The Found Video Recap

If you’re in the mood for video, here’s a quick recap of the five new stats you’ll be getting from the Auction Insights tool. Otherwise, or after listening, skip down to finish reading this post.

Auction Insights, debuting this week, will enable advertisers to see how a specific keyword ranks against competitors bidding on the same keyword. According to Google, these statistics will help advertisers “make strategic decisions about bids, budgets, and keyword choices by showing you where you are succeeding and where you may be missing opportunities for improved performance.”

Auction Insights Statistics

An icon will show to the left of a keyword when stats are available. Here are the statistics you will see on this report:

1. Average Position: How your ads are ranking compared to the others in the auction
2. Impression Share: This feature is currently available under the columns of your AdWords dashboard, but now you can see your competitor’s impression share, too. With Auction Insights, you can see their impression share as a proportion of the auctions in which you were competing.
3. Overlap Rate: Percentage you and the competitors overlapped impressions for the keyword.
4. Position Above Rate: How often the competitor’s ads were ranked higher than yours
5. Top of Page Rate: Percentage you, or the competition, had the number one position

Click to enlarge image

While this report feature is excellent, note that you are only able to research one keyword at a time and data is only available for keywords that meet a minimum threshold of activity. There is also no data about match type or targeting settings. But, that’s fine by me. This is still more information than I can get from simply Googling each keyword. Oh boy, my clients are gonna love this!

NB from Justin: What struck me the most about this tool is how Google is coming around to the old GoTo.com / Overture / Yahoo! Search Marketing model of showing you where your competitors ranked in comparison to you.  Ahh – those were the days.  Getting to see exactly where you ranked based purely on bid (no Quality Score factors) and going after competitors bidding high by bidding one cent under them.

The Found Video Recap

As you may have noticed, we’re adding video from the author to all our blog posts now that serve to give additional, related information or visually recap. We’re still playing around with everything, but we expect it to enhance your Found experience. So here’s me with my current favorite Google Store toy – the DOM Found team is up for any and all dodgeball challengers. Note there’s much more to this post beneath the video, so keep scrolling!

Google AdWords Trademark Policy (U.S., Search Network)

The case is all about trademark usage by non-trademark holders, which we’ve talked about before.*  In a nutshell, Google’s current policy – and it wasn’t always this way – for the U.S. allows advertisers to advertise on any keyword they’d like regardless of trademark.  What they cannot do in some instances is use that trademarked term in their ad copy, provided that a trademark complaint has been filed with and accepted by AdWords legal counsel.

* Trademark usage also came up regarding natural search engine results in a case where we brought in attorney and friend-of-DOM Chris Gardill to provide expert legal opinion.

Here’s Google AdWords’ official trademark policy.  You’ll note they have different trademark standards for different geographic regions.  In some places outside the United States, a trademark owner can actually prevent other advertisers from serving up ads on their trademark terms.

Also worth a read is their policy for resellers and informational sites.  It’s probably worthy of its own post, but what I’ll note here is that just because you meet all these requirements doesn’t mean Google will approve your ad even after a manual review.  We’d suggest requesting approval directly from the trademark owner if possible – Google will tell you whom to contact if you contact them.  Once you get that approval, it should cover you for future ads as well so you don’t have to get held up every time you write a new ad (and it covers you for display ads, which are not covered by the reseller policy).  Does Google do that as a CYA?  Probably, but following this recommendation may be the best way to get your ads up as quickly as possible.

Rosetta Stone LTD v. Google, Incorporated Summary

So, why exactly is this ruling from the Fourth Circuit important?  Google had previously won summary judgment against Rosetta Stone from a U.S. District Court in Virginia.  That’s pretty much what’s been happening for awhile now to the point where Google attorneys have won so often that often trademark owners have been just going after the advertisers infringing on their names, rather than trying to beat the G Machine.

Since no one actually calls Google counsel the G Machine, here's a picture of the Mean Machine. Any commenter who says I should have pulled from Adam Sandler's version is asking for an MP!

For a better and more detailed history of lawsuits, check out the excellent Technology & Marketing Law Blog from Eric Goldman.  Interestingly enough, Eric also served as a Limited Intervenor in this case. Those – I’m told – are folks that say they’re a party who has rights related to the suit.  Specifically in Eric’s case, he was doing it for freedom of press purposes as some of the court records were sealed.  I don’t know what was sealed, but it’s not hard to imagine it would have to do with Google’s technology behind its paid search platform.  If that’s the case and they would have to publicly release how, say, their auction actually works, that could be the most damaging part of the case to Google.  Again, that’s just pure speculation.

