The Social Impact on Paid Search

Initially, +1s were URL specific and could only be accumulated when users +1ed the URL within the SERP or within an Adwords ad that directed traffic to the same landing page.  Now, Google is displaying +1s with ads on Google.com as well as on the display network.  Google notes that ads with +1s tend to have higher click-through rates (CTR) and typically perform better because they have been socially recommended.

Often times Google+ is compared to Facebook, especially due to the connection between the “like” and “+1″ button; however, it is important to keep in mind the difference between search engines versus social engines.  According to Google, people that search on Google billions of times a day are often looking for brands and businesses.  As a result, these brand pages help people develop meaningful connections through their search queries.  Previously, the Direct Connect feature allowed users to navigate to a Google+ brand page by including a “+” before the search terms.   Because brand pages are now appearing on the SERP without the use of Direct Connect, users are immediately exposed to the brand’s recent posts and pictures within the Google+ brand page.

 The Google+1 Button Boost & What Advertisers Should Know

The launch of the Google+ brand profile increases the importance of +1s in advertising.  Most are aware the +1 button allows users to publicly endorse brands within organic search results and even on paid search and display ads.  Paid search ads in Google also carry the same +1s that organic search results carry.  As a result, paid search ads that link to sites many people have +1’d are more likely to receive higher placements within paid results.  This can influence a user’s decision about which ad to click.  Paid searchers will have to account for this in their pay-per-click strategy as +1s grow in popularity.              

There is greater opportunity for the advertiser to create strong connections between marketing channels, including both paid and organic search.  These brand pages aggregate all of users +1 activity throughout the brand’s organic listings and paid search advertisements.  Essentially, brand pages represent a user’s engagement with the brand anywhere within the Google search web.                                                                                                                                                      

Because advertisers have control over +1 activity and user behavior, ads become more relevant and brand interaction increases.  Advertisers should pay close attention to this interaction and influence in order to plan for the future.  With an increasing number of brands utilizing social media as part of their overall advertising efforts, it will be crucial to take note how many brands shift focus away from Facebook to Google+.

What is Interest Targeting?

With over 500 million users worldwide, Facebook Ads can reach a very large and diverse audience. When coupled with the fact that every Facebook user has his or her own unique likes and interests, creating contextually relevant ads can be a bit of a tall order. Fortunately, however, Facebook has the ability to very specifically target users based off of information users have shared on their profiles. Anything a user either Likes, or lists as an Interest on their Facebook profile can be targeted by a Facebook ad. These Likes and Interests are the keywords of Facebook, and they allow advertisers to create pertinent and effective ads. In order to do this, Facebook offers three different targeting options: Precise Interest Targeting, Topic Targeting, and Broad Category Targeting.

Precise Interest Targeting

Precise interests are the Likes and Interests that a user has shared on their Facebook profile. This extends beyond what is listed in the Interests section of a person’s Facebook page. It also includes items listed in, for example, the Music section of the user’s profile. Precise Interest Targeting is based on the exact wording of the Likes and Interests on the user’s Facebook profile. For instance, if a user belongs to a group called “New York Jet Fans,” they can be targeted with the corresponding precise interest, “New York Jet Fans.” In this way, Precise Interest Targeting is similar to Exact Match because the phrase must be added to the interests that the advertiser is targeting, and the phrase must also appear on a Facebook page in order for that user to be captured.

Topic Targeting

Topic Targeting is used to combine multiple Precise Interests into one keyword, and works very similarly to Phrase Match. By simply tagging the phrase “New York Jets” with a hash tag (ex. #New York Jets), an advertiser can capture related interests containing that phrase, such as “New York Jet Fans” or “New York Jets Football”, rather than having to select those interests individually.

Broad Category Targeting

Broad Category Targeting combines a user’s interests with other shared content from their Facebook page. Broad Category Targeting is used in conjunction with other information from the user’s profile, and compiles interests such as “New York Jets” into a category of people who like “Football”. This can be made even more general by targeting people who merely like “Sports.”

