WebProNews - Advertising

Google Seeking Not To Cross The Creepy Line

Rich Ord — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:26:05 +0000

Google CEO Eric Schmidt while appearing on Fox Business made some interesting comments about Google's emergence as a huge Microsoft-like business power. I thought most interesting was Schmidt's statement about Google becoming like Microsoft, "Hopefully, we won't repeat the mistakes that Microsot made ten years ago that ultimately led to all these things that happened with them".

Schmidt elaborated:

"In our case we see ourselves as a disruptor, and a disruptor because we are using new technology to solve real consumer problems, that in some cases people didn't even realize could be solved. We are also a company that operates at scale using computers globally. And of course, we are in the information business and people have a lot of opinions on how information should be organized."

Fox Business' Neil Cavuto asked Schmidt in reference to Google's new Dashboard product how we really knew if Google deleted our personal data when we pressed delete via Dashboard. Schmidt's response:

"Because we say so and we would be sued (if we didn't)."

Cavuto joked: "It's like ... come in peace to serve man."

Watch the whole interview below:

Google Gives AdWords Users New Alert Options

Chris Crum — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:32:18 +0000

Google has introduced a couple of new alert options for AdWords advertisers. Users can of course use account alerts, and can also use custom alerts. Now Google has added new alerts for keyword and budget ideas, which are personalized tips to help users improve their campaigns' effectiveness. These are in the "opportunities" tab.

"New ideas are usually generated for campaigns and ad groups every few weeks, but you may miss ideas that can expand your coverage and boost your traffic if you don't check the Opportunities tab regularly," explains Google's Dan Friedman. "Now, when there are new ideas available for your review, you'll see them highlighted along with the rest of your campaign alerts."

Google has also added the ability to create custom alerts for changes in conversion volume, conversion rate, and cost per conversion for users using AdWords conversion tracking.

"By setting alerts for your conversion data, you can make sure that you're quickly notified about fluctuations in your key metrics," says Friedman.

Google says it is still working on bringing custom alerts to all linked accounts for My Client Center (MCC) users, but until then, you can just set custom alerts for individual accounts if you can log into them directly.

Related Articles:

> Google Gives AdWords Advertisers New Comparison Option

> Google Launches Latest Version of AdWords API

> More "Ads by Google" Across the Web

Google Buys Mobile Ad Firm For $750 Million In Stock

Mike Sachoff — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:08:09 +0000

Google said today it has signed an agreement to acquire mobile display advertising firm AdMob for $750 million in stock.

Google says its acquisition will improve its existing expertise and technology in mobile advertising, while also giving advertisers and publishers more choice in the growing new area.

Highlights of Google's purchase of AdMob include:

The deal will bring new innovation and competition to mobile advertising, and will lead to more effective tools for creating, serving, and analyzing emerging mobile ads formats.
This deal will benefit developers, publishers, and advertisers by improving the performance of mobile advertising, and will provide users with more free or low-cost mobile apps.
The mobile advertising space will remain highly competitive, with more than a dozen mobile ad networks. The deal is similar to mobile advertising acquisitions that AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo have made in the past two years

"Mobile advertising has enormous potential as a marketing medium and while this industry is still in the early stages of development, AdMob has already made exceptional progress in a very short time," said Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management at Google.

"AdMob is the quintessential Silicon Valley startup -- generating impressive year on year revenue growth -- and we're excited to welcome this talented team to Google."

Related Articles:

>Usage Of Mobile Web And Apps Doubles In 2 Years

>Mobile Advertising Guidelines Get An Update

>Best Buy Now Installing Google Mobile Apps On Smartphones

Facebook Blocks More Ad Networks

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:17:21 +0000

Back in July Facebook updated policies for third-party ads on Facebook Platform. The company disabled two entire ad networks and over 100 more apps were suspended or brought into compliance over ad-related violations. Half of those had over a million monthly active users.

Facebook has now disabled two more offer and ad networks, which the company says have repeatedly violated its policies. This has all been part of Facebook's continued action against deceptive ads. The company has addressed its efforts in this area on the company's developer blog.

"First, deceptive ads are a widespread issue on the Web and one we fight aggressively," says Facebook's Nick Gianos. "This battle is not new and it’s far from over. We faced stimulus scam ads on our own system earlier this year and pushed them off the site with rigorous enforcement. We did the same months later when deceptive ads from third-party ad networks appeared in applications. We’re doing that again now as we see them appear in the form of offers."

"We recognize that monitoring ads isn't the first area of focus for an entrepreneur just getting started with social applications," he says. "That's why ad networks that don’t play by the rules should expect to be our first point of contact in our line of enforcement. Our policies are clear. If you're an ad network and don’t comply with them, you are doing a disservice to your customers, and you should expect your business opportunities on Facebook to cease."

The company emphasizes that it is the responsibility not only of ad networks, but also of developers to make sure content running in third-party apps is appropriate.

Facebook's policies on offers and "inappropriate" ad content can be viewed here. If there are questions, which there no doubt will be, they can be sent to Facebook via the Platform Advertising Contact form.