This time around, the Court of Appeals disagreed with the District Court (and Google) on several points and sent it back to them to hear the case on those specific points.  Let’s look at each of the points.

Just note that in sending back the case to be tried on these points the Court of Appeals is not saying that Google’s stance is wrong and that it has violated trademark rights.  What it is saying is that the District Court was wrong to have awarded Google summary judgment, which means that the District Court found Rosetta Stone’s arguments to be without any merit worthy of actually being tried.

With that, here we go.  Just be aware that I’m writing as a search engine marketer and not as an attorney, which I am not, although I did discuss parts of the ruling with attorneys to gain a clearer understanding.

Direct Infringement

Rosetta Stone made appeal on two separate counts regarding direct infringement, both of which were vacated by the Court of Appeals:

Likelihood of Confusion

A response to this count took up many pages of the ruling and it’s all worth reading.  The biggest part that jumped out to me was that Google itself had run internal studies in the past that indicated allowing advertisers to run ads on trademarked terms would be confusing to searchers.

The Court specifically notes that when Google AdWords changed its policy in 2004 to allow advertisers to run on trademarked terms (prior to this time, they were not), Google did not allow trademarked terms to appear in ad text from non-trademark owners under any circumstances specifically for that reason.  The policy for resellers and informational sites linked above is relatively new.  The first instance of advertisers being allowed to use the trademarked term in ad text in any circumstances did not happen until five years later in 2009.

This section also had a note about the sophistication of consumers and the common searcher knowing the difference between paid ads and natural listings.  Anecdotally – although from speaking with many, many people over the years – I don’t believe this is the case.  Many people don’t recognize the difference at all and that’s not to mention how Google keeps making the box shading lighter and lighter so that it barely appears on some resolutions.  Others do know there’s a difference, but don’t understand exactly what the difference is.

Functionality

In short, the Court of Appeals felt that the “functionality doctrine” did not apply to this case (which the District Court did).  Basically, the District Court believed that the trademarked terms made Google’s product (search results) more functional.  The Court of Appeals said that was not the standard and that the question is whether the trademarked term is functional specifically in how Rosetta Stone used it.

Basically, Rosetta Stone’s products would function no differently if it had a completely, unrelated name.  The most interesting part about this section of ruling is that it references a case between Playboy and Netscape.  I bring that up solely so I can add in this picture to increase page views:

What? You don't think the world's first modern Web browser is sexy?

Contributory Infringement

Another really interesting one in that it directly addresses Google’s involvement as a middleman.  The Court explains contributory infringement by referencing a Supreme Court case stating:

if a manufacturer or distributor intentionally induces another to infringe on a trademark, or if it continues to supply its product to one whom it knows or has reason to know is engaging in trademark infringement, the manufacturer or distributor is contributorily responsible for any harm done as a result of the deceit.

So what Rosetta Stone is claiming in this regard is that Google had to know that infringers and counterfeiters would bid on its trademarked name.  To support its claim, Rosetta Stone referenced nearly 200 examples over a 3-month period of fraudulent advertising on its name.  Beyond just arguing that because they kept popping up Google was responsible for more due diligence (which would be an interesting challenge in and of itself), Rosetta Stone argued that the same companies continued to advertise fraudulently on their name by doing different Web sites.

Trademark Dilution

A major difference between trademark infringement and dilution is that dilution doesn’t deal with marketplace confusion or protecting consumers – just the company.  The trademark dilution claim is going back to District Court for trial for a couple reasons.  An important one is that Rosetta Stone doesn’t have to show that Google was using the trademark to promote its own products.  Google’s policies – the Court of Appeals argues – can cause trademark dilution that it could be liable for regardless of whether Google is using Rosetta Stone’s name to promote itself.

Something else discussed could matter for advertisers that have been around awhile: namely the question of when Rosetta Stone’s marks became “famous.”  So, if you’ve had a “famous” trademark prior to 2004 (when Google changed its trademark policy to allow advertisers to bid on them), the outcome of the trial on appeal could be very important to you.  There also remains the question of dates as Google’s other significant trademark policy change in 2009 where trademarks could be used in ad text in limited circumstances could be used as a dividing line for trademark fame.

