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  • Microsoft Has Some Pretty Lofty Expectations For Windows 8

    Windows 8 will be launching later this month to much fanfare from Microsoft. They obviously hope the operating system does well, but what are their expectations? How many apps does Microsoft expect to have in the Windows Store by early next year? All these questions and more were answered in a recent interview.

    In an interview with Beet.TV, Microsoft’s VP of US Sales Marketing, Keith Lorizio says that MIcrosoft expects to have over 100,000 apps in the Windows Store within the first 90 days on the market. They also expect there to be more than 400 million Windows 8 hardware units on the market by July. He also says Microsoft’s current expectations are “conservative.” The company is obviously hoping they do much better than that.

    Beyond apps and install base, Lorizio also talked up how Microsoft is going to handle advertising on Windows 8. He says that every app will have advertising of some kind. People who make apps for the Windows Store can hook up with Microsoft to offer advertising on their apps where both parties split the revenue. More established developers can of course use their own advertising platform and rake in all the money themselves.

    At this point, the Windows Store is looking better and better for developers and users alike. Getting in at or near launch will be advantageous for the developer who wants to take advantage of early adopters. Your app will have a much better chance of being discovered at this point before the store gets overtake by everybody wanting a piece of Windows 8.

    Of course, this is all dependent on Windows 8 actually being a hit. There have been numerous skeptics with rumors of even Intel’s CEO saying the operating system isn’t ready. The news of PC shipments falling for the first time in 11 years doesn’t exactly inspire confidence either. Windows 8 may just turn everything around though.

    [h/t: ZDNet]

  • Online Advertisers Are Just Going To Ignore Microsoft’s ‘Do Not Track’ Signal

    Microsoft became one of the good guys earlier this year when they said that Internet Explorer 10 would have the “Do Not Track” option set to on by default. In a perfect world, it would tell online advertisers that a user doesn’t want their browsing activity monitored for advertising purposes. It probably won’t work, but it’s the thought that counts. Anyway, you can imagine the response such a decision received from the online ad industry.

    The online ad industry was never a fan of “Do Not Track,” and they don’t intend to ever be a fan. In fact, the Association of National Advertisers wrote a letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer saying that “Do Not Track’ was “unacceptable.” Since that letter, Microsoft has not backed down from its commitment to the setting. Online advertisers are now going to get serious.

    According to Ad Age, the Digital Advertising Alliance issued a statement yesterday in regards to Microsoft’s “Do Not Track” option. In short, they said that they will not honor the DNT signals sent by IE10 or any other Web browser.

    “The DAA does not require companies to honor DNT signals fixed by the browser manufacturers and set by them in browsers. Specifically, it is not a DAA Principle or in any way a requirement under the DAA Program to honor a DNT signal that is automatically set in IE10 or any other browser. The Council of Better Business Bureaus and the Direct Marketing Association will not sanction or penalize companies or otherwise enforce with respect to DNT signals set on IE10 or other browsers.”

    It sounds like the DAA is only targeting those browsers that have “Do Not Track” turned on by default. Firefox and Chrome both have a DNT option, but users have to turn those on manually. IE10 will be the first browser to have the option set to on by default.

    So what’s next for the DAA and Microsoft now that the former has drawn a line in the sand? According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s SVP & General Council of Public Policy Mike Zaneis, both parties are still talking it out. The big problem right now is determining what “Do Not Track” means. Privacy advocates want the signal to stop the collection of data altogether, whereas the ad industry wants it to simply mean that advertisers can’t use targeted ads. In their world, advertisers would still be able to collect data regardless of a user’s objections.

    In all honesty, the “Do Not Track” debate has become a giant mess. The ad industry in right in their assertion that nobody really knows what DNT means. There are multiple ways to implement solutions, but neither side is going to be fully satisfied with whatever comes out at the end. For now, you’re just going to have to live with targeted ads until these two sides can come to some kind of compromise.

  • This Facebook “Chairs” Commercial Parody Makes A Statement

    Last week, Facebook announced that it surpassed a billion users, and launched a new ad comparing the social network to chairs. Jokes were made, and parody videos were constructed. This one compared Facebook to toilets. This one brought up heroin and masturbation.

    This one, however, seems to be going more for making a statement than making you laugh:

    By the way, it’s not just about pedophiles. That just happens to be the default still on the video embed.

    I wonder if the Facebook ad will see as many parodies as Google’s Project Glass promo.

