Tag Archive for advertising

Linkedin Ads API

Posted on December 2, 2012 by

LinkedIn APILinkedin has finally started to understand that scalability is a key element of the success of it’s Advertising platform. Linkedin has been slow to launch it’s Advertising API considering it’s 3,000,000,000 monthly pageviews and it’s 187 million members globally. But this move does put it ahead of Twitter that is still dragging the chain on opening up it’s advertising platform until they work out that it’s holding their revenue back.

Their announcement last week highlighted the importance of using their API to generate and test hundreds of creatives across Linkedin, but also highlighted features such as reallocation of advertising budget in real-time.  Prior to the launch of Linkedin Ads API their tens of thousands of advertisers had to struggle to manage complex campaigns within their self-service interface.  The new API is still a closed invite-only platform and they require any advertisers wanting to use their Ad API to sign up to an agreement before using or implementing the API.

There are a handful of launch platform partners such as Unified, Bizo and Adobe but expect more to come onboard as they are recruiting developers wishing to join their partner program here. Linkedin Ads API allows resellers to post ads on behalf of customers which makes their platform much more attractive to search agencies than before. These three partners have the advantage of having had used their platform for a few months but as to how quickly other partners are accepting into the Ads API program is not so clear.

Facebook Ads API Missing Partners:

  • Acquisio
  • Marin Software
  • Kenshoo
  • ClickEquations
  • Syncapse (Clickable PRO)
  • Marchex
  • Mongoose Metrics

Linkedin Ads API Functions

  • Posting a campaign
  • Edit a campaign or a creative
  • Pulling campaign or creative statistics
  • End a campaign

Linkedin Ads API Reference documents provide details on:

  • Accounts
  • Campaigns
  • Creatives
  • Targeting
  • Autocomplete
  • Review Process
  • Error Codes

So it will be intersesting to see how many advertisings start shifting Ad spend away from Google AdWords & Facebook Ads once Linkedin Ads API becomes a more common feature in your bid management software.

No comments Posted in linkedin

Anti-Drugs Timeline

Posted on January 9, 2012 by

Israel Anti-Drug AuthorityToday I discovered what I think has potentially have to be one of the most ingenious social media campaigns I’ve seen in a while, but what makes it more interesting is how topically it is to Facebook users who are just starting to get their heads around Facebook’s new Timeline.  The campaign concept is fairly basic and revolves around a fictional character “Adam Barak” who shows you a snapshot of his life with and without drugs over a year and how his life could be different.

The campaign is produced by McCann Digital Israel and is simply a brilliant use of cutting edge social media features but also something that is simple enough anyone that sees the campaign can understand the concept.  The background on the campaign seems to be that it was slightly re-worked to ensure that it was not overcomplicated but made simple enough that the idea works internationally. It also works because the message while fairly clear does not get in your way of following the idea, it only works because the campaign message is almost subliminal and it really works!

It’s really great to see some creative thinking of social issues and making them relevant to society by using social media and hopefully this campaign is expanded and potentially improved and copied around the world. The concept of showing how differently your life could be in parallel universe has been done fairly well but I want to see more on Adam than just 1 month, so hopefully the campaign is extended. You can check out Adam’s timeline here.

What does Adam’s timeline show?

  • You can see how it can impact his choice in accommodation
  • how he looks in the morning
  • what he does on a night out in town
  • how he enjoys going out
  • how it impacts on his relationships
  • what gets him through the work day
  • how he socialises with friends on the court
Anti-drugs timeline

Anti-drugs timeline

Good campaign concept for other issues

So the question is how can Facebook’s social reach via platforms such as timeline can be used to educate others about other social issues such as binge drinking, speeding and crime. There are plenty of other items that this campaign decided to drop such as checkins, video, friends updates and more there are plenty of options to emulate this campaign with slight changes to get your message across.

No comments Posted in facebook

Facebook Ads Broadmatch

Posted on August 29, 2010 by
Facebook Ads LogoFacebook has today rolled out a new feature which allows advertisers to broaden the target age range automatically with its broad age match setting.  The move which will increase the clicks and impressions your campaign receives but will also benefit Facebook with an increase in ad space being sold outside the key demographics. The basis for the change is that Facebook claims if you are to target 24-35 then someone who is 36 might be just as interested in your advert and possibly be as valuable as someone who is 35. While this might in part true if someone has just had a birthday or lies about their age on their Facebook profile but it may also cloud your analysis of your campaigns if you focus on demographics.
Downside to broad age match
If you are a university and targeting school graduates who are under 18 or if you are a nightclub or concert promoter you requirements for what age brackets you want to attract.  The setting is also for all your campaigns across Facebook which seems to be a grab at revenue as it needs to be campaign specific not account based to be of any use to advertisers. How far will Facebook start to push the age demographics above or below what you campaign against your settings will likely continue to expand.
Benefits of broad age match
Facebook is currently discounting the extra impressions and clicks for the expanded target age range, but how much will they discount the broad age match and it will likely only be a short-term offering.  Once its enabled like most Facebook features its likely hard to disable once it has been activated, so should you enable it and how?
How to active Facebook Ads Broad Match
  • Login to your Facebook Ads account
  • Select Advert account Settings
  • Scroll down to Broad targeting opt-ins
  • Select Update button

  • Confirm to update all existing adverts to enable broad age targeting

Facebook ads confirmation

Facebook ads confirmation request

Does Broad Match offers move value?

