Web marketing blog

Web marketing newsletter published for November

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:59:00 +0000

The latest issue of the monthly Web Marketing newsletter has been published for November, covering some of the recent stories on web search and online marketing trends.

This month's edition looks at the new deal that Twitter has recently signed with Microsoft and Google to incorporate its 'real time' feeds into their search engine results. It also reviews Google's recent launch of Place Pages for Google Maps which gives much more comprehensive information about a location. Finally this month, the newsletter considers the new Intelligence tool and other enhanced features that Google has added to their Analytics service.

If you want to sign up for future issues of this newsletter, please do so by using the form at the bottom of this page. To view back issues of this regular newsletter you can see the archive by date or by subject.

Google's Promoted Videos available in Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:53:00 +0000

In another new Google announcement, this time on the Google Australia blog, the launch of Promoted Videos provides a way for advertisers to place their video on related pages on YouTube and across the web. Like Google AdWords, this new service is an advertising program that anyone can use to help potential customers discover a relevant video.

Promoted Videos will help companies find a relevant audience wherever they are on the web, whether it's searching or watching videos on YouTube or browsing across Google's network of publisher sites. These video campaigns are targeted by keyword and priced on a cost-per-click basis. These campaigns can be purchased and managed directly in Google AdWords, where advertisers can place bids, select where the videos should appear (such as on relevant YouTube search results pages, video watch pages, and Google's publisher network), and set daily spending budgets.

Google's aim is to provide a single destination for the overall Google advertising management tools, as well as giving YouTube advertisers who are new to AdWords the access to additional campaign tools. There are also 'Call-to-Action overlays' in Promoted Videos, whereby advertisers will be able to add a clickable overlay to their videos, allowing them to drive viewers to a website off YouTube. This means that advertisers can track the performance of a video and whether viewers are converting into customers.

Google announces Social Search

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:45:00 +0000

The Google blog has announced a new Social Search service, which will be available to Google account users who are logged in when they search Google. With this search option, Google finds relevant public content from a user's friends and contacts and highlights this at the bottom of the search results. Users can also filter their results to see only content from their social circle by clicking "Show options" on the results page and clicking "Social."

Google is collecting these search results from publicly available information on the web and by linking a user's Google profile to their wider social circle of friends and contacts using such sites as Twitter or FriendFeed. The results are then specific to each user and, if Gmail is also used, will display relevant content from 'chat buddies' and other contacts.

Twitter agrees deals with Bing and Google

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:09:00 +0000

The big news for Twitter this week has been the new deals announced with Bing and Google, as the two search engines start competing to add new functionality and issue press releases. This latest news has been covered widely, such as on the BBC website, and the deals will see messages from the 'micro-blogging' service - or tweets - show up in Bing and Google search results almost as soon as they are posted on Twitter.

Microsoft's Bing search engine has moved first to set up a stand-alone Twitter search page accessible from the main site, whereas Google countered the announcement and said its Twitter search service would debut within the next few months. Although some parts of Twitter already show up in some search results they tend to be for individual accounts or messages that have been archived. Both deals will now take a feed of all public Twitter streams to make them searchable almost as soon as they are sent.

The Bing Twitter search page shows the most popular topics mentioned in the 140 character tweets. Visitors to Bing can also search for specific terms and see relevant messages ranked chronologically, as well as the most popular website links referred to from the relevant posts.

Google adds mobile tracking to Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:22:00 +0000

As reported by MediaWeek, the recent announcement by Google of new functions within its Analytics stats package Google Analytics included the ability for users to track their visitor traffic to both mobile sites and applications, breaking out the devices being used so that marketers can track digital campaigns in one place, whether through the web or mobile.

Analytics users need to add a piece of code to their mobile sites or applications for Google to collect the stats from all mobile-enabled devices, although it doesn't cover all programming languages yet. Developers can now track the usage of their apps and with the link to Google's Android operating system, these apps can be linked to ad campaigns, with mobile searches reported to be up by 30% year-on-year for the recent quarter.

The mobile-tracking features are part of a broader update to Google Analytics that includes the ability to set and track engagement goals, add customized audience segments, track unique visitors for segments and set "intelligence alerts." With this latter function, Google hopes to automate the process of users having to sift through the data to find key insights. Google's algorithms will comb through analytics information to find interesting trends, such as a surge in traffic from a particular site or an increased bounce rate in a geographical area.

Google reports record quarterly profit

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:37:00 +0000

As reported widely in the press, including by the BBC and The New York Times, Google has reported its highest quarterly profit for July-September, at US$1.64bn, which is up by 27% on the same period last year. At the announcement, Google's management claimed that the Internet advertising market is now coming out of the recessionary period, although it has always performed better than other advertising sectors in terms of annual growth rates.

