Archive for June, 2008
For some reason, Google being the number one search engine - a fact that hasn’t changed since 2002 - is hitting all the e-zines as the top news story of this Monday morning. MediaPost’s article “Google Stays at the Top of the Search Heap” does cite some interesting statistics, but the most fascinating thing about these numbers (in my opinion) isn’t that Google is at the top, it’s the sheer volume of searches being performed on sites and/or networks whose core focus is not search (e.g., Facebook, Amazon, MySpace).
According to Nielson’s latest stats, in May 2008:
- Google’s share of the search market is 60% or 4.7 billion queries for the month
- Yahoo’s share of searches was 17% or 21% (2.4 billion queries), according to Nielson or Comsore respectively
- There were 10.8 billion search queries across Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and AOL
- YouTube searches hit 2 billion in May
- MySpace had 395 million queries
- Facebook had 121 million queries
- Ebay had 449 million queries
- Amazon.com had 141 million queries
I often tell clients that search is expanding well beyond search engines. My own search habits have changed throughout the years, and I’m glad to see that destinations other than pure play search engines are showing up on these types of studies. I wonder if iTunes will make the list. I’m always searching for music and podcats via iTunes and rarely go to Google or anywhere else for this information.
To be fair, Google’s not going anywhere for a long time. Another interesting headline about Google’s popularity appeared in Ad Age today titled, “America Has Spoken: In Google We Trust“, which reports that Google has bumped Microsoft off the top of the list of the most reputable company in America, according to a recent Harris Interactive poll. Marketing Pilgrim also picked up this story this morning. In short, 82% of Americans feel that Google is a reputable brand. Google is the “best liked” company in America, winning out above Johnson & Johnson, Intel, General Mills and Kraft Foods. And all this without spending a dime on advertising. Long live the Internet!
June 23rd, 2008
Google and Yahoo have recently added new features to their paid search platforms, some of which are extremely useful and some, well, not so much. It’s important for advertisers to pay attention to these changes because they often have a direct impact on your campaign. Here are a few of the latest changes, broken down by engine.
Google Adwords
Adwords Editor 6.0 was released on June 4, 2008. Advertisers can now create site-targeted campaigns, implement geo-targeting, export performance statistics to a CSV file, and a few other things which make this awesome tool even more awesome. Google provides a full list of the new features via their release notes. If you’re not using the Adwords Editor to build and manage campaigns, then you should download it immediately. As far as I’m concerned, it’s THE best tool out there to manage Adwords, plus it’s a great way to build a campaign which can be transferred to the other engines.
Landing Page Load Time Analysis is now available via the Keyword Analysis page if you log into your Adwords account online (thus, it’s not available via the Editor). Load time will be factored into Quality score any day now (mid-June according to Google). Needless to say, it’s important to check out your landing pages to see if your keyword quality has been effected.
Monthly Budgeting now Available - From the earliest days of Adwords, a campaign budget could only be set at the daily level, so if you wanted to spend a certain amount per month, you’d need to multiply it by 30. Now Google also gives advertisers the option to specify a monthly budget per campaign as well. This is a helpful way to assess how much you’ve budgeted per month at-a-glance, and I’m guessing they rolled it out to complement the “automatic matching” feature explained below. In my opinion it would be more useful if advertisers could set their budget at the account level, so you can never overspend. Yahoo actually has this functionality (go figure).
Automatic Matching - This is a new feature that’s currently in beta, so it’s not available in every account. Automatic matching is a setting at the campaign level which allows Google to automatically show ads for keywords that you’re not bidding on, based on the content of your web site compared with the terms in your campaign. The aim is to spend your budget in its entirety, so this option will only work if you’re not meeting your current daily spend limit. This can be dangerous, since many of us look at the overall daily spend across all campaigns, rather than the individual campaign daily spend. If you have been chosen to participate in this beta, you’ll see an alert when you log in (see screenshots, below). My advice is to opt out of this feature immediately! Google uses CTR to determine keyword relevancy, and we all know that can mean bupkus when it comes down to the bottom line.