It might be suitable for a number of advertisers but if you are not effectively monitoring and tracking your campaign you will just be spending more money and hoping you get increased value from the campaign unless you are measuring your social media ROI. The shotgun approach to demographics might cause chaos in some campaigns and dramatically uplift impressions and quality of traffic in others, you need to make sure you understand the possible impact before you enable Facebook Ads broadmatch.
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No comments Posted in facebook

Display gets new AOL Ad Desk Platform

Posted on April 21, 2010 by

Yesterday AOL rolled out the heavy guns in display platforms with its new AD Desk system designed for Advertising.com and allows for direct access to AOL’s premium audiences.  Being a new platform it contains a number of new technologies and data insights unique to AOL properties and its Advertising.com display network. The new advertising platform advises that you can now have the keys to the most powerful advertising platform, but is the Advertising.com & AOL Network enough?

According to Google’s Ad Planner the 48 primary placement websites have around 99,000,000 unique visitors with a reach of around 39.6% of the US market with around 8,600,000,000 page views which does seem to show that AOL’s Ad network does have a significant scale.  Some of the many Advertising.com sites you can target with AD Desk include a number of well know sites including those run by competitors such as Microsoft:

  • AOL.com
  • ParentDish.com
  • Mapquest.com
  • AIM
  • Cooking.com
  • SI.com
  • TMZ.com
  • Essence.com
  • USATODAY.com
  • Classmates.com
  • Allrecipes.com
  • Shape.com
  • AutoTrader.com
  • Music.com
  • Expedia.com
  • LemonDrop.com
  • BackStage.com
  • PopEater.com
  • Games.com
  • Joystiq.com
  • MSNBC.com
  • Moviefone.com
  • WeatherBug.com
  • Terra.com
  • Realtor.com
  • RollingStone.com
  • Rhapsody.com
  • iWon.com
  • Blackvoice.com
  • Asylum.com
  • USNews.com
  • WashingtonTimes.com
  • CafeMom.com
  • Apartments.com
  • FoxNews.com
  • Realtor.com
  • Technorati.com
  • Geek.com
  • Maps.com
  • YellowPages.com
  • eHarmony.com
  • Alexa.com
  • Cooks.com
  • MensFitness.com
  • VegSource.com
  • Golf.com
  • HowStuffWorks.com
  • Fandango.com
  • Film.com

So who is AdDesk built for?

It is being pitched as built by advertisers for advertisers and AOL has been actively prospecting for new clients over the past few months to join the alpha test that helped form the product and what features it would include once it was released to a broader market.  The AOL AdDesk seeks to follow Google’s lead in providing more transparency for advertisers and more control over their display ads as it is rumored to provide a vast amount of proprietary AOL data to better self-manage your campaigns.

The solution appears to try and solve both agencies and advertisers issues within a bid management style interface, so the question that needs to be asked will the other rumors hold true and will it support multiple platforms such as Bing & Google in the next version?

What are the AOL AdDesk features?

  • Media planning tools similar to Google Ad Planner
  • Analytics?
  • Audience Segmentation based on interests, audience and geography
  • Complements current AOL sales team

What are the AOL AdDesk sales pitches?

  • Manage your campaigns – plan and launch campaign within minutes, new & improved impression volume estimation, select level of support needed
  • Lots of targeting options – state, city, types of sites, visitor demographics, visitor interests, re-marketing
  • Reporting – 24/7 access to reports, creative & campaign level reporting, audit trail feature

So where does AdDesk Fail?

The point around such a make or break product, you would assume that AOL would have secured any similar domains such as “TheAdDesk.com”, but it failed and this site currently flagged as having Malware is likely getting a large spike in visitors.  The other issue is that there are 2 other established websites already offering a product called AdDesk which currently outranks the new AOL AdDesk product, along with a number of blog articles about its product.

Naples News Media Group – AdDesk

CNI Corporation – AdDesk

The important part is that it seems a wonderful product but some of the steps could make the rollout easier and is likely to less confuse agencies and advertisers who go looking for the product but find two competitors products which appear to do a similar task.  With so much money on the line in making this product a success AOL should be more proactive securing domains and also examine the financials behind buying the Trademarks/licence of the