Social Network Advertising

Virtual Goods Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:33:00 +0000

Although the market for virtual goods continues to expand at a phenomenal rate, the business activity around this industry is just starting to catch up. A great networking opportunity is taking place next week in San Francisco at the Westin Market Street.

The Virtual Goods Summit 2009 should be a hit. The 2009 edition of the virtual goods summit will bring together thought leaders in this space to talk about what's changed, what's working, and the key challenges facing the industry. You can use the discount code ADPARLOR to save 15% off tickets.

I will be there along with other members of the AdParlor team. Come and network with us, and more importantly, we are giving out some really neat gifts on the Friday (Oct 30th). Guess what we are giving out, and you could win an extra set.

Safer ads for the facebook platform

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:45:00 +0000

AdParlor launches 'SuperSafe' ads, aiming to comfort developers who are nervous about the recent facebook policy enforcement.

Article available on Inside Facebook

Elephant in the room

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:50:00 +0000

There is an elephant in the room. That of falling eCPM's within social media applications. I am going to discuss facebook applications as this is the most relevant in terms of volume, growth, and overall revenues in the market. Many facebook apps built revenue projections based on eCPM's they were seeing several months ago, now have to revamp their thinking, as they are now earning a half, or even a quarter, of what they were previously seeing! This is not the case for all apps, but overall the general trend seems to be downwards. First let me apologize to those blog readers who care more about the advertising side than the publishers angle. Now, let me try and explain why this is happening?

1. Mobile Advertising Regulations - Recurring billing from mobile services were one of the driving forces behind strong eCPM's. Users - whether they were aware or not - completed these offers in droves, driving revenues to the ad networks and back to the publishers. Recent media coverage required facebook to take certain actions to modify the wording, presentation, and billing of these offers.

2. User Information - A few ad networks decided to take advantage of information in an inappropriate manner. Creating deceptive ads and storing user information. This caused a major backlash from facebook users, causing facebook to impose strict guidelines. Applications can no longer pass ANY user information to ad networks. This means even the ad networks that were using this information to legitimately target advertisements, are now unable to do so.

3. Ad Fatigue - The same ads that were working/converting just a few months back now have a significantly lower CTR and a significantly lower conversion rate. Users are becoming 'bored' of clicking through on ads within social media applications and are rather sticking to the main attraction.

Is this the end of making money on social media applications? No - Definately Not! Several reasons:

Despite dropping eCPM's in the past 6 months, there has been a recent rebound in the past few weeks. Ad networks have been diversifying their ads, improving their technology, and optimizing galore.
Despite dropping eCPM's, applications are growing bigger and the overall facebook user base keeps growing - generating more impressions overall.
Whereas previously only impressions from certain countries were monetizable, global impressions are actually starting to see an increase in eCPM's!
There is a still a massive and growing revenue opportunity in the virtual currency space and more and more application developers are beginning to take advantage of this.

Looking forward to your comments on the above - and any other thoughts.

Stanford Presentation @ Always On Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:50:00 +0000

Got a hold of the video.

Just got a hold of a MUCH better version of the video which also shows my slides in action synchronized with the presentation. Thanks to the guys at vivu for this coverage.

AdParlor presenting @ Always On

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:32:00 +0000

Quick note - AdParlor will be presenting at the Always On conference on Thursday around 10am PST. Watch Live: http://alwayson.goingon.com/ecom/productview/24424

Always On - AdParlor CEO ShowCase

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:14:00 +0000

Quick Note - On Thursday July 30th @ 9:40AM PST (12:40 PM EST) I will have 6 minutes to present AdParlor at the Always On conference at Stanford University in Palo Alto. If you are going to be attending the conference, please shoot me an e-mail so that we can meet. If you will not be attending, feel free to join 15,000 others in watching the live webcast!

http://alwayson.goingon.com/ecom/productview/24424

Virtual Currency Monetization

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:19:00 +0000

One of the key revenue drivers within social media - that is already big, and picking up more steam every day - is virtual currency monetization. Wanted to make a quick post about this topic from the Publisher/Application developer standpoint as well as the Advertisers perspective.

How does this work?
Let's illustrate with an example. As an application developer, you have built a facebook application that is a game of world domination. Within this game, your users collect 'gold coins' (your games 'virtual currency') which they can use to buy land, weapons, and various items. Companies such as AdParlor, Super Rewards, and OfferPal will give your users another way to get these gold coins. For example, your users can now purchase gold coins directly using their mobile phone. They can also earn gold coins by completing a quick survey. When your users make this purchase or complete this survey, they get their gold coins as promised and you, as the developer, make REAL money.

