit their contact information, and information isn’t sent to the business until a person clicks the ‘submit’ button. Advertisers may only use this information in accordance with their privacy policies, which we make available in the lead ad before people click submit. Advertisers are also restricted from re-selling lead information to third parties.”

The ads could go a long way in increasing conversions because Facebook’s right. Forms, particularly on mobile, can be a pretty big pain in the butt, and the less the user has to do, the more likely they are to go through with the action you’re seeking from them.

For now, the testing of the new format is only limited to a small group of businesses, but in various parts of the world. It’s unclear when the company might expand the test.

Image via Facebook

June 25, 2015
Here’s Why It’s Getting Harder To Ignore Instagram For Marketing

Instagram unveiled some improvements to its mobile apps this week, which could help marketers increase their visibility on the popular social network, which is increasingly becoming the “go-to social network” for a younger generation. New trending content and search features could help businesses attract more eyeballs.

Do you think Instagram’s new features can help you improve your marketing strategy? Share your thoughts in the comments.

New Marketing Opportunities

Despite its popularity, Instagram has never been great from a content discovery perspective, but that’s changing with these new features. As content becomes easier to discover, marketers have some new opportunities on their hands with a network that has already shown to be great for user engagement with brands.

There’s a new Explore page with trending tags and places and a more powerful search experience making it easier for users to find people, places, and tags. The new Explore experience includes trending tags and places as they emerge in real time.

“Through trending Tags and trending Places, you can experience moments like #bonnaroo or #fathersday from every perspective,” Instagram says in a blog post. “Rich visual content captures everyone’s unique take — not just what the community is talking about, but also what they’re doing and seeing.”

The trends are frequently refreshed based on what’s popular at the moment. If you’ve enabled location services on your phone, it may show you places nearby.

There are collections at the top of the Explore page, which feature interesting accounts and places in various categories. The content in the collections is editorially chosen by Instagram. They choose new topics to feature twice a week that it thinks the larger Instagram community will like.

The company says it’s always working to update the types of photos and videos it shows in Search & Explore to better tailor it for users, and may show photos liked by people whose posts the user has liked or posts that are liked by a large number of people. Note that just because you see a post in Search & Explore doesn’t mean everyone else is seeing it.

The new search experience is where the real potential is though.

“For everyone on Instagram, we’ve dramatically improved the ability to find what you’re looking for,” the company says. “With the new Places Search, you can now peer in at just about any location on earth, allowing you to scout out your next vacation spot in the South Pacific, get a look inside that hot new restaurant or experience your favorite music festival — even if you couldn’t make it this year. The new Top Search also lets you search across people, places and tags all at once.”

If your’e a brick and mortar business, the place search feature can surface your business and photos from users showing it off. You might encourage customers to share pics from your establishment.

The tag search feature can surface popular tags based on keywords, even displaying just how popular they are. Hashtags are already a major part of Instagram marketing, so there’s obvious potential here.

The new features are available in updates to the iOS and Android apps. It’s unclear if and when they’ll come to the web experience, which recently got its own revamp. The new Explore will only be available in the U.S. for now, but will launch in more countries eventually.

Big Engagement, Slow Adoption

A few months ago, we looked at a study from Yesmail, which found that while brands on Instagram experienced a 278% growth in followers in 2014, the number of brands adopting the platform was still quite low. The firm analyzed over 2,000 brands on social platforms and found that only 23% were on Instagram.

“Restaurants lead the Instagram-adoption rate, beating CPG, retail and hotel brands. However, only 31 percent of restaurants are on Instagram, compared to a whopping 86 percent of restaurants using Facebook and Twitter,” a spokesperson for Yesmail told WebProNews. “With 300 million users and 70 million photos and videos shared daily, Instagram’s high level of consumer engagement should motivate brands to adopt the platform.”

It found that hotel adoption of Instagram is about 30.8%, while retailer adoption and CPG adoption are at 23% and 16% respectively. Retailers included in the research saw an 8% increase in followers per month, on average. That’s double the rate of other social platforms, according to Yesmail. 80% of brands from the research have Facebook pages, while 82% are active on Twitter, 60% engage on YouTube, and over a third have a Google+ profile.

A newer study (from last week) from Yesmail found Instagram to be significantly better than Facebook for retailers when it comes o increasing follower counts.