Impact of Effective Targeting Options on Campaign Performance

Effective implementation of these targeting options can achieve some great results for a Facebook campaign. For example, in our Sharp Facebook campaign, categories that targeted Precise Interests garnered the most conversions, highest conversion rate, and also the lowest cost-per-action of the campaign. Performance like this is made possible through Facebook’s ability to help the advertisers serve the most relevant ads to the consumers who are most likely to click.

Conclusion

When used in combination with Facebook’s location and demographic targeting options, interest targeting allows advertisers to connect with the precise people they are marketing to.  Instead of simply targeting sports fans, advertisers can now target people who are New York Jet fans, in Pennsylvania, and who went to Penn State, and they can do so on their birthday. This level of specificity is unique to Facebook and is something all online advertisers should take advantage of. By creating ads that are closely related to consumers’ interests, Facebook advertising can take on a new, and higher level of relevancy, and can be an effective part of any account’s arsenal of tactics.

References

http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/InterestsTargeting.pdf

What is the Google+ Project?

The Google+ Project is Google’s first bona fide entry into the social media landscape. Google+ is a social media ecosystem which integrates with a user’s existing Google services, while also providing certain nuanced differences from its major competitor, Facebook. With Google+, it is clear Google plans to go head to head against Facebook in competing for today’s social consumer. Currently in beta form, Google+ is generating much buzz in both the digital and traditional landscape, and early indications are that Google+ will become a competent challenger to Facebook.

How Does Google+ Differ From Facebook?

At its core, Google+ will operate in a similar vein as Facebook, allowing members to share and interact with friends across the digital landscape. However, Google+ differs in that it will offer users new tools to make those interactions easier or more refined. These tools include:

• Circles: The Circles function allows users to create sub-groups of friends for the purposes of making it easier to control what information you share, and with whom.
• Sparks: The Sparks feature allows users to create feeds based on topics of interest. From these topics Google+ will deliver articles and videos to your Google+ interface, making it easier, more relevant and more fun to share information with your circle of friends.
• Hangouts: Hangouts allows users to create a virtual “room” where friends can hang out and interact through chat and/or video messaging. Hangouts takes Instant Messaging to the next level by adding video and also allows users to create private rooms for larger group interactions.
• Instant Upload: Instant Upload allows users to have their mobile photos and videos automatically posted to their Google+ Photos homepage.

Recently, Google announced plans (and sent a limited number of invitations) for Google+ Pages for Business – asking that brands “hold off” on creating brand pages. It is unclear how these pages will differ from “Fan Pages” on Facebook at this time. However, we do congratulate Google on its initial plans to allow unique business oriented pages, which, hopefully, can be controlled more readily by brands.

What Does This Mean For Marketers?

As Google+ is currently in beta, it is unclear what the impact will be for marketers. However it will be important for marketers to monitor the situation, and most importantly, the growth rate of user adoption and how Google rolls out the monetization of the platform through advertising support.

Long term, as the Google+ Project is opened up to the wider universe of users, we expect two significant events to impact marketers:

Privacy Concerns

Since its beta launch, Google+ has had its share of privacy breaches. First, it came to light that shares within private Circles could in fact reach the greater web audience through re-sharing. Second, while not technically a breach of security, initial testing shows that there is a lack of clarity, and a lack of ease of implementation of how to set up settings which establish, and with whom, content is shared with.

While we fully expect Google to work through much of these bugs during the data, we recommend those involved with the Beta to tread carefully and fully read through your account set-up options prior to publishing information.

Our Opinion

We believe that Google+ will be a strong competitor to Facebook. The enhanced tools, particularly Circles and Instant Upload are strong tools which will sway users to switch social platforms. Should users flock to Google+, marketing opportunity is sure to follow.

The Third Wave of Personalization

Making organic search results relevant means limiting their scope. Search engines have been exploring how to achieve this in a meaningful, personalized way for some time. First, it was past user browsing history, as previously visited pages served as a strong relevancy indicator; sometimes even directly, with users simply attempting to navigate back to a page that they had previously visited. It comes as no surprise that the major search engines have facilitated direct access to this data via official browsers (Chrome for Google, Internet Explorer for Microsoft).

