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Facebook’s Ads: Relevant or Missing the Mark?

I’ve always seen a great deal of potential in Facebook’s advertising offering. The premise is that ads are highly targeted based on users’ profile information. Theoretically, the more a user adds info about the kinds of things they like, the better idea Facebook has about what they are actually interested in, and can serve ads accordingly.

Does Facebook serve you ads that you find relevant? Let us know.

To be honest, it’s been hit or miss with me. I see a lot of ads for things that I actually do like, which is more than I can say for ads in other channels, but I see a lot of ads that make me wonder why I was possibly targeted for them as well.

The question is: how good at targeting is Facebook? I stumbled across a post from Robert Brady at Righteous Marketing talking about the problems he’s having with Facebook ads.

"I’ve set my relationship status to single," he explains. "Therefore, I see ads for dating sites, dating sites, and more dating sites. Based on my ads there must be at least a bazillion different dating sites that feel I am exactly who they want on their site. Asian girls, girls who golf, christian girls, desperate girls. You name it, I’ve seen an ad for it."

"The only problem: I don’t use dating sites," he adds. "So I give Facebook my feedback and hope for some different ads. Something I might be interested in. Every time I see that little message and have a little hope that my ads will improve. Do they?"

The answer would appear to be no. The message he’s referring to is when you click the "x" on a Facebook ad and Facebook delivers a dialogue box asking why you didn’t like the ad. Again, theoretically, Facebook should get the message that Brady doesn’t like ads for dating sites if he’s clicked that x on enough of them. One could argue that clicking the x on one should’ve been enough, though there are different target audiences for different dating sites.

Is this just limited to dating sites though? Probably not.

Even if Facebook’s targeting isn’t always perfect, the concept behind it still does have a great deal of potential, and like I said, I still find ads on Facebook that are more relevant to me (at the consumer level as opposed to say, B2B) than probably on any other channel. This is the main reason it seems to me that an AdSense-like network could be a goldmine for Facebook. If they could deliver that kind of relevance on sites across the web (as users are logged into Facebook, which they will likely be on many, many sites) it could be pretty powerful.

But how much progress does Facebook have to make in targeting? Do they have a long way to go? How much of it is in the user’s hands? The more information you give Facebook about your interests, the more targeted your ads should be. Facebook’s new profile redesign already appears to be coaxing a lot more info out of people.

What do you think? Comment here.

December 11, 2010
Americans Ignoring Internet Banner Ads

Online advertising is considered a good way to target and reach consumers, but nearly two-thirds (63%) of Americans say they tend to ignore Internet ads, according to a new survey from Adweek Media and Harris Interactive.

Among those who ignore Internet ads, 43 percent say they ignore banner ads the most and 20 percent say they ignore search engine ads the most. Smaller percentages say they ignore television ads (14%), radio ads (7%) and newspaper ads (6%); just 9% of Americans say they don’t ignore any of the listed types of ads.

There is little difference in the ads that men and women say they tend to ignore the most. Forty-two percent of men and forty-five percent of women say they ignore Internet banner ads the most while twenty percent and twenty-one percent respectively, say they ignore search ads the most. Somewhat fewer say so about television ads (15% and 13%), radio ads (7% and 8%), and newspaper ads (6% and 5%).

Older Americans say they ignore ads on TV the most-one in five of those 55 years and older say they ignore TV ads (20%), compared to 14% of those 45-54 years, 13% of those 35-44 years, and just 9% of those 18-34 years. Conversely, younger Americans are more likely than those older to ignore radio ads the most (11% of those 18-34 years do, compared to 6% of those 55 years and older). Also, while over two in five in all age groups say they ignore Internet banner ads the most, those aged 35-44 are most likely to say this, as almost half ignore these ads (47%) compared to between 42% and 43% of the other age groups.

Those who have more education are more likely to ignore online advertisements-46% of both those who have some college and those who are college graduates say they ignore banner ads, compared to just 40% of those who have a high school degree or less. One-quarter (23%) of those who have graduated from college say they ignore search engine ads, compared to 17% who have a high school or less education. Those with a high school or less education, however, are more likely to ignore television ads (17% versus 12% of those who have gone to college).

December 8, 2010
Google SVP Labels Local Ad Market Her “Biggest Focus”

Susan Wojcicki is often credited with creating AdSense, and for years, she’s been in charge of all Google’s advertising products. A significant shift may be occurring within the company, then, as Wojcicki recently said that the local advertising market now receives most of her attention.

Wojcicki told Spencer Ante yesterday, "That is my biggest focus." Which means a significant number of Googlers have probably been assigned to the subject, since Wojcicki was named a senior vice president in October. (Only eight other people hold that title at Google.)

Wojcicki also said, "How can we enable you, when you’re walking around, to find out the best local offers around? As an advertiser, how can I find out if someone saw my ad and went to a store? The local market is a huge market, we’ve always wanted to be in it."