“The report indicates that although Facebook is the status-quo, it is not the most effective social media platform,” a spokesperson for the firm tells WebProNews. “Retailers hoping to amplify their social media presence should explore new channels and invest in campaign metric tools.”

The study looked at the beauty, apparel, big box, electronics, and home goods categories across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Google+. Out of those analyzed, 91% have a presence on two or more social channels.

Apparel retailers in particular saw an average follower growth of 417% on Instagram last year. Apparel brands were also the most socially connected with 86% on four or more social channels and 60% present on all five channels tracked.

91% of brands were on Twitter, while 79% used YouTube, and just 43% were using Instagram despite its potential for follower growth.

According to the new study, the average follower growth rate for brands on Instagram is 237%.

“The focus on Facebook made sense years ago, but Yesmail Market Intelligence illustrated how follower growth for that channel has plateaued for most retail categories,” said Michael Fisher, president of Yes Lifecycle Marketing. “The answer isn’t necessarily to shift resources, but rather turn a serious eye to audience preferences and return on social investment. Social media has moved past the experimental phase, and retailers must know their audience and know the ROI of their efforts.”

It’s not just Facebook that has seen follower growth stall. It’s a similar story on Twitter. In terms of follower counts, Faceobook still had the highest by far with an average of 2.8 million fans per page. Instagram came in second with 300,000.

“Instagrammers are passionate about the platform and their love for amazing imagery. You’ll reach people who are open to new perspectives,” Instagram says on its business site. “Instagram’s simple design allows captivating visuals to take center stage. Each image or video fills the screen with nothing to clutter the experience. On Instagram your brand’s story will be surrounded by other beautiful content in a creative and inspiring environment.”

They have over 300 million monthly active users and see 2.5 billion likes and 70 million photos every day. According to a new report from BI Intelligence (citing data from Piper Jaffray), U.S. teens consider Instagram to be the most important social network – more than Twitter, Facecbook, Snapchat, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest, etc.

What does Instagram itself say about how businesses should be using it?

It just so happens that Instagram has its own content strategy tips and other tips for getting started. These are right from the corporate site:

This video from the company is a year old, but it gives marketers an idea about how to show off their brands on Instagram and engage with the community:

Instagram for Business from Instagram on Vimeo.

Instagram has a page for marketers to “find inspiration” here. It shows off the company’s “favorite examples” of brands using Instagram to “reflect their unique identifies”. it should at least give you a good idea about the type of stuff that works well. You can also check out case studies from brands like McDonald’s, Maybelline, Qantas, Chobani, Ben & Jerry’s, Mercedes-Benz, etc. here.

Is There a Science to Instagram Marketing?

Marketing on Instagram may not be a science, but this recent infographic from KISSmetrics treats it as such, and may give you a hand with your efforts:

++ Click Image to Enlarge ++

Source: The Science of Brands on Instagram (Infographic)

Advertising

While we’ve mostly been talking about unpaid marketing efforts here, Instagram is really just getting started with its paid options, and you’ll want to keep an eye out for more and more improvements and features in that area.

Earlier this month, the company announced it would start letting businesses of all sizes buy ads. Instagram first launched ads a year and a half ago on a limited basis, and has since expanded formats most recently to include carousel ads.

A New Way for Brands to Tell Stories on Instagram from Instagram on Vimeo.

Here’s a look at how early-adopting brands have used those.

The company says that across over 475 campaigns measured globally, ad recall from sponsored posts was 2.9x higher than Nielsen norms for online advertising.

Instagram will begin testing direct response ads in the coming months. These will enable users to buy products or download apps from the ads.

“People come to Instagram to follow their passions, from travel and fashion to cars and entertainment,” the company said in a blog post. “They want to see ads that reflect the things they care about. Advertisers also want to target their messages in more effective ways and reach people not just because of their age, location and gender, but because of the people, places and things they love.”

“Later this year, we will continue to connect businesses to the right people through expanded targeting options,” it added. “Working with Facebook, we will enable advertisers to reach people on Instagram based on demographics and interests, as well as information businesses have about their own customers. We will also improve the feedback mechanisms within Instagram to give people greater control and improve the relevance of the ads they see.”

The company is working to make advertising available through an Ads API and Facebook ad buying interfaces over the coming months in an effort to open op ads to businesses of all sizes. It says it will leverage the best of Facebook’s infrastructure for buying, managing, and measuring ads.

They’ll be opening the API to a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies at first, and will expand globally throughout the year.

