Rabu, 12 Januari 2011

Marketing Pilgrim Published: “A Dentist, a Phalloplastic Surgeon & Google AdWords Walk Into a Bar” plus 4 more

Marketing Pilgrim Published: “A Dentist, a Phalloplastic Surgeon & Google AdWords Walk Into a Bar” plus 4 more

Link to Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

A Dentist, a Phalloplastic Surgeon & Google AdWords Walk Into a Bar

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 07:14 AM PST

It appears there’s some unrest among Google’s AdWords users–or at least a small, vocal fraction of them.

Google’s little-known “session-based clicks” algorithm is starting to get noticed by advertisers who are seeing their ads displayed alongside seemingly unrelated search queries. Case in point…

…Mr. Dorfman, the New York dentist, said he wanted to show his ads when people searched for things like “cosmetic dentist nyc” or “orthodontist.” But last August, after downloading a comprehensive report of AdWords charges, he saw there were session-based charges for unrelated searches.

For example, Mr. Dorfman said he was charged between $5.36 and $7.26 per click when Google users clicked on his dental ad after searching for “penis enlargement” and “[Chinese characters] in nyc Chinatown,” respectively.

After an email tussle, Google refunded $300 in clicks but claimed that this was “expected, normal behavior” because the user had first searched for “dental implants” before searching for “penis enlargement” – I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a dude planning some major renovations! ;-)

Google argues that the ads should be displayed because the user had expressed an interest during the same search session. The advertiser argues that the user had clearly moved on and is no longer a targeted customer.

I’d argue that both sides need to take a long hard look at what they are saying. Guys searching “penis enlargement” don’t click on “dental implants” ads by mistake. Clearly there was intent there.

And Google? Either you stand by this program or you don’t. You can’t on one hand say, this is expected, normal behavior, and then turn around and refund the guy $300. Either you have confidence in your algorithm, or you don’t.

Anyway, what do you think? No, I don’t need explanations of how dentures & apertures are connected. What do you think about Google’s session-based click algo?

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The iPhone, The Carriers, Android and the Marketer

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 05:32 AM PST

Unless you have been snowed under, out of the country on a deserted island or had your head up your, well you know what I mean, you are more than aware that the iconic iPhone is coming to Verizon. Yippee!

This is big news to the obvious players of AT&T, Verizon, Apple and Google. That's an easy one. This move finally breaks the logjam that is supposedly keeping the iPhone from taking over the world and shuffles the deck or these large players. If there were ever some marketing departments that will be busy in the next few months these are the ones (except Google of course because they can't even spell marketing without an algorithm).

But what does this mean to the rest of us in the Internet marketing space? If you really think about it hard I bet you will come to the same conclusion I have. It means nothing.

Nothing you say?! What?! You mean that the tectonic shift in the mobile space doesn't impact every marketer on the planet because, you know, it really should?

Yup that's what I mean. Why is this? It's because this table as far as marketing is concerned was set a long time ago (in Internet years that is). The delay in the iPhone getting to a wider market allowed the Android ecosystem to evolve to the point where it is real and it's not going anywhere. Now, it's just a matter of market share for Apple and the rest of the smartphone makers in the world. As marketers our position in this thing was pre-determined well before this announcement.

As Internet marketers we have already been resigned to the fact that any true marketing effort is going to need to address both platforms. If it doesn't there is significant market share that will be ignored. So significant in fact that if companies are deciding to only go with one or the other platform now I would say that is short-sighted and downright suicidal in a marketing kinda way.

If app developers were only enamored with one platform then we would have an issue but that's not the case. The development community enjoys the openness of Android and that alone is enough to ensure that these two will be platforms will be slugging it out for some time to come. How could that change? If Apple became more open and there is an entire underworld that would need to freeze over before that happens.

So while the wireless heavyweights slug it out over market share of devices and wireless plans it is really just business as usual for the marketing space. Marketers can be provider agnostic in most cases because it's the platform that matters.

