Internet ad spend now higher than television ad spend in the UK: report
The economy may not be great, but the internet isn't complaining. In fact, the economy has likely helped internet advertising achieve a significant milestone in the UK. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), internet ad spend surpassed television ad spend for the first time ever anywhere in the world.
Total spending on internet ads in the UK hit £1.75bn in the first two quarters of the year, a 4.6% year-over-year gain. That's good enough to account for almost 24% of all ad spending. Television, on the other hand, now accounts for just 21.9% of ad spend following a painful 16.1% year-over-year decline.
Why you need relevant PPC landing pages
A good landing page is one that reinforces ‘conversion intent’ by providing enough information to persuade customers to convert, but most importantly it has to be relevant to the paid ad that the user has just clicked on.
When shoppers enter a very specific phrase, such as a make and model number of a product, it suggests a clear intention to purchase, and so the landing page has to send the searcher straight to the product page and make it easy to complete the purchase.
Why I love Trendsmap.com (and you should too)
Earlier this week I came across a link to Trendsmap.com. On the surface, it's just another program that incorporates a function of Twitter into creating another service. But spend a few minutes with the site and you will quickly realise it is so much more.
Why 'quality not quantity' matters online
Too often online marketing is characterised by quantity rather than quality. There's a pervasive idea that quality is too hard but sheer volume will have the same effect.
Let me give you a shining example of what I mean. I was recently browsing a forum when I found, without a doubt, the dumbest attempt at marketing I've seen in a while.
A Bill of Rights for online advertisers?
Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman has produced some of the most interesting academic research on internet advertising, especially on the subjects of spyware, affiliate marketing fraud and PPC advertising.
But he's not stopping at research. Yesterday, he published a post titled "Towards a Bill of Rights for Online Advertisers". In it, he suggests "five specific rights advertisers should demand as they buy online placements".
Bing continues to roll, breaks double-digit market share
Microsoft has surprised many with its latest attempt at cracking the search engine market. While its 'decision engine' Bing is no threat to Google, it's starting to look like Yahoo had better hope its deal to outsource its search business to Microsoft passes regulatory scrutiny.
According to Nielsen, total searches at Bing hit 1.1bn in the month of August, a 22% jump from July. That gave Microsoft a 10.7% market share amongst search engines for the month. With 1.7bn searches in August and a 16% market share, Yahoo is starting to become a visible target on Bing's horizon.
Analytics fraud for fun and profit
It is ridiculously easy to use Google's personalisation features to 'trick' analytics and bid management packages. If you believe shady folk make money in outsourcing click fraud activity to low wage economies then it's easy to believe the same workforce can be used to make money with this technique.
Microsoft's new 'visual search' is good for advertisers
Microsoft Corp. is testing out a new way to search select topics by retreiving visual results instead of text. A list of about 50 popular categories now return image results.
From The AP:
"Bing's new visual search page lets people flip through pictures to track down where and when a popular movie is playing, read up on baseball players or shop for items like digital cameras."
At launch, the visual search option only works on a few topics, but it's a great move for brands. For starters, the new search option is designed with advertisers in mind.
Mint.com makes a mint, being acquired for $170m
More M&A: publicly-traded software company Intuit is acquiring personal finance upstart Mint.com for $170m. Mint.com, which launched at TechCrunch40 in 2007 and had raised nearly $32m from investors, has over 1.5m users and tracks more than $50bn in assets for its users.
Mint.com is simple: it allows users to aggregate data for their bank, credit and investment accounts and track those accounts through a single interface. Through this, Mint.com can help users identify areas for savings (it claims to have found over $300m in potential savings for its users) and promote financial services that users may be interested in.
Ready for the end of recession?
Do you believe the economy is now ready to recover or that we're in for a double-dip recession? Have you been worried about your business's survival? Are you simply looking forward to consumers becoming happier to spend their cash again?
Whatever your opinions and concerns, it's time to give some very real thought to your online marketing strategy and what you will do once the economy does finally pick up.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