Second came geography, as a search result for “best pizza” in New York (Di Fara’s Pizzeria, naturally) would likely not provide much value or relevance to a user in California. Geography is used to fill in the search query pothole, automatically taking the search user’s location into consideration in order to limit the search query scope and consequently, the results. This personalization was achieved with IP-tracking, manual user customization and integration with mobile devices. Hence, the search giants have also secured access to this data with mobile platforms (Windows Mobile 7 for Microsoft, Android for Google).

We now find ourselves in the midst of the third wave: using data from social media to provide highly relevant results. Facebook began featuring Bing results in its internal search results last year. Now Bing has returned the favor, adding Facebook recommendations to its organic search results. Although data from social media has been used to influence organic search ranking results for some time – in addition to social media results being featured outright in organic search – the major search engines are now taking active, and aggressive, steps to integrate social data seamlessly.

The Enemy of Google is My Friend

Furthering their united offensive against Google, Facebook and Bing have taken their honeymoon into an auspicious first year of marriage. Facebook recommendations or “likes” will now be incorporated and displayed whenever Bing users search.  By logging into their Facebook account, Bing users now have Facebook data integrated into organic search results right on the search results page.

This functionality mirrors Google’s blatant Facebook rip-off “+ 1” button, which attempts to add a social recommendation component to Google’s organic search results. However, Google is still missing a critical piece of the puzzle: a viable social media platform to actually fuel the entire thing. Here, Bing has the upper hand with access to the holy grail of social data via their Facebook partnership. Google, on the other hand, has been tenacious, but entirely hapless (i.e. Google Buzz), in their search for their social media holy grail.

Implications for Social and SEO

Rather than simply standing next to organic search results, social media is now on its way to becoming seamlessly integrated into them. As a result, search users are going to increasingly expect to see social personalization in search results. Brands now find themselves at a critical junction as not receiving those coveted Facebook “likes” will have direct implications on their organic search presence and consequently, click-throughs and conversions.

Hopping on the much-panned “social-media bandwagon” has become a question of life and death (presumably from dysentery). Getting in good with search users is going to mean getting in good with their friends (zig-a-zig-ah). Brands with active social media presence will benefit greatly in this new age of social personalization. If friends’ “likes” were only marginally impactful on transactional behavior in the Facebook environment, they are likely to be much more decisive in Bing’s search results, where users are actively looking to complete transactions (rather than interact with their friends).

Many alarmists will surely claim that SEO is dead. And as always, they will be right. Traditional SEO, without any concern for social (i.e. Bubble-boy SEO/SEO performed from under a rock), is dead – but that news break came about 10 years ago. What these developments reinforce is that SEO and social are and will persist in being a married and unified discipline. SEO will continue to be vital in making the pages and content that people “like” discoverable and visible. Social will take over from there, further leveraging pages and playing a role in determining their visibility based on personalization.

Chrome 11 Now Available for Download
Google’s browser upgrade includes some bug fixes, integrated translation services, and speech-to-text features. Speech-to-text is especially great for those moments when you are too lazy to actually move your fingers. WALL-E anyone?

Should Your Paid Search Account Care About Bounce Rates?
This article examines bounce rates and things to consider when addressing them. Does that matter in a world where most SEM campaigns are measured based on ROAS or CPA goals?

Google’s Groupon Competitor Goes Live
Google’s Offers promises 50% off or more at the places you’ll love. Signups have begun in 6 cities including SF and NYC (sorry ATL & Boston). How will Google fare in the crowded daily coupon space? Will Groupon live to regret declining Google’s $6 billion offer?

Google Sees Smartphones As Advertising Goldmine
Google conducted survey of 5,000 U.S. adult smartphone Internet users at the end of 2010. The main smartphone uses include Internet browsing (81%), general search (77%), app use (68%), and mobile video consumption (48%). Google found that 72% use their smartphones while consuming other media, with a third while watching TV, and 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home.

Translated into Googlespeak : “We’re rich!”

Google Instant Previews on Paid Ads
This week, Google announced instant previews on paid ads, extending a feature that was previously only available in organic search results. Instant previews works when an end user clicks the small magnifying glass icon next to the query they wish to view, or if they click near the query, activating the feature. A small window will pop up, showing the page that link redirects to. We aren’t convinced that this feature will affect conversions a whole lot, but we agreed that advertisers should also think about other factors when thinking about the page their ad redirects to: using Flash vs. HTML, which will affect SEO, and making sure the page contains content that relevant to what the user is looking for as Google crawls the site and highlights relevant content for the end user to see. As Emil Panzarino said in his Searchviews post, “Advertisers should keep an eye on their metrics, and compare them both prior to and following the implementation of this feature.” One issue we noticed: the instant previews feature in paid ads wasn’t active in all browsers.