Google's revenue for the three-month period was $4.38bn, which was well ahead of analysts' expectations of $4.24bn. The company also announced some new initiatives, including sales of electronic books through a new electronic editions service, which would compete with the likes of Amazon and their new Kindle product.

Highest PPC click costs reach US$100

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:12:00 +0000

A report by MediaPost claims that the highest-priced keyword in the US during September was $99.44 per click on Google. This data comes from the AdGooroo Search Engine Advertising Update, which has begun to track the click costs for search terms for the first time. According to their analysis, the term 'mesothelioma' was the highest-selling keyword, which was also sold on Yahoo! for $60.68 per click to get the top ranking position. The search term 'auto insurance comparison' was the highest-cost phrase on the Bing search engine, at $55.20 per click.

Of course, the search engines themselves will know this data but keep the information confidential, and it's not clear how the figures revealed by AdGooroo are obtained, other than by estimates and market feedback. It seems that the term 'mesothelioma' has become highly expensive due to legal firms pursuing new lawsuits related to the asbestos-causing lung cancer.

The report also says that the search engines served up on average between five and six ads per keyword during September. In the US market, Google moved to 5.45 adverts in September 2009, up from 3.06 a year before. Yahoo! dropped to 5.35 from 7.53 and Bing also saw a decrease to 3.10, from 5.12.

Google trials new search ad pricing

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:42:00 +0000

An article by AdAge reports on a test that Google is running in the US for local search advertisers. In an attempt to attract more local advertisers to buy search ads, Google is experimenting with a new type of search advert and pricing system in the San Francisco and San Diego markets.

Google is offering local advertisers (or non-advertisers) a search ad for a flat fee. The fee is set by Google and based on the average that similar businesses are paying for a given keyword in that market. As the article states, the goal is to simplify search advertising for local businesses that may not want to bid on keywords or to set up and optimize a search campaign.

This is a more familiar model for local businesses, such as plumbers, electricians or restaurants, or any local business that has advertised in the Yellow Pages. However, Google is offering an additional option to link the advert to a Google voice number so that advertisers will know which calls are being referred from the search ad. This is something they have tested before and allows small businesses that don't have a website to test search advertising and track the performance of their ad.

These local advert tests come at a time when Google is nearing the end of an extensive review of its search advertising system which has taken place over the last 6 months (and known internally as AdWords 3.0, according to this article).

As part of this revamp, Google is trying to give more relevant results for local searches, which plays into its local strategy. A user who searches for a restaurant, for example, no longer has to specify where they are as this can be determined by their IP address or browser, and relevant local results are returned, along with a map. Although not a perfect model, it could enable Google to vastly expand its search offering to a much wider market.

Mobile Internet usage grows in the US

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:38:00 +0000

MediaWeek in the US has reported on the latest research data from Nielsen that shows mobile Internet usage growing exponentially, largely due to the increasing number of 'smartphones' such as the iPhone. However, despite the high level of expectations for this sector, the report says that only a quarter of wireless subscribers logged onto the web via their mobile devices in July.

The Nielsen research says there were 56.9 million mobile web users in the US by July 2009 - up 34% year on year. However, an earlier Nielsen report at the start of 2009 said there are almost 225 million total mobile subscribers in the US, which means that mobile Internet penetration is about 25% of the market and still trailing PC-based web usage.

The demographic profile of the mobile Internet sector shows that teens and seniors are pushing the growth in usage as they enter the market. The article says that Nielsen's data showed a 45% surge in usage amongst teens 13-17, as well as a 67% spike amongst users aged 65 and older. Males still dominate the sector with 53% of the market but the female audience rose by 43% in July, compared to a 26% growth spike amongst men.

New web marketing newsletter published for October

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:42:00 +0000

The latest issue of the monthly Web Marketing newsletter has been published for October, covering some of the recent stories on web search and online marketing trends.

This month's edition is dominated by Google developments and issues. Firstly it looks at the new Google Sidewiki feature which enables web users to add or review shared comments about any website or web page. It also reviews Google's recent blog posting that confirms the status of the keywords meta tag not being used as a factor for search rankings. Finally this month's issue considers the Filter Manager function in Google's Analytics that allows users to block static and dynamic IP addresses, IP ranges and domains from its report data.

If you want to sign up for future issues of this newsletter, please do so by using the form at the bottom of this page. To view back issues of this regular newsletter you can see the archive by date or by subject.