If you’ve been chosen to participate in the “Automatic Matching” beta, here’s what you’ll see in your Account Snapshot when you log into Google.
CPA Bidding Out of Beta - Google recently enabled CPA bidding for all campaigns that qualify (you have to have received at least 200 conversions over the past 30 days). The way it works seems relatively simple - you adjust your CPA at the ad group level and Google automatically adjusts bids but never goes over your desired CPA. Per Google, “The Conversion Optimizer uses algorithms to predict, in real time, which clicks are likely to be most valuable. Based on these predictions, the Conversion Optimizer sets higher CPC bids for more valuable clicks and lower CPC bids for less valuable clicks. The predictions are based on your ad’s conversion history.” I haven’t tried this feature yet and it really seems too good to be true (thus it probably is). My recommendation is to test, test and test again.
Yahoo Search Marketing
Usability Enhancements - Yahoo added a bunch of enhancements to the search console in mid-May which makes managing keywords and ad groups easier. All disabled objects (keywords, ad groups or campaigns) will appear in red text, a status column now appears beside all watched campaigns which helps identify why a campaign is offline, and a host of other usability tweaks were added. Check it out on Yahoo’s blog when you can.
New Click Filter Report - This is a new report that Yahoo rolled out in April 2008 which lets advertisers see the number of clicks deemed invalid and thus not charged to your account. You can customize the report to show invalid clicks by campaign or ad group, which is very helpful in determining what categories produce the highest amount of invalid clicks. Yahoo suggests reviewing this report for sudden spikes and also comparing the total clicks against your web traffic stats in order to determine if there’s been any incidents of click fraud. You can file a click investigation request with Yahoo if you feel there’s a problem.
Minimum Bid Changes - In late February 2006, Yahoo implemented a change to their reserve bid pricing structure. Previously, all keywords could enter the auction at a minimum bid of .10 or higher. But throughout February and March, Yahoo changed the reserve bid to a variable amount which could be lower, but oftentimes higher, than the minimum bid of .10. In short, Yahoo is using a quality score system, similar to Google’s quality score algorithm, to determine the minimum bid for each keyword in the auction. Quality is based on various factors with CTR being the most important. Other quality indicators include keyword value (e.g., level of competition on a particular keyword) and that appears to be it for the moment (e.g., landing page is not currently a factor).
New Keyword Generator Tool - Yahoo enhanced their keyword generator tool at the start of 2008. The tool enables you to add up to 500 keywords to your account instantly, provides a list of related keywords for a given ad group, and provides suggestions for keywords based on a given URL or description.
Keyword Exclusion - Yahoo now enables advertisers to add up to 250 excluded keywords at the account and ad group levels (up from 50 keywords). You can only use excluded keywords on “expanded match” terms in Yahoo. Excluding irrelevant terms is an excellent way to refine your campaign and get more targeted traffic.
June 16th, 2008
For the past twelve years, Ad Age has released a report titled “Women to Watch” which is, in their words, “a special report on the women in advertising, marketing and media whose accomplishments and potential have made them standouts.”
The 2008 Women to Watch are primarily women who work for large global, and extremely corporate entities the likes of which include Mindshare (owned by WPP), Citi, General Motors, McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson and MediaVest (a company that calls its media planners “media architects”).
I don’t get it. Hooray for women’s lib and all but, seriously, what makes these women “women to watch?” Aren’t the women to watch at the bottom, kicking and clawing their way up? I mean, good for you if you’re the Media Director at McDonald’s Worldwide, but this doesn’t make you an out-of-the box thinker. Hell, if I had 810 million dollars to spend on media, I think I could get pretty creative too.
On the other hand, if I was in charge of that much money, I’d probably just hire someone smart to be creative for me. And, come to think of it, when you have that much money to spend on media, you don’t really have to be creative. Try stretching a 20,000 budget across six months. You’ve got to put your thinking cap on.