Related Articles:

> Facebook App Developers Face New Obstacles

> Facebook Puts Privacy Policy in Users' Hands

> Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

Google's Music Service In China Attracting Advertisers

Doug Caverly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:09:53 +0000

Google's music service in China hasn't achieved much so far; no one should look for Google's next quarterly financial report to say it's brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue or toppled Baidu. But neither has it failed, and one person who's close to the service recently indicated that it's picking up steam.

Gary Chen is close by merit of being the founder and CEO of Orca Digital. Orca Digital owns Top100.cn, which is Google's partner in the venture.

As for what Chen to say, it turns out that some big companies have aligned themselves with the project, even if they're not yet spending a lot of money. According to Loretta Chao, "Chen . . . said in an interview that five advertisers have signed on for the service so far, including Nokia Corp., Apple Inc. and Volkswagen AG, with total commitments of 2.5 million yuan ($370,000)."

Then here's the really interesting part: Chao continued, "Orca Digital and Google expect to sign several more ad deals that could bring in $1 million each, and hope to have a total of 30 advertisers within a half year . . ."

If things continue to snowball at that rate, Google's music service in China could become quite important in a rather short period of time.

Related Articles:

> Google Search By Voice Learns Chinese (In Limited Fashion)

> Chinese Paper Accuses Google Of "Malicious Retaliation"

> Baidu Pummeled Following Low Forecast

Yahoo Settles Mary Kay Trademark Infringement Suit

Doug Caverly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:42:38 +0000

It looks like some lawyers representing cosmetics giant Mary Kay have removed their figurative war paint. In early July, Mary Kay sued Yahoo, alleging trademark infringement, but not long ago, Yahoo was able to settle the case.

Mary Kay originally objected to Yahoo's practice of adding links of its own choosing to certain emails. The links appeared in popups when people would position their cursors over the text, potentially creating confusion about the extra ads' origin.

"Emails that advertise Mary Kay products are hijacked and manipulated by Yahoo and provide an unfair advantage for the unauthorized re-sellers and other competitors," claimed Mary Kay's suit, which was filed in the Northern District of Dallas.

Now - although the terms of the settlement haven't been disclosed - Yahoo's presumably apologized, promised to never repeat the offending behavior, and provided at least a little in the way of cash compensation. Such is the way these things go.

Anyway, a big hat tip also goes to Erik Larson, who noted that this settlement may have some interesting ramifications. He wrote, "The dispute was similar to trademark lawsuits against Google Inc. in which the world's most popular search firm was accused of wrongfully selling ad rights to keyword searches."

Related Articles:

> Skype Founders Reportedly Close To Settlement With eBay

> Power.com Suit Against Facebook Tossed

> Turkey Asks Google For $47 Million In Taxes

Watch: Bing Goes the Bloodsucker Route

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:24:54 +0000

Microsoft is either taking the holiday marketing approach or the Twilight/Vampire trend approach with its latest commercial. The title is Bing: Vampire Decision Engine.

The company uploaded the new commercial to its (Google-owned) YouTube channel. Accompanying the video is a short description:

"When you're looking for a restaurant that is family friendly, romantic, or maybe something with an otherworldly atmosphere, use Bing's reviews to stop searching and start deciding."

You also may be seeing this ad on a television near you.

What do you think of the latest Bing commercial? Is it good or does it "suck"? Ah Ah. (That was supposed to be the Count). Share your thoughts here.

Related Articles:

> Have You Seen Bing's Commercials Yet?

> Bing Commercials Infringe on Patent?

> Microsoft Seinfeld Ad Not Exactly a Hit

Google Tests New AdSense Interface

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:48:56 +0000

Google announced the beta testing of a new AdSense interface today. It is being tested with a small group of publishers. Google says the new interface was designed based on the top three requests from users:

1. Provide insights to help you make more informed decisions about you sites.

2. Offer you more control over the ads that appear on your sites.

3. Help you manage you account more efficiently

With the new interface, AdSense publishers can get more detailed performance reports that let them view daily stats in graphical formats. In addition, it provides metrics like amount you've earned from various ad, targeting, and bid types.

The interface includes some improvements to the Ad Review Center that will give users more options to manage ads that appear on their sites, and offer what Google says is a cleaner interface that will make it easier to find and review them within the Ad Review Center.

"We've streamlined the AdSense interface to simplify common tasks, such as making a change to several ad units simultaneously," says Google. "Additionally, to help you get the most out of AdSense, we've added more relevant help on every page, a message inbox for tips from our team, and alerts with important account related notices."

The limited beta testing is taking place in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese. The test will be rolled out to thousands of publishers over the coming weeks (they will be notified via email notification).

Related Articles:

> Google Familiarizes AdWords Users with New Interface

> Blogger Gets AdSense For Feeds Integration

> Google Friend Connect Gets an AdSense Feature

YouTube Videos in AdSense Could Drive Clicks

Chris Crum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:31:22 +0000

Update: Google has now announced that you can buy Promoted Videos directly in AdWords.

