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 | 1:00 pm | July 21, 2008 | News, Online Media Planning (OMP)
Online ad exchange site AdJug has signed network deals with classified ad websites The Sun Local and Oodle. The new deals will see AdJug serving banner ads from its network to The Sun Local and Oodle sites. The ads will be targeted to key classified categories such as pets, cars, property and items for sale, as well as run-of-site.
Oodle provides classified advertising for numerous websites including Lycos UK, Magic Radio and Infospace. The economic downturn is proving to be a boon for companies selling remnant inventory.
Max Moore, vice-president of publishing at AdJug, said the ad exchange and marketplace sector was seeing growth.
“Publishers are taking advantage of the opportunity in the marketplace, they’ve got nothing to lose as its free to use and non-exclusive.
“Adding Oodle’s high calibre inventory to the AdJug inventory mix will provide our advertisers with a great cross-section of classified sites to target, and further expand AdJug’s local channel.”
AdJug’s marketplace currently records more than half a billion ad impressions a month across 1,200 sites.
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 | 2:10 pm | June 30, 2008 | Mobile, News, Online Media Planning (OMP)
Telecoms giant Telefonica, which owns Mobile phone operator O2, has put in place a group-wide mobile advertising platform in a bid to drive a new source of ad revenue.
It has announced the launch of a single mobile ad server this year for its operators in the UK, Spain, Mexico and Colombia with others to follow in 2009. The server, which is managed by platform provider Amobee Media Systems, allows a range of ad formats to be delivered including display banners, in-game, video, messaging and applications It will have the potential to reach 170m subscribers.
The operator said the platform will give agencies a single point of contact to buy, manage and track contextual and behavioural campaigns.
Quote:
Julio Linares, chief operating officer for Telefonica, said the group’s single ad platform gave it cost savings and quicker campaign deployment.
“The key to successful mobile advertising is doing it in a contextual and non intrusive way,” said Linares.
Garret Cunningham | 2:39 pm | June 24, 2008 | Google, News, Online Media Planning (OMP)
Google have just unveiled their new Ad Planner tool. Designed specifically for Online Media Planners, it looks like another step in the Google DoubleClick integration.
The tool will allow Planners to enter websites and demographic data relating to their advertiser and the tool will provide information on related websites, both on and very importantly, off the Google content network.
The tool offers great potential in the level of information which can be retrieved in terms of sites, trends, demographics and (it wouldn’t be Google without) related searches!
The new tool however will also have a convenient easy integration with DoubleClick as plans can be exported to DoubleClicks’ MediaVisor management tool.
Its only available by invite, so ensure you sign up quickly!
We have signed up and can’t wait to use it!
Julian Sharpe | 2:08 pm | June 16, 2008 | Online Media Planning (OMP), Social Media
Brewery biwigs Scottish & Newcastle has launched a new campaign site in support of its popular Fosters brand.
The new widget named Ride the Scuba focuses on the brand’s new in-can widget, which controls the size of bubbles that are released into the drink. The site allows visitors to control a scuba robot in a water tank in real-time, encouraging them to destroy bubbles in the water through the internet.
Visitors have a two minutes time limit to compete the game, the person in first place on the leader board by the end date of the 30 June will win a scuba diving trip to Australia, not bad at all.
Julian Sharpe | 1:17 pm | June 13, 2008 | News, Online Media Planning (OMP), Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Yahoo has announced it has agreed to let Google serve ads among its own search results initial in North America, as talks with Microsoft broke down once again.
The Yahoo / Google deal, which will has been set-up for an initial four years, follows a two-week trial and could add up to 800m dollars around 411m pounds in revenues for Yahoo according to financial reports.
Sue Decker, president of Yahoo is quoted as saying “This agreement provides a source of funds to both deliver financial value to stockholders from search monetisation and to invest in our broader strategy to transform display advertising and advance our starting point objective with users.”
How this deal will effective any future MSN deal is unclear currently but it’s unlikely that Google and MSN would broker a deal as both brands are a bit frost with each other at the best of times.
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.
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