Social networks display substantial annual growth trends

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:20:00 +0000

The ClickZ website has summarised new data released by The Nielsen Company which says that the time being spent on social networking sites has nearly tripled in the past year. In addition to this trend, the amount being spent on advertising on these sites has also increased at a similar rate.

According to the report, consumer activity on social networking and blogging sites comprised 17% of all time spent on the Internet in August 2009, up from just 6% a year ago. At the same time, advertising spend on these sites grew 119%, from an estimated US$49 million in August 2008 to US$108 million last month. As a percentage of total online ad spend in the US, these ad expenditures on social networking sites climbed from 7% to 15% year on year.

Not surprisingly, Facebook is the big winner from this growth, as recently reported, and as well as the number of users growing substantially, the time spent on the site has also increased, with the average user now spending 5 hours and 46 minutes per month on the site, up from 1 hour and 40 minutes a year ago. As a result, Facebook has reportedly seen a significant growth in ad impressions, accounting for a 14.7% share of US display advertising views last month, up from just 1.8% in January this year.

According to Nielsen, the spend by industry sector on the top social network sites has increased in all areas, with the entertainment industry showing the biggest annual increase, up by 812%, and travel advertising increasing spend by 364%.

Google Sidewiki launched

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:43:00 +0000

The Google blog has announced the launch of another notable new product, Google Sidewiki. This new feature allows searchers to contribute helpful information next to any webpage and can display a browser sidebar next to the web page, where users can read and write entries along the side of the page.

This is an extension of Google's personalised search and 'search wiki' option launched at the end of 2007, which allows users to adjust their own search results and add comments against ranked websites. The new Sidewiki tool now takes this a step further by giving users the chance to share knowledge, experience or advice against web content.

In developing Sidewiki, Google says that a priority was for users to see the most relevant entries first, so they have developed a system to rank the comments that are added in the 'best' order. So, instead of displaying the most recent entries first, the Sidewiki ranks entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from users, previous entries made by the same author, and many other signals they have developed and tracked.

This should help to address the obvious concerns of website owners that competitors will post negative comments and reviews against their web content, in much the same way that review based websites have been trying to deal with competitive 'spam'. There is also the ultimate question of how the tone of comments will be used by Google in the long term to have another impact on the relevancy of search ranking results.

Another feature of the Sidewiki is that the technology will match comments about a web page with other websites where the same content is displayed. This will help to broaden the value of the system and to reduce the need for duplicated comments or posts. Google is also going to use relevant posts from blogs and other sources that talk about the specific page of content so that users can discover their insights more easily, right next to the page they refer to.

Google Sidewiki is being made available as a new feature of the Google Toolbar so you need to download the latest version to access this sidebar and add or view comments. It's still going through a beta stage of development and Google will be improving and enhancing this feature in the coming months. You can also view more information about this tool here: http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/learnmore.html

Conficker worm poses global security threat

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:25:00 +0000

According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, the 'Conficker worm' remains the biggest security threat to the Internet at the moment, with the spread of the virus being almost impossible to stop. If has already infected more than 5 million computers and could be used to disrupt the Internet in entire countries, according to some experts.

The worm was first detected in November last year and spreads rapidly to computers through a security flaw in the Windows operating system.When machines get infected they are 'co-opted' into a viral network which can potentially be controlled and used by the hackers to launch unprecedented cyber attacks. Those behind the worm can reportedly do anything they want with the infected machines, including stealing users' banking details or flooding government servers to knock them offline.

The particular challenge of Conficker is that it contains built-in mechanisms to prevent people from scanning their computers with anti-virus software. Even for those who wipe their computers clean and start fresh, if they back up any important data on a portable hard drive, the clean machine is reinfected when the drive is connected to the computer. The worm also spreads automatically between computers on a network and infects machines without the user having to do anything other than switch their computers on.

As usual, security experts recommend that people who are not yet infected should ensure that they have installed the latest Windows patches and anti-virus software.

Facebook reaches 300 million users

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:13:00 +0000

The Wall Street Journal covers the latest announcement from Facebook that it has now reached 300 million users, another sign of the continued growth of this popular social networking site. This means that an extra 50 million users have been added since July, when the 250m mark was announced, so the upward growth curve continues at a rapid rate.

Of course all these users are not regular users of the site, but it still makes for an impressive user base of registered names, with 70% reported to be based outside of the US now. Facebook also claim to have moved into a positive cashflow situation now and are expected to earn more than US$500 million in revenue in 2009 - another significant growth in the past year, up more than 70% on the 2008 figure.

Microsoft launches visual search option

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:57:00 +0000

Microsoft has announced a new feature for the recently launched Bing search engine. As reported by the BBC website, the new feature is designed to set their search experience apart from Google and will allow users to browse results using pictures instead of text.