"AdWords advertiser with video content — from a small business looking to promote a product, to a movie studio premiering a new trailer — can use Promoted Videos to make sure their videos find a larger audience," says Jonathan Goldman, YouTube Engineer. "This integration will provide a single destination for your overall Google ad buy, and will give YouTube advertisers access to campaign tools in AdWords."

Original Article: Google has decided to start including promoted YouTube videos in AdSense. This means that these videos are now an available ad unit that can be displayed on AdSense publisher sites.

YouTube promoted videos include a thumbnail image with three lines of text, and when clicked, they take the user to a video or a channel on YouTube, so it's not like there will be full-sized YouTube videos in AdSense ad spots on publisher sites.

"Extending Promoted Videos to AdSense sites will enable these content producers to broaden their reach, while providing you with another way to earn from your ad space," says Arlene Lee of Google's Inside AdSense team. "At this time, these ads are only available in English to US publishers, but we're looking forward to expanding to additional regions and languages in the future."

The promoted videos are contextually targeted to AdSense publisher pages, and publishers will earn from them on a cost-per-click basis. They are available in the following formats:

- 300x250 Medium Rectangle
- 336x280 Large Rectangle
- 728x90 Leaderboard
- 250x250 Square
- 200x200 Small Square

"Just like other ads, Promoted Videos compete in our standard ad auction, so they'll help drive up competition among advertisers bidding to appear on your pages," says Lee. "When a Promoted Video wins the ad auction, it'll be shown alone in one of the eligible ad formats."

Videos of course have to meet YouTube's advertising guidelines and terms of use, as well as community guidelines. Publishers can prevent promoted videos from appearing on their sites by adding "youtube.com" to their competitive ad filter list. This will block all YouTube content.

It should be noted that the addition of promoted YouTube videos to AdSense has nothing to do with Google's video ads offering.

YouTube promoted videos could be a good way to increase AdSense clicks, because the very nature of them draws the user's attention to watch a video, and at the world's most popular online video site. Plus the videos should be relevant to the content of the page. This could be a big money maker for AdSense publishers. It should be big for people promoting their videos as well.

Microsoft Partners With OpenX On Ad Deal

Mike Sachoff — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:33:59 +0000

Microsoft has entered into a partnership with advertising start-up OpenX, focused on promoting each other's products to their respective customer base.

Under the terms of the multiyear agreement, OpenX will expand its distribution of its technology for delivering ads on websites. In addition, OpenX will promote Microsoft's Content Ads monetization products.

Microsoft will have a major distribution channel for its monetization products via OpenX's community of more than 150,000 websites that serve more than 300 billion ads per month. OpenX will gain access to a new base of potential customers through referrals from Microsoft. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We're pleased to build on the foundation we laid last year, and we're especially pleased that Microsoft has selected OpenX as a technology partner," said Tim Cadogan, chief executive officer, OpenX.

"We think our product suite is particularly well-suited to helping grow the businesses of those new publishers Microsoft will refer to us. Similarly, we think that Content Ads will provide an additional and important monetization option for existing OpenX publishers, while helping them increase their advertising revenue."

The Content Ads part of the agreement comes after a successful trial Microsoft and Open X began in August 2008, during which OpenX provided invitations to its publishers to test the product.

Related Articles:

>Microsoft Tipped As most Likely Ask.com Buyer

> New Bing Commercial Inspired By The Shining

> Bing Gets More Mobile Features In The US

Google Says Search Ads Boost Brand Awareness

Chris Crum — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:25:18 +0000

Google conducted a joint test with Levi's and found that paid search ads raised consumer awareness of the Levi's brand, regardless of whether or not they were clicked. In the test, 53% of "in-market" consumers named Levi's when asked which brand of jeans came to mind when a Levi's search ad was in the top sponsored position.

That seems pretty likely anyway, but only 30% named Levi's when there was no Levi's search ad on the page. You can't deny that 23% is a pretty significant increase.

"Better yet, when Levi's 'non-customers' (people who hadn't bought Levi's jeans in the past 6 months) were asked the same question, 45% named Levi's when the ad was in the top sponsored position, versus 23% who named Levi's when there was no ad in the search results," says Sara Kleinberg of Google's Retail team.

"With search being central to the consumer shopping cycle, search should be part of your strategy to not only drives sales, but also build your brand awareness as consumers are considering what gifts to buy for the holidays," says Kleinberg.

An interesting article from Mike Shaw of comScore earlier this week talked about the dwindling importance of the click, and how the view-through impact of online display ads can have the same impact on sales as what has traditionally been ascribed to TV ads.

Perhaps the view-through metric is should not only inspire thoughts of display advertising. Search ads are technically displayed too.

Related Articles:

> Google Gives Advertisers More Tracking Options

> More "Ads by Google" Across the Web

Google to Give People More AdSense Filtering Options

Chris Crum — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:08:50 +0000

Back in August, Google gave AdSense publishers more control over what ads appear on their sites by launching an upgrading the category fitlering feature and extending the feature's beta to the US and the UK.

So in essence, if you don't want certain kinds of sites showing up in ads on your site, you could block them. Google shows how the different ad categories contribute to your income, so you can take that into consideration.