Upheld Claims: Vicarious Infringement & Unjust Enrichment

Finally, in case you’re interested – and if you’ve made it this far through the post you must – the Court of Appeals upheld the District Court’s award of summary judgment regarding vicarious infringement and unjust enrichment.  These will not be tried when the case goes back to be tried at the district level.

Vicarious infringement basically means that Google would have to be in cahoots directly with the advertisers, for which Rosetta Stone had no evidence and frankly, I can’t imagine happening.  For unjust enrichment, Rosetta Stone makes an argument that Google knows it’s making money off of Rosetta Stone”s name unfairly.  However, to argue this feature (which is Virginia law), they would have to show that Google “should reasonably have expected” to have to pay Rosetta Stone for such, which they did not claim and would have a hard time proving one would imagine.

Takeaways

Other than just general thoughts on trademark usage for advertisers, the biggest outcome at the moment is really left hanging in the air like a “Stay tuned for the next exciting episode” message at the end of a show.  So check back in soon – same Bat Time (when it gets placed on the docket), Same Bat Channel (United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia).  You know Google will be on pins and needles for the outcome.

NB – I’m biased, but I just want to add that it’s hard not to come away impressed with our court systems when reading through these cases.  Cases are seriously considered by intelligent women and men trying their best to get the answers right.  Just as important, there’s a checks and balances system where incorrect (whether perceived or real) rulings can be appealed through several layers providing there is some merit to the appeal.

According to Google, being able to track user interactions allows you to identify valuable networks and content, ultimately providing additional insight for helping you reach goals or increase conversions.

The Social section shows traffic from the major social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as from blog and social bookmarking sites. Here is a short overview of what each section offers:

Sources

Identify networks and communities where people engage with your content and view basic metrics, like Average Visit Duration or Pages/Visit. This section allows you to see what content is performing well across each individual network.

Pages

The Pages section provides additional engagement metrics for individual URLs. Once you click on a URL, you’ll be able to see which networks referred the most traffic to that page.

Conversions

Measure the success and impact of your social campaigns by aligning them with your on-site goals and conversions (or ecommerce transactions, if you’re into that). From this section, you can identify which networks provide the highest ROI or monetary value. Of course, you’ll need to define goals and goal values to see conversion data.

Social Plugins

The Social Plugin report shows you how many people shared your content through social actions. You know those little buttons on your site that let people instantly share anything and everything? You can view that data in this section, but you’ll have to do some preliminary setup to track non-Google+ actions, obviously.

Social Visitors Flow:

The Social Visitors Flow section is especially handy when you’re tired of all those numbers. If you’re familiar with the Visitors Flow feature in the Audience section of Analytics, this is essentially the same tool for social. You can easily see the paths your visitors took through your site from specific social networks. The flowchart also clearly shows dropoff points.

The Verdict

Social analytics is a great way to monitor your social media impact, discover valuable social networks, and identify shareable content. If you’re new to Social analytics, I really recommend checking it out in-depth. If you’re an Analytics whiz and have been using Social since its release in late March, read on, as they added a few changes this week.

New Feature: The Backlinks Report in Google Social Analytics

According to Google, they monitor the web for sites linking to your published content. Once they find those links, they provide all the important data right in Social analytics. This data includes backlink URLs, post titles, dates, and sometimes even a particular user.

To get to this feature, you’ll need to navigate to the Pages section.

Select a specific URL, and then click on the Activity Stream tab.

Scroll down, and below the chart, you’ll find the blink-and-miss-it Events section, which is where your links are documented.

This article provides some additional screenshots and analysis. Overall, the Google Analytics backlinks report is a simple, easy-to-read list, even if you don’t know a lot of link logistics. For seasoned link builders and SEO specialists, it’s not necessarily Webmaster Tools, but it is updated much more quickly and is at least worth exploring.

The Found Video Recap

Here’s the down-low. There are three ad delivery settings for each campaign. Advertisers can choose to optimize for clicks, optimize for conversions, or rotate to show ads more evenly.

As marketers we’re always testing (and if you’re not, you should be). This is where ad rotation plays a huge part in the success of our clients’ campaigns. We are able to rotate ads to see which ads perform best from a click and conversion perspective. But, Google feels that regardless of how we want to run our campaigns, the ads should ultimately be optimized for clicks. Say what….?

Yes, Google has decided that after 30 days from the launch (or change) of a new ad they will automatically switch the ads in an ad group to be optimized for clicks. Here’s how they put it:

Even though this setting is at the campaign level, the even rotation period is tracked separately for each ad group. The even rotation period starts (and resets) for an ad group whenever the ads in the ad group change: when you create a new ad, edit an existing ad, or enable a paused or deleted ad.