HBO Go
HBO will debut a streaming service on iPad, iPod and Android mobile platforms where subscribers will have access to over 1,400 HBO shows, documentaries and films. With television shows and films already being streamed on other websites online, this is another example of television moving away from its original platform to the Internet. Will this make cable obsolete? Perhaps, but not before we get all of our sports (and yes, that includes local sports) online first.

Blekko Includes Facebook Comments in Search Results
The search engine Blekko is incorporating Facebook posts in its search results. It works in two ways: if you sign in with your Facebook account and put in a search query, you’ll be able to see which of your friends have liked those pages and you’ll also find “relevant” comments or posts your friends made on the right hand side of the SERP. If you make a search query in Blekko but are not signed in, you will instead see comments or posts from Facebook users who have made their settings public on the right hand side. Right now, search and social have been separate, and through Google’s (many) botched efforts to combine the two, they have been unsuccessful. Our team believes Facebook would be more successful in combining search and social if it decided to expand its capabilities to search. Or maybe it’ll just acquire Blekko. Or maybe Google/Bing/Yahoo! will acquire Blekko. We’re a bit skeptical about the longevity of this feature or if it’ll be enough to help Blekko compete with the other search behemoths.

What do you think about these developments?

"How dare you bid on my Earlybird day..."

Twitter has just launched their newest beta advertising program @Earlybird, an official profile designed to tweet exclusive deals and special offers. When talking to Twitter about this in the last few weeks leading up to launch it struck me that this could be where auction-based ad pricing makes it’s way to the Twitter platform.

When I first started working in social media (back in the pioneer days of the “Numma Numma” guy)  the concept of “advertising” in social spaces was looked on with disdain by community managers and savvy marketers. The reasons for this were simple – ad units sucked. There was little connection between awful banners and pop-ups and the actual behavior of users in social spaces – whether it be message boards or MySpace.

Things certainly have changed since then- a combination of smarter, more site-specific ad units coupled with better metrics to measure success are beginning to transform best practices in social media leading to a combination of paid and organic marketing (or earned and paid media in PR speak). If this sounds to you like the search universe of SEM and SEO then you are on the right track.

After all, Facebook is pushing CPC ads targeting users based on Likes and Interests and status updates (essentially a keyword based medium), Twitter’s new Promoted Tweets is a keyword triggered search ad (for now) and the new and improved metrics across the big three platforms of Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are clearly derived from the rich data available from search campaigns. Even more striking is the similarity between Facebook “Like” button targeting and search re-targeting and Twitter’s “Resonance Score” (designed to show the relative effectiveness of a Tweet) and Google Page Rank.

What has been missing in action so far  is a social media equivalent to the search engine auction in which advertisers bid on keywords. With the advent of Earlybird however, this could be changing.

How so?

Earlybird is built on value and scarcity – the value of the deal and the scarcity of knowing that the window of availability is 24 hours (or less if the deal is for something that has limited supply). Right now advertisers reserve their days in advance with Twitter and essentially own that 24 hour window.

So what happens when this model meets high-demand days like Black Friday, or Cyber Monday, or Super Bowl Sunday?

Twitter hasn’t addressed this scenario yet, but it’s not a stretch to imagine pricing based on what the market will bear rather than a one-price-fits-all approach. Why not have advertisers bid on these days?

Last Thursday I took a walk over the Internet Week HQ Expo in NYC. It was the first time in my life I felt out of place because I didn’t have an iPad. Then, when I pulled out a pen and paper to take notes, it garnered looks as if I had pulled out a telegraph machine to order a pizza.

Anyway, I did have a purpose to being there. PSFK, a trends research and innovation company based in NYC, was leading a conversation about their analysis about the future of retail. The discussion was short, but rather enlightening. The topics were mostly centered on how social media integrates with and shapes both the traditional shopping experience and emerging retail platforms, such as mobile retail (imagine J. Crew crossed with a taco truck).

