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+.

For example, if you live in the US and want to visit Google’s French website, you would use the country TLD identifier “.fr” for France.  Some popular generic TLD’s include:

Many of these TLD’s have rules for registration.  For example, only official government agencies can own a .gov TLD.  Other TLD’s such as .com, .org and .net are all available with no rules to entry.  In addition, many of the TLD’s have a different expiration date and need to be re-registered at an earlier or later date than others.

SEO, Paid Search and Social Contribution

As more companies use SEO, Paid Search and social strategies to promote their brands, the type of TLD becomes less significant.  In the past, high traffic-generating keyword-based .com’s were purchased.  Based on Google’s former algorithm, a domain that contained a generic keyword like “dog.com” would be relevant in the search results if someone searched on the term “dog”.  But as of October 25^th 2011, Google was granted a patent on a new algorithm that allows little emphasis on the keyword contained within a domain.  This gives freedom to any brand that does not have a generic related keyword within their domain.

A brand can capitalize on a keyword that produces large volume, but that does not mean a brand cannot survive without that option.  In fact, most of the top traffic producing US websites contain words that do not exist in the English dictionary: Google, Twitter, Yahoo, Bing, etc.  Brands can still achieve success with a healthy SEO, Paid Search and social strategy.  For example, the term “twitter” had no search volume before 2006 as it was not yet an actual word, yet the purchase of twitter.com did not hinder the company from becoming a household name and a top 10 traffic producing website in the US.

.COM

The most well known TLD is .com.  19 of 20 top US traffic websites contain .com.  Searches for the term “.com” exceed any other TLD.  .Com is the most sought after TLD, with little to no entry for generic terms with that particular extension.  Those generic .com’s also tend to be the most expensive TLD’s on domain registration sites such registration.com and networksolutions.com.  Practically all premium domain names for sale contain .com.  The vast majority of Fortune 500 companies have a .com TLD.  Many people can easily find a company using the brand name followed by a .com in the URL.

Public Perception

• A company with a .com is perceived as more legitimate given the majority of successful companies have their brand’s .com registered in their name

Traffic Volume

• Traffic volume can be lost from consumers searching for a brand’s .com when that brand does not own a .com

.COM vs. Other TLD’s

Although a company may be able to purchase a different TLD, the problem becomes competition.  If someone already owns the .com of an actual company, that company will have to sacrifice the lost traffic to the owner of the website.  Supply and demand regulate purchasing a domain.  The demand for a .com website is much higher than that of any other TLD.  If a website is available that is a generic term, one can expect the price of that domain to be higher for the .com over any other TLD.  As people continue to see .com as the dominant TLD, it will remain the most valuable.

Other TLD’s such as .net and .org are virtually the same as .com and are usually the next choice offered by domain registration sites.  Wikipedia is a .org website with a top 10 traffic ranking in the US.  Websites without a .com will not be penalized by Google in SEO results.  As .com’s become less and less available, .org’s, .net’s, and .biz’s, etc. may become a publicly viable solution.

According to Adweek, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) went as far as to add hundreds of new TLD’s starting in January 2012.  This may or may not be confusing for people who are comfortable with the current TLD’s, but it may open up more avenues for branding.  If less emphasis is placed on .com’s as they become almost impenetrable, other TLD’s may become more valuable with room for generic keywords again.

Recommendations

In a full blown digital age, companies should choose a brand name that has a .com available given that the public sees .com as a staple URL.  New brands should not get into the habit of choosing a name first and web address second, but rather the other way around.  As .com’s become a dry well, companies will have to get creative in choosing a brand name given that most .com websites are already taken.  Existing companies whose .com has been taken should choose a domain that is highly marketed and resonates best with the consumer.  Generic keyword influenced domain names have all been chosen and are not as relevant as they were in the past.  With SEO, Paid Search and Social strategy such an integral part of promoting a brand, a domain name that does not contain a .com or generic keyword does not mean a brand cannot succeed, although having a .com is preferable and should be sought after first.

Recommended Reading

DNS Infrastructure
Top-Level Domain Name Plan
Top Websites in the United States
Google Commercial Queries Patent
Google Webmaster Help

What will change?