  • Bing Ads Get Sitelink Extensions

    Bing Ads Get Sitelink Extensions

    Microsoft announced today that Bing Ads now offer sitelink extensions to advertisers throughout the Yahoo Bing Network. The extensions, according to Microsoft, will drive deeper engagement with potential customers by letting them connect with relevant portions of advertisers’ sites.

    They’ll let advertisers create and update additional messaging and info without modifying text ads or keywords, and will be available on both Yahoo and Bing search pages.

    Bing Ads with sitelinks

    “Over the last few months, we have worked closely with our advertisers across many different industries to build and fine tune our Sitelink Extensions experience,” says Microsoft’s Rishi Bal in a blog post. “A special “Thank you!” goes out to our beta customers for helping shape this offering.”

    “It is worth noting that during our pilot phase of Sitelink Extensions, most of our advertisers experienced an increased click-through rate of 15-25% compared to a standard search ad without Sitelink Extensions — many did much better than that,” Bal adds. “These additional text + URL pairs have the capability to help you drive improved ROI, so I encourage you to try them out today.”

    The ads can be created through the Bing Ads user interface, the latest version of the BIng Ads Desktop Editor and through the Bing Ads API.

  • Google Launches DoubleClick Ad Verification Tool

    Google announced a new ad verification tool for agencies and marketers using DoubleClick, called DoubleClick Verification.

    The tool includes site content monitoring to help highlight potential issues with ads. It will analyze content at the URL level for each page that your ad is served upon. It uses 18 classifiers for “unsafe” content categories. Among these are: gambing, adult, drugs, profanity, etc. It does this across 11 languages.

    “In addition, we also allow you to customize content profiles so you can define for yourself the kinds of sites that are okay or not safe, and place them accordingly on a white list or flagged list,” says product manager Aaron Nelson. “Geo verification is available to help identify ads serving outside your preferred geo.”

    “It’s as simple as signing in to DFA and navigating to the reporting interface to start using DoubleClick Verification. There’s no need to implement another tag or sign another contract to get started,” says Nelson. “DoubleClick Verification not only provides a seamless experience for clients, it’s enabled across all ad impressions and campaigns in DFA today. In the future, as part of DoubleClick Digital Marketing, it will cover the entire scope of your display buy across the platform.”

    More info about the product is available in this downloadable fact sheet (pdf) Google has released.

  • Toilets Are Like Facebook According To This Parody Of Facebook’s “Chairs” Commercial

    Last week, Facebook announced that it surpassed a billion monthly active visitors. To celebrate this landmark in social media history, the company also launched its first-ever television ad. In the ad, Facebook compared itself to chairs. This, naturally, led to a lot of jokes and otherwise witty banter about Facebook (much of which included Clint Eastwood references).

    Now, the parodies have begun, with this one coming from Andrew Zenn Films (disclaimer: video includes toilet humor):

    [via All Things D]

  • YouTube Adds To Its Original Programming

    YouTube has launched a bunch more of its original channels, extending to content from France, Germany, the UK, and more from the US.

    YouTube first announced the set of original channels about a year ago, starting with about 100 of them. A lot has happened since then, the company says. Its top 25 original channels are now averaging over a million views a week. 800 million users are watching 4 billion hours every month, YouTube says, adding that this is up from 3 billion hours earlier this year. The number of people subscribing has doubled year-over-year, and partners are reaching the 100k subscriber mark five times faster than they were two years ago, according to the company.

    “From local cuisine, health and wellness and parenting to sports, music, comedy, animation and news, this new lineup of original channels will have something for everyone,” says YouTube head of global content, Robert Kyncl. “They are backed by some of the biggest producers, well-known celebrities and emerging media companies from Europe and the U.S.”

    YouTube has a directory of the local channels here. There are six listings in automotive, ten in Beauty, 14 in Comedy, two in Dance, forty-one in entertainment, three in Film & Animation, twelve in Food, two in Gaming, twelve in Health, five in Hispanic, three in Home & Garden, one in How-To, twelve in Music, six in News, two in Pets & Animals, fourteen in Science & Technology, seventeen in Sports, three in Urban and four in Women’s Interests.

    Last week, AOL announced the launch of 22 new YouTube channels of its own. These are not included in YouTube’s “original channels” line-up.