As a result, Google may make some acquisitions in order to advance its expertise in this area. Or it might reach out to small business owners more than ever in an attempt to win their cooperation.

We should point out that former vice president of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer was recently asked to supervise Google’s products and services related to local markets and geolocation, further emphasizing the company’s focus on this field.

December 8, 2010
Google Announces Tools and Resources to Help Businesses Go Global

Google made some announcements aimed at getting businesses to use Google to reach a global audience. These include a new resource site for doing just that, and a new tool called Global Market Finder, designed to help businesses identify markets with high demand for their products or services.

"Imagine you’re a men’s tailor in Bangkok, and you sell custom suits to travelers passing through Thailand," says Srinidhi Viswanatha with Google’s Global Advertisers team. "You start a website to sell your suits online and begin to notice that the majority of your website traffic comes from overseas. How do you respond to this international demand?"

"Businesses of all sizes face a number of obstacles when they want to expand internationally," adds Viswanatha. "First, they must identify the right market to sell their products or services, such as custom men’s suits. Then they have to create versions of their website and ad campaigns in the language of the market they want to reach. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they need to reach new customers who may be interested in their products and services."

The new resource site, Google Ads for Global Advertisers, is what Google calls a "central hub" for businesses to find help expanding into foreign markets. The site says that there are 1.9 billion Internet users worldwide, boasting that Google’s search and content networks will help businesses reach over 80% of them.

On the site, users will find success stories, a step-by-step guide for finding new markets, translating their websites, translating ads, translating their business, and optimizing campaigns, location tips, a translator toolkit, tips for customer support and payments, etc.

The Global Market Finder tool automatically translates keywords into 56 languages, and uses Google’s search trends data to find where people would search for products and services based on that. "It helps businesses evaluate new markets by showing the volume of local searches, estimated price for keywords and competition for each keyword in each market," explains Viswanatha.

Going global is one of the biggest challenges businesses face, so it stands to reason that these tools and resources from Google will become quite popular as businesses look to expand into new markets.

December 7, 2010
Google Adjusts AdWords Alcohol Policy

Google has made changes to its advertising policy on alcohol for AdWords. The company now allows ads to promote the sale of hard alcohol and liquor.

Over two years ago, Google revised its alcohol policy from not allowing alcohol ads to begin permitting beer, champagne, and wine ads. A couple months later the company revised its policy again to allow the promotion of hard liquors and liqueurs. Now Google has revised it once again.

"Since then, hard alcohol advertisers have been able to promote websites that offer information about their brand, their products, or drinks that can be made with their products," explains Dan Friedman of Google’s Inside AdWords crew. "Now, they can also promote websites that sell hard alcohol online, direct users to retailers where their products are sold, or feature sales promotions."

"To comply with the policy, the ad and website must abide by certain advertising restrictions, including (but not limited to) not targeting minors, not implying that drinking alcohol provides certain advantages, and not showing inappropriate content," adds Friedman. "They are also subject to any further restrictions in the countries that they target."

The exact criteria are:

– do not target minors

– do not include endorsements from athletes, cartoon characters, or any other icons/people appealing to minors

– landing page must have an age gate and include statements about drinking responsibly

– do not imply that drinking alcohol can improve sexual, social, or professional standings

– do not imply that drinking alcohol is relaxing or therapeutic

– do not indicate that drinking alcohol in excess is good

– do not show people consuming alcohol while doing anything illegal, violent, or dangerous; or being inappropriate in other ways, such as acting in a degrading manner

– do not contain sexual content

Google says it made the changes simply to "help more advertisers use AdWords for the promotion of their products."

December 6, 2010
eMarketer Predicts Big Growth In Online Ad Spending

The Dow didn’t get off to a great start this week; it’s been in the red for most of the day so far. A new report predicts that the lingering effects of the recession will benefit the online advertising community, though, with U.S. marketers eventually spending $40.5 billion in 2014.

The years leading up to 2014 should be profitable ones, too. As the graph below shows, eMarketer is of the belief that spending will be up 13.9 percent this year, and a 10.5 percent increase is supposed to occur next year.

Then, in 2012, a 14.4 percent jump in online ad spending is supposed to take place, followed by a 10.4 percent rise in 2013 and a 12.5 percent increase the year after.

Meanwhile, total media spending is only forecast to increase by 3.0 percent, 1.2 percent, 4.5 percent, 2.0 percent, and 3.7 percent over the same five years.

David Hallerman, the principal analyst at eMarketer, explained in his company’s report, "It may seem ironic, but marketers’ economic concerns are leading them to spend more for online advertising. This trend reflects how most forms of internet advertising are now seen as more of a ‘sure thing’ than most traditional media."

And we should note that, whether it’s a coincident or not, Google’s stock is up 0.99 percent at the moment.