A lot of the news in the social media advertising industry of late has been related to ecommerce, buy buttons and the like. Instagram is reportedly working on some features that could make the service a better marketing platform for ecommerce businesses hoping to attract buyers.

In which Instagram features do you see the greatest potential for marketing? Discuss.

Images via Instagram, KISSmetrics

June 25, 2015
Google Display Network Ads Expand To Google Play Music

Google introduced a new free, ad-supported streaming music service today as one tier of its Google Play Music offering. In doing so, it has opened up new opportunities for advertisers using the Google Display Network.

The service itself basically just lets you listen to curated playlists. It’s radio. We’re not talking on-demand songs like Spotify. More on the consumer service here.

“This new ad-supported version is great for advertisers interested in connecting with consumers through premium content and delightful mobile experiences,” said Google Play Music product manager Elias Roman. “This Google Play Ads inventory is available through the Google Display Network (GDN), which gives advertisers access to engaging and beautiful ad units such as TrueView video ads and Lightbox ads – all mobile-optimized, seamless across screens, and simple to set up. As part of the GDN, advertisers can use keywords, affinity audiences and remarketing to reach the right people at the right time.”

Google already has “many” advertisers utilizing the new music inventory, including Omnicom.

Steve Katelman, EVP of Global Strategic Partnerships at Omnicom had this to say about it: “We want to reach customers where they’re spending the most time, so music is a critical part of our media mix. As a launch partner for Google Play Music, Omnicom Media Group can offer our clients an invaluable head start in delivering engaging, high-impact brand messages on mobile and the web to music-loving consumers.”

Advertisers interested in getting in on this action can simply set up a campaign in AdWords or DoubleClick Bid Manager.

Image via YouTube

June 23, 2015
Facebook App Ads Get 2 New Formats

Facebook is now offering app advertisers new desktop video ads and a carousel format for mobile app ads. The former are available through both Power Editor and the Ads Create tool while the latter can be used through Power Editor, the API, and through Facebook’s Marketing Partners.

The new desktop video format works similarly to those on mobile in that they’re eligible to play automatically in News Feed, they have a persistent call-to-action over the video pop-up for ad rendering on the right-hand side of the page, and they all have an end card that appears when they’re done playing. This includes options for the user to replay the video or install the app.

Facebook lists these best practices for desktop video app ads:

– Produce initial concepts based on creative from top-performing Facebook static ads as a starting point

– Feature attention-grabbing content for at least the first 2-3 seconds

– Leverage text overlays so that sound is not required to understand the content

– Post simple and easy-to-digest video content that is very polished and engaging

– Make the creative 15-30 seconds in length and show actual gameplay

– Avoid reusing mobile creative assets for desktop as this can cause confusion

– Ensure the actual desktop landing page that the creative points to is interesting and relevant

The carousel format was already available for link ads and dynamic product ads. The new unit lets advertisers take advantage of the format (pictured at the top) for mobile app installs and mobile app engagement ads. You can feature up to five images within the unit. Facebook itself will optimize the order of the images based on relevance to each person.

This week, Facebook also announced the first major update to Ads Manager and Power Editor since they launched.

Images via Facebook

June 19, 2015
These Marketing Tools Are Tapping Into The New Pinterest Ads API

In April, Pinterest announced its Marketing Developer Partners (MDP) program with the goal of helping businesses get more value of their Pinterest efforts.

“The program helps businesses optimize and scale their Pinterest marketing and improve Pinterest for Pinners,” a spokesperson for Pinterest told us. “The initial MPD program is made up of a limited, carefully selected group of developer partners who meet the needs of existing businesses on Pinterest and align with Pinterest’s core value of putting Pinners first.”

These partners include: Ahalogy, Buffer, Curalate, Expion, Newscred, Percolate, Shoutlet, Spredfast, Sprinklr and Tailwind.

At the time, Pinterest also said it was in the early days of testing its Ads API in the U.S. in an effort to help advertisers optimize their campaigns and find “sustained success” on Pinterest. The company is now talking more about this, and has revealed the first MDPs using the API. These include: 4C, Adaptly, Ampush, Brand Networks, HYFN, Kinetic Social, SocialCode and SocialFlow.

“We selected these partners because they’re building tools that address the immediate needs of Pinterest marketers and share in our vision of creating a better discovery experience for Pinners,” says Pinterest’s Jyri Kidwell. “We’re already hearing lots of positive things from businesses working with our MDPs.”