What will really be of interest is where the BlackBerry users who are waiting to play with the cool kids go. I think it will be pretty evenly split between the Android and iPhone crowd because there are plenty more wireless providers out there that can't touch the iPhone but can make attractive plan offers to bring that group to the Android side of the ledger.

So for all the prognostications about big trouble for Android I say that we are doing what the media does best which is making something out of nothing really. Life will go on in the online marketing space and the mobile world will have plenty of room for iPhones and Android devices. Marketers will have to have their feet firmly in both camps in order to get adequate coverage of their markets regardless of who has a slim lead in the platform wars.

So here's to business as usual for the vast majority of marketers in the new world order of the iPhone unleashed.

What's your take?

Yahoo Starting Online Sports Magazine. Why?!

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 04:54 AM PST

There has been a lot of buzz in the past few months about the Internet space. From Google search result moves to Facebook Places and the growing "Groupon Effect", the innovation and change in the online space is happening at a pace that gives most Internet marketers fits.

Another part of the equation is still what are the other guys like bing and Yahoo up to these days? We know about the union on the search side. We know that bing is 'innovating' and has increased search share slightly (once again please nudge me when the combined Yahoo/bing search alliance hits 40 percent share). When it comes to Yahoo, however, the news usually is about layoffs or product funerals.

Well, what would you do to cure the ills of the once high-flying Yahoo brand? I suspect it wouldn't be getting into the online magazine business but guess what? That's what they are doing. And it's in the sports space which doesn't have nearly enough media coverage these days does it?

The New York Times reports

Yahoo Sports has built an audience of more than 50 million visitors on news, commentary and fantasy games. Now it is shifting gears with a product extension: an online magazine.

Starting Tuesday night, Yahoo's sports division and SportsFanLive.com, a social networking and blogging site, will start producing ThePostGame.com, a daily magazine that will publish lengthy articles (and 140-word rants), and reports on athlete style, sports technology, travel, fitness and betting lines. It will also be packed with blogs from its partners, Twitter messages from athletes and polls.

Not only is this new online publication going to challenge the likes of Sports Illustrated's SI.com and the entire ESPN family of way too much sports all the time (even for this sports fan) but it's going to be done daily.

If there was ever a sign that Yahoo is no longer a search player and is playing the 'create as much content as you can game' which includes the Associated Content family of content farmers, this is it.

With the Internet being a great opportunity for niche content that could have real appeal to smaller and very influential groups, Yahoo goes elephant hunting in the incredibly crowded sports space instead. I wish them well but I don't get it.

Here's more of Yahoo's side of the story

"We all know that the print world is challenged and that the form, structure and delivery of magazines in the print form are quickly becoming anachronistic," said David Katz, the chief executive of SportsFanLive, which began in 2008. "But the purpose they were meant to serve — the long stories and the context that they gave in the sports landscape — is still very much needed."

He added, "It's our job to rearchitect the sports magazine for the Internet generation."

Huh? Longer stories for sports fans in the age of tweeting athletes and a million made for TV college bowl games? Capturing the attention of most sports fans for more than a nano-second to read is ‘miracle worker’ stuff but Yahoo is going for long stories and context? I hope there are a lot of pictures.

Well, one thing I will say is that the article that caught my eye in today’s issue was "Actress Elizabeth Banks Talks Sports". Really?! This is it? As the folks at ESPN might say "C'mon, man!"

Now to its credit

According to comScore, which measures Internet traffic, Yahoo is the top sports site, with 52.1 million unique visitors last month. SportsFanLive has 6 million visitors, Katz said.

"We're a destination," Dave Morgan (Yahoo's executive editor of North American audiences) said of Yahoo Sports, "and we don't have a TV network."

OK, I got that but I have been a pretty significant sports fan for my entire life and I never turn to Yahoo for my sports news unless someone else has picked them up. What sports fans are we talking about? The soccer crowd?

The question begs whether Yahoo is just looking for places to put the vast amount of content it is hell bent on creating. We get assurances from the Yahoo team that this is not so.