Similar to television in quality and style, this content will be delivered as episodes and organized into channels with scheduled programming across 18 various content genres. The categories will range from home & garden to sports and appeal to a wide range of audiences.

To keep viewers engaged and returning to the channels, episodes will launch in three waves – January, April & July. Currently, YouTube is planning to launch 40-60 hours of new content per channel each year. By the end of 2012, each channel will average 535 new episodes.

With a reported estimated budget of $100 million, Google has signed on a long list of celebrities, musicians and professional athletes to produce and star in the shows hoping to attract a large audience. The current roster includes Rainn Wilson, Shaquille O’Neal, Madonna and Amy Poehler and much more while trusted media outlets such as Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Everyday Health have also joined.

YouTube is also planning to socialize Original Channels to promote sharing of this content. Reports indicate users may be able to find content from the celebrities they follow on Google+ and Twitter as well as share their favorite shows & episodes with friends.

What This Means for Marketers

The launch of Original Channels is great news for marketers who are looking for new and innovative ways to increase brand awareness through digital video.

The variety of categories and some of the biggest names in television programming will likely attract a broad audience and keep users interested. Channel genres will be similar to cable television channels where marketers can cherry pick specific genres that will appeal to difference audiences from African Americans to Teens to Moms.

With this release, YouTube will further differentiate its self from the competition because of the lack of professionally produced original video on the internet. While other video content providers such as Hulu exist and will compete for viewership, they offer stale reruns which will not keep users coming back in the long run. Original Channels will also be able to leverage YouTube’s existing integration into household devices by being available on laptops, tablets, mobile devices and even Google TV.

YouTube Original Channels will offer marketers a variety of ad units. Ads will be similar to commercials on television today with marketers having the option of choosing between “in-stream” (auto-playing commercials) or “in-slate” ad where viewers have the option of choosing the commercial they choose to watch. YouTube will also allow marketers to purchase banners that appear on Original Channels and overlay ads that appear within the programming, encouraging click through to a brand’s website.

To ensure marketers can gain learnings and measure the performance of the media buy, YouTube will allow marketers to integrate YouTube Insights to collect data on viewers who have been exposed to the advertisement.

With all these benefits, YouTube Original Channels is a great way to reach a specific audience that might not be available through other content video providers on the internet.

Potential Impact

As more Americans are cancelling their cable subscriptions and using the internet for their primary video consumption needs, YouTube has developed what can be described as a free television system over the internet. As many have learned, when you offer consumers anything that is free over the internet, they will follow. If the free product is great, it will become a hit. It has happened many times before with examples such as Facebook, Gmail and even the original YouTube portal. These trends indicate YouTube Original Channels will be a hit as well.

To learn more about YouTube Original Channels, you can go to The Official YouTube Original Channels Website or read the official announcement on YouTube blog.

Additional Reading

More Great Content Creators Coming to YouTube

Original Channels – YouTube

On November 2^nd, 2011, Google announced new design and experience updates to Google Search and other products to improve the overall online user experience.  One of the new updates affects paid search results shown on the right side of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

What Has Changed and Why?

In some cases, ads that have previously shown on the right side of the results may start appearing below the organic results as shown in the screenshot below.

Google has found that in certain cases, displaying ads below search results is more aligned with the user’s flow as they scan pages from top to bottom.  As a result, Google search pages and ads are dynamically optimized to provide the best user experience.

According to tests implemented by Google, on average, this placement performed better than side ads in terms of click-through rate.

How Does This Impact Your Campaign?

At this point, it may be difficult to see the new ad placement in Google as they are currently being displayed for queries with fewer ads.  Although Google has seen bottom ads generate higher click-through rates compared to side ads during experiments, individual ad performances may vary.

There is currently no Quality Score or bid threshold at this time.  Moving ads from the right side to the bottom is solely based on improving user flow.

How Can This Impact Performance?

Eye-tracking studies have shown a top to bottom pattern on the SERP with lower engagement on side ads.  They also indicate that majority of users are mostly engaged with top sponsored ads or top organic search results.  Although side ads get less attraction from a user perspective, it seems as though bottoms ads would get even less attention.  With that said, it is surprising that click-through rates would be higher for bottom ads.