It’s the small agencies, the junior planners and the start-ups on a shoestring that have the big ideas. The little guys have to really get creative to compete with big corporations.
These are the people and companies I work with every day. These are truly the people to watch. I want to give props to all the hard workers out there that are shaping the way we do business in online marketing and search. Oh and I’m not sticking to just women. We’re all in this together.
Jackie Dooley’s Media & Search People to Watch - 2008
Note: thefreedictionary.com defines “rank and file” as: People who constitute the main body of any group
Nick Lindauer, Director of Search Engine Marketing @ Torque | FKMA
At just twenty-six years old Nick has risen to the director role of Torque | FKM, an agency based in Houston. I met Nick in 2005 while freelancing for Acronym Media (a small SEM shop in NYC). He comprised their entire SEO department. Just Nick. He went on to work at NEO (the search division of Ogilvy) and in just two years rose to lead a team of twelve. During this entire time, Nick was the sole proprietor of an online retail store that sold specialty hot sauce. His tiny NYC apartment was lined with inventory. He did all the SEO for the site and it was naturally ranked at the very top of Google for the term “hot sauce.” He sold the business for a nice profit when he moved to Texas. Nick is a search marketing genius. He’s made me realize that anyone worth their salt in search marketing should have a rough idea of how to build a web site and/or maintain a blog.
Tessa Ohlendorf, Internet Marketer - Self-Employed
I met Tessa in 2006 while I was working at the world’s smallest online media buying and planning shop in NYC. There were five of us then, and I was the only one who really knew anything about online marketing until Tessa came along. Tessa is a savvy online media planner who has no trouble pulling all nighters, pitching in front of clients and pulling together a plan in less time than it takes most people to do their taxes. She can negotiate make goods and bonus inventory better than anyone I know, and she’s great at pulling interactive teams together on the fly, based on a the needs of a given client or project. I’m really impressed by how Tessa is able to enjoy her love of traveling without missing a beat at work. Since she’s a sole proprietor, she is extremely mobile. In the past two years she’s set up shop in Canada, New York City, California and most recently the Hamptons on Long Island. She knows her stuff and I’d definitely count her as a woman to watch for 2008.
Ula Tuszewicka, Online Marketing Consultant - Self Employed
It is the rare online marketer who can claim expertise in both media planning and search, but Ula can do both with equal skill. She’s worked on both large and small campaigns, and can set up a search campaign from the preliminary keyword list and see it through to the final report. I’ve referred Ula to more than one colleague over the past couple of years because she is so versatile and, like Tessa, is able to set up shop wherever she lands (she lives in Seattle but travels to Poland frequently to visit family). For me Ula represents the ultimate “woman to watch” in media. She understands the industry on her own terms, and actually gets things done. She’s an example of someone who jumped off the corporate ladder in disgust, and began building her own dreams based on an industry she fully understands.
Karin Blake, Search Account Manager, Retail - Avenue A | Razorfish
I worked briefly with Karin on some projects for Avenue A | Razorfish last year. At the time she’d been managing a very large retail campaign for a high profile lingerie vendor (and yes, it is THAT company). She knew everything there is to know about Atlas and patiently showed me how to traffic a campaign. Karin is young, extremely bright and an up and comer in the industry. I asked her to write a few words about herself…
“I started at AA|RF in 2005 after studying the moderately unrelated topic of Anthropology at Columbia. I think I was number 8 or so of the search team at that point in time (and 22.5 years old), and I sat in the corner next to a printer for about 4 months while we built the search program of a major financial services client. Over the next 3 years and a few acquisitions later, the search team scaled 4x in personnel and however many times over in $$, and I now lead AA|RF’s NY Retail Search group. I have a team of 5 search managers, covering 6 different clients. I have a search box tattooed on my back (just kidding). But I’ve thought about it.”
Ad Age doesn’t often write about the 22 year old who gets stuck pivoting spreadsheets next to the printer for 8 hours a day, but that’s why I’m here! Kudos to Karin, for making the industry a smarter place.
**more to come**
June 9th, 2008