PUBLISHERS - What does this offer wall look like? How much can I make?
Here is a sample offer wall from AdParlor on an application where the virtual currency is 'Flair Credits'. Application developers have seen eCPM's that are not even on the same scale as eCPM's seen from banner advertising. If they have created a genuine desire for their users to earn virtual currency within their game, they will complete offers in order to earn. Many of the offers are actually quite useful such as allowing users to register for a book club and receive discounted books. Offers such as a book club can pay out up to $20 / new subscriber! The 'companies / offer providers' above have also invested a significant amount of time developing algorithms to bring the highest paying and most completed offers to the top of the offer wall, while taking into account the users demographic information.

ADVERTISERS - What does this mean for me?
This is interesting to advertisers for many reasons. Let's say you are a market research firm looking to have surveys filled out or an exciting new online game looking to bring on new players. This offer wall allows providers to only award users with their virtual currency upon completion of an action. For example 'Must complete survey and enter valid information to earn your Flair Credits'

Now the question may be 'Aren't these users simply completing my survey to get their virtual currency and not because they are genuinely interested in responding to my survey' The simple answer is - most of the time - YES! For this reason, there are only certain types of advertisers where this method is useful. A user signing up for a book club, would probably have a genuine interest as they are putting in their credit card number. Also, these types of campaigns count on users seeing the value of the subscription and deciding to stick with it (not canceling). Some market research firms simply need to collect a volume of valid e-mail addresses for lead gen purposes - and this method can definitely work.

Market Size
There have been lot's of estimates on the size of the virtual goods market in the US and worldwide. Instead of trying to re-hash everything here, there is a great post by Charles Hudson discussing the social networking virtual goods market versus the external virtual goods market as well as US vs. Global. Have a read here.

As always - I welcome your feedback!

Facebook Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:07:00 +0000

Guest post by Ali Merali - Social Media Consultant @ AdParlor
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" Until recently, I had a very ‘love-hate’ approach to facebook. Loved how I could connect with all those long lost buddies around the world and share all our stories in any way and form we wanted. The hate portion would resonate every time I discovered those ever intrusive “facebook snoopers” who used the tool as their personal tabloids!

But that all changed a few months back when I began to see what facebook was becoming: the gateway to a new digital marketing era. It’s not something that hits you overnight, but once you step into the space, you begin to realize that social media can be a huge empowerment to brands and organizations (IF done correctly).

It’s tough to know what’s an ‘official’ fan page on facebook as opposed to one simply created by a fan who publishes no new content. But the quest to find a well executed fan page shouldn’t prove too difficult. Those are the pages in which you see a constant stream of ‘two-way’ conversations on the brands wall. That’s right traditional marketers, TWO-WAY conversations (Begin hyperventilating now…) Those are the pages where companies are not commanding and controlling their messages and finally, where brands show personality and magnify their presence by treating the consumer as an influencer rather than a puppet.

Social media is certainly establishing an exciting yet awakening time for marketers and it’s thrilling to be a part of it all. "
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Guest post by Ali Merali - Social Media Consultant @ AdParlor

ad:tech

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:09:00 +0000

This past week, I had the opportunity to attend ad:tech in San Francisco along with the rest of the AdParlor team. One thing which was immediately obvious to me is that we are NOT in a recession - OK, maybe we are, but it was not apparent at a show like this.

ad:tech is THE event for digital marketing. Although a lot of the exhibits were taken up by payment platforms and SEO type companies, the majority fell on the actual digital banner advertising side. There was representation there from most of the large banner networks. One thing that was interesting is that there was still not much representation from the social media side. There were a couple of ad networks that monetize social media traffic, but no real presence fom agencies that help brands enter this space.

Marketing in a Social Media Era book released

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:08:00 +0000

Just wanted to make a quick blog post to highlight the early release of a book titled 'Marketing in a Social Media Era'

This book is truly unique for many reasons. It was written by 100 different authors (including myself) and it is a collaborative, not-for-profit production discussing many different angles or Marketing in a Social Media Era. The way the book itself was written and promoted is social in nature. Check it out - or even better, buy a copy!

ORDER NOW!

CONNECT!

