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Sep
08
2008

ANA cautions against Google, Yahoo deal

By | Internet Advertising

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The WSJ is reporting on a letter, sent from the Association of National Advertisers to the Department of Justice, cautioning against the proposed deal between Google and Yahoo.  The ANA is citing the usual suspects when objections to mergers, acquisitions and partnerships.  The letter is short, so Ill post the pertinent half.

The letter, authorized by the ANA Board, notes that a Google-Yahoo partnership will control 90 percent of search advertising inventory and states ANA’s concerns that the partnership will likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search advertising.

It is the last line that really rings true to the heart of the ANA’s issue with the deal.  The ANA is worried that Google and Yahoo will be able to raise prices on the large percentage of online advertising inventory they control.  It is a serious issue for the association, who represents institutional advertisers and who has a board made up of power brokers

ANA’s board, made up of well-known marketing executives including Brian Perkins, Johnson & Johnson‘s vice president of corporate affairs; Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer at Wal-Mart Stores Inc; and Betsy Lazar, executive director of media and advertising for General Motors Corp., approved the group’s move. ~ WJS

I’m not a large Google or Yahoo advertiser and so I don’t have a good grasp on the merits of this raised objection.  Clearly, when customers of a service speak out against something like this, especially one as well organized and connected as the ANA, the DOJ is likely to listen intently.  In truth, there is the case to be made that Yahoo is threatened by the possibility of going out of business if this deal is not made.  This would surely hurt competition and concentrate control within Google more than a partnership does.  Microsoft has made similar arguments against the deal that the ANA is making.  Those pleas have been largely ignored in the media as the cries of a competitor in the online ad market.

Aug
27
2008

Need a Cheap Online Ad Management System?

By | Internet Advertising, News & Notes

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If you offer advertising (or want to) on your business website or blogs, you may have been holding off because of the cost of using online ad management systems.  Sure, there are “free” ad networks, but most of those don’t allow you full control over the ads that show up on your site.  Google’s Ad Manager allows you to sell ads, but also to supplement those ads with ads from Google AdSense and other ad networks.  TechCrunch has more information: Google Will Now Manage Your Website’s Ads, as well as Ad Operations Online: Google Ad Manager out of Beta; All AdSense Publishers Can Use It.

Aug
26
2008

To PR or not to PR

By | Internet Advertising, News & Notes

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There has been quite a lot of press lately about whether or not you need a PR firm for your business.  At the top of the current buzz is a blog post Jason Calcanis, CEO of Mahaolo, wrote: Jason Calcanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company.  An excerpt:

My philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be everywhere, be real.

You don’t need a PR firm, you don’t need an in-house PR person and you don’t need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR. You don’t need to be connected, and you don’t need to be a “name brand.”  Silicon Alley Insider – Jason Calcanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company

Obviously this post has caused a bit of a storm of PR and marketing folks looking for blood.  But the fact is that most small businesses (tech startups or otherwise) don’t have the budget for an expensive PR firm.  Jason has some great tips that businesses of any size can put to use – whether or not you use a PR firm.  An overview of the ten tips:

  1. Be the brand
  2. Be everywhere
  3. Always pick up the check — always
  4. Be a human being
  5. How to bond with a journalist
  6. How a CEO should e-mail a journalist
  7. How a CEO should speak to a journalist
  8. Invite people to “swing by” your office
  9. Attach your brand to a movement
  10. Embrace small media outlets

Do you have your own tips for PR?  Please share in the comments….

Aug
22
2008

PPC Advertising

By | Internet Advertising

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PPC or pay per click advertising is an Internet advertising model where advertisers only pay when visitors click on their ads.  These types of ads are typically found in search engine sponsored listings such as Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN adCenter, but can also be found in many advertising networks as well as content networks for the search engines.  Here are some terms and concepts you should be aware of if you’re considering PPC advertising:

  • keyword bidding – Many ad networks and search engines use keyword bidding to help decide which ads should be shown for a particular keyword.  Usually you can set a maximum bid for what you are willing to spend.
  • CPC (Cost per Click) – How much it will cost per click.  Set either through keyword bidding or a rate card.
  • Clicks – How many times your ad has been clicked on.  Visitors clicking on your ad should go to a landing page (see below).
  • Impressions – How many times your ad has been viewed.  Impressions also have value since there is some branding effect so make sure you include your company or product name in the ad.
  • CTR (Click Through Rate) – The percentage of clicks you are getting related to the number of times your ad is viewed (impressions).
  • click fraud – Abusive clicks by competitors or others intended to drive up the cost of the ad in question.  Most PPC ad vendors have sophisticated anti-click fraud systems in place, but this is something you should verify before advertising with any vendor.
  • Content targeting or Contextual Ad – PPC ads also show up on websites near content (a content network).  Ads which relate to content being seen are more likely to be clicked upon.
  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Attempts to increase the visibility of a website on search engines through multiple methods, including search engine optimization (SEO) and paid inclusion (PPC).
  • Landing Page – To run an effective PPC campaign, you need to send the traffic from the ad to a landing page which has all the information the visitor needs (make sure you cover what was in the ad), as well as some sort of call to action (this is where you offer them something free in return for their contact information – lead or directly to a sale page).  Your landing page needs to be specifically tailored to the ad in question, don’t just dump people to your homepage – they’ll quickly leave and you’ll be paying for it.

Did we miss anything? Please submit any terms or concepts we missed in the comments.  Thanks!