December 6, 2010
What Google Acquiring Groupon Would Mean For Both Companies

Update: Groupon has reportedly rejected Google’s offer.

Everybody’s waiting to find out if Google will really buy Groupon. We may find out very soon, as Groupon’s board is supposed to be meeting today to come up with an answer. Groupon is all about local, and that’s something Chris Tolles, CEO of local news powerhouse Topix knows a bit about. He offered some of his insights on a possible Google Groupon acquisition to WebProNews today.

First off, Tolles has some thoughts on Google’s larger local strategy. "This is the largest area of online advertising growth, and expansion here is one of the few areas that’s fragmented and still rife for disruption," Tolles tells us. "They are going to need to expand local sales efforts and staffing, as well as create products and partner for local inventory."

On why Google is looking to buy Groupon rather than build this type of product internally, Tolles says, "It’s pretty clear from the hundreds of unsuccessful Groupon clones that building one of these things is not as easy as all that."

"Plus, Groupon has a $600M local sales run rate," he adds. "It’s not obvious that Google is making that much from local advertisers. Plus, Google has always been about the algorithm and when they need to build outside of their core experience, they have done a great job in acquiring companies to help them in products like maps, Android, YouTube etc. While they’ve not succeeded in everything, they’re successes are pretty impressive."

Tolles says Google could help Groupon reduce its operating costs. "Groupon’s growth depends on their building out email lists, and they use Adwords from Google for a big portion of that," he explains. "Presumably getting the wholesale rate on that kind of advertising, or creating new ways of integrating Groupon signups into search results, Gmail or Places would be a potential huge economy of scale for Groupon to tap into."

There’s no question that Google could greatly help Groupon expand internationally, although the company has gradually been doing this on its own. "Groupon is going to have to expand internationally to continue the kind of growth that we’ve been seeing from them, and being able to leverage Google’s existing international infrastructure is a potentially game changing time to market advantage," says Tolles.

"While I’m sure Groupon could soldier into countries where they have no presence, having native speaking staff on the ground in as many companies as Google is operating in would be a big asset," he notes.

Google is doing all it can to own local and that will continue for the foreseeable future as long as Marissa Mayer is in charge no doubt. The company’s been doing some interesting things in the local space, from adding a great deal of emphasis on local to its regular search results, and introducing a social recommendation engine (Hotpot). All of that said, local is too large a space for any one company to dominate, according to Tolles.

"Local advertising is a $100B year business – 2/3 of the ad spending in the US," he says. "You’d have to control billboards, TV, radio, online, mobile and email lists to be able to ‘dominate local’. While I think Google is on a path to have a major part of that ecosystem, I don’t see them dominating local advertising anytime soon."

To me, there are clear advantages for Google if they acquire Groupon (particularly as it battles with Facebook, which recently encroached on Groupon’s model). Some think the acquisition would be a mistake on Google’s part, however. We’ll see what happens. We should find out soon whether it’s going to even go through or not.

Meanwhile, Groupon has been making acquisitions of its own. TechCrunch reports the company has acquired Ludic Labs, the local marketing services startup behind offerfoundry.com and diddit.com. The company has also acquired Asian sites uBuyiBuy, Beeconomic and Atlaspost. In addition to all of this, Groupon just announced some major features for local businesses.

Do you think Google should acquire Groupon? Share your thoughts in the comments.

December 3, 2010
OPA President: FTC Proposal Both Encouraging and Concerning

As you may know, the FTC released a report this week proposing a framework for balancing consumer privacy and innovation online, which includes (but is not limited to) a "do not track" mechanism in web browsers. Naturally, marketers have shown varying degrees of concern. Some are even calling the proposal a "Google Killer".

Pam Horan, President of the Online Publishers Association (OPA) shared her thoughts on the proposal with WebProNews. "There are elements of the report which we find encouraging and there are some which are concerning," she tells us.

If you’re unfamiliar with the OPA, it’s a non-profit trade group representing content providers like ABCNews.com, About.com, BBC.com, Bloomberg.com, CBS Interactive, CNBC, CNN.com, Comcast Interactive Media, Condé Nast, ConsumerReports.org, Disney Interactive Media, ESPN.com, Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, Gannett Digital, Gawker Media, Harvard Business Publishing, The Huffington Post, Hearst Coproration, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, and many more.

"What we find is encouraging is that the FTC reaffirmed many of the key elements of the FTC February 2009 Online Behavioral Advertising Principles that distinguishes the unique first party relationship publishers have with consumers," she adds. "In particular, the report clearly distinguishes that the collection and use of data for first party purposes is recognized as a commonly accepted practice. The staff report specifically notes that they believe that contextual advertising should fall within the commonly accepted practices category. This is the majority of advertising that OPA members serve."