  • The Google AdWords Credit Card Expands

    Last year, Google launched a pilot for AdWords Business Credit in the United States, giving small businesses an AdWords branded credit card. Now, Google is expanding the pilot into the UK, and says it will also send more invitations out in the States later this month.

    “Small business owners are used to being pressed: for resources, for time, and especially for credit,” says Google VP Treasurer Brent Callinicos. “Juggling expenses across different credit cards and managing seasonal business spikes and valleys doesn’t leave much room for other spending, like investing in a new oven at a pizzeria or treating a great customer to dinner.”

    Google says 1,400 businesses participated in the initial pilot, and in a survey conducted after it launched, 74% said they use AdWords Business Credit as their primary form of AdWords payment.

    Rates for the card range from 8.99% to 18.99% based on credit scores. Upon approval, Google will send those eligible a “welcome package” containing the credit limit, the card agreement, and of course the card.

  • Facebook to Advertisers: Users Don’t Have to Click for It to Pay Off

    “It is the delivery of the marketing message to the right consumer, not the click, that creates real value for brand advertisers.”

    And with that, Facebook has a new strategy when it comes to convincing marketers that their ad dollars are well spent on the network. As long as the user sees your ad, they’ll want to buy your product or service. It doesn’t matter if they click, so you should really stop worrying about that metric at all.

    Facebook isn’t just telling marketers all of this out of the blue – this comes straight out of a study conducted with new partners Datalogix. The study looked at over 50 digital campaigns and attempted to connect exposure to an ad on Facebook with in-store purchases of said products.

    From a privacy standpoint, do you think that Facebook’s partnership with Datalogix is anything to worry about? As a marketer, do you think Facebook is right in moving away from the click as a metric of success? Let us know what you think in the comments.

    The name Datalogix may ring a bell, and that’s because their partnership with Facebook has raised some eyebrows over the last week. Datalogix is the owner of a massive database of consumer purchasing data. That data, when matched with Facebook data on ad impressions, can give marketers a general picture on whether or not their ad dollars are being spent on ads the directly lead to in-store purchases.

    And that partnership with Datalogix has turned into a way for Facebook to tout their advertising clout with marketers.

    Here’s what Facebook’s Measurement and Insights head Brad Smallwood had to say about the study in a studio blog post:

    Impressions create value. 99 percent of sales generated from online branding ad campaigns were from people that saw, but did not interact with, ads— proof that it is the delivery of the marketing message to the right consumer, not the click, that creates real value for brand advertisers.

    Reach drives revenue for online brand marketers. This is a concept very familiar to TV marketers, who often start with a reach objective—but until now hadn’t been proven for online. When applied to digital brand campaigns, the study demonstrated that campaigns that maximized reach had on average a 70 percent higher return-on-investment.

    Finding the right message frequency is key. The study revealed that for online brand campaigns, if you reallocated high frequency impressions to people seeing too few impressions, you would see a 40 percent increase in ROI with the same budget. What this means is that for every online campaign there is a “sweetspot” of effective frequency that maximizes return on investment, and that the DataLogix tool can help marketers empirically isolate that sweetspot for each brand and campaign.

    It’s not like there haven’t been positive signs for marketers when it comes to clicks on the network – especially with Sponsored Stories in the mobile news feed. But Facebook has had to deal with some very public votes of no confidence in their platform as a reliable source for ad spend, including the bombshell GM dropped when they yanked all ads just days before Facebook’s big IPO. And many marketers are skeptical that spending money on Facebook is even worth it. Why not just operate a page – that’s free branding, right?

    It is worth it, according to Facebook, and they can prove it. Their strategy now relies on the notion that digital marketing is shifting its focus from the click to this more typical metric of measuring ad success. According to them, the Datalogix/Facebook tool is a huge step forward in measuring real return on investment for online advertisers.

    Of course, this sort of data mining isn’t without its detractors. Two online privacy groups have already asked the FTC to investigate whether or not the partnership with Datalogix violates a previous order from the commission, where Facebook pledged to make “clear and prominent” disclosure of any sharing of nonpublic user information.

    Here’s where the privacy groups feel Facebook may have faltered:

    The Commission should investigate whether Facebook has violated Parts I and II of the Consent Order. Facebook did not attempt to notify users of its decision to disclose user information to Datalogix. Neither Facebook’s Data Use Policy nor its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities adequately explains the specific types of information Facebook discloses, the manner in which the disclosure occurs, or the identities of the third parties receiving the information.