The visual search option will initially concentrate on the four main areas where Bing has been providing specialised search options to date - namely travel, health, leisure and shopping. At the recent launch, Microsoft claimed Visual Search allowed users to conduct some searches faster than the "traditional image search" offered by rival Google and other search engines.

Microsoft say the new feature is "like searching through a large online catalogue". When a searcher enters their search term, a link at the top of the first page of results allows users to "visualise" what Bing has found.By clicking on the link displays a gallery of related images which the searcher can then scroll through and select to enter the relevant web content.

At the moment only a small number of search results will return a visual display and the feature is currently only available on the US version of Bing, but these categories and coverage are likely to be expanded as the tool moves out of beta.

Google launches new AdWords 'opportunities'

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:29:00 +0000

As part of their ongoing development of the new AdWords interface, Google has announced the roll-out of their 'Opportunities' function for advertisers. This is a new section in the AdWords account interface that is designed to give advertisers additional cost-effective traffic through search term suggestions based on the existing campaign structure.

The Opportunities tab can be used as a way to further optimise an AdWords account. It provides a quick overview of Google's customised keyword and budget suggestions for active campaigns and adgroups. Advertisers can also compare the potential impact of different ideas before they make any changes, so for example they can increase the keyword coverage for a specific product, or have adverts appear more often for existing keywords.

This is the type of strategy that professional AdWords advertisers should be using on a regular basis, but for others it brings to the fore some of Google's existing tools that can help a campaign, or if not used carefully, enhance Google's revenue!

Social networking sites attract advertising share

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:58:00 +0000

A report by Reuters says that around one of every five Internet display ads in the United States is now being viewed on a social networking website, such as MySpace and Facebook. The data comes from a new survey by comScore which demonstrates the increasing importance of social media sites and the broadening acceptance of such sites by brand advertisers, as well as the challenge now being faced by the more traditional online publishers, such as Yahoo and AOL.

The new report says that social media sites represented just over 21% of U.S. Internet display ads in July, with MySpace and Facebook accounting for more than 80% of those ads. However, the question will remain as to whether these sites can be used as effectively for advertising, due to the nature of their usage. Also, because the content on social media sites is created by users, some have questioned the willingness of marketers to place their brands alongside that content and the potential risks that could bring.

Nielsen's new audience measurement

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:15:00 +0000

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald reviews the new Internet measurement panels being introduced by Nielsen, the recognised authority in data for online advertisers. The traditional figures for 'unique browsers' visiting a website are now being reconsidered as a misleading figure, to be replaced by 'unique audience'.

The change comes as part of the relaunch of the Nielsen NetView service, the measurement panel which provides audience ratings for web publishers as part of their advertising sales statistics. The panel has increased to a representative 7000 people, enabling a better view on work and home Internet usage, as well as eliminating the duplication of computers as web browser.

This was essentially the problem with the earlier figures, in that they double-counted people as browsers, whether they might be using the web at work, home or even on their mobiles. The newer unique audience figures will provide more credibility, but in the short term, publishers will see their audience figures decline with the new measures.

Web marketing newsletter published for September

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:52:00 +0000

The new September issue of the monthly Web Marketing newsletter has been published, covering some of the recent stories on web search and online marketing trends.

This month's edition looks at Google's announcement of their next-generation search architecture, dubbed Google 'Caffeine', and the implications for website rankings. It also reviews how Australia's Internet advertising sector continues to grow, from the latest IAB quarterly and annual figures. Finally this month, the issue covers the launch of the new Bid Simulator Tool for Google AdWords, which can be used by advertisers to view the potential impact of a different bid level within their PPC advertising results.

If you want to sign up for future issues of this newsletter, please do so by using the form at the bottom of this page. To view back issues of this regular newsletter you can see the archive by date or by subject.

Facebook amends privacy policy

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:49:00 +0000

Facebook, the market-leading social networking site, has been forced to change its global privacy policy following negotiations with the privacy commissioner in Canada. A report by the BBC says that Facebook was recently found to breach Canadian law by holding on to users' personal data indefinitely and has therefore agreed to make changes to the way it handles this information and be more transparent about what data it collects and why.

The other main stumbling block that has been an issue for some time has been the inability for users to deactivate or delete their account, but this is now being changed so that it will be possible in the future. The decision could also have implications for other social networking websites.

As well as updating their privacy policy, Facebook has said it will make changes that will give users more control over the data they provide to third-party developers of applications, such as games and quizzes. These changes will require applications to state which information they wish to access and obtain consent from the user before it is used or shared.