Jody Ford, VP of global growth at eBay, for example, said, “We want to make eBay relevant to consumers at the moment they’re inspired to shop, and Pinterest enables us to put the right content in front of the right people. By working with one of Pinterest’s Marketing Developer Partners, eBay can buy Promoted Pins to promote interesting trends and topics with Pinterest users, making them instantly shoppable. And we’re encouraged by early results, which have shown a significant increase in traffic from Pinterest to eBay.”

According to Pinterest, Adore Me, a lingerie brand, saw a whopping 4000% increase in Pinterest-referred revenue after working with 4C, using the Ads API. They have a case study on the brand available here.

Image via Pinterest

June 18, 2015
Google Adds Cross-Device Measurement To DoubleClick

Google just announced that it’s bringing cross-device measurement to DoubleClick to enable advertisers to measure all of their campaigns across the web.

Cross-device conversions are Google’s estimates based on aggregated and anonymized data from users who have previously signed in to Google.

Google wants advertisers to capture “leaked” conversions from their campaigns, which include when some “micro moments” take place on various devices. Google recently launched a Micro Moments resource site, which provides insights to help marketers better understand how people are interacting with their business.

Google is now sharing conversion uplift benchmarks for various industries and in four countries. As the company explains, these are additional conversions that would otherwise not have been attributed to AdWords when using single-device measurement methods.

“Consumer behavior is undergoing a massive shift: the consumer journey has fragmented from a series of predictable media sessions to hundreds of ‘micro-moments,’ where people turn to the nearest device to solve an immediate need,” Google explains in a blog post. “Our goal is to help marketers put the puzzle pieces of the consumer journey back together, which is why we’ve been investing in cross-device technologies for the last two years. Since the delivery of cross-device reporting in AdWords last year, advertisers around the world have seen an uplift in conversions reported when including cross-device data.”

Here’s a look at leaked conversions:

Google has a “best practices” checklist for optimizing across devices in AdWords here.

Images via Google

June 17, 2015
Twitter Announces Autoplay Video, Defines What Constitutes a ‘Play’

Twitter is taking the plunge already taken by fellow social networks Facebook and Instagram. Starting today, autoplay videos are coming to Twitter.

This has been a long time coming for Twitter, which has been debating the merits of autoplay for a while now. Of course, offering autoplay video is a great selling point for potential advertisers – but many users find autoplay intrusive. Twitter has been testing the feature for months. Today, it begins to go live.

Videos, Vines, and GIFs will now autoplay on iOS and desktop. Autoplay is coming to Android soon. Videos will autoplay without sound, and users can enter fullscreen mode (with sound) by clicking on the media.

Videos will also be larger and more prominent in your Twitter timeline:

“Starting today, videos will appear in a larger, more media-centric format in timelines. During the autoplay tests we ran, we saw people engaging with videos in this new format at a much higher rate, and our brand and publishing partners saw improved view rates. All of this resulted in lower cost-per-views for marketers and increased video recall by consumers,” says the company.

Twitter is also implementing a new standard for what constitutes a video play. Twitter will only charge advertisers when a promoted video is completely in view (not cut off at the top of bottom by a user’s scrolling) and when it is played for at least three seconds. From Twitter:

As with all of our ad products, we’ve made sure that Promoted Videos on Twitter will continue to deliver high impact, high engagement and meaningful views for our advertising partners. To that end, we’re approaching how we measure, report and charge for video views with complete transparency.

We’re delivering on a new standard for how brands will be charged for a video view. Starting today we’ll only consider a view on Twitter chargeable when a video is 100% in-view on the user’s device, and has been watched for at least 3 seconds. We’re putting this standard of 100% viewability in place because we think it’s simply the right thing to do. If a video is not 100% in-view, we don’t think an advertiser should be charged.

According to Twitter, you’re going to love autoplay if you’re an advertiser – but you’re also going to love autoplay if you’re just a regular user.

Twitter says that in tests, users were 2.5 time more likely to prefer autoplay than click-to-play videos. But if you don’t love it, Twitter is letting you opt out in your settings.

We’ll see. I’m sure the next few days will see plenty of feedback from the Twitter population.