    In fact, Facebook only mentions Datalogix once – at the bottom of the “Interacting with Ads” page. This page requires at least five actions to reach from the Facebook.com home page and simply directs users to the Datalogix privacy policy. The Consent Order’s prohibition on misrepresentations includes misrepresentations by omission. Thus, the Commission should determine whether Facebook’s failure to notify users of the disclosure of user information to Datalogix violates the consent order.

    Facebook felt compelled to explain their purchase tracking initiative in a post to their privacy page. In it, they emphasize that all dat remains anonymous on their end and on Datalogix’s end:

    “Importantly, we have designed this process with privacy at the forefront. We compare hashes of some Facebook data with hashes provided to us by Datalogix. Once we compare, we are able to send corresponding data on the reach of large-scale ad campaigns, which Datalogix uses to create aggregate reports comparing product purchases by large groups of people who did or did not see an ad.

    Because of our commitment to privacy, we had an industry-leading auditing firm evaluate the privacy implications of this process. The auditor confirmed that, throughout this process, Datalogix is not allowed to learn more about you from Facebook profile information. Similarly, Datalogix does not send us any of their purchase data, meaning we cannot specifically tell whether or not you purchased a marketer’s product. Finally, with this partnership, Datalogix only sends the marketer aggregate information about large groups of people. None of this data is attributable to an individual Facebook user,” said the company.

    Going forward, Facebook will continue to use this tool to show marketers that their money has legs on the Facebook platform. It’ll be up to marketers to decide whether or not digital strategies must move beyond the click.

    Do you think that Facebook’s assertion that branding and impressions are the proper metric, not clicks, holds water? As a marketer, would you be more inclined to purchase ads on the network if Facebook could prove that they generated real-world sales? Let us know what you think in the comments.

  • Etsy Makes Search Ads Available To Thousands More Sellers

    Etsy Makes Search Ads Available To Thousands More Sellers

    A little over a year ago, Etsy launched search ads. This week, the company announced some new features to the offering, and dropped some numbers about the product.

    Over the past year, the company says, Etsy’s search ads have generated $12 million in sales and 3.6 million “favorites” for 145,000 sellers who have used them to advertise their products.

    As far as the new stuff, Etsy has added holiday keywords, flexible timing, support for all English-language listings, and real-time setup and management.

    “We periodically add and remove keywords from the Search Ads system depending on whether people are searching for them,” Etsy says in a blog post. “We’re starting to see a lot of traffic around Halloween and holiday-related searches, so we’ve added some new keywords to the mix…if you have holiday inventory in your shop, go to the Search Ads console to start running holiday Search Ads or to add keywords to your existing ads!”

    “Sellers will now also be able to start and end ads at any time without setting a duration or the auto renew feature,” Etsy says. “You will simply select a weekly budget, which we will stick to, and we’ll keep promoting your items until you come back and turn them off. We will send you a weekly email with performance stats and a reminder that your ads are still running.”

    Etsy has expanded the number of shops that can use the ads, and has removed the restriction on the shop’s primary language. Staring on October 9th, all listings in English (even if this isn’t the seller’s primary language) are eligible for search ads. Etsy says this will make the ads available to thousands of more sellers.

    Finally, changes to ads don’t go into effect until the next day at this time, but next week, that will change, and set-up and modification will be “almost instantaneous” according to the company.

  • Google Adds Google Analytics Data To AdWords

    You’ve long been able to connect your Google Analytics and AdWords account, but Google has now announced that it is making it possible to use Google Analytics data from right within AdWords. This includes bounce rate, pages per visit, and average visit duration.

    Each of these can be enabled as columns from the Campaigns and Ad Groups tab.

    “With more performance data available right where you’re managing your campaigns, you can make better informed decisions and improve your AdWords ROI,” says product manager Dan Friedman.

    Selected Google Analytics data is available at the campaign, ad group, keyword and ad levels.

    “By viewing these Google Analytics site engagement stats alongside your AdWords performance stats, you get a first-hand glimpse of what people do once they reach your Destination URL after clicking your ad,” Google says. “This post-click insight gives you another view of the effectiveness of your campaigns and ad groups, which can help you make decisions about budgets, bids, landing pages and ad copy.”

    Obviously, you’ll need to take the steps required to get your Google Analytics data connected to your AdWords account. Luckily, Google provides step-by-step instructions here.