"We are very encouraged by the fact that the FTC clearly recognized that just like in the physical world, consumers have different types of relationships online," she continues, noting that, "As OPA’s online publishers share a direct and trusted relationship with visitors to their websites they support the FTC in their desire to not only educate the consumer, provide choice but also greater transparency across the industry."

Yet there are still concerns. "Although we are encouraged by some elements of the report based on the fact that the FTC distinguish the first party relationships, we are concerned with the concept of Do Not Track if it impacts the first party," explains Horan. "There are significant unintended consequences that exist for publishers if the FTC pursues a universal choice mechanism which controls what first party data is collected."
As she outlines, "Cookies are critical to the operations of the publishers website including:

– Capping the frequency with which an individual ad is displayed which benefits both advertisers and consumer

– Analytics to measure audience size for reporting and inventory and planning campaigns

– Execute the ad campaign in compliance with the contract for example you may have a campaign that is geographically targeted

– Complying with legal requirements (for example, it may not be lawful to advertise a pharmaceutical product approved in the US to audiences in the UK)

– Preventing click fraud

– Synchronizing and sequencing creative content enabling an advertiser to tell a story through campaign elements that must unfold in a logical order."

"For advertisers and everyone in the ecosystem, the FTC is encouraging us to provide education, transparency and control to the consumer," Horan concludes. "As an industry, we have a strong self regulatory program that includes advertisers and our ability to be active in implementation of the program is important so we can demonstrate to the FTC and lawmakers that we can successful self regulate."

Oren Netzer, CEO of DoubleVerify, which provides online media verification to advertisers, agencies, ad networks and publishers, says, "The report is unclear in its definition of policy vs. law, as well as what constitutes ‘sensitive data’ and how a ‘do not track’ mechanism would and should be enforced." Netzer says however, that the consumer is bearing too much responsibility and the industry needs to do more.

As Cynthia Boris at MarketingPilgrim notes, online advertisers are already working on a self-policing program, but "it looks like the federal government is going to have their say and their say trumps anything from the private sector."

The matter will be on major industry topic to keep an eye on. There’s no question about that. The proposal is open to public comment until the end of January. There is no shortage of commentary so far.

December 2, 2010
Should Marketers Be Worried About New FTC Proposal?

The online marketing industry has been shaken by a new report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC has issued the proposal of a framework for balancing consumer privacy and innovation online. The proposal includes a "do not track" mechanism, which the FTC says would likely be a persistent setting on consumers’ browsers, so consumers can choose whether to allow the collection of data regarding their online searching and browsing activities.

The proposal comes in the form of a report called, "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers."

"Technological and business ingenuity have spawned a whole new online culture and vocabulary – email, IMs, apps and blogs – that consumers have come to expect and enjoy," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. "The FTC wants to help ensure that the growing, changing, thriving information marketplace is built on a framework that promotes privacy, transparency, business innovation and consumer choice. We believe that’s what most Americans want as well,"

"This proposal is intended to inform policymakers, including Congress, as they develop solutions, policies, and potential laws governing privacy, and guide and motivate industry as it develops more robust and effective best practices and self-regulatory guidelines," the FTC says.

It is ‘reasonable for companies to engage in certain practices – namely, product and service fulfillment, internal operations such as improving services offered, fraud prevention, legal compliance, and first-party marketing,’ the FTC’s report says. "By clarifying those practices for which consumer consent is unnecessary, companies will be able to streamline their communications with consumers, reducing the burden and confusion on consumers and businesses alike."

Whlie consumer protection is certainly a good thing, there is concern throughout the industry that the government doesn’t understand how things work well enough to propose such guidelines. There is no doubt that the guidelines would have huge ramifications throughout the industry if they were to be implemented, though it’s important to note that this is just a proposal of guidelines for potential legislation at this point.

"While many companies may publicly welcome better consumer privacy protection, the ideas in the report go against most of the targeting and data collection practices in use today," says industry analyst Greg Sterling. "Most of them (with some notable exceptions) rely on consumer ignorance."

"The new framework would place burdens on online ad networks, data vendors and others in the advertising value chain that most would find unwelcome," he adds. "And more information disclosures and consumer control over data would probably mean more consumers opting out of much of online tracking and targeting."

Cynthia Boris at MarketingPilgrim notes that online advertisers are already working on a self-policing program, but that "it looks like the federal government is going to have their say and their say trumps anything from the private sector."

The FTC’s proposal is open to public comment (of which I’m sure there will be more an incredible amount) until January 31. The proposal covers much more than just the "do no track" mechanism, calling for better privacy practices and transparency from businesses in general. More from the FTC here.

December 2, 2010
Google Launches New “Click Type” Reports for AdWords

Google has added a new kind of report to AdWords called "Click Type". This is designed to help marketers measure how different elements of AdWords ads impact their clicks, clickthrough rates and conversions.