And what about competitors?  If your ad is showing at the bottom and competitor ads are on the top or side, could you be losing qualified traffic?

Next Steps

There is no option to opt out of having ads show on the bottom of the page, and it’s too early to determine how performance can be tracked on specific campaigns. If your selected keywords results in a high volume of paid ads, your ad will most likely not show at the bottom of the page.   In addition, if top performing keywords are in the syndicated position, chances are there will be small impact on overall performance.

Executive Summary

Last week, Google announced that it would be tweaking its quality score algorithm to provide more weight to a site’s landing page quality. The decision follows successful trial results in Brazil, Spain, Portugal, and Spanish-speaking Latin America, which were completed in August. We’ll dig into exactly what this may mean for your campaign’s performance moving forward.

What’s Changed?

This new algorithm will provide an increase in landing page quality, as it is weighted with the other major factors such as keyword/ad relevancy and click through rate in determining quality score. This change was prompted by Google when it noticed that ads winning the auctions did not necessarily own top quality sites.

But didn’t Google already account for landing page quality score? Correct! However, up until now, we have only seen landing page relevancy considered as a negative factor, meaning landing pages with exceptionally poor relevancy would be rejected, while those with high relevancy would be minimally impacted, if at all.

What This Means for Marketers

The changes will likely take place in the US within the following weeks, so advertisers should expect keyword quality score to be affected during the initial rollout. That said, Google claims this change should normalize within a few weeks, and advertisers should not see any significant shifts in performance.

Ads with landing pages that Google finds most relevant to the query will continue to rank high, if not higher, than they do today, so this news should not cause panic for campaigns already following best practices. If anything, the update will now provide an additional way to increase positioning at more effective CPC’s, improving campaign cost efficiencies simply by following best practices.

Conversely, advertisers with poor quality landing pages will see its negative effect on their campaign performance. Google will crawl landing pages associated with an ad similar to how a site is crawled for organic rankings, which places higher emphasis on your site page readability and overall site quality.

In theory, the update should only further bridge the gap between site development and paid search.  It is our recommendation that search be seen as one cohesive unit between the disciplines, and for advertisers to bridge the connections between their SEM and SEO efforts. 

Potential Impact

In addition to the more widely seen effects of desktop landing pages, more pressure will be added to advertisers with mobile campaigns. Mobile ad serving and organic ranking sophistication will soon be up to speed with that of desktops. As brands begin to level the playing field with optimized mobile experiences, this update will have a great impact in what is soon to be a highly competitive area for ad space.  Given the small share of SERP space on a user’s mobile device, quality score will play a key role in ad rank and performance.   

Algorithmic features such as quality score are vital components to the evolution of search. Engines will continually seek to provide the best user experience, forcing advertisers to perfect their campaigns. While the slight tweak in algorithm makeup may not be the monumental shift we’ll remember at the close of 2011, it is nonetheless a global search enhancement that will yield a level of sophistication amongst advertisers and ease amongst users.

Recommendations

Keep an eye out for variations in ad position and keyword quality score over the next few weeks. Advertisers should continue to push the impact of crawlable SEO and its significance in paid results while maintaining best practices in landing page deep-linking. In the end, campaigns that follow standard best practices from a paid and organic point of view should only see a positive impact from the update.

Recommended Reading

Search Engine Land: Google Adwords Puts More Weight on Relevance, Landing Page Quality

PPC Hero: Mobile PPC: Google Wallet, Quality Score & Speculation

BizReport: Optimize Mobile Landing Pages for Better AdWords Quality Score

Let’s Get Engaged

The words every consumer wants to hear when it comes to ad units. We continuously see studies showing that engaging units, like video, are being consumed more year over year. According to recent trending from eMarketer, US online video viewers have increased and will continue to grow through 2015 (and beyond).

Another eMarketer study shows that 33% of US tablet and 23% of US smartphone users surveyed watch video on their devices in 2011 at least once a day.  That statistic is huge. Google is realizing that video is an important component on the online consumption mix, and what better way to get those video assets in front of searchers than right on the search results page?