Today Google announced that it will be providing users with more ad filtering options. Soon, the option for 3 more filter categories will be added for a total of 8 different categories. These will be coming in the next few weeks.

"To get started with category filtering, sign in to AdSense and visit the Ad Review Center, located under the AdSense Setup tab," says Google's Arlene Lee. "You can choose from the listed categories, which include religion, politics, and dating, and your selections will be applied to ads in English no matter how they're targeted."

"Please keep in mind that filtering ad categories may affect your AdSense revenue -- we recommend first reviewing the percentages displayed in your account to understand the amount of revenue you may be blocking," she reminds users.

Google says its continuing to work on additional filtering capabilities as well, but does not get into specifics. They are of course encouraging feedback.

YouTube Launches Promoted Videos In Australia, Japan

Doug Caverly — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:05:34 +0000

YouTube's Promoted Videos program has spread again. In addition to Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S., promoted videos are now available in Australia and Japan.

If you're not familiar with the Promoted Videos program, the following video does a pretty good job of explaining its purpose (odd motorcycle accident metaphor aside):

As for what the effect of the expansion will be, a post on the YouTube Biz Blog explained, "This is great for content creators in Japan and Australia -- who will now be able to drive views of their videos in-country -- but it also makes it possible for our existing Promoted Videos advertisers to get their content in front of a truly global audience. Anyone who runs a Promoted Videos campaign can choose to have their video promoted in any (or all) of these ten countries."

And it's reasonable to bet that the number of countries will soon increase. The inclusion of nine nations (Promoted Videos launched in the U.S.) in two weeks' time established quite a pace, after all, and with the holiday season almost here, YouTube has a special reason not to slack off now.

Related Articles:

> YouTube Videos In AdSense Could Drive Clicks

> 35 Ways To Improve Your Online Video Performance

> YouTube Strikes Deal With UK Broadcaster

AT&T Strikes Ad Deal With Vevo

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:53:45 +0000

Online music video site Vevo, launching in December, said today it has signed AT&T as its first advertiser.

Partners in Vevo include Universal Music Group, Sony Entertainment and investor Abu Dhabi Media Company. The new music video site will be powered by YouTube.

The announcement did not include details about ad revenue sharing, but AT&T said it would support Vevo's services across multiple connected platforms.

"When you can reach people while they're pursuing one of their passions and help them learn, do or share something important to them, you can more strongly demonstrate how your brand is valuable and relevant to their lives," said Chris Schembri, vice president of media services for AT&T.

Vevo

"Music and entertainment are two of the broadest-reaching and influential 'passion points' for consumers, and aligning our brand with a new property like Vevo gives us a chance to reach them in fresh, meaningful ways."

At launch the content will be made available on YouTube, on Vevo, and through a special branded embedded player. The service will also act as a syndication platform for additional sites, expanding the reach of the Vevo brand online.

"AT&T is known for their innovative marketing and advertising programs, so their decision to join Vevo at such an early stage reflects not only their belief in our exceptionally compelling platform and content, but in our ability to deliver against AT&T's unique brand vision," said Rio Caraeff, president and chief executive officer of Vevo.

Related Articles:

>MySpace Introduces New Music Features

>Google Phone And Music Service Both On The Way?

> YouTube And Universal Making A Music Video Site?

Apple Unveils New "Get a Mac" Ad

Jeremy Muncy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:38:25 +0000

Apple has released a new commercial in their "I'm a PC" and "I'm a Mac" successful advertising campaign. The new ad is aimed directly at Windows 7, which was just released yesterday.

Which has the better OS: Apple or PC - Tell us what you think.

In the ad, which is entitled Broken Promises, the PC flashes back to previous versions of Windows and with each OS promises "it's not going to have any of the problems my last operating system had. Trust me." Also you'll notice that with each flashback their clothing styles change, and I use the term "style" very loosely there. Check out the ad for yourself below.

What did you think of the ad? Did it go to far? Let us know.

Only In Japan: Burger King Offers A Windows 7 Whopper

Jeremy Muncy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:59:48 +0000

UPDATE: A video has surface on Youtube of someone attempting to eat the Windows 7 Whopper... watch at your own risk.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: If you listen close enough you can probably hear the arteries of hundreds of Japanese people clogging as Burger King has unveiled the Windows 7 Whopper.

What is a Windows 7 Whopper you ask?

What is your first reaction to the above image: Leave us a comment

Well, it’s just like the ordinary Whopper… only with 7 patties of meat and stands over 5 inches tall. As far as the price goes, the Windows 7 Whopper will set you back ¥777, which translates to about $8.55, which isn’t that bad when you think about the quantity meat you’re getting.

Only the first 30 customers per day can take advantage of the special ¥777 pricing, each patron after that will have to pay ¥1,450, which is about $17.10. For those interested, the promotion runs from 10/22 - 10/28.

Would you attempt to eat a Windows 7 Whopper? Let us know.

U.K. Social Networking Sites Account For 25% Of Display Ads

Mike Sachoff — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:15:03 +0000

Social networking sites in the U.K. accounted for 13.8 billion display ad impressions in August 2009, representing more than 25 percent of all display ads viewed online, according to a new study by comScore.