June 16, 2015
Bing Sheds Light On Yahoo Click Volume

Last month, Microsoft and Yahoo announced some changes to their ongoing search and advertising partnership. Under the new terms, Yahoo would gain increased flexibility to enhance its own search experience on any platform. Also as part of the agreement, Microsoft would be the exclusive salesforce for ads delivered by its own Bing Ads platform, and Yahoo would continue to be the exclusive salesforce for its Yahoo Gemini platform.

Some Bing Ads advertisers have wondered what the amended deal means for Yahoo click volume. Microsoft has been listening.

“We have heard from many of you, our customers, that there is interest in understanding the actual Yahoo click volume being served through Bing Ads today in relation to the increased flexibility Yahoo received starting May 1st,” says John Cosley from the Bing Ads team.

“Bing Ads continues today to deliver ad clicks against 99% of Yahoo PC traffic and nearly 90% of Mobile/Tablet traffic,” he adds. “As a result, Yahoo click volume served through Bing Ads remains stable, averaging 99% of Yahoo’s April baseline across all devices in the U.S. The 1% movement is normal and expected. Bing Ads marketplace performance will be subject to small changes, both positive and negative, each week-on-week due to the seasonality of queries.”

They’ve set up a page where you can better get an understanding of Yahoo click volume changes as time goes on. Cosley says the page will be updated with new data each week.

Image via Bing

June 12, 2015
Google Updates Shopping Feed Specification, Product Taxonomy

Google announced that it has updated its Google Shopping Feed Specification and its Google Product Taxonomy in order to create a “richer” experience for those searching for products online as well as to simplify the process for merchants.

Updates require merchants to change their current product data, and they’ll have until September 15 to do so. Here’s a list of all the specific updates via the AdWords blog:

Google Shopping Feed Specification

– Units & Quantity attributes are now available for the US

– We tightened guiding principles around the ID Attribute and GTINs

– We disentangled Apparel and Variants attributes and expanded the requirements to Brazil. This revamped section is called: ‘Detailed Product Attributes and Item Groupings’

– We are releasing stable numeric Google Product Category IDs that can also be provided as values for the Google Product Category attribute

– We expanded the Shipping requirements to Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Japan to enable total price displays to users in these countries

Google Shopping Product Taxonomy

– We simplified many Google Product Taxonomy paths by rolling up a number of categories to their parent nodes

– Most of the categories under Activewear are now included with their non-active counterparts, for example, ‘Active Skirts’ will now be found under ‘Skirts’

– We added more categories to the verticals ‘Food, Beverages & Tobacco’ and ‘Mature’

– Some verticals have undergone significant rework, and you may wish to revisit your provided Google Product Categories

Starting on the date mentioned above, Google will start enforcing the feed specification update other than for shipping. Enforcement of that won’t begin until February 1.

The Product Taxonomy changes aren’t required. They’re just recommended. More on the updates here.

June 9, 2015
Study Shows Mobile Video Is Bigger Than You Thought

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has a new study out finding that long-form video is doing well on mobile screens. The study looks at data from 24 countries, and finds that 36% of smartphone users say they watch videos that are five minutes or longer on their phones on a daily basis if not more frequently. Many watch even longer videos, such as movies, on their mobile devices regularly.

In general, more and more smartphone users are watching more video of all lengths on their devices than they were a year ago. That includes 50% of those in the United States, 42% in Canada, 42% in New Zealand, 42% in South Africa, and 40% in the United Kingdom. According to the IAB, users are watching so much video on their mobile devices that it’s starting to have a significant impact on television viewing. This is especially the case in China and Singapore, where 37% and 35% of respondents respectively said they’re watching less TV due to streaming more on mobile. 22% across countries (excluding Japan) are regularly watching video on their phones even while watching TV.

“The popularity of digital video is evident across small screens the world over,” said Anna Bager, Senior Vice President Mobile and Video at the IAB, who is also General Manager of the IAB Digital Video and Mobile Marketing Centers of Excellence. “The fact that people are not only watching short snippets of programming, but committing to longer form content on their phones, opens doors for brands to be part of this impressive mobile engagement. However, the finding that viewers around the world are now video dual screening while watching TV, points to an emerging challenge for marketers: How do you grab a viewer’s attention when it’s divided between two simultaneous video feeds?”

The study found that 62% of users discover video on their phones via YouTube, while 33% discover it via social media platforms, 20% via search results, and 14% via advertising. Advertising has a higher incluence in the U.S. and Canada at 22% and 18% respectively.