Hit ‘Em From All Angles

We all know that Google is the #1 search engine and #1 website.  YouTube however, is not trailing too far behind.  There is no better way to increase the visibility of your Promoted Video ads, then to make them available on the #1 site on the Internet?

What does this mean for marketers?  There could be an opportunity for brands to take up even more real estate on the search results page above the fold.  Paid ad enhancements and betas such as site links and other lead gen/offer/product listing type ad units are making paid search ads larger and more interactive. SEO enhancements can include mega site links, ratings and reviews, organic site links and multiple listings, taking up more space. Throwing Promoted Videos ad units into the mix could allow advertisers to take up one more real estate listing on the SERP.  By dominating the space, it’s more and more possible for brands to take over all listings above the fold.

Sharing is Caring

At Reprise, we feel that the social graph is gaining traction on the linking graph when it comes to the search space. Adding an ad unit on Google.com that leads to a site like YouTube allows marketers to link their video and social efforts with search even further. Once a user lands on the YouTube page, if the brand has created a well developed brand channel, he or she can view more videos, subscribe, share, and then even connect with a brand’s Facebook and Twitter presence via links. If the brand is running an overlay ad over the video, the user can click directly back to the brand website.

How Can Advertisers Use This

Where possible, advertisers should consider running enhanced and engaging ad units to attract and gain information and insight from searchers. By running YouTube Promoted Video ads on Google.com if this becomes available, advertisers can link the search and video space. Once on YouTube, a developed brand channel can keep those searchers engaged with the brand, provide useful information via video that can be shared, and provide a portal to other social outlets, as well as back to the brand site.

Google recently announced two updates that will enhance their current ad offerings: first is an increase in rich media ad units and the second is a circular-type ad unit. Advertisers will see an increase in the proportion of text vs. enhanced ads up from one quarter to one third of its paid search results inventory. Secondly, Google is working on a new ad unit that mimics that of a newspaper circular insert. This is in line with Google’s vision to provide richer information to consumers with the credo that “search ads should be beautiful and informative as well as useful to the consumer as an answer”.

Google launched a newly dedicated promotional website touting these changes and qualifying them with numerous data points. The promotional website provides marketers and advertisers with figures such as:

• The +1 button is being served 2.3 billion times a day all over the web (source: Google)
• More than 20% of searches on Google on a desktop are related to location. On mobile, it‘s about 40% (source: Google)
• 80% of reviews on the site of a given retailer are written by the top 20% of their customers (source: Google)

The news of this new circular ad type comes with little information on the ad itself other than it’s in partnership with Macy’s Inc and Best Buy. Beyond its availability announcement in the space on Tuesday October 4th, there is also speculation that this may tie back to an ad unit creation methodology that was similar to a company, Teracent) Google acquired a couple of years ago. It could essentially create and deliver dynamic display ads based on various factors, very similar to what sources are claiming.

What Does This Mean?

With regards to the circular ad unit and from what we can gauge from sporadic sources, it will be displayed when someone clicks on a regular search ad on Google but it’s still unclear if this is an overlay on the search results page, or if this is a new page altogether (interstitial for example). The ad itself will be formed on the fly, in coordination with the query, the location of the consumer clicking and other factors. In the coming weeks, this should become clearly apparent to all marketers as it rolls in market.

This positions Google competitively with eMarketer projecting a 78% market share in 2012 up from 76% this year. This new Google format also launches in the heels of the new social experience Google+ Project. What this may give advertisers and marketers is the integration sustenance to quell the cross channel mapping craving in display and searchthey have been looking for. Thinking a bit ahead, Google announced that the ad unit could effectively provide multiple clicks through to individual products with a projected increase of 15 to 50 percent as compared to traditional ad types.

At Reprise, we believe that this could also mean a small step towards online to offline attribution by way of providing value in this visual ad unit as a takeaway, which can be plugged into something like Google Wallet or even printed and brought in-store. The tie-in Google can create from the SERP to offline, assuming the new data points this will provide, and subsequent shifts in media buying optimization based on this data, could very well create a paradigm shift in how marketers and advertisers plan and buy media. This is all fairly speculative of course, but the writing is on the wall.