What does this mean? This means that Google will be making more money because they get paid every time a click occurs. While this is great for them, it may be detrimental for campaign success. The ad with the highest click through rate may not be the best converting ad for my client. We’re in business for conversions, not simply clicks.

Google feels that “this change will enable us to provide users with the most relevant ad experience and should help advertisers improve the performance of their AdWords accounts”. As an agency that has been in this business since the inception of Google AdWords, we completely and whole-heartedly disagree.

So, what should you do? Wait and hope that the amount of irate customers across the globe can change their mind? Unlikely, I’m sure. For one thing, you should be changing ads regularly anyway.  But for the long-time winners, one tip would be to make a change to at least one ad in each ad group every 30 days in order to keep our timer from expiring. The change doesn’t have to be big….a switch of punctuation, a capitol letter in place of a lowercase…something small and insignificant, unnoticeable to the users eye.

Is Google crazy? At least we are able to opt-out of the exact and phrase match changes that I mentioned last week, but this time there is no opt-out for the ad rotation changes they are implementing. That’s my rant for the day. Hope you found it informative. Let us know what you think about the new ad rotation change. Maybe someone is a little more optimistic about this than us agencies!

The Found Video Recap

My jaw hit the floor when I logged into AdWords last week and saw that Google was going to start inferring variations on our exact and phrase match terms. Really? If I wanted Google to infer exact and phrase match, I would have made them broad in the first place.

After I regain my composure, I click on the link and learn that it’s not as bad as I thought. Google is not treating these as broad as the broad match, but rather pulling “close variants” to the keywords. See the example below.

I can see the benefit to this option, but it still scares me because the close variants can include: misspellings, singular/plural forms, stemmings, accents and abbreviations. (Sounds a little like broad match to me, yeah?) However, I was relieved to learn that there is an off switch. Under the main Setting tab, scroll to the bottom and find Keyword Matching Options. It looks like this:

Oh, and for all your price conscious folks, have no fear because Google will still use the exact match term to determine your quality score and first page bid estimate.

In all seriousness, this could be great for advertisers who just don’t have the time to research and get the most out of the match types. However, this could be detrimental to a campaign that has close variants which are irrelevant to products/services at hand.

As such, I don’t believe we will be using this feature for our clients, but I would be interested to hear if you have any success or failure with the new option.

• Facebook
• Twitter*
• LinkedIn
• Google+
• YouTube**

* That twitter account is new.  In the past, we’ve all tweeted on our own accounts, which we’ll continue to do, but this will now be the ‘official’ DOM twitter feed. I’ll continue tweeting from @domjbs.

** We didn’t make a video for this, but I figured we’d add a link here since we’re listing all the other social media properties.

We’re big fans of the Wheeling Symphony and season ticket holders.  If you’ve ever been, you know what terrific shows they put on.  If you haven’t, you’re missing out.

Tonight’s performance should be fun, especially if you like blues.  Show starts at 8PM for this Pops Concert at Wheeling’s historic Capitol Theatre on 1015 Main Street.  Click for more details about tonight’s Shakura S’Aida Sings the Blues.

To claim your tickets, just be the first person to respond in the comments below or on any of our social media properties.  You then just have to be able to pick them up from us before our office closes.  Good luck!

Google+ Changes

Here are some of the Google+ changes we’ve noticed so far:

Instead of the icons across the top of the page, your new Google+ page features a menu of buttons down the left side of the screen. According to the official Google blog, this menu update allows some of the following actions:

• You can rearrange the icons in any order…just click and drag.
• You can hover over some of the apps for access to “quick actions.”
• You can hide apps by moving them into the “More” section.

Along with the new sidebar, it seems as if Google may have borrowed some concepts from its old pal, Facebook. The new, innovative design they’ve released features a large section where users can add a cover photo. Wait, didn’t Facebook just release the cover photo option? Surely just coincidence (great minds think alike, and all).

Finally, yet another aesthetic difference in the new pages is the profile photo, which is now larger than it was previously. So break out your high-res photos and personalize your Google+ page. Like Facebook, you’ll have to use a fairly large image for your cover photo (at least 940 x 180).

Old Google+ page:

New Google+ page:

Google has also suggested that they’ll be launching even more significant updates in the near future, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the Google+ changes—are they fresh and exciting, or simply another attempt at keeping up with Facebook?