AdWords ads have more options for advertisers than they used to. Advertisers can now use a product ads format, which lets them display different offerings in the same ad, sitelinks, which lets them feature different links in a single ad, or click-to-call, which customers can click on and call the business. All of these options, while incredibly helpful in advertising, can complicate things when it comes to measuring effectiveness.

The "click type" report shows the kind of data that its name would suggest. It lets you measure the performance of each click type you’re using. "You can think of a click type as how your customers interact with your ads," says Google’s Nathania Lozada. "Did they click on the headline, a sitelink, or some other aspect of your ad?"

"With this added data, you’ll now have the ability to compare performance of each click type side by side," she adds. "If certain click types perform well for your business, you may want to consider expanding them to other campaigns. Comparing click types by campaign, ad group or keyword will also highlight areas that need work."

"Given the success we’ve seen searchers and businesses have with more interactive features in ads, you can expect to see more of these types of features in the future. With the new click type report in AdWords you can measure the impact of these new features and continue to get the most out of your ads."

Google says to expect to see more interactive features in ads in the future. What this will entail is unclear, but it would appear that product ads, sitelinks, and click-to-call are just the beginning, so the new reports should also prove even more useful down the line.

November 30, 2010
EU Launches Search and Advertising Antitrust Investigation Against Google

Update 2: Google has posted a response on its Public Policy Blog.

Update: FairSearch, the organization that was formed in opposition to Google’s proposed acquisition of ITA, sent us the following statement from Tom Barnett, counsel to Expedia (part of the FairSearch organization) and former Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the US Justice Department:

"The European Commission’s announcement of a formal antitrust probe, looking into allegations that Google abuses its dominance in search to favor its own services and lower competitors’ search result rankings, underscores why the FairSearch.org coalition is urging the Justice Department to challenge Google’s proposed acquisition of ITA Software to protect consumers and competition in the online travel market."

Original Article: News is out this morning that Google is being investigated by European Union antitrust regulators. They are looking into the possibility that Google is discriminating against competitors in it search results and ads.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports: "The European Commission will check whether Google ‘imposes exclusivity obligations on advertising partners, preventing them from placing certain types of competing ads on their websites, as well as on computer and software vendors, with the aim of shutting out competing search tools,’ it said in an e-mailed statement today."

The Commission also reportedly said it will investigate Quality Score manipulation allegations.

Google is quoted as saying that it’s strived to "do the right thing" by users and the industry, "But there’s always going to be room for improvement, and so we’ll be working with the commission to address any concerns."

Regulators could potentially fine the company up to 10 percent of revenue for monopoly abuses, according to reports. However, according to the New York Times, the European Commission said it does not have "proof of infringements."

Meanwhile, China is prepared to prosecute Google over maps. The Chinese government has indicated that it intends to take legal action against the company if it doesn’t seek and obtain a mapping license.

China wants to make sure all maps match its own official maps. Google has reportedly not applied for a license.

Google is also rumored to be trying to acquire Groupon, with the latest reported offer at $5.3 billion, which if accepted, would be Google’s largest acquisition to date.

November 30, 2010
Ads In Social Media Driving Purchases

Fifteen percent of social media users in the U.S. are more likely to buy brands that advertise in that medium, representing slightly more than 30 million people 13-80 years old, according to a new study by Knowledge Networks and MediaPost Communications.

Social media site ads also drive brand exploration, with 25% more inclined to find out more about brands that advertise on social media sites.

Among 13-to-54-years-old smartphone users who have apps on their phone, almost a third (32%) say they are more likely to purchase the brands that advertise or have a marketing message in the app. Nearly three quarters (70%) of them say ad are a fair price to pay compared to social media’s 59 percent.

Ads within apps also appeal to smartphone owners between the ages of 13 and 54, with 40 percent saying that ads they see while using their smartphones are usually relevant to their "needs and interests."

"We have learned that as social media usage has become nearly universal, its influence on inclination to purchase cannot be ignored," said Patricia Graham, Chief Strategy Officer of Knowledge Networks.

"Yet, we also see that the level of social media influence on categories varies widely.”

There were no major changes in the impact of advertising within social media over the last year. Similar proportions said "ads are a fair price to pay for social media sites/features" in both 2009 (63%) and 2010 (59%). Social media users who are "more inclined to purchase from brands that advertise on social media sites/features" also remained constant, with 16 percent in 2009 and 15 percent in 2010.

“Marketers can expect more impact reaching social media users via mobile, based on these new findings," said Chuck Martin, Director of the Center for Media Research at Media Post Communications.

"As more people move to smartphones, there will be an increased opportunity for advertisers to improve their reach to consumers with increased relevance."

November 29, 2010
How and Why Remarketing Can Gain Back Lost Customers

Late last year, Advertise.com and the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) shared some interesting findings from a survey on ad technology, and found that remarketing (sometimes called retargeting) was considered the most under-utilized online marketing technology by nearly half or respondents.