Mobile Retail

Outlets like Facebook, Twitter, and even Foursquare (maybe) have given retailers an alternative to the traditional brick and mortar store. Using social media to update consumers on their locations, startup retailers now have the option to make their business mobile versus remaining stationary. It’s a rather innovative idea that puts a new spin on the entire shopping experience.

Why do any of this? To quote one of the PSFK guys on the panel, “When your store is mobile, the entire world is your retail space.” It also lessens the worry that a competitor will move in across the street, and could give startup businesses a chance to compete with national corporations. Traditionally, a national chain can simply buy up large amounts of expensive real estate if they feel they can cut in on a budding business. However, if that budding business is mobile, it forces competitors to think beyond location and more on how to attract consumers. Additionally, a mobile business can do its own market research by moving from place to place and finding its own hot spots – Kind of like trying to find service on your iPhone in Manhattan.

A number of other innovative factors are involved when integrating social networking, retail, and mobile retail. For example, I asked the guys there if they felt that being a mobile retailer rather than a traditional one would entice consumers to purchase more regularly. Something I dubbed “The Ice Cream Man Effect.” Consider how kids lose their minds when the ice cream man shows up because they’re so afraid to miss out (Eddie Murphy portrays this very well in the single greatest standup concert of all time, Delirious).

If you follow a certain mobile retailer on Twitter and realize they are parked outside your office that afternoon, you may feel more enticed to visit or purchase something that day. The PSFK guys agreed that creating that exclusivity and all-around different shopping experience was definitely more exciting and interesting for consumers. But generating that interest and creating that buzz will remain a challenge for businesses and marketers. Should many businesses move to mobile retail in the future, this could become not just a novelty, but the lifeblood of their success.

The Power of Group Buying

For those retailers who remain cemented into the ground, there are still new ways to incorporate social media into their shopping experience. Social networks can be intoxicating. The more people around you that are doing something, the more likely you are to also do it. Time magazine posted an article two months ago about social networks and their impact on drinking habits. Similar to drinking habits, purchasing habits can also be influenced by those around you.

So, how are retailers capitalizing on this? The best example given during the discussion was about Diesel Jeans retail stores capitalizing on social shopping. Apparently, they are experimenting with putting a webcam outside their dressing rooms. This way, you can try on something new, come out of the room, snap a picture, and immediately send it to your BFF on Facebook for a reaction. (Hopefully the response is nothing short of “Fabulous!”) If your friend likes what you tried on, psychologically you’ll feel better about buying it, even if you don’t like it yourself.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Having all of our fans and thousands of followers at our fingertips is certainly expected to change the way we communicate and advertise our businesses. But if the PSFK research proves to be true, social media will have an impact far beyond social media and promoted tweets. The entire dynamic of the retail world will be altered.

As word of mouth becomes more and more important, businesses will be forced to focus on what is best for the consumer and not just for themselves. Similarly, as mobile technologies advance, competition will no longer be across town, but rather in the same pocket as your own business, just a click away. Comparison shopping and customer reviews will all be available at a simple touch of the screen. While this offers a wide range of concerns for retailers, it also opens the door for many different opportunities. Those that are able to capitalize on these could flourish. Those that do not could be left wondering where that taco truck went.

More social than the forums that governed much of the web in the 1980s, Stack Overflow optimizes the flow of questions and answers by tagging and ranking them, while users simultaneously earn a reputation (as our resident enterprise engineer, Jason is well-ranked) in the community based on how well they answer questions. Stack Overflow gained traction rapidly over the last two years and this round of recent funding suggests Fog Creek may be ready to expand its community-driven answering service beyond IT and make it a viable business model for social search.

The community is rapidly becoming the de-facto answering service in the developer community. According to Stack Flow, the site has grown from zero to 7.1 million unique visitors in less than two years and is currently ranked #709 on Quantcast. Users rave about the speed with which they can seek out answers to their development problems and also regularly offer advice to other users. By encouraging participation, Stack Overflow ultimately fosters a community committed to sharing answers that now trumps Google in the eyes of many members.