Back in 2010, Facebook introduced users to check-in features, which were (and still are) similar to geosocial network Foursquare. Every time someone checks in at a local business using Facebook, the business’s  total check-in number goes up on their Page. Generally, this makes sense, and many loyal patrons check in regularly to their favorite places. But are some people checking in too often?

I think Facebook decided that, logically, if someone visits the same restaurant, park, museum, or business multiple times each day, each subsequent return after the first should not be considered unique. So, in an effort to increase the accuracy of check-ins, Facebook plans to implement a few changes to the check-in functions, and according to Facebook, they’ll occur in a few weeks. Without further ado…

Facebook Check-In Changes

The biggest change is that any subsequent check-ins will no longer count as separate visits if they occur within 12 hours of the first. Similarly, Facebook will also be more accurate in counting photo check-ins, combining all photos from the same location into just 1 check-in. However, any other individuals tagged in those photos will still count as an additional check-in.

But will these changes have a drastic effect on local business Pages?

Overall, I think most businesses will maintain their current number of check-ins, and even loyal patrons probably won’t visit twice within 12 hours. I mean, I guess there are some exceptions. Technically, if someone eats dinner at McDonald’s around 7PM on Wednesday and then returns for breakfast on Thursday morning at 6:30AM, their visits should technically be considered separate.

But would you really want to tell everyone that you’ve eaten at McDonald’s twice within 12 hours?

So in the next few weeks, watch your check-ins, and let us know if you notice any serious statistic spikes!

For Customers & Fans:

The LinkedIn Follow Company button is a great way to interact with some of your favorite companies. You’ll easily be able to see any news or updates from companies from your own homepage, so it’s more like twitter or facebook in concept. Check out the LinkedIn blog for more great tips on how to find and follow companies with LinkedIn’s new button feature.

For Companies:

According to LinkedIn, adding a Follow Company button to your website or any digital marketing material will make it easier for potential customers, prospects, and fans to follow your LinkedIn Company Page. Once people click on your Follow Company button, they’ll automatically follow your company if they’re logged in to LinkedIn (if not, they’ll be prompted for their information).

So…go get your own personalized LinkedIn Follow Company button. Visit the LinkedIn Developers page. Fill out the short form with your company name and choose whether you want to display your follower count and the button, or just the button. Click Get Code and a snippet of code will be generated, which you can then add to your website.

If you’ve been using the LinkedIn Follow Company button as either an individual or a company, feel free to let us know what you think!

In order to increase your brand’s reach and ROI, Facebook has launched three new features:

New Page Features: Facebook refers to the new Pages as “Mission Control for your Business” and they’re not kidding. You now have the ability to really tout your brand’s identity and engage with your audience like never before. See Kristen’s post on The New Facebook Pages Design for the deets on this overhaul.

Reach Generator: Instead of reaching only 16 percent of your fans, with Reach Generator you can reach 50 percent each week and 75 percent each month- Guar-an-teed! WOW, that’s quite a jump in brand exposure and quite a tall-guarantee!

Facebook will turn your post into a Sponsored Story that is placed on the right side of your fan’s homepage or within their news feed for both desktop and mobile customers. Yes, I said mobile. This new feature enable you to reach mobile users!

Premium on Facebook: Again, Facebook will take your post and replicate it across four premium placements; 1) right-side of the homepage, 2) news feed on the homepage, 3) news feed on mobile, and 4) log-out page.

The best part about Premium is the ability to target Facebook users….not just your fans! This is an opportunity to grow your Facebook presence and raise brand awareness with users who aren’t already “Liking” you. For non-users, the Premium ads will not appear in their news-feed; only on the right side of their homepage.

When combined with Reach Generator, businesses can reach and engage 75 percent of fans within a month’s time and a well-run campaign can deliver social drive ROIs of 3 times or greater.

How to Get Started with New Facebook Ad Features

Ok, sign me up. I’m in. I want 75 percent of my fans to see my event. Oh, wait. There’s one small pitfall of these new features on Facebook; you have to meet their criteria in order to qualify. What’s that criteria, you ask? While I’m not privy to this information because it hasn’t been made public yet, we assume that a large brand with hundreds of thousands of fans would easily qualify.

We’ll keep you ‘posted’ about the qualifications once they have been ‘shared’ with the world. Stay tuned!

(While the puns may be bad, none were harmed during the writing of this article!)