  • Google Shopping Transition To Be Complete Oct. 17

    We knew it was coming in October, but Google officially announced today that starting October 17, Google Shopping results in the U.S. will start coming only from merchants who are Product Listing Ads advertisers.

    “We will be ranking these results based on relevance, with bidding as an additional factor,” the company reiterates. “The ranking of natural search results on Google.com will not change.”

    Google also announced the availability of product level bidding for product listing ads.

    “You can now improve your Product Listing Ad performance by setting your cost per click bid at the item level,” says Sameer Samat, Vice President of Product Management, Google Shopping. “This functionality should help you meet your volume and profit targets at the product level.”

    Product Level Bidding

    Advertisers/merchants can also create product targets using the product ID in their Merchant Center feed to manage bids at the product level.

    Google is encouraging merchants to get set up in time for holiday advertising.

    For more discussion on the positives and negatives of Google’s paid inclusion Google Shopping model, read this.

  • Google Lightbox Ad Format Introduced

    Google introduced a new “Lightbox” ad format today. This, the company says, is the first of a new family of display ads it’s working on. This family will let advertisers pay only when the user engages with the ad.

    Interestingly enough, Facebook is saying, “It is the delivery of the marketing message to the right consumer, not the click, that creates real value for brand advertisers.”

    Here’s what the Lightbox format looks like:

    Google Lightbox Ads

    “The lightbox starts as a standard display ad, making it scalable, but after a two-second hover, expands to a super-sized canvas,” explains Jim Lecinski, Vice President, Brand Solutions at Google. “In internal tests, we’ve seen that this smart hover feature eliminates nearly 100% of accidental expansions and increases engagement by 6-8X over standard click-to-expand ads. The result: users only engage with the ads they really want to see and brand marketers only pay for truly engaged views.”

    Google says it also has new insights into how its existing engagement-based formats on YouTube and the Google Display Network have been helping brands.

    “We looked at the sales impact during and two weeks after 92 different ad campaigns, and found that on average every $1 invested in YouTube delivered a $1.70 return in sales–2.4x more efficient than the television spend for these campaigns,” says Lecinski. “These ads also help achieve branding goals: we found, on average, that ads on YouTube and the Google Display Network drive a 36% increase in visits to your website and a 36% increase in searches for your brand online (Google Internal Data, 2012).”

    Google also announced that it has a new physical place, called the Google BrandLab, where Google can collaborate with brands and agencies. It’s located at the YouTube headquarters.

  • Adobe AdLens Gets New SiteCatalyst, AudienceManager Integration

    Adobe AdLens Gets New SiteCatalyst, AudienceManager Integration

    Today, Adobe announced updates to AdLens, its cloud-based media optimization offering. It now comes with “seamless” data integration with Adobe SiteCatalyst, and as well as integration with Adobe AudienceManager for segmentation.

    With the SiteCatalyst integration, users can tap into data sets for ad optimization, analysis and reporting in real time.

    “With simple deployment, SiteCatalyst customers can now achieve media optimization gains and get a complete view of how their digital ads are performing,” Adobe says. “This native integration allows SiteCatalyst customers to quickly deploy AdLens with minimal effort and no manual integration or cumbersome data feeds.”

    David Karnstedt, SVP, Media and Advertising Solutions for Adobe’s Digital Marketing Business, sayd, “Marketers have several challenges when it comes to allocating advertising dollars and showing ROI across channels. Now, with an unprecedented level of campaign analytics and insight across different media, Adobe AdLens enables marketers to accomplish more in less time by using the most comprehensive digital advertising platform available.”

    AdLens builds on its Facebook Ads API integration (which got it into Facebook’s PMD program) with official access to the Facebook Exchange, which lets marketers buy ads on Facebook via real-time bidding.

    With AudienceManager integration, AdLens can access all major display inventory sources including online videos and banners.

  • James Bond Smartphone to be Offered by AT&T

    James Bond movies have, for quite a while now, featured some of the most gratuitous and shameless product placements and tie-ins in movie history. Not even Bond’s signature vodka martini is safe: Heineken is a Bond sponsor and the secret agent will be seen drinking one in the upcoming Skyfall.

    Today, AT&T announced it will be offering the phone Daniel Craig’s Bond will be seen using in Skyfall. The official James Bond smartphone is Sony’s Xperia TL and it will come pre-loaded with “exclusive content” from the upcoming flick, including behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, clips, wallpapers, and ring tones.