Since then, Google has launched remarketing capabilities for AdWords, and I’m guessing the technology has been taken advantage of by more advertisers since. Daniel Yomtobian, CEO of Advertise.com, which offers its own remarketing services, tells us, "As many as 96 percent of the people who visit a website leave without completing the actions marketers would like them to take, like making a purchase. Remarketing targets previous site visitors and brings them back with highly customized ads that maximize conversions and return on advertisers’ interactive spend. Remarketing has been shown to improve ad response up to 400 percent compared to traditional display marketing."

Remarketing, simply put, targets customers who have been to the advertiser’s site before, but didn’t convert, and tries go gain their interest again, maybe with a different offer or a different spin on the ad.

"These visitors are tagged when they leave the site then later are shown ads with specific discounts and specials on items previously browsed as they surf elsewhere on the web," explains Yomtobian.

"First, the advertiser is given a line of code from the Remarketing network to include into their website," he continues. "Once implemented, upon visiting the site, users are tagged anonymously and later recognized by banner ads spaces on other websites within the Remarketing network. Advertisers later follow-up with these users as they surf other websites with an advertising message."

"It is important for both consumers and advertisers to understand that remarketing does not pull any other information from the visitor other than that he or she has viewed that particular site," he notes. "The visitor is ‘tagged’ anonymously and this allows advertisers to serve a relevant ad later in the visitor’s Internet surfing.

Increasing Traffic and Conversions

"Remarketing provides marketers with a vehicle to bring lost visitors back to convert, a solution that did not previously exist," says Yomtobian. "Remarketing reminds those consumers who didn’t convert the first time about the original offers as well as new opportunities, and seeks to bring them back for conversion."

"Most remarketing models are based on identifying consumers who expressed initial interest in a product or service on a web site or landing page or website but didn’t convert," he adds. "With Remarketing, advertisers can reach out to these past visitors with an ad relevant to their interests before they left the website. Matching these banners to users who are most likely to respond to them increases brand awareness, site visitations and conversions."

Remarketing might be particularly effective around the holidays. Customers that showed some interest in products might need a little extra encouragement to go through with a gift purchase. For that matter, products browsed around the holidays may be retargeted later as potential birthday gifts.

November 28, 2010
Landing Pages on Facebook Versus Twitter

While "selling" to people using Facebook isn’t always the best idea if you want to maintain a good brand reputation, Facebook does of course offer advertising, which gives you the opportunity to do that without spamming your "friends" or "fans".

WebProNews recently sat down with Janet Driscoll Miller of Search Mojo, who spoke a little about this and using landing pages within the social network.

"If you’re advertising in Facebook, you might want to try having a landing page within a Facebook tab because you can put forms in Facebook tabs today," she said. "Facebook’s going to be launching a new way to do tabs where you can use iFrames instead of the current FBML, and it’s going to make it a lot easier to do testing of the Facebook tabs as landing pages."

There are limitations that come along with Facebook landing pages, but the good probably outweighs the bad.

"One of the drawbacks being (of landing pages in Facebook) they’re only 520 pixels wide, which is real narrow, but it’s going to give you a lot more opportunity to do some testing there," said Driscoll Miller. "But a lot of companies aren’t doing that today."

"We’re finding that when you land people on pages within Facebook when you advertise in Facebook, you tend to have a higher conversion rate," she added. "They’re staying within that application. So I think that’s an important thing for people to start considering and testing with their Facebook ads."

What About Twitter?

Facebook and Twitter might be similar in some ways, but they are still very different animals, particularly when it comes to advertising.

"I think that the jury is still out on whether or not you want to have a specific landing page for Twitter or any other type of social media," Driscoll Miller told WebProNews. "But I think Facebook probably is the leader right now, just because of their advertising platform, and finding that you can do a little more testing in there now, especially with iFrames coming, and that you can land people directly in Facebook, and still have them do things."

"But I know there’s been a lot of discussion about should you land people from Twitter on a landing page specific to a particular campaign," she added. "I think what I’ve been hearing from people is mostly that you don’t want to try and sell to people directly through Twitter. Nor do you with Facebook, but a Facebook ad…that’s a different story."

You probably know by now that it’s in bad taste to just post updates with your marketing message all the time. Like Brandon Eley of Kelsey said in an interview, you have to know the rules of the community, and Facebook and Twitter have "unspoken rules" that just make you look bad if you engage in this kind of activity.

"So you wouldn’t want to be spamming people with a bunch of status updates and say, ‘20% off,’ ‘by now,’ and that sort of thing,’ said Driscoll Miller. "But you want to be a little gentler for using a status update versus using a Facebook ad."

You may consider having a special section of your site dedicated to social, and it’s possible that this could lead to a more sales-driven Twitter account.