Telecommunications companies were the heaviest social networking site advertisers, serving more than 949 million display ad impressions on social networks in August, or about 7 percent of all display ads delivered in the site category.

The retail advertiser category ranked second with 753 million display ad views, followed by banking brands with 248 million, travel brands with 213 million, and entertainment brands with 181 million display ad views.

Among the top 10 advertiser categories on social networking sites, teen content advertisers delivered the highest amount of their ad impressions in the social networking category at 37.3 percent. Online dating advertiser (33.8%) and retail advertisers (30.1%) also delivered an above average proportion of their ads in the site category.

A demographic analysis of display ads on social networking sites in the U.K. found while ad delivery skewed somewhat younger than average, all age segments were reached with a notable percentage of display ads.

Display-Ad-Demographics

15-24 year olds were the highest indexing age segment, accounting for 29 percent of display ad impressions while representing 23 percent of the total category audience. Those between the ages of 25-44 received ads at a slightly higher than average rate, while those 45 and older received ads at a lower than average rate. Each of the five age segments accounted for at least 15 percent of the category audience and 10 percent of ad impressions.

“CPMs on social networking sites have traditionally suffered relative to other content categories, in part because of the perception that much of the audience are younger consumers with lower spending power,” said Mike Read, comScore managing director, Europe.

“However, these data suggest that every demographic segment is reached via social networking sites and that no particular age segment accounts for an overwhelming percentage of ads delivered. Given the overall reach and volume of ads delivered on social networking sites, brand advertisers who ignore this channel may be missing a significant opportunity and enabling their competitors to gain a dominant share of voice in the channel.”

Related Articles:

> Making Money With Social Media

>Facebook Can Drive More Traffic Than Google

> Social Media Will Not Replace Search

Yahoo Shutting Down Paid Inclusion

Chris Crum — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:00:54 +0000

Yahoo is discontinuing its paid inclusion service, Search Submit. This was revealed at the iProspect/Range Online Media Client Summit on a panel moderated by Danny Sullivan. Sullivan's Search Engine Land received the following statement from Yahoo:

We are committing our resources and efforts to our core areas of focus, including improving the search experience and relevancy of our ads to increase user engagement and ROI for advertisers, and as a result, have decided to exit Search Submit. We have stepped up innovation in Search Marketing, recently rolling out search retargeting, Rich Ads in Search and improved matching technology, and in Consumer Search, with enhancements like the new search results page. These enhancements deliver value, control, innovation and relevance to our advertisers, leading to increased ROI.

Yahoo! will exit Search Submit at the end of 2009. Yahoo! is providing those advertisers affected by the decision a sufficient lead time to assist in the transition. In addition, Yahoo! has recently announced a series of important enhancements to its Search advertising business and will work closely with many Search Submit advertisers to provide them with search solutions that will benefit their businesses.

Yahoo told WebProNews at the recent Search Marketing Expo that the company is giving its advertisers more control. In the following interview, Yahoo Director of Product Management David Miller told us that the forthcoming Yahoo/Microsoft deal will open up more innovation for advertisers. He also talks about some things Yahoo currently has going on and will in the near future with regards to giving advertisers greater control.

Miller said that early next year, Yahoo will be launching "network distribution," and advertisers will have the ability to separately bid on campaigns for Yahoo, the partner network, or both. He also discussed a tool (which is currently in beta) that lets advertisers control their accounts while offline.

Yahoo Partners With GroupM On Branded Content Deal

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:16:23 +0000

Yahoo has partnered with WPP's GroupM Entertainment to help marketers incorporate their brands into original online programming.

The programs will appear across Yahoo's network of media properties, including news, sports, finance and entertainment.

"Marketers need big, ground-breaking ideas that engage and delight consumers, and this partnership with Yahoo! will enable them to create unique high value relationships," said GroupM Entertainment Worldwide CEO Peter Tortorici, who will administer the partnership for GroupM.

Joanne Bradford,
Yahoo! Senior VP,
N. American Revenue
and Market Development

GroupM and Yahoo will work together with advertisers to develop concepts that map media content with an advertiser's messaging, and produce the content for each program. Yahoo will promote the branded programs to targeted audiences across its network.

"Yahoo! has a keen understanding of what makes our audience click, and this partnership will help advertisers develop deeper connections with our users," said Joanne Bradford, Yahoo!'s senior vice president, North American revenue and market development.

"Furthermore, Yahoo! can continue to build on its successful portfolio of the Internet's most-watched original programming by tapping into GroupM's incredible creative development talent."

Yahoo points to its TechTicker program with Scottrade as the advertiser, as an example of one of its successful campaigns, calling it the most viewed business and investing program online averaging more than 350,000 streams per day.

GroupM unit Mindshare Entertainment, created "In the Motherhood," an original online series for its clients Sprint and Unilever's Suave that was later picked up by ABC Television and developed into the first prime time comedy to be spun off from a Web series.

Does Size Matter in Display Advertising?