By The Project 100

Book Preview

AdParlor announces virtual currency platform

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Today AdParlor publicly announced the launch of its virtual currency platform. It has been running for the past three months and many of the top facebook application developers have already taken advantage of this revenue generating opportunity. Essentially, AdParlor will take up a small piece of real estate on applications that have a virtual currency. We will then put out 'EZ' offers that users can complete in exchange for virtual currency. Any time a user completes an offer, the application developer earns real money! Learn more about the program here. See the official press release here.

What kind of eCPM can my facebook application generate?

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:04:00 +0000

One of the most common questions I hear is "What kind of eCPM can my facebook application generate?" The answer is, it depends!

There are two primary factors that effect the eCPM:

The country of origin of your users
The Click Through Rate / Conversion Rate

The country of origin is simple to explain. The fact is, that there are simply more advertising dollars to go around in certain countries. More advertising dollars competing for inventory means higher eCPM's for you as a publisher. In an interview with Michael Arrington a while back, Chris DeWolfe (CEO of myspace) claimed that 95% of their advertising revenues are coming from 9 countries! Essentially, if you have lot's of eyeballs from these more monetizable countries, this will bode well for your eCPM. What are these countries? I can name a few: U.S, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, and France. Any thoughts on the other 2?

The CTR / Conversion Rate is a little bit trickier. This can depend on several factors:

Ad Size and Placement - Ideally, you should choose a large ad format (300x250, 728x90...) and place it above the fold.
Ad Density -You can expect a higher eCPM if you limit your application to 1 (maybe 2 ads). You don't want to plaster your application with advertisements.
APPLICATION/AD ENGAGEMENT- This is the biggest factor by far. If you have a gaming application where users are fully immersed in the game and the advertisement is blindly refreshing (away from where the action is) you can deliver millions of impressions and never get a click. Apps that are more casual, and less engaging in a way, perform much better. Another strategy that pays dividends is to place ads strategically. Maybe your application is a game, but right smack in the middle, after every 5 turns, an ad appears and the user must click skip to continue playing. Although this may be annoying for your users, it can work to drive up your eCPM.

I still haven't thrown a number out there yet, but I probably should. At AdParlor, based on hundreds of applications, we have seen eCPM's that range from 1 cent to $5! That goes to illustrate my point - it depends!

Facebook to deliver ads on applications!

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:29:00 +0000

Interesting developments in the last 24 hours. Facebook has announced that they are testing their ads on applications. On the developer forum, they posted this: "we are always internally exploring different ways we can directly help you monetize better. Starting today you may notice a few applications occasionally serving Facebook Ads directly in their canvas pages as a part of a small alpha test. We will use the results of this test and other tests that we do to determine the best ways we can help you monetize. For this initial test we picked a few developers that had a variety of different user bases and application types to give us the kind of data we need. We will examine the results to decide whether to open up the program to more developers in the future."

I see no reason why facebook will stop at just 'some apps' and am sure they are planning to roll this out to all app developers! I would write more, but Nick O'Neill already did a good job on allfacebook - might as well read about it there: http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/screenshots-of-facebook-application-ads-in-action/

OnMedia NYC 2009 Always On

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:13:00 +0000

I am on my way to the OnMedia Always On conference in New York! This is where 'where cutting-edge technology CEOs from the back streets of Silicon Valley meet the global advertising and media establishment. This two-and-a-half-day executive event features CEO presentations and high-level debates on which forces are disrupting user behavior and creating new opportunities in the marketing, branding, advertising, and public relations industries.'

http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/29208

Feel free to shoot me an email at hussein.fazal@adparlor.com if you will be at the conference and we'll meet.

Social Network Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:05:00 +0000

Last week as a speaker at Refresh Events, I discussed the current state (and future of) social network advertising with a focus on facebook and how brands can take advantage of the many opportunities available. Take a look - I welcome your feedback as always.

Social Network Advertising

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: media myspace)

Interview on LuckyStartups.com

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:45:00 +0000

I interviewed today on LuckyStartups.com. Thanks to Aronado and Dennis for taking the time to interview me. Most of the interview was spent talking about AdParlor.com - what we do and the growth we have had so far. Check it out:

http://www.luckystartups.com/2008/11/adparlor-great-for-startups

Social Network Advertising - Case Study #2: Nike, Apple, Coke (Through SocialVibe.com)

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:41:00 +0000

It has been a while, but I am now finally posting my second case study in an ongoing series of companies that GET social network advertising. This example is quite unique. Although the title calls out Nike, Apple, and Coke, and the study itself uses Nike as the primary example, it is actually a great learning opportunity for many of the largest brands in the world. Through SocialVibe.com, in conjunction with individual users, these brands can push out their name in a non-intrusive manner across social networking sites.