"Maybe it’s deals that you get through Twitter," explained Driscoll Miller. "’Here’s my deals page and I’m tweeting the deals of the week’ or something like that, but you have to be real careful that you don’t offend the people who are following you. And they’re not necessarily following you just because they want deals or that they want to be spammed with your deals."

In other words, if you have this kind of Twitter account, it should probably be clear that this is the intention of said account, and maybe you should have a separate one for your main account.

November 24, 2010
Retailers Increasing Paid Search Ads Ahead Of Black Friday

U.S. paid search spend from retailers has increased nearly 37 percent ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, compared to last year, according to a new report from SearchIgnite.

The increase in retailers’ online PPC spend appears to be paying off as the economy bounces back from the recession; the rate at which consumers converted after clicking on a paid search advertisement was up 28.7% and their Average Order Values from online shopping were up 20.7% YoY.

"The increase on search spend among retailers is promising for the state of the search market overall," said Roger Barnette, CEO of SearchIgnite.

"More promising, however, is consumers’ increased Average Order Values and conversion rates. We expect this to be a very strong holiday season for e-commerce as the economy bounces back and consumers increasingly go online to do their shopping."

Other highlights from the report include:

*Spend growth slows on the combined Yahoo/Bing: Retailers’ search advertising spend on the combined Yahoo/Bing grew only 2.2% YoY, down from mid-Q4 2009 when both engines showed more significant increases (47% Bing, 8% Yahoo YoY).

*CPCs are rising for retailers: CPCs are rising. Despite widespread speculation that CPCs would increase specifically on Yahoo/Bing following their integration, CPCs rose most notably on Google (13% YoY), compared with only 4% rise on Yahoo/Bing.

November 23, 2010
Stop Thinking About Social Media as a Separate Marketing Channel

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November 18, 2010
Online Ad Revenue In US Hit Record $6.4 Billion

U.S. Internet advertising revenues hit a record $6.4 billion in the third quarter, an increase of 17 percent from the same period in 2009, according to a new report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC.

“The Internet has transformed consumers’ lives and how they experience entertainment, information and brands,” said Randall Rothenberg, President & CEO, IAB.

“Marketers have embraced digital media because that’s where they can engage with their consumers. This vibrant, innovative industry is creating jobs and contributing to the growth of the U.S. economy.”

The survey includes data concerning online advertising revenues from Web sites, commercial online services, free e-mail providers, and all other companies selling online advertising.

“Advertisers are shifting more of their brand messaging online, accounting for this welcome surge in a difficult economy,” said David Silverman, a partner at PwC.

“This trend reflects the accelerating shift in consumer behavior towards the Internet and away from traditional media.”

November 17, 2010
Major Advertisers Sign On For Google Goggles Test

Google’s augmented reality tech might soon make the shift from interesting plaything to revenue-generating tool. A Google Goggles marketing experiment has begun, at least, and Buick, Delta Airlines, Diageo, Disney, and T-Mobile are all taking part.

Shailesh Nalawadi, a product manager over Google Goggles, explained this morning on the Official Google Blog, "They have ‘Goggles-enabled’ some of their print ads, movie posters and other media. When users take pictures of these with Google Goggles, they will be recognized by the app, and users will have the option of clicking-through directly to a mobile destination from the brand."

Nalawadi later added, "To interact with these experimental campaigns, download Google Goggles from the Android Market or get Google Mobile App for iPhone from the iTunes store, and look for advertising and products from companies in the video above and others that are coming soon."

The video provides a few visuals if you’re intrigued. The feat’s certainly impressive enough from a technical standpoint, and the list of partners works in Google’s favor, as well.

At the same time, it’s hard to imagine that Google will be too successful here. After all, advertisers struggle to get consumers to even acknowledge their ads’ existence. Asking a consumer to also pull out his (or her) phone, take a picture of an ad, and then deal with more advertising seems like a stretch.

We’ll see what happens, in any event.

November 16, 2010
Hulu Sets Ad Impression Record In October

New comScore video data is out, and as usual, a few corporations traded places in terms of successfully attracting unique viewers. The bigger story, though, may be the fact that Hulu showed its users over 1.1 billion ads in October, which is more than twice as many as the number two entity, Tremor Media Video Network.

comScore called the 1.1 billion ads a record, and indeed, they represent an interesting milestone or two. One possibility is that Hulu cranked up some sort of revenue dial, considering it generated just 794 million ad impressions in September. That means an increase of 39.8 percent occurred on a month-over-month basis.

Still, at the same time, Hulu also managed to do a much better job of holding users’ attention, since comScore recorded a 27.8 percent month-over-month increase in minutes spent per viewer.

So October was a very good month for Hulu, setting aside the fact that it slipped from ninth place to tenth in the unique viewer rankings.

As for some other changes in those rankings, Viacom moved from seventh place to third, VEVO rose from sixth place to fourth, and Facebook fell from third place to fifth.