Chris Crum — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:58:28 +0000

Eyeblaster released its Research Global Benchmark report for 2009, which provides an analysis of the performance of different types of display ads like banners and rich media ads. The research found that while clickthrough rates for standard banners improved with an increase in size, size did not factor into the performance of clicks on rich media ads.

"In rich media, size is only one component of banner visibility on the site," says Eyeblaster.

"In Standard Banners, by their nature, size is a large component of the ads’ visibility and therefore affects their performance," Eyeblaster adds. "Rich Media ads, on the other hand, have more “dimensions” than two—pixels are augmented by flash, video and expansions that catches the users’ attention. Therefore in Rich Media, size portrays only a part of the performance picture.

A couple of interesting findings from he report include:

- Video improved performance for most rich media ads, by 71% overall

- Expandable strips had the highest interaction rate of any rich media format, followed by expandable banners

"Size is now in the heat of an industry debate, as publishers are offering larger and larger sizes in the hope of increasing the marketing effectiveness of ads on their site," Eyeblaster says in the report. "Advertisers, on the other hand, are faced with options to allocate their budget to either bigger size or other rich media features."

Eyeblaster found that ads that raised awareness of a corporate brand, rather than specific products, had the highest interaction and "dwell rates." More information can be found in the firm's report. (pdf)

(via)

Google Gets Serious About Marketing Apps

Chris Crum — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:25:25 +0000

Update: Google has expanded the campaign to additional countries: U.K., France, Canada, Japan, Australia and Singapore.

Original Article 08/03: So Microsoft wants to get serious about search? Google is showing its serious about something Microsoft is better known for. Yes, Google did announce Chrome OS recently, but now the company is promoting Google Apps in a big way, presumably with the intent of convincing businesses and consumers alike that they don't need Microsoft Office.

Google has kicked off a big advertising campaign based on the concept of "Going Google." This will even include some billboard ads in four major cities (San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Boston according to TechCrunch), and the billboards will display a different message each day for a month.

The Campaign is leading consumers to a site at Google.com/appsatwork, which says:

Each day, thousands of companies are going Google by switching to Google Apps -- a web-based suite of messaging and collaboration applications. It's all hosted by Google, and designed with security and reliability in mind, saving your company the frustrations and hassles of managing traditional IT solutions yourself. Find out how others have switched from Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes to Google Apps.

From there, visitors are directed to pages like this one, where businesses share their stories about using Google Apps. Interested parties can browse what people from different companies have to say based on product solution, industry type, and company size.

Another page highlights more specifically ways businesses are using Google Apps, and provides video demos of different products. Finally, there is a page for those who already use Google Apps to "spread the word." This includes media like embeddable videos and PDFs for internal marketing.

Advertising Powerhouses Champion Microsoft-Yahoo Deal

Doug Caverly — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:51:50 +0000

It would seem that everybody who's anybody in the advertising industry wants the Microsoft-Yahoo deal to go through. Today, the president and CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, along with the heads of all four major ad holding companies, signed her name to a letter of support.

First, a little background info: The AAAA has an extremely impressive membership roster, with Arnold, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Digitas, and Saatchi & Saatchi on its side. Then there are the ad holding agencies - the Interpublic Group of Companies, the Omnicon Group, the Publicis Groupe, and WPP - to consider.

And in terms of the Microsoft-Yahoo debate, these organizations effectively went straight to the top.

Their letter was in fact an open one addressed to the U.S. Department of Justice. They stated, "We believe that Yahoo! and Microsoft's proposal to combine their technologies and search platforms is good for advertisers, marketing services agencies, website publishers and consumers. . . . These benefits are too important to wait for. As leading members of the advertising and marketing services industry, we urge the Department of Justice to bring its antitrust review to a speedy conclusion."

A Yahoo spokesperson told WebProNews in response, "Yahoo! welcomes the broad support this deal has received, and remains hopeful that the closing of this transaction can occur in early 2010."

Google Launches New Display Ad Measurement Tool

Chris Crum — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:32:55 +0000

Google has launched a new tool in the US and the UK to measure the impact of display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network. It's called Campaign Insights.

Google says the tool can give reliable data about how a campaign has raised brand awareness or active user interest, in a particular product or service. It calculates the incremental lift in both online search activity and website visits resulting from a display ad campaign.

"Campaign Insights compares two data sets: a large group of users (many thousands, minimum) who saw a particular ad, with an equivalent, large group that did not see the ad," explains Austin Rachlin of Google's Inside AdWords crew. "It then measures whether there is any significant difference in searches and visits to your website between the two groups. Doing this, Campaign Insights can determine the incremental change that is directly attributable to the display ad campaign. With this insight, you can establish how well your display ad campaign is working beyond just clicks."

"Campaign Insights provides highly reliable results to marketers because of the statistical methodology our computer algorithms use to combine and analyze large volumes of data from several sources -- the advertiser's own campaign information, ad serving logs, and sampled data from Google Toolbar users who have opted in to enhanced features," continues Rachlin. "All of the results reported to advertisers are anonymized and aggregated over thousands of users."

Right now Google is telling advertisers who want to try out Campaign Insights to check with their Google representatives.