CASE STUDY #2 - SOCIALVIBE.COM

As always, I look forward to feedback from my loyal readers. If you think that you have done a good job in this space and want to serve as an example for others, feel free to contact me - I will share your story with others if I feel it will benefit my readers.

MySpace launches self-serve ad network for small business

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:24:00 +0000

MySpace today launched their self-serve ad network for small business. A lot of the blogs out there have already covered it, so I thought I would just make some quick points in summary:

Advertisers can only choose from 2 ad sizes - 728x90 and 300x250
They have a flash based interface where you can choose a template for your ad (Alternatively you can upload your own custom creative)
Advertising is currently only available in the US.
There was mention about only age, gender, and location targeting being available - but it seems like you can also target by interest category. It can get quite specific as well. After choosing books, I can choose the Titles sub-category, and then even choose specific books - only the most popular ones are there of course. (I chose the Da Vinci Code and was told there are 479,024 myspace users with this interest)
Although you can bid on how much you pay for click, the minimum is 25 cents. Also, the minimum budget to begin a campaign is $25.

Overall, this system seems quite similar to facebook's self-serve advertising and it should generate some decent revenues. One of advantages that myspace has is the number of users who are music focused and will spend the money to promote their myspace page. It will be interesting to see what % of their revenues come from these users in comparison to external advertisers.

Social Network Advertising - Case Study #1: STYLEFEEDER.COM

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:16:00 +0000

“In 2008, if you’re not on a social networking site, you’re not on the Internet.” IAB Platform Status Report: User generate content, social media, and advertising – an overview, April 2008

“Social media ‘is only going to become more pervasive’ and as such, becomes a critical factor in the success or failure of any business” - Brian Solis, Social Media Manifesto August 21, 2007

Statements like this may seem bold - but I can tell you with confidence that this is the truth. Many companies are coming to the realization that they must be on social networking sites, but most do not have a clue how to execute in this space successfully. To help the masses, in conjunction with AdParlor, the SocialAdBlog will be publishing a series of case studies profiling companies that have done a good job in the social networking world. The first case study is being published today. These are short, to-the-point, case studies which will serve as an example for the many companies ready to take the plunge.

CASE STUDY #1 - STYLE FEEDER

Please let me know your thoughts on this first case study of many to come. If you think that you have done a good job in this space and want to serve as an example for others, feel free to contact me - I will share your story with others if I feel it will benefit my readers.

Social Ad Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:41:00 +0000

On Monday, I had the opportunity to attend the Social Ad Summit in New York - this event is the first of its kind and brought together the leaders in the social network advertising industry. The concept behind it, as described by organizer Nick O'Neil, was to 'focus on strategic issues driving the growth of advertising in social networks'.

Although I was there representing AdParlor, I also went out of my pure desire and passion to learn about the industry and understand the future of social network advertising. Here are a couple of my thoughts based on my experience.

Social Network Advertising is a real business - The fact that this conference was able to attract the number of high-profile people that it did tells you that this is for real. Every single person I met was passionate about the industry. Many of them were CEO's of companies that were profitable and growing at a phenomenal rate despite being only a year old.
The large companies are taking notice - and spending money - There was one particular panel titled 'Branded Experiences on Social Networks'. This included Scott Monty (Global Digital Communications) of Ford Motors Company, Don Steele (Vice President of Digital Marketing) of MTV Networks, and Deborah Korb (Brand and Client Marketing) of JP Morgan. All three of them were excited about social networking. Deborah discussed how JP Morgan was using social networking for recruiting into the firm. Scott Monty discussed the Ford Drives U facebook initiative. Most importantly, Don Steele stated that MTV will have spent half a million dollars on social networks alone this year - and this their spend will continue to rise in coming years.
We have still not really figured it out - One of the underlying themes around the conference is that we (as an industry) still haven't really figured out how to monetize this social networking traffic. At this point it seems that the revenues generated from social network advertising will always pale in comparison to the revenues generated by search advertising such as google. There was much discussion about innovative concepts such as social banners and app-vertisements but it seems that over the next few years, the industry will be winning a lot of small contracts and perhaps large contracts from brands in the thousands - but not the types of contracts in the hundreds of thousands and millions until we can really figure out the correct and innovative way to take advantage of this social networking phenomenon.