Google, meanwhile, remained very much on top, with comScore noting in a statement, "Google Sites had the highest number of viewing sessions, crossing the 2.0 billion mark in October, and average time spent per viewer at 272 minutes, or 4.5 hours."

November 15, 2010
Reducing the Yahoo-to-adCenter Campaign Friction

As you may know, the Yahoo and Microsoft advertising transition is complete. Yahoo and Microsoft paid search advertisers must use adCenter to manage their campaigns. But how smooth has the transition been for advertisers?

WebProNews took a few moments to talk about the transition with PPC expert Christine Churchill of Key Relevance at PubCon in Las Vegas. "One of the things that we’ve done to help clients move and transition over to the adCenter…because a lot of them start with Google, and they get their sites optimized and their campaigns optimized in Google because there’s some great tools and the user interface is pretty well established," she says.

"adCenter is a much newer system even though it’s been out for several years, it still has a few little glitches," she continues. "And one thing that you can do if you’re a business owner, and you’re running your own account…there’s a nice litte free downloadable tool that Google has – the AdWords Editor – something you can do is download your campaigns – your account – into the AdWords Editor and then export it into a spreadsheet and do some tweaking. It’s not a straight transfer into the adCenter, but you can use that as a transition tool. It really helps a lot of businesses."

"Some of the areas you’re going to have to transition and tweak is your negative keywords, your geo-targeting, and things like that, so it’s not perfect, but it gets the bulk of the transition done for you, so you don’t have to do it all – all that GUI interface of typing things in, which is an absolute nightmare, [and] very repetitive process, so that will save people a lot of time," adds Churchill.

When asked if it seems like advertisers seem to prefer the combination of Yahoo and Microsoft to the separate entities, she says, "I think it varies on the advertiser. I think it’s still very new, so I think anything they say right now…give it a few months. Let some of the initial bugs work out and meanwhile keep advertising on Google, but don’t give up on adCenter. I think that it’ll prove in the long term to be a beneficial thing, because there’s another opportunity [to] get in front of potential customers, so I see it as a good thing long term."

More WebProNews Videos

WebProNews also spoke with David Roth, Yahoo’s own director of search marketing, who obviously offers a slightly different perspective on the transition, given that he not only works for Yahoo, but does paid search marketing for the company himself.

"Now, for me, I’ve got kind of an unusual view on this because I am not only an advertiser, but Yahoo’s also a publisher, so we transitioned all of our advertising like everybody did," said Roth. "So now we’re using adCenter to manage our Yahoo and our Bing buy, but we also monetize search results all over Yahoo, and so we transitioned in two different ways. So for me it was really interesting to see how metrics shift, you know, as the market place shifts, and now all the work that we have to do to try to re-optimize our campaigns and adjust to how the new ecosystem works, as opposed to the old one."

"The thing that I noticed mostly, and [these are] kind of some basic principles or best practices, that one of the things I thought that we as advertisers could’ve done better, was to be more aggressive with what we were doing on adCenter, because we do want to make sure that all that traffic is shifting over there, and I think that when we went into it, we thought, ‘well, we’ll start with our best keywords. We’ll start with our top performers,’ but what we realized very quickly was that we really needed to move everything over there, and we needed to be as aggressive as possible in growing out our adCenter campaigns and keywords and ad groups, because we needed that in order to try to preserve the level of quantity and quality of traffic that we were getting previously," said Roth.

Yahoo and Microsoft have a detailed transition checklist for advertisers, which can be found here.

Are you an advertiser? Tell us how the transition has worked out for you.

November 11, 2010
Yahoo on Bing/adCenter Transition Through Eyes of an Advertiser

At PubCon Las Vegas, WebProNews spoke with David Roth, Yahoo’s Director of Search Marketing, who has an interesting perspective on the recent Microsoft/Yahoo search advertising transition (or “Search Alliance“), because not only does he work for Yahoo, he does Yahoo’s own search marketing. He’s an advertiser himself.

“It’s been really exciting to be in Yahoo while this is happening,” Roth tells WebProNews. “I mean, there’s a lot of tracking of everything that was going on, and there were daily emails going out about the transition really validating that we could make the transition evaluating quality every step of the way. So there’s really a lot of effort being put in to make sure that things went smoothly through the transition.”

“Now, for me, I’ve got kind of an unusual view on this because I am not only an advertiser, but Yahoo’s also a publisher, so we transitioned all of our advertising like everybody did,” Roth added. “So now we’re using adCenter to manage our Yahoo and our Bing buy, but we also monetize search results all over Yahoo, and so we transitioned in two different ways. So for me it was really interesting to see how metrics shift, you know, as the market place shifts, and now all the work that we have to do to try to re-optimize our campaigns and adjust to how the new ecosystem works, as opposed to the old one.”
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November 10, 2010