Katz and Morgan said the new venture is not a mass migration of the type of articles that were not exposed well on Yahoo Sports, but a platform where 90 percent of the content will be original.

"Our writers want to say something in forms that doesn't really exist on Yahoo Sports, whether it's really long-form stories or short hits," said Morgan, a former deputy sports editor at The Los Angeles Times. "This will have the tools to let them participate."

Well, that's nice that the writers have something to do but will anybody care enough or make the time to read what they are saying?

Overall, this kind of activity continues to show that Yahoo is a relatively rudderless ship with little or no direction or vision. As these disparate content entities start to crop up and just slap the Yahoo logo on themselves, the confusion around what Yahoo does for a living (but still generates some nice cash doing it!) will only increase.

So what's your take on Yahoo? Is it your choice for sports news now? What is it your choice for these days? If it wasn't for the ancient Yahoo e-mail address I still maintain I wouldn't go there but that's just me.

What about you?

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Survey Says: Mobile Purchase Behavior is On the Rise

Posted: 11 Jan 2011 05:35 PM PST

Now that the holiday season is over, ForeSee has released a report that looks at the effect mobile had on holiday shopping. Not surprisingly, they found that more people than ever (33% this year versus 24% last year) used their cell phones for some aspect of shopping, be it for price comparisons, to find store locations and to actually purchase items.

Only 11% of the people reported actually making a purchase via there phone (it was 2% in 2009) but the majority of the shoppers said they used their phones to compare prices and products.

And check this out:

While in physical stores, more than two-thirds of mobile shoppers (69%) used their phones to visit the store's own website, but nearly half (46%) also used their phones to access a competitor's website.

Shoppers also preferred full websites to the mobile versions and those who had a good mobile experience were 30% more likely to buy from that retailer again.

All of which means, if you don’t have a decent website for your product or service, you’re losing money.

Now let’s take it one step further. Of all of the retail establishments studied for the survey, 1800-Flowers came out on top in regard to mobile usage. They offered interfaces for all the major phones and gave their customers the ability to connect their mobile and web accounts and trigger text message reminders of birthdays and other gift-giving holidays. In this way, 1800-Flowers becomes not just a place to shop, but a helpful reminder service and in a way that nearly guarantees a sale.

Man gets text reminding him of his mom’s birthday. There’s a very high probability that he’s going to click through and buy the suggested bouquet of flowers rather than go searching online for a better deal. Since his phone is synced with his account, the delivery address is one touch, as is his credit card info and voila — painless gift giving in less than ten minutes.

Mobile isn’t going away. On the contrary, these numbers will at least double by year’s end so now is the time to put that mobile plan in place.

If you’d like to see the details of this report, visit ForeSee and you can download the PDF for free.


Mobile Gaming AdSpending Begins Meteoric Climb

Posted: 11 Jan 2011 01:12 PM PST

Last year, marketers spent 87 million dollars on mobile game ads but Juniper Research says that’s bird seed compared to where we’ll be five years from now. A new report from the UK based company, says that mobile game ad dollars will climb to ten times that amount by 2015. That’s nearly 900 million bucks riding the coattails of Angry Birds, Grand Theft Auto and The Sims.

Much of the increase comes from the general interest in all things mobile that has been taking over the planet. You can’t even watch TV without seeing a dozen commercials for cell phones and tablets, each promoting more bells and whistles than ever before.

Another factor is the success of ad-supported games. Since these games are free to download, they’re an easy boredom fix for anyone stuck in line, on a plane, or, heaven forbid, in rush hour traffic. Mobile games often come with a captive audience and that’s more eyeballs on your ads, particularly when the game is as addicting as Angry Birds.

Juniper emphasizes that despite the climb in numbers, ad dollars don’t account for the majority of mobile game income. End-user revenue from pay-per-download and in-game spending, they say, is still key to any gaming company’s success.

900 million.

Just for comparison, Russia has pledged to spend 800 million over the next three years to build a state-of-the-art rocket launch complex. Really, it boggles the mind.


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