Internet Marketing Weblog
Julian Sharpe | 4:56 pm | November 10, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, Events, Google, Jobs, MIVA, MSN, Mobile, News, Online Media Planning (OMP), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media, Tracking, Viral, aol, yahoo
With the Credit crunch still biting it is predicted that Christmas shoppers will turn to the Internet pushing sales up by 15 per cent from last year. Online sales for the final 3 months of this year are forecasted to be around 13.16 billion.
December the 8th has be ear marked as the biggest online shopping day, so let’s see if the statistics agree on the 9th.
Julian Sharpe | 11:55 am | October 7, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, Google, MSN, News, Online Media Planning (OMP), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media, yahoo
Even with the current Credit Crunch issues sweeping the nation Internet advertising spend seems to still enjoying a level of growth with overall spend reaching 1.68bn in the first half of this year, which is a 21% like-for-like increase based on last year (Source: IAB).
The highlights of the latest survey is a 28% year-on-year growth for paid search, which now accounts for 58.3% of total online spend and almost breaking the 1bn barrier (981m) for the first time in a six-month period.
Other areas saw Display advertising rise 16.3% year-on-year to 333.8m, this was helped by a 36.6% increase in investment on embedded formats such as banners, rich media and video via social media networks.
Report shows that the majority of online display ad spend is still being achieved via the major portals and online publishers, but sales networks representing thousands of smaller sites have increased their volumes and accounted for 41% of all display expenditure.
Classifieds advertisements grew by 30.2% year-on-year to 361.6m as recruitment, property, automotive and small ads continued their migration to the internet from print classifieds, which declined 10% year-on-year.
Technology leads the market sector advertising spend table with a 17.3% market share, followed by finance at 11.9%, entertainment & media at 10.7% and recruitment at 9.9%.
Overall online increased its market share by four points to 18.7% of the total UK ad market, only 0.6% behind total press display (19.3%) and 3% behind TV (21.7%). The total advertising market was £8.98bn, down 0.7% year-on-year, during the period January to June 2008. The advertising market would have experienced a 4.6% decline without internet advertising growth.
Garret Cunningham | 3:52 pm | September 2, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, Online Media Planning (OMP), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Tracking
Tracking visitors from their arrival on your website through to their departure is an essential component of any online marketing campaign.
It is only through effective analysis of this information campaigns can be improved and developed to grow the performance and improve the user experience.
A few of the key factors we can determine from the use of an effective tracking system include:
· Which keywords generate the highest Return on investment (both sponsored and natural)
· Which external websites drive the most traffic and revenue for your site (including search engines)
· Number of visitors to your website
· Average length of stay on your site
· Which pages result in the highest number of visitors leaving your website (may help identify pages with errors)
· Visitors trends, showing correlations between new visitors and returning as well as the impact of each media channel on the performance of others
Various tracking options
There are many tools available which can provide these functions individually, but few which operate as a complete service.
The suitability of each tracking tool also depends greatly on the needs of the campaign.
For example, to only track a Pay per click campaign running on Google, Google conversion tracking would suffice, however this would not help with measuring user experience or any other media channels.
Google Analytics
For in-depth Website analytics, which would provide a valuable insight into user experiences, search engine performances and traffic levels for your website, Google Analytics can be very effective, as this provides much of this information as standard, but also has the opportunity to expand on the standard services to then include e-commerce information relating to products sold and the revenue generated.
Another benefit is that it is free!
Lynchpin
For a more simplified view of the performance of each media channel we recommend a tracking tool such as Lynchpin, which as opposed to providing website analytical information, focuses on sales and revenue for each media channel.
This tool can also provide an overview of the impact of each media on others, giving an idea of which channels generate new visitors, and then through which channels they return again in the future.
Costs start at around £400 per month.
DoubleClick
Probably the most efficient performance measuring tool which provides similar information is DoubleClick.
Again this operates as a revenue and sales reporting tool as opposed to analytical data, but offers even more in-depth information than most other reporting tools.
DoubleClick is especially effective for media campaigns covering many channels and especially when integrating Online media Planning.
It is especially effective for Online Media Planning as this is a channel most commonly associated with building brand awareness, but not directly generating a return on investment.
With a tool such as DoubleClick not only can the direct return on investment be measured, but also the indirect.
The key differentiating factor with DoubleClick is the use of the post impression cookie. This allows the tool to not only track users who click on a link, but also those who have simply viewed a banner ad, giving a better reflection of how effective the brand building exercise is performing.
Costs are more complex and include a set up fee and then it operates on a CPC basis depending upon your traffic levels.
A few things to consider
When deciding which tool is most suitable to match your campaign needs it is important to take into consideration a number of factors:
· What information is needed
· The level of detail required
· Which key performance measures are most important to your business and how these need to be split out
· And finally what level of investment you are prepared to commit to, as the price of these tools vary greatly
Julian Sharpe | 9:05 am | August 21, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, News, Social Media
Ebay’s is looking at revising its auction model after the No 1 auction site revealed it was looking at making significant changes to its business model.
Ebay said that it was likely to place more emphasis on its fixed-price listings, claiming sellers will see listing fees fall. Changes are due to come in to effect in the UK on 24 September; this will include an overhaul of its site search, making it easier to find fixed-price items, and the dropping of image upload fees.