Social Networking Growth in 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:33:00 +0000

I just wanted to post a table which I found on InsideFacebook. It illustrates the growth and overall size of the major social networking sites - with the core data coming from comscore as usual. Check out the article on InsideFacebook for an analysis of these numbers.

On another note - I am working on a White Paper which will be highlighting several real examples of how companies that have successfully used social media as a part of their marketing campaign, with tips and best practices on how to achieve a high ROI. I hope to publish this paper some time next week...

Developers Forum Launched

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:13:00 +0000

I just wanted to make a quick post to announce that AdParlor has launched a forum for facebook, myspace, and all social networking application developers to freely discuss advertising. We hope that this will be an open and unbiased forum where users will be able to freely exchange ideas and strategies for monetizing their apps. You can check it out at: http://www.devtok.com

Facebook Profile Redesign - How will it effect advertising?

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:18:00 +0000

There are two components to speak of when discussing how the new facebook profile will effect advertising. First, let's look at the ads put out by facebook themselves throughout the site. Secondly, we'll try and see if the facebook profile redesign will affect applications and the ads which may appear on these apps.

Let's talk about the facebook ads themselves first - These ads will now be appearing in the right hand column but beginning higher up on the page. In the current version, the ads appear in the left column but underneath the applications. This is a better placement for facebook ads as it seems to be more prominent. Have a look at the screenshot below. The blank white space on the right is where the ads will go. Although this is not confirmed, this is the feeling I got while speaking to Rebecca Sawyer of Facebook's Monetization Team at the Facebook developer garage in Toronto. Note also that the left hand column for ads is 150px wide in the current design and it seems that the right hand column in the new design has room for an extra 15px of width - this could give the standard 120x600 banner a little more white space to stand out.

Now on to custom facebook applications and ads that may appear on the new application canvas pages. Let me first mention that the canvas page will now be 760px instead of 646px - meaning that social networking ad networks should probably be offering a new ad size!

More importantly however than the width change, is how user engagement with applications will change as a result of the redesign. Applications can now have their own tab in the new tabbed profile design - as seen above. Unfortunately however, many apps will end up losing overall user engagement as they are automatically being moved from the main profile page to the new 'boxes' tab.

Really user engagement is what will effect advertising on these applications the most. It seems as if developers who take advantage of the tabs and who have an engaging application will benefit - while those apps that are not that exciting and are not updated will lose daily active users - a key metric in determining how many advertising dollars app developers can attract.

btw, the new facebook profile is still buggy and incomplete but you can try it out by going to http://www.new.facebook.com. It should be launched to the public next week!

US Social Network Ad Spending

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:42:00 +0000

I just came across an interesting graphic from the MIT Technology review and wanted to post it here. Users and Advertising revenues in the US. Full credit given as usual:

http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20978/page2/

Looks like the data came from eMarketer - but it is definitely an interesting view of that same data.

facebook passes myspace in unique users, but what about advertising revenues?

noreply@blogger.com (Hussein Fazal) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 04:12:00 +0000

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a lot of talk about facebook passing myspace in terms of unique users. Comscore reported that facebook had 123.9 million unique visitors, while myspace had 114.6 million in the month of May. This was foreseeable for some time as facebook created a social networking site with superior functionality and ease-of-use. Throw in custom application development, an exciting friend news-feed, and international expansion, it was a recipe for success.

The important question for me would be, 'Does this now mean that more advertising dollars will flow into facebook?' The answer for now is a simple NO. Reason being - THE U.S.A.

The US has the highest penetration rate of any country in terms of Internet usage at 71%, and the US has by far the most mature Internet market (Consumers comfortable buying goods online, Advertisers confident in a positive ROI on their investment). This means that the majority of online ad spending is by US companies, targeting US consumers. myspace has a majority of it's audience in the US, hence the advertising dollars flow in their direction as opposed to facebook.

However, facebook should not be scared. Although I try my best not to stray off topic in this blog, some brief research into the world economy indicates that economic strength is shifting from the US to other countries, and facebook is well positioned to take advantage of International growth. In fact, facebook has recently expanded into China. China is expected to PASS THE US in terms of total internet users this year. (China is currently at ~210 Million while the US is at ~215 Million). Although it may take some time for the non US Internet market to mature , it seems that soon facebook will be passing myspace in terms of a more important statistic - Ad revenues!