    The Xperia TL has a 4.6-inch display and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. The smartphone’s NFC and 4G LTE capabilities were singled out as features by AT&T. Also, Sony is touting the device’s 13MP rear camera and the software that accompanies it.

    Speaking of software, the Xperial TL will come pre-loaded with Sony’s media applications as well. It will be running a version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, though it was stated that the device will be upgradable to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean after its launch (that’s one we’ve all heard before…).

    So, if you are enough of a James Bond fan that you have to have 007’s phone, AT&T will be offering it this fall. Of course, when we see it in action during the events of Skyfall, it’s bound to have a few capabilities or apps that are available only to MI6 operatives.

    Sony has been a James Bond sponsor for years. Below is a Sony trailer that accompanied the previous Bond flick, Quantum of Solace:

  • AOL Gets Into The YouTube Game, Launches 22 Channels

    AOL announced today that it will be offering its entire original video content library on YouTube, where it will be distributed, as well as monetized.

    The company says this includes nearly 20,000 videos from brands like The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Moviefone.

    “With a series of key acquisitions in the online video space in recent years, AOL has become one of the dominant forces in the industry,” AOL said in its announcement. “In April, the company launched The AOL On Network, a platform of AOL’s complete video offerings and a curated video hub for consumers that offers premium, short-form video across 14 content channels. As of August, The AOL On Network attracts approximately 61 million unique visitors per month and is number one in categories including Autos, Business, Style, Home, Health, Food, Travel and Tech.”

    “The AOL brand includes an incredible array of premium video content from some of the most highly-trafficked sites on the web, and this deal provides us with a way to expose that content to a vast new audience,” said Ran Harnevo, SVP of Video at AOL. “AOL and YouTube are two of the biggest names in online video today, which makes this deal an important milestone, not just for us, but for the industry as a whole.”

    Ad sales will be handled by AOL’s sales team, and will provide a new revenue stream for the company.

    According to All Things D’s Peter Kafka, AOL’s YouTube channels are not part of YouTube’s so-called “new channels,” that see Google paying for limited exclusivity of content.

    AOL announced the channels at Advertising Week. There will be 22 of them, including: TechCrunch, HuffPost Live, Moviefone, AOL On Style and AOL On Home.

    AOL also announced the launch of Project Devil 2, the next phase of its branded display advertising product.

    Image: BBDO Digital Lab (YouTube).

  • iPhone 5 Ads Prove Effective Compared To Celebrity Siri Ads

    According to research from Ace Metrix, Apple’s new ads for the iPhone 5 account for two of the top three ads among mobile phones of the year to date.

    The top ad, based on the firm’s “Ace Score” metric, was Samsung’s The Best Of A Phone And Tablet, but numbers two and three were “Pictures Made Bigger” and “Shaped to Fit the Ears” respectively. Those are both iPhone 5 ads. Here’s Ace Metrix’s list of the most effective mobile phone ads of 2012 to date:

    iPhone 5 Ads Are Effective

    The Ace Score is described as the measure of the ad’s creative effectiveness, based on viewer-reaction to national TV ads. Ace Metrix obtains this by randomly selecting respondents, which it says are representative of the U.S. TV viewing audience, and the results are presented on a scale of 1-950. Attributes that go into the scoring include: relevance, persuasion, watchability, information, attention, etc.

    “While they are still neck and neck with Samsung from ad effectiveness perspective in the mobile phone category, Apple’s performance in promoting the iPhone 5 was an improvement vs. many of the recent celebrity efforts for Siri,” noted Ace Metrix CEO Peter Daboll. “However, the iPhone ‘launch’ ads almost always perform well – part of the ‘i-phoria’ that accompanies these new product introductions.”

    According to the firm, Apple’s new ads have performed particularly well among wealthy young women. The panoramic camera ad in particular, the firm says, appealed heavily to moms.

  • Facebook Is Tracking What You Buy to Provide Marketers Better Ad Analytics

    Facebook’s already tenuous relationship with its users over privacy and the sharing of personal information has a new wrinkle, as it looks like Facebook has waded into the retail sales tracking business.

    According to The Financial Times, Facebook has already measured the effectiveness of a few dozen ad campaigns with the help of a data mining company called Datalogix. Measuring the effectiveness of ad campaigns may seem innocuous at first, but it gets a little trickier when you learn that the measuring process involves matching Facebook user data on ad impressions with retail data mined from nearly every household in the United States.