Broadband caps in Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:30:00 +0000

An article from the Sydney Morning Herald considers the usage caps in the Australian broadband market which are potentially holding back Internet growth in the country and are an outdated system which is virtually non-existent in other countries.

All the main ISPs in Australia price on a monthly usage cap, which for the current web applications of social networks, online videos and photos, are outdated and restrictive. In contrast, the article takes the example of some US Internet providers suggesting 250 gigabytes-a-month limit which led to consumer outrage, despite the fact only 0.003% of US broadband users exceed that level!

The article then considers the options for changing the pricing system in Australia and the potential opportunities for new providers to break the mould. It is possible that the new management of Telstra is more open to change but it's likely to take time and be linked with the national broadband network.

Do smaller display ads work better?

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:02:00 +0000

MediaWeek reports on new research from Dynamic Logic that claims to show that the most effective display ads on the web are those that are integrated within a web page's content, rather than larger, dominating adverts, in terms of driving traditional brand metrics such as awareness and purchase intent.

Dynamic Logic analysed 2,390 display campaigns over 3 years and found that half banners (234 x 60 units) and rectangles (180 x 150 units) proved to be more effective than larger, pricier placements such as leaderboards and skyscrapers. However, these findings conflict with the current trend among web publishers and advertisers, who are pushing toward larger, more interruptive online advertising as a way to funnel brand dollars away from TV.

The survey also found that creative quality and level of sophistication are also key, so that among the 2,000-plus campaigns analyzed, rich media ads that featured video excelled in most branding categories, including awareness, brand favourability and purchase intent. Meanwhile, more basic Flash ads - seen as the most common form of display advertising - consistently achieved the lowest scores.

Research shows loyalty of Google searchers

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:04:00 +0000

New figures published by US research agency, comScore, show that Google holds greater loyalty amongst its users compared to Yahoo! and Microsoft. As reported by Reuters, this new data illustrates that Google not only has a very strong market share, but also retains searchers for longer with more searches conducted each month.

The research also shows that Yahoo! and Microsoft have a combined search penetration of 73% in the US, which isn't too far behind Google's level of 84%. However, Google searchers conduct an average of 54.5 searches a month, which is about double the number of searches recorded by users of Yahoo! and Microsoft combined - these users search on average 26.9 times a month, according to the comScore report.

In terms of loyalty, the research found that Google searchers make nearly 70% of their searches on Google sites whereas people who use Yahoo! and Microsoft sites combined search there about 33% of the time and also use Google heavily. This gives the newly combined force of Yahoo! and Microsoft a challenging target to reach, which is likely to an even wider gap in Australia and other countries where Google dominates even more than in the US.

Google testing new search tool

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:42:00 +0000

The Google Webmaster blog has announced a 'secret project' that the company has been working on - the next-generation architecture for Google's web search engine. And now they are opening the test siteup to users, requesting feedback on the performance of the new technology.

Google says their aim is to improve the size, indexing speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness of their search experience, but there's little coincidence that this announcement comes soon as the launch of Microsoft's new Bing search engine and the attention that has generated. Of course, this Google announcement has generated lots of press and online activity and comment, such as this favourable review from Information Week.

Dubbed 'Google Caffeine' the new search engine infrastructure can be viewed and tested at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/.

The new search engine seems to be faster, which probably reflects lower usage and less integration of 'universal' search results at this stage. Some searches show little difference in results to the existing search engine, whereas others do show a notable change in ranking positions, so there could be implications for some companies relying on search engine optimisation performance for their site visits. This new version will continue to be reviewed and assessed over the next few months to see what wider impact it may have on the search and online business market.

The growth of the real-time web

noreply@blogger.com (Web Marketing Workshop) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:05:00 +0000

An article in Business Week considers how the use of real-time websites may start driving online business in the future. Following the success of Twitter, the ubiquitous micro-blogging site, the report interviews an investor of this site along with over 20 other companies that are developing the "real-time Web" - the term used to describe the rapidly increasing number of live social activities online, from 'tweets' to status updates on Facebook, to the sharing of news content, web links, and videos.

The real-time web is being considered by some as the Internet's 'Next Big Thing'. Although this emerging sector is so new and currently unfocused in its longer-term potential, apparently many startups are now staking claims in this field and drawing interest from investors.

It is yet to be seen how these websites can turn a healthy profit and drive future growth in the web. Twitter is still exploring ways to generate revenue from its huge user base, while Facebook has struggled to turn its rising popularity into profits. However, with the growth of high-speed Internet connections, a growing number of mobile devices with full web browsers, and new technologies that enable instant transmission of messages and data, the opportunities for real-time communications are growing and now need to be applied to a profitable business model.