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Aug
20
2008

Pre-Roll Ads May Not Scare Off Online Video Viewers

By | Internet Advertising, News & Notes

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The perils of preroll appear to have been vastly overstated, according to Nate Elliott, research director at Jupiter, who suggests audience loss as a direct result of prerolls could be as little as 5%. – Advertising Age – Fear of Preroll Ad Eases

If you’re considering advertising your business on online video, this study shows that viewers are not likely to leave just because you advertise before the video (a preroll ad).  However, viewers will leave if they feel that the content is not valuable.

Aug
18
2008

Using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns to Attain Business Goals

By | Internet Advertising, News & Notes

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Sadly enough, too many advertisers initiate PPC campaigns without knowing what the end goal is. A word of caution: Traffic is not an end goal! …PPC campaign effectiveness is judged by its impact on the company’s bottom line, and the return on investment. Campaign optimization is measured by an increase in CTR and improved quality score. – Ask Enquiro – Key PPC Best Practices (Part 1 of 4)

I’ve had many clients who ask me to increase the traffic to their website by helping them optimize their Google AdWords (PPC) campaign.  Often the client is already getting pretty good traffic to their site through the AdWords, search engines and direct traffic – the problem is that all the traffic isn’t helping them attain their business goals – increased leads and sales.  In these cases taking a look at the landing pages and the usability of the site can often give clues as to why the traffic is not converting to sales/leads (we’ll cover that in more depth in a future post).  Most importantly, think about what the business goals are for your PPC advertising and maintain consistent wording on ads, landing pages and through out the site.  To measure effectiveness of your PPC campaigns, think in terms of business goals – conversions, sales and ROI.  The Ask Enquiro article has good information to help you run effective PPC campaigns.

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Aug
15
2008

Pricing Online Ads

By | Internet Advertising

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Futuristic Play @Andrew Chen has an interesting read: Internet Advertising Bureau and Bain on pricing in online ad markets.  One point for publishers stood out:

Need to better support the value of premium inventory – through more innovative offerings and/or reducing units available

Too often websites get greedy about making money and put ad placements all over their pages (what I like to call the “porn effect”).  Putting too many ads on a page is detrimental to all the advertisers because they have to fight for share of voice (SOV) or attention.  Visitors are more likely to ignore ads entirely if they are lumped together (they subconsciously know that area of the page is just “ads”).  It may seem a bit non-intuitive but creating an ad inventory – or set amount of ads and ad spots can help you increase their value.  As your traffic grows, more advertisers will be interested in advertising on your site.  If you sell out of spots, you’ll be able to raise the prices of your ad spots.  Selling out of spots also entices advertisers because it infers that your site is a valuable advertising placement.

If you have ads on your blog or website, what has been your experience with creating an ad inventory?  What about on other websites that you visit – what are your thoughts about their advertising?

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Aug
13
2008

What is Rich Media Anyway?

By | Internet Advertising, News & Notes

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Easy task, at a first sight: defining what exactly can be considered a ‘rich media ad‘. It is, of course… a ‘rich media ad’, as in a display ad taken one step further. Surely, this is not a definition. But it was pretty much all I could gather – from people who work in the online advertising industry and especially agencies. – Ad Operations Daily – What is Rich Media in an Online Advertising Context?

You may have heard of rich media when reading about how to advertising your business website.  Ad Operations Daily has some good information on what classifies rich media and we also covered the topic in:

Rich media ads can be very effective (and usually more expensive) in advertising your products and services, but understanding what rich media is and is good for will increase your return on investment (ROI).

Aug
07
2008

Tips for Creating Online Video Ads

By | Internet Advertising, News & Notes

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Free and low-cost video creation and editing tools have made it easy to create your own video ads.  Whether you’re creating your own video ads or having someone else create them, Ad Operations Daily offers some tips to help create a high-impact video ad.  Google offers video ads as part of their AdWords program – a cheap distribution network to consider.

Jul
17
2008

Internet Strategy Forum Summit – End to End Marketing: A Fundamental Shift

By | Analytics, Internet Advertising, ISFSummit, News & Notes

Presented by Nancy Bhagat, VP Sales & Marketing Group, Director Integrated Marketing, Intel

Cost of media is low per person, but is unfocused.

There is a 300% growth rate in timeshifting TV.  But TV is not media, it’s a delivery.  Video will continue to exist, just in different places through different delivery strategies.  Behavior has changed in how people interact with ads.  56% say skipping ads is important part of timeshifting.

Technology is no longer about who is tech saavy and who is not anymore.  It is about the desire to purchase.  80% turn to Internet for information to make a purchase decision. Our targets are online.

People are looking for a person like them, but they don’t need to see or know them directly.  This is defined much differently than previously.

Great brands are no longer the brands that tell the best stories, but are the brands that have the best stories told about them. (needs source)

Power of online marketing:

  • Impact
  • Agility
  • Targeting
  • Scale

Leadership requires flexibility and focus. Online vehicles offer speed and flexibility to test multiple content types in one place and to determine what content is best.

Success metrics are shifting away from traditional impressions and CPC. The ability to evaluate success is critical.  Content is increasingly delivered through social media which is difficult to measure.  We now need to measure what matters – user engagement, behavior, movements & trends.  Data that is not actionable is meaningless.

We need to know what place people are in the buy cycle/qualification.  Data without valid business context is meaningless. We need to understand what activities are valued.  And if things don’t go well in those activities, we need to know what and why.

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