    Datalogix is the owner of a large database of consumer purchasing data. According to the company, their reach extends to “almost every U.S. household and more than $1 trillion in consumer transactions.” Most of this information is obtained via rewards programs at over 1,000 retailers across the country. For instance, every swipe of your grocery super savings card gives a company like Datalogix information on your buying habits.

    Facebook and privacy – forever linked. How do you feel about the way Facebook handles your user information? What could the company do to assuage your concerns? Let us know in the comments.

    Here’s where Facebook comes in. By using Datalogix to match email addresses and other user information from their database of consumers with their own records of user emails and personal info, Facebook can see if a person who saw a particular ad for a product or service ended up buying it later.

    And this information is crucial for advertisers, who want to see the ad dollars they spend on Facebook translate into revenue at stores. “”We kept hearing back [from marketers] that we needed to push further and help them do a better job,” Facebook’s Brad Smallwood told The Financial Times.

    It’s not surprising that marketers are pressuring Facebook to give them concrete evidence that their ads are working. Whether or not to even advertise on Facebook is a question that many marketers are still debating. Confidence in the success of Facebook ad campaigns is not exactly at an all-time high. If a marketer could see hard data that shows Person A seeing an ad and then buying Product B, that’s clear evidence that the campaign has merit.

    Well then, how are the campaigns doing? So far so good, says Smallwood. Out of 45 ad campaigns tracked with the help of Datalogix, 70% of them resulted in a 300% return on investment.

    So, is a privacy concern storm brewing? Maybe. It does involve the seemingly surreptitious use of personal information. Although, all of the information is anonymous when matched, and simply used for analytic purposes.

    “Facebook doesn’t get data that retailers give Datalogix; retailers don’t get any data from Facebook; nor do advertisers share any of their data with Facebook or vice versa,” says Facebook. What Facebook does share is “anonymous IDs corresponding to consumers exposed to a given ad campaign.”

    So, the sole purpose of the data matching is to see if person A, who saw an ad on Facebook for foot cream, eventually went into Walgreens and bought said foot cream. According to the companies, nobody cares that Roger Smith bought the foot cream, as the real identities of the advertising analytic subjects are of no consequence.

    And Facebook doesn’t exactly hide this practice from its users (although it’s not incredibly easy to find). “Facebook has partnered with measurement companies to develop a system for advertisers to improve their measurement of advertising campaigns’ effectiveness at driving offline sales,” they say in the Help Center. They go on:

    As trusted service providers, these companies have been contracted to produce aggregate and anonymous measurement reports to advertisers. No personally identifiable or individual data is shared with advertisers as part of the measurement process. Facebook has also designed the process to generate these reports with user privacy in mind. For example, Facebook identifies groups of people that have been shown ads on Facebook and matches them in a hashed format with the data the measurement companies receive from their retail partners. The measurement partners then analyze their data to produce aggregate and anonymous advertising effectiveness reports for advertisers.

    “Remember that Facebook does not sell your personal information to advertisers,” ensures the company.

    And on Datalogix’s side, they promise that the data they’re collecting doesn’t include “sensitive information.”

    Datalogix receives data from consumer marketing companies & data compilers. This data consists of Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) and Attributes. PII includes name, postal address, and email address. Attributes include demographic and behavioral information, such as past purchases. Datalogix does not collect or use sensitive information such as Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, or banking information.

    For Facebook users, participation is opt-out – not only that, but the opt-out mechanism doesn’t exist on Facebook’s end.

    If you wish to stop Facebook and Datalogix from using your info to gauge marketing success, you must opt-out on Datalogix’s end. Facebook links you to their privacy page in the Help Center, but doesn’t allow for users to opt-out on site.

    Last month, Facebook settled with the FTC over charges that they deceived consumers by creating the illusion of private information. The FTC made it clear that Facebook must obtain user consent before sharing their personal information (read: opt-in). It will be interesting to see if and how this data-matching program runs up against that FTC mandate.

    It’s clear that people have (and will continue to have) a problem with how Facebook handles their personal data. A recent survey showed that Facebook is still the most distrusted company when it comes to user data. Do you see this ad/retail tracking as a misuse of data? Does its “opt-out” nature mean that Facebook has violated earlier promises about privacy and information sharing?

    And for marketers, how valuable is this information? Could knowing whether or not your Facebook ads directly led to a physical purchase influence your decision to advertise on Facebook? Let us know what you think in the comments.