How Do Advertisers and Marketers Ensure Opt-In to Rich Search Results Inventory?

On the search inventory front, advertisers may or may not already be opted into this pool of ad types. Those that have not opted into rich extensions such as site links, promoted video’s, location extensions, product extensions, Google+1 and new betas need to ensure this becomes a part of their ad mix and optimization framework. Those that have already opted into these are well positioned to show up against this new inventory push.

Advantages to the End User

Anytime Google creates a richer experience for the end users, it will be advantageous to the end user and provide more succinct — and in this case visually pleasing— “answers”. The fact that Google’s new ambitious ad unit will mimic something that is deeply embedded in the age agnostic psyche of us all, is a testament to its move towards something a bit more aligned with consumers “wants” out of the web vs. the web trying to shift consumers tendencies. Overlaying the aforementioned with a forceful shift in rich search results from text based, will help solidify this as the norm across all advertisers and marketers search media buys.

Advantages to the Advertiser

Specifically to the new ad unit: The opportunity for brands to get in front of the end user with relevant products/services, tied to specific queries, and aligned with a “known” format like a circular, has almost limitless implications.

It could be advantageous for traditional click to online conversions and most importantly helping to solve the looming online to offline intent of the consumer. If we assume that analytics will come with the newly enhanced display search ad format and if Google allows the consumer to “take” the ad unit with them via the phone or by printing it, while subsequently providing added value with a unique identification number…..it may have the ability to be tracked in-store and fed back to online data helping marketers optimize and plan. Essentially, we’ll get closer to finely tuned online to offline media spend modeling.

Disadvantages to the End User

Not many. Since this increase in rich search results proportion to text based ads and new circular ad unit are positioned to benefit the consumer, the only downside might be load times or imposition of the ad unit pending further hands on experience. If the ad unit does not provide added value to the consumer in-store, that would be a huge miss since these ad units are geared towards retailers.

Disadvantages to the Advertiser

Advertisers are presented with a myriad of existing and new challenges, but only for the ill-prepared. Those advertisers and marketers that have created a campaign architecture, optimization framework, and process workflow with fluidity at the helm.

On the existing challenges front, advertisers and marketers lagging behind in the ad extension space will lose to competitors well positioned to take advantage of the inventory increase towards rich ad types. For example, those advertisers who have not opted into product extensions and who have not figured out a direct feed to this opportunity will have trouble catching up. CTRs may shift to those who show up more often with rich ads vs. those of whom do not, and an eroding of quality score may occur for advertisers who do not react quickly. Lastly, given the positions you must be in for contention of these rich ad units (typically 1-3), the premium inventory space will get a bit more crowded and expensive. This may have implications for those retailers that like to play position roulette on the right-hand rail. A good way to mitigate this risk to leverage a combination of competitive reporting, to exploit engine tactical gaps and monitor SOV and position strategies, and your own analytics that allows you to review your own natural position shifts against your average CPC costs.

The new challenge this represents to advertisers lives with those who choose to watch the search landscape change before them and then react, rather than adapt in the “now” as it relates to new ad adoptions.

Recommendation

The bottom line here is that those advertisers that have not figured out rich ad extensions in Google will suffer against competition that have. If they are not shifting in line with rich ad experiences from an ad type and inventory standpoint, they are missing out on exception opportunities to answer consumers questions in a form that tends to resonate well from a CTR and conversion perspective.

Advertisers should keep an eye on their metrics, and compare them to pre- and post- when this inventory shift was implemented.

Recommended Reading

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/03/google-says-13-of-search-ads-are-now-enhanced-launches-new-formats/
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-to-Debut-Circular-Search-Ads-Generated-on-the-Fly-224983.shtml
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-03/google-takes-page-from-sunday-newspaper-with-new-circulars-ads.html
http://www.google.com/ads/answers/numbers.html

With over 105 million registered users and 30,000 new accounts created daily, it’s no wonder that Twitter is a prime destination for worldwide advertising. The popular microblogging service allows users to send and receive posts of up to 140 characters while giving them the opportunity to immediately connect with friends, brands, industry experts, and popular celebrities from around the world. Ever since the social networking site arrived on the scene in 2006, it has proven to be successful for businesses, enabling them to broadcast their latest news and interact with customers 24/7. Five years later, organizations continue to use the information network on a daily basis to collect market insights and establish relationships with the consumer. The social network offers three main ways to advertise: Promoted Trends, Promoted Accounts, and Promoted Tweets. While Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts focus on increasing a brand’s following in a timely manner, Promoted Tweets work to extend the reach of the specific message to a wider audience with the added value of establishing a one on one relationship with the customer.