Major players in the VC world seem to agree. Beyond its backing by arguably the top tech VC firm in the country, the brain trust assigned to this project should raise some eyebrows. Along with four of Business Week’s top 25 angel investors in tech, the project also includes Miguel de Icaza, a long-time leader of several community-driven projects for Linux software. The team has already made changes to Stack Overflow’s current offering to facilitate community building, such as a new method for tapping into and growing communities, removing the initial $130-$5000/mo. price tag and protecting all information on the site with a creative commons license.

So will this model destroy Google or Facebook? Hardly, but if the Stack Overflow model generates similar explosive growth in other community spaces, brands will reap the benefits of a social service that neither Facebook Fan Pages nor Google search results currently provide.

Specifically, Google search results do not address subjective questions well and this void could potentially be filled by a community of enthusiasts rather than an algorithm. Google acknowledged this gap in its answering service by acquiring the social answering service Vark for $50 million in February. Similarly, Facebook’s fan pages provide a hub for users with common interests, but are not structured to answer critical questions efficiently.

Fog Creek’s recent round of funding from a high profile VC firm indicates that they intend to bridge this gap and provide a more engaging and useful community that eventually could be tapped by marketers in all verticals. More importantly, this funding may also affirm an emerging market for community-driven answering services in search.

Ad Space Units (ASUs) are Facebook’s on-site advertising, one example of a wave of new
advertising types that live at the crossroads of earned and paid media. These ads appear
on the right rail of Facebook’s user interface and consist of a headline link, description text and
graphic or logo. ASUs are served in up to three available positions under the “Sponsored”
header on the right side of Facebook’s pages. The only page these ads don’t appear on is the
initial login screen.

How Do ASUs Work?

The ads can be purchased on a CPM or CPC basis, with a minimum campaign budget of one dollar per day. CPCs are incurred with clicks on the title, image body, and if you choose the fan/event ad options, CPCs are incurred with clicks on the “Like” link and “Yes” and “Maybe” RSVP links.

The advantage of using the CPC model is obvious: you only pay when an interested party clicks through your ad making it a more efficient use of advertising dollars. However there are some cases when a CPM ad might be preferable, especially when the goal is to drive new Fan Page Likes.

To increase the relevancy of the ASUs, Facebook dynamically targets the user based on public profile information, status updates and wall postings.

Best results for both types of ASU come from clear, compelling calls to action in ad copy. Evidence shows that this is magnified by the quality of interactions on the brand’s own Facebook page, which drives up the likelihood of the ad being seen as well as Liked.

Other targeting options include: location, age (by default Facebook targets users 18 and older), gender, education, workplace, relationship status, relationship interests, and language. A form of keyword targeting called Likes and Interests can also be used based on user’s public information and profile updates, as well as information from similar users.

Facebook does not currently guarantee clicks or impressions on CPC ads, and traffic volume estimates are not available via its CPC only self-serve advertising platform. They are, however, available on deals directly negotiated through Facebook representatives. Dedicated account support is limited to brands that spend a minimum of $50,000 a month.

Performance reporting will be handled through the Facebook UI, and provides data on impressions, clicks, and CTR. Currently, Facebook is developing scheduled reports which will be e-mailed to participating advertisers. Additionally, if you choose to direct users to a fan or events page, Facebook provides a breakdown of your fans’ actions.

Why a brand should consider ASUs

Facebook currently has an estimated 400 million plus users and continues to grow. The level of on-page engagement is greater than that of most sites and users tend to spend more time per session on average than on sites like Google.

With proper ad copy and coupled with a well-managed and optimized Fan Page, Facebook ads can deliver results far above typical digital ad units such as standard and even contextual display ads. While the results may still lag behind search advertising on click frequency, when properly targeted and deployed they can be significant response drivers.

Recommendations

While Facebook does offer self-service advertising, the enhanced metrics and flexibility of what is offered to agencies on a direct buy suggests that most brands should use this approach for any serious campaign. In addition, agencies such as Reprise which have cross-agency expertise in both social media and CPC advertising are ideally suited to handle keyword-based targeting and research, call to action messaging, culling insights from front and back end data, and the interplay between earned and paid media that this type of advertising thrives on.