  • It Looks Like Google Wants To Put More Ads On Maps

    Google Maps has been getting a lot of attention over the past week, since Apple upgraded iOS to iOS 6, replacing its Google Maps app with its own Apple Maps. Users haven’t received Apple’s version of maps very well, and users are waiting for Google to launch a new Maps app for the operating system.

    In the meantime, Google appears to have some new Maps monetization strategies on its mind. The company has applied for a patent on Online Map Advertising. The abstract describes it:

    Systems and methods for selecting advertisements for presentation in a map space are disclosed. Map requests are received, map spaces identified, advertisement bids are received for advertisement space within the map spaces, and advertisements are selected for presentation in the map space based on the advertisement bids. The advertisement bids can be selected through an auction.

    Basically, it boils down to users seeing ads on the actual maps as they’re using the product. The following illustration from the patent pretty much says it all:

    Google Maps Ads - Patent

    Patent analyst Bill Slawski says, “This advertising seems geared towards sites that use the Google Maps API to pull in map information to display for one reason or another. The ads would appear directly upon the maps, near or at the location of the advertiser. Bidding on maps might be based upon both the display region where the ads would be shown, and the zoom level of the map. The publishers of the maps would decide whether or not they wanted to include advertisements on their maps as well.”

    “Imagine that you own a chain of movie theatres, and you’re using Google Maps on your site to let people see the locations of your theatres, you might decide that having ads on your maps might actually help traffic to your theatres, and also possibly earn you a few dollars,” he adds.

    You can read all the technical stuff in the patent here, if you like.

  • Facebook Offers Gets Global Update

    Facebook offers, the program that allows businesses to promote special offers to their Facebook fans, was first mentioned as a pilot program at fMC in February. A few months later, Facebook opened it up to more small businesses.

    You’re probably familiar with Facebook Offers even if you think you aren’t. Users have been seeing more and more of them on their news feeds in the past few months. You may see that a page you like has “posted an offer” – maybe “buy one shirt get one free,” or something to that effect.

    You may have also seen something like “John has claimed an offer from _____” on your news feed, and that is the real draw behind offers for businesses: Spread the word.

    Today, Facebook has announced two major changes to the Offers platform.

    First, businesses who create offers can now include bar codes and unique codes within the offers. Facebook says that this was one of the most requested updates, as it allows businesses to easily track the effectiveness of their offers campaign.

    Second, Offers are no longer free to run:

    We’re also making it easier for people to find the Offers that are most relevant to them. Over the months since the beta launch, we’ve seen that targeting and advertising help get the right Offers in front of the right people, resulting in more happy customers sharing your offer with friends and better sales. Also starting this week, we will require that businesses include targeting and advertising as part of using Offers. Businesses will be able to run offers for a minimal fee, but more advertising budget will lead to greater distribution to your audience. Offers will remain free for people to claim and easily sharable with friends. These changes will help businesses reach the right people more effectively, and will create a better experience for users.

    Facebook says that pairing an offer with an ad will help businesses spread the word, and they’re probably right. But this also gives Facebook another source of revenue.

    Facebook Offers are available globally to any businesses with 400+ “likes.” Businesses can create offers directly from their pages by clicking the little yellow square offer box inside their sharing tool.

  • Samsung Once Again Goes After Apple Fanboys in a New Ad

    Samsung has never been one to shy away from directly making fun of Apple and their fans in product advertisements. See exhibit A, this ad for the Galaxy S II that digs at Apple’s lack of turn-by-turn navigation and crappy battery life. Or exhibit B, this teaser as for the Galaxy S III that takes the original position of referring to iPhone owners as sheep.

    When the Galaxy S III finally launched in the U.S. earlier this summer, Samsung released a couple of ads for the device that didn’t even mention Apple or the iPhone. But of course, we knew that Samsung’s marketing people would have to take a swipe at Apple when the iPhone 5 launched.

    Now, the iPhone is hitting stores in two days and Samsung is on the offensive.

    Earlier this week, they took out full page ads in multiple U.S. media outlets with their “it doesn’t take a genius” ad campaign that compared the Galaxy S III to an iPhone 5-esque smartphone. “The next big thing is already here,” said the ad.

    Today, Samsung has gone back to their old ways of making fun of hipsters waiting in line for Apple products with this new ad that, among other things, suggests that the iPhone is the phone of your mom and dad. Check it out:

    [h/t 9to5Google]