Quote:
Lorrie Norrington, presidentof Ebay marketplace operations in the US, said, “I’d say this is the most fundamental change we’ve made, ever, to the marketplace. It’s a huge shift from where we’ve been.”
Likewise, Clare Gilmartin, director of marketplaces for Ebay in the UK, said, “Today’s improvements will remove barriers for sellers so they can make the most of this opportunity and offer even more goods for sale on Ebay. That means even greater choice for buyers and in turn greater success for sellers.”
Current Ebay figures show that as many as 178,000 people earn their primary or a secondary income from running an Ebay-based business.
Julian Sharpe | 9:20 am | July 1, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, Google, News, Online Media Planning (OMP), Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
As part of Google’s integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate network will now part of Google.
However to consolidate Googles offerings, advertisers will be phased out the AdWords pay-per-action beta in the last week of August 2008. The new alternative to pay-per-action advertising Google intends to offer is two products that allow advertisers to manage there advertising on a CPA (cost-per-acquisition) basis:
Conversion Optimizer
Google Affiliate Network
A brief look at each product shows the Conversion Optimizer is an AdWords bidding feature that lets you specify a maximum CPA goal for
ads on the Google search and content networks. It uses historical
information about your campaign to automatically adjust your CPC bid
for each auction to help you meet your CPA goal.
In addition, the Conversion Optimizer is now supported in both the AdWords Editor and the AdWords API.
The Google Affiliate Network, which is in essence the DoubleClick
Performics Affiliate system. If you have not used Double Click before, it allows advertisers to open their ads to all publishers in the network, or just to select specific publishers that match their criteria.
You can set a CPA for your entire campaign or establish custom payment
schedules for specific publishers such as a higher CPA for a
particularly optimal placement or in plain English pay more for your best converting networks or channels.
The Google Affiliate Network is currently a separate product from AdWords and AdSense. As with AdSense, publishers must apply and be accepted into the network.
Julian Sharpe | 6:46 am | June 8, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, Mobile, News, Online Media Planning (OMP), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media
AOL has announced that its Platform A advertising division will be released across Europe throughout this year.
The new service allows advertisers to purchase across AOL’s range of services, including Advertising.com, affiliate network Buy.at, behavioural targeting providers Quigo and Tacoda, and mobile ad network Third Screen Media making for a very effective overall media option package.
AOL has claimed to reach more than 125m consumers in Europe and is quietly confident that it can now deliver advertisers more effective tools to help run campaigns.
Julian Sharpe | 9:13 am | June 3, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, Mobile, News, Online Media Planning (OMP), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media
The news that everybody already knew is now official with Online advertising spend across Europe jumping 40 percent to 11.2bn euros around 8.9bn sterling in 2007, in figures released by Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe.
These new figures show continued growth in the market, with advertisement spend up 4bn euros on 2006 with 7.2bn euros (5.7bn).
Top 3 countries are UK, Germany and France and were also the biggest spenders in 2007, accounting for 65% of European online ad spend. While advertisers spent an average €81 (£64) per European internet user in 2007, in the UK this figure reached 121 euros per person.
Further more the findings also revealed that the entertainment & leisure sector spent the most on online advertising, followed by finance & insurance.
IAB Quote
Alain Heureux, president of IAB Europe, said, “Despite a slowdown in advertising spend on some traditional media, the rise of online advertising in Europe continues unabated.”
“Not only is the growth coming from some of the smaller markets which are seeing significant increases in their market value, but also from the more mature countries as companies move their advertising budgets online for the first time.”
However the European growth still falls below that of the US market, where online ad spend reached 14.5bn euros during the same period.
Garret Cunningham | 10:56 am | February 20, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, Google, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Google have official announced the release of their Display URL update. There has been quite a lot of speculation in the lead up to the official release.
Concerns have hovered around what the implications will be for affiliates. The updates requires advertisers to use accurate display URLs which match their Destination URL.
I.e. if the disply url is for www.lakestarmedia.com, the destination url must be www.lakestarmedia.com, and does not allow for misspellings or variations in .com and .co.uk.
The worry for affiliates was, how would this affect redirects? as affiilates who run direct pay per click campaigns use affiliate network tracking which redirects to merchants websites, therefore the display url wouldn’t match, but as the official line says redirects are fine as long as the final landing page matches the display url.
For more information view the official post here.
Garret Cunningham | 3:29 pm | January 16, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, News
Leading affiliate network TradeDoubler has launched TD Technology in Japan. The network launch has been facilitated by the acquisition and rebranding of The Technology Works which was acquired by TradeDoubler last year around July 2007. TD Technology’s strategic position in Tokyo, one of the world’s leading technological hubs adds “technology innovation” to TradeDoubler’s portfolio which now also includes search marketing after their recent acquisition of The Searchworks.
TradeDoubler’s CEO William Cooper had this to say: “We have long been committed to entering the Asian market and are very glad to be doing so through such a well-established and promising business in Tokyo.” The acquisition of TD Technology comes after the launch of TradeDoubler’s Searchware4 which is a search management interface that allows online advertisers control and optimize all of their online marketing channels through one portal.
Trade Doubler have been one of the market leaders in affiliate marketing and been in the industry for quite some time. They have a strong European presence and over 350 employees. Major programs on the network include AOL, Dell and Royal Bank of Scotland.
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