More "Ads by Google" Across the Web

Chris Crum — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:33:05 +0000

Google has started adding "Ads by Google" to more of its ads around the web. The reasoning for this is that a lot more advertisers are using Google's rich media ad formats these days, and the fact that they come from Google may not seem so obvious all the time.

"You'll soon notice a small 'i' (for 'information') icon overlay in the bottom right-hand corner of these ads, which will expand when the user hovers over it," explains Dan Friedman from Google's Inside AdWords crew. "This was specially designed for rich media ads. This new message will appear on your AdWords rich media ads, and will show up on standard AdSense ad units."

It will look something like this:

Just as in the past, when users click "Ads by Google," they will be taken to a page where they can learn about Google advertising. Google says tests have shown that this doesn't affect ad performance.

Google also recently started adding YouTube promoted videos into the AdWords/AdSense mix. In addition, they have introduced a new way for local businesses to advertise, and given advertisers more tracking options.

Advertisers Scammed By Invisible Impressions

Chris Crum — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:01:11 +0000

There are sites out there that may be selling you ads that consumers aren't seeing. We're not talking about just a lack of traffic to the pages they appear on. There is a lack of traffic because the pages are simply invisible to viewers, making them essentially worthless.

A report from the Wall Street Journal says that even large corporations like Kraft foods, Greyhound Lines, and Capital One Financial are among the victims of such scams.

The sites use code, which makes it look to marketers like their ads have been appearing, but they do not appear to users. The report, based on research from Ben Edelman, cites MyToursInfo.com and MyProfilePimp.com as a couple of offending sites.

"The Web sites can get away with it, he says, because online advertisers don't always audit their campaigns for proof their ads are appearing," writes WSJ's Emily Steel. "It isn't clear how common these ads are or how much they cost marketers."

So how is an advertiser to know who to trust? One solution mentioned in the report is to buy ads based on attaining a certain number of clicks as well as impressions. In such a scenario, a site would have no benefit to pull off such a scam. Another possible solution is to be more directly involved with who you are advertising with.

"Advertisers often buy display ads based on the number of times they are loaded onto a page, rather than the number of clicks they get," says Steel. "Over the past, year, an increasing number of scams have sought to take advantage of that pricing system as advertisers have started buying more of their online ads via middlemen called ad networks, instead of directly from the Web sites themselves. These networks sell ad space at cheap rates across thousands of sites, and they don't always weed out illegitimate players."

Online advertising is having a big year. A number of recent reports show an optimistic viewpoint for the industry. There is no reason why that shouldn't continue as long as advertisers take responsibility for monitoring and stay involved with their campaigns.

Yahoo Expands "It's Y!ou" Campaign With User Yodeling

Chris Crum — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:41:34 +0000

As part of Yahoo's big "It's Y!ou!" campaign, the company has started an initiative to let users contribute to the famous "Yahoo! Yodel". Yahoo has opened up what it calls the Yodel Studio. The aim is for people to personalize and reinterpret the yodel.

"The foundation of the 'It’s Y!ou' campaign is about making the web more personally relevant to each of our consumers, so it’s important that we engage the world in the creation of our new yodel," said Elisa Steele, Yahoo! executive vice president and chief marketing officer. "It’s essentially a unique form of user generated content that honors the millions of people who visit Yahoo! every day."

Yahoo is even going so far as to hold live Yodeling events featuring celebrities and musical artists. One is in New York City and one is in London. Tomorrow there will be one in Mumbai. New York's event features Kimberly Caldwell, Jewel, LeAnn Rimes, Randy Jackson, Pete Wentz, and others. London's features Pixie Lott, and Mumbai's will feature Shankar Mahadevan, VJ Nikhil Chinappa, and Shaa'ir + Func. The events feature professional recording studios.

"The yodel is synonymous with Yahoo! and we’re ready for people around the world to put their unique expression on it," added Steele. "Whether your yodel is 80s punk or country funk, the Yodel Studio is about self-expression, having fun and allowing all the people who use Yahoo! to be an essential part of our brand revitalization effort."

Based on the number of times an entry is viewed, top yodels will ‘go gold,’ and one submission in the US, UK and India will each ‘go platinum.’ Participants can use built-in social media tools to help generate awareness for their yodels and voting for the platinum yodels will take place from November 9-15. Winners will be announced during the week of November 16, 2009 and will have a chance to be featured on the Yahoo! homepage and incorporated into Yahoo!’s new global advertising campaign.

Users have until November 8th to go to the Yodel Studio and create and submit their yodel. Different genre Yodel samples, check out this page.

MySpace Gives Users Offline Marketing Opportunity

Chris Crum — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:03:21 +0000

MySpace and Titan have partnered to launch a three-week joint promotion to bring MySpace users' messages to over 300 digital screens in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dublin, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, and Birmingham. Titan is the largest transit advertising sales company in the US, and provides advertising on bus, rail, bulletins, telephone kiosks, and street banners.

The promotion is called "Step Up to the Mic," and is designed to let MySpace users in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, share their thoughts with the public in these cities. The two companies are also encouraging celebrities and music artists to take part to promote their "passion projects" and communicate with fans.