Making an even bigger case for content providers to take advantage of Google’s App Indexing, apps are the “indisputably” the main method for viewing mobile video in all markets, according to the study. Nearly half said they only or mostly leverage mobile apps to stream video on their phones. Only 18% said they only or mostly use websites to view video.

28% of users said they frequently see ads on mobile video that they’ve already seen on TV. Over 80% in most markets expressed interest in tailored ads versus non-tailoring of ads. The IAB points to this as evidence of the need for relevance of ads to the video being watched, particularly in the U.S. and Canada.

“Audiences around the world are overwhelmingly open to mobile video advertisements that relate to their context and viewing patterns,” said Joe Laszlo, Senior Director of the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence. “Clearly, this is a real boon to global marketers that want to ensure they reach the audience segments most likely to be interested in their products or services.”

In China, 33% of users indicated they’re willing to pay for video content streamed to their phones. The numbers are 25% for the U.K., 23% for Canada, 23% for the U.S., and 21% for Australia. Even still, 78% said they’d rather have free mobile video supported by ads.

Image via IAB

June 8, 2015
Google Brand Lift Now Looks At Consideration, Favorability, Purchase Intent

Google announced that it is expanding Brand Lift, which helps marketers measure the effectiveness of display and video campaigns using survey and search data collected from targeted audiences, to include some new stuff.

Brand Lift lets marketers use insights gained from survey data to better understand how their ads are affecting people’s awareness of the brand, how well an ad is recalled, etc.

Now, Brand Lift will include measuring lift in consideration, favorability, and purchase intent for ads. The company says its survey methodology will now quickly tell advertisers who their YouTube ads resonate at different points in the customer journey.

According to Google, it will be able to tell if your ad broke through with consumers, if they’re more aware of your brand after seeing your ad, if their consideration of the brand is higher after the campaign, if consumers are more favorable towards the brand after seeing the ad, and if their intent to purchase from the brand has risen.

“Today’s consumer journey has become fragmented into micro-moments that span many channels, devices and media types,” says Brand Lift product manager Samir Pradhan. “As a brand trying to reach today’s consumer, it’s more important than ever that you know which moments matter most. And, because consumers are making decisions faster than ever, you need to be able to make decisions equally as fast.”

“The good news is that while technology makes the consumer journey more fragmented, it also makes it easier to measure brand impact,” Pradhan adds. “At Google, it’s our mission to help you measure all of the moments that matter — from first impression to final conversion.”

Google also launched a new resource for marketers to gain more insights into these so called “micro-moments”.

During its the first year of Brand Lift, Google has run more than 10,000 studies on YouTube campaigns.

More on Brand Lift here.

Image via YouTube

June 4, 2015
Yahoo Lets Advertisers Independently Measure Viewability

Yahoo announced that it is giving advertisers the ability to independently measure viewability and fraud for display and video advertising on Yahoo owned and operated properties as well as media purchased across its programmatic buying platform. Advertisers can choose from third-party measurement solutions from comScore, DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science, Moat, and others to validate for viewability and fraud.

As Yahoo notes, no other large premium digital publishers are providing this capability in such an open way. Others will likely follow suit.

The partnerships with these third-party companies is aimed at catering to the viewability initiatives from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Media Rating Council (MRC).

Related viewability content here.

“We’ve been investing in viewability and fraud measurement solutions to increase trust between advertisers and publishers for some time now,” said Dennis Buchheim, VP of product management at Yahoo. “At Yahoo, we believe advertisers should have the flexibility to verify viewability and fraud levels with the tools of their choice, which is why we’re partnering with leading, independent measurement companies to give our customers the confidence they deserve when running campaigns on our inventory and across the web.”

“Viewability and fraud continue to be major issues in the digital ad space, and it’s time for advertisers to demand accountability and transparency from publishers and technology providers,” said Scott Knoll, CEO of Integral Ad Science. “We hope the industry will follow Yahoo’s lead in working with independent, accredited companies like ours that are not involved in buying or selling media, as that is the only way to get a truly unbiased read-out on viewability and fraud.”

“As an industry we continue to make great strides to improve the quality and effectiveness of digital media and to instill confidence from the world’s largest brands,” said Wayne Gattinella, CEO of DoubleVerify. “We applaud Yahoo for their leadership and initiative in providing open, third-party measurement across its sites and we look forward to building a more trustworthy digital supply chain together.”

The IAB recommends the campaign threshold for viewability should be 70%.

Image via Thinkstock

June 3, 2015