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 | 9:32 am | October 22, 2008 | Google, MSN, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), yahoo
Search spend on Yahoo and Microsoft has already started to drop it is reported as advertisers move they budgets across to Google following its decision to allow gambling advertising in the UK.
Many of the top brands including Ladbrokes and Bet365 have re-organised budgets to launch large search strategies on Google although there are still possible issues with a saturation of the market happening making for heavily inflated CPC.
Initial spend levels have been in excess of 300 million a lot higher than the initial report of 100 million.
A quote from Rob Allan, Ladbrokes online marketing manager, said.
“We’re increasing spend but also looking at where that money would be best spent,” he said. “Google has significant market share and is where many people go to first online, so Yahoo and Microsoft are not as good from that perspective.
“I can guarantee that over the next month or so money will come out of Yahoo and MSN,” he added the question now is, given Google has 80% market share, do we place the same share of our spend on it.
With Yahoo and MSN both suffering losses last quarter it will be very interesting to see the impact for the next 2 as Google move forward into Gambling area.
Garret Cunningham | 11:26 am | October 16, 2008 | Google, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Bet you didn’t expect to hear this (excuse the pun) Google are about to announce they will begin considering gambling websites setting up campaigns on Adwords.
To be announced later today, but following a conversation we just had with Google, if your running a gambling site, you will be able to bid on the keywords you’ve been desperately trying to optimise for!
Google are expecting to be extremely busy with the setups so are warning they won’t be offering any help on pitches and proposals for clients, so if you want to get setup, do it quick!
Although accounts will take longer to get setup, and will require completion of a few legal declarations, it looks like its going to be free for all by the end of today!
I’m sure we will have some more specific information later today when things became official, but until then, get on to your agencies or account managers at Google!
Good luck Yahoo! and MSN…
Additional Points: We will update as we get more information but some additional information includes:
- Accounts will take longer to setup
- Applies only to the UK, but excludes Northern Ireland, so only applies to England, Scotland and Wales
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 | 11:08 am | August 20, 2008 | Google, MSN, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), yahoo
On August 15th it marked the second anniversary of Microsoft ad Center’s after its groundbreaking UK launch and associated claims to compete with Google Ad words. But has it, not even close the system maybe 2 years old but its still 3 years behind Google from its unfriendly user interface to lack of flexibility that ad words offers not only via the main interface but with ad words editor.
The keyword tools although due for an update offer a list of 5 at time, and although it may seem unfair to always compare to Google, they have stuck to basics and used feedback very effectively.
But MSN are not the only ones lagging behind in the paid search market, Yahoo and its now infamous Panama platform have also failed to provide a more superior product however overall it does beat MSN but the promise over a year ago of a editor type tool has yet to appear but the editorial issues seem to moving forward with a more relaxed and realistic system.
So the next 2 years…… Yahoo and MSN both need to pull they socks up in the technology and user side of the paid search systems, however they are still very viable media options and we have always found them to convert well so get back to basic’s and we will all be a lot happier.
Julian Sharpe | 9:02 am | August 13, 2008 | MIVA, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Miva has announced a further loss of 6.3 million dollars (£3.3m) in Q2, this is in the week that it rejected a takeover proposal from video search specialist Blinkx.
This is now the second consecutive quarter that the MIVA network had suffered a loss, being down by 5 million dollars (£2.6m) for Q1 2008 Revenues were at 30.2 million dollars (£15.8m) for the quarter, down from 32.7 million dollars (£17.1m) year on year.
Quote:
Peter Corrao, Miva CEO and president, said, “The most recent quarter has been a transitional one for our business. We’re encouraged by the results of the growth initiatives that we’ve been working towards, such as the continued rollout of our Alot toolbar and home page brand and the continued growth of destination sites like Spill.com.”
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 | 4:28 pm | June 17, 2008 | Google, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Google has final caved in to demand and is to hold talks with leading UK brands in an attempt to stop any future legal action over last month’s changes to brand keyword bidding which has opened the flood gates to brand leeching. Google has asked what it believes are the key brands to an informal meeting to discuss the overall affect the decision is having on the market, the questions remains however not all Google key brands are necessary brands that have a strong web standing with there Brand and not all key brands have the highest turnovers from ad words so will these be excluded, it certainly looks that way a the moment.
According to unconfirmed reports Google is understood to be trying to show the positive impact the changes have had on traffic volumes for brands, and to stop in there tracks any concerns over cost-per-click inflation as a result of the change.
Google is very aware that some brands have seen keyword rates increase after the change was implemented in early May in addition there have also been reports of a lawsuit from a combined group of these key brands. As previous featured on the Lake star media Blog, Teletext said it would take legal action against Direct line Holidays to prohibit the company from bidding on its brand terms, I think everyone knew it was coming, Google hoped it wasn’t, the outcome should be very interesting.
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.
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