What is a Promoted Tweet?

Promoted Tweets give businesses the ability to engage with users outside of their core following by sharing relevant content, building awareness and establishing their brand’s voice. Businesses can use Promoted Tweets to make connections with those who are currently not a part of their follower base. Most likely, a brand’s current follower base is already comprised of users who are most responsive to the brand. These followers are the brand advocates who are the first to know and spread the message, and by targeting users just like them, the most engaging tweets will be placed in front of potential followers, thus enhancing tweet exposure. This tactic, often referred to as ‘look alike modeling,’ establishes ongoing conversation in order to precisely target the most “like” consumers. Not only will Promoted Tweets begin to appear on the user’s actual Twitter stream but in third-party applications as well. Third-party applications such as Tweetdeck, Twitpic, and Co-Tweet are used to access tweets and other Twitter data, giving the user the ability to update and manage their social media accounts with ease.

Promoted Tweets offer a number of benefits to the user, as they are offered on a Cost-per-Engagement basis and share a direct correlation with Pay-Per-Click in the fact that advertisers only pay when a user takes a specific action. Payment only occurs when a user re-tweets, replies, or marks it as a “favorite”. These tweets carry a minimum CPE of $0.10 and a recommended CPE of $0.50. Rewarding followers by providing unique deals, in addition to captivating content, will highly improve the chances of being re-tweeted, both increasing the amount of daily interaction with consumers and encouraging like minded users to follow the brand as well.

How do Promoted Tweets Work?

When a user logs on to their Twitter account, the Promoted Tweet will appear near the top of the timeline based on relevance. Similar interests are determined through a combination of data such as who the user follows, typical daily interaction, and re-tweeting history. Keeping content fresh and relevant is ideal, as Promoted Tweets are only displayed for as long as they’re engaging with the consumer. As the user scrolls down the page, the Promoted Tweet will remain on the timeline as newer tweets begin to appear. It’s important to note that Promoted Tweets are not ads; rather, they are simply regular tweets that have a need to reach a wider audience. While crafting a Promoted Tweet, it’s important to remain conversational, engaging, and insightful. The goal is to capture a larger following by improving the chances of becoming re-tweeted. Is the content compelling enough to share? How will the tweet resonate with consumers? If the users don’t interact with a Promoted Tweet, it will simply disappear.

Monitoring Your Progress

Although Twitter is considered a powerful platform for businesses, many have struggled to accurately measure the amount of traffic Twitter is actually driving to their sites. Sites such as Tweetstats and Klout can provide you with valuable information by measuring your activity, however, these statistics are often more interesting than helpful. These are great tools to provide a user with the information they need to improve their Twitter influence. Earlier this month, Twitter launched Twitter Web Analytics which will be made available to website owners over the course of the next few weeks. The major benefits of this tool that differentiates itself from the rest includes allowing the user to visually view the amount of traffic driven to their site from Twitter, and developing a clear understanding of how much of their content is being distributed across the network.

Summary

One of the main challenges that Promoted Tweets face is having the ability to produce Tweets that align with the specific interests of the user. Finding the perfect balance between generating revenue and maintaining the ultimate user experience will be crucial over the next few months as the platform continues to roll out. As some users may be skeptical about having Promoted Tweets in their personal stream, it’s important to remember that these are not your average ads and that they can reach the consumer on a much more personal and valuable level. Refraining from the aggressive hard sell and designing a creative promotion would be a best practice for businesses. Although users can easily dismiss Promoted Tweets with a single click, who can resist a free cup of coffee or a chance to win free airfare? More than likely, this major move for the popular social network will multiply a brand’s follower base, and as long as the content is compelling enough, it will keep the company in front of the consumer at all times.