"The convergence of social media and digital out-of-home advertising is actually happening as a result of Titan's partnership with MySpace." said Bill Apfelbaum, Chairman of Titan. "The ability to create and connect communities through Titan's digital signs located around the world and the ability for advertisers to interact with and connect with their target audiences on a real-time basis now exists. We are delighted to work with the social media trailblazers, MySpace, in revolutionizing our industry."

"MySpace has continuously provided our users with online and offline capabilities on a global level," said Angela Courtin, SVP of Marketing Entertainment and Content at MySpace. "The project with Titan reaffirms that offering by marrying the world of advertising with socialization and sharing. It enables our users to broadcast themselves in a creative and innovative manner, just as they do on the site."

The promotion certainly provides for an interesting spin on social media marketing. Users can go to the promotion's MySpace page to participate. There is a 50-character and one image limit.

Report: Paid Search Spend Up 10%

Chris Crum — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:25:05 +0000

SearchIgnite has released a report, which indicates that paid search spending in the United States was flat year-over-year in the third quarter, yet up 10% quarter-over-quarter. This comes largely from multi-channel retailers, who increased paid search spend by 40% in the quarter, according to the firm. This is despite flat conversion rates and average order value.

"This is the second consecutive quarter of sequential growth for paid search spend, indicating marketers' continued confidence in search marketing as an efficient component of their overall marketing mix," said Roger Barnette, President of SearchIgnite. "Multi-channel retailers in particular have continued to rely more heavily on paid search as a key driver of sales in a challenging economic environment."

According to the report, Bing saw the most pronounced growth in spend among the top three search engines, an increase of 15% year-over-year (presumably compared to Microsoft Live Search). Yahoo, on the other hand, was down 24% year-over-year.

The report also states the obvious, that there was no movement in search share, as far as rank, but year-over-year, Yahoo lost share to Google, while Bing showed "little" growth.

"Microsoft is headed in the right direction with Bing and attracting more advertiser dollars. That said, it’s an uphill battle against Google and there’s still a long way to go before Bing garners a significant amount of the search ad revenue pie," said Barnette.

More information about paid search spend for the quarter can be found in the report. SearchIgnite says it manages over $350 million in paid search annually.

10% of Display Ads in Major US Markets Locally Targeted

Chris Crum — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:19:58 +0000

comScore has released the results of a study on locally targeted online display ads in the US, which focused on four major markets: Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. In these areas, the results indicate that about 10% of all display ads are locally targeted.

"Locally targeted ads are an increasingly important component of the digital ad landscape because they represent a more efficient allocation of ad dollars," said comScore vice president Brian Jurutka. Here's a look at some additional numbers:

comScore says that advertisers were deemed to be locally-targeting ads in a particular market if their relative share of display ads was substantially higher than that market's share of display ads nationally. According to the study, between 9 and 11 percent of display ads in the four markets among all publisher sites were locally targeted. In the regional/local site category, which includes sites like Yahoo Local, CitySearch, and Yelp, the share of display ads that were locally targeted was substantially higher.

"Our research indicates that advertisers understand the value of locally targeted ads and are willing to pay a premium for them - anywhere from 20 to 100 percent - depending on the geography and vertical," said Matt Booth, senior vice president and program director, Interactive Local Media, BIA/Kelsey. "Identifying and quantifying which advertisers are purchasing local ads in particular markets is critical to helping publishers efficiently target potential prospects for these high value ad placements."

Google's latest local advertising offering is bound to be quite popular among small businesses looking to reach local customers. The company introduced Local Listing Ads earlier this week.

Yahoo Adds Paid Search Listings to Filtered Results

Chris Crum — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:15:10 +0000

Yahoo has given Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers the ability to have their ads shown in filtered searches. When Yahoo launched its new search results pages last month, they added the ability for users to filter results by site. Relevant ads are now appearing with these results.

"On our new search page, if a searcher types in a phrase such as 'buy pink floyd', he can further refine his search results by clicking on links on the left-hand side of the page, which include sites that users often find useful. If the user clicks on one of the suggested sites, he’ll get a smaller set of results from that domain only," explains Yahoo's Jeff Hecox. "Now, if the user selects a site that is also a Sponsored Search advertiser, that advertiser’s ad should still be displayed in the new set of results."

Don't worry about competing ads in these cases. If a user searches for "buy pink floyd" as described above, they can choose "Amazon.com" to filter the results and get only Amazon results, for example. The only paid results that would show would be for Amazon, Hecox says.

So in other words, this will only affect you as an advertiser if you have a site that is actually used in Yahoo's filtering options. So the question is, how do I get my site to be listed as a filtering option? Yahoo says that the domains its system uses to filter results are chose based on a number of factors, such as their listings' quality, popularity, and user response.

For smaller advertisers, this may be a hard nut to crack. However, as far as users are concerned, Yahoo deems this a way to increase relevancy and user control of the search experience.

The move is just one of Yahoo's new ways of creating more opportunities for its bigger advertisers. Another was demonstrated by the creation of the Vitality campaign for General Mills, which illustrates how you can bring existing content together to target a demographic and then serve ads to that same demographic.