Recommended Reading

Twitter Unleashes Promoted Tweets: http://www.seoinc.com/seo-blog/twitter-unleashes-promoted-tweets/

Twitter Debuts Analytics Platform, Expands Promoted Tweets Distribution: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2109346/Twitter-Debuts-Analytics-Platform-Expands-Promoted-Tweets-Distribution

Twitter’s Status Update: More Promoted Tweets, More Engagement: http://mashable.com/2011/09/08/twitters-status-update-more-promoted-tweets/

Word came through the wire last week that Bing will be introducing a new tweak to its results-ranking algorithm called “adaptive search”. Over the past two years (give or take) Google and Bing have been making tweaks to their ranking codes so that search engine results page listings would become more personalized to the individual end users. The idea behind personalized search was to use search history to provide a more intuitive page of results for each individual user’s intent. For example, if I was in the market for a new rug, and my recent searches were focused around keywords such as “new rug”, “buy rug”, and “rugs”, as I used the engine to search for other information outside of this rug pursuit, my results could show me a focused results page for my most recent non-rug related query. It would also show me some results that were swayed because of my previous volume of “rug” searches. Adaptive search takes this idea and evolves it.

The concept behind adaptive search is to use search history compounded with actions taken by users after results are delivered to create a smarter results page; as it relates to both listings delivered, and the order by which those listings are ranked, is created. For instance, if I used Bing to do substantial research for the moon landing by searching and clicking on listings, and then I searched on the keyword “Armstrong”, most people may receive a listing for Armstrong Flooring higher on their results page while I may receive listings for Neil Armstrong higher in my results.

The search engine business lives and dies by how user-friendly their experience is. Users have come to expect an intuitive experience as they engage with their search engines. Bing is banking on creating an experience for each user that would, in theory, differ from anyone else’s pages; a results page takes into consideration anything and everything a user has searched on in the past.

What that means is that individual users will have individually unique choices. Individually unique choices means that the collective behavior and data of the search engine universe is skewed. Bing’s search experience ventures further away from the generally expected “pull” arena (i.e. letting the user tell them what they want) and further into the “push” realm (i.e. telling the user what they should be looking for). Bing’s understanding of a consumer’s intention down the road may be skewed because of assumptions made from a momentary user phase.

Additionally, the average Joe doesn’t know that he is being shown a personally-tailored page; he assumes the information he is being shown is what everyone else sees (save a few geo-targeted listings). Because users won’t be presented with all of the options and information that they once had, and because they are unaware that they are having a customized experience, one could argue that Bing is guiding a consumer’s thought process and ideologies rather than helping them find the correct, complete information to make a sound decision.

Brands could cry foul as well. Providing a user with assumed results based on previous behavior may tailor listings that were once earned based on what the masses have qualified. For instance (continuing with my previous search session), if I were in the market for a new floor, and I searched on the word “flooring”, having previously searched on the word “Armstrong” as part of my moon landing research, I may be shown the listing for “Armstrong Flooring”, while others would see more communally-qualified listings.

Granted, there probably aren’t many users in that moon landing/ flooring predicament, but I am just one user, and that is just one unique instance. The bigger issue is the bigger picture; every time I’m shown results, I’m being nudged in a specific thought direction that is in turn telegraphing everything that I see in the future, which in the end is skewing the collective conscience.

Brands should keep an eye on their Bing-related site traffic as these changes are rolled out. All things considered, with all of the countless variables to think about, the site results probably won’t sway too significantly in any direction, and may just be another point for the brand to consider.

Unique results delivered to unique users may sound like a nightmare for SEOers, but it shouldn’t be. Results pages will always need to take into consideration which sites are the most commonly qualified pages based on the search query. Even if results are taking into consideration a users previous queries, the results will always be listed from the best to the worst, and so a SEOer will always need to make sure that their brand is in the best position to show when Bing ranks them.

In the end, search engines will continue to move in this direction of trying to keep ahead of the consumer’s intentions at the cost of potentially making some erroneous assumptions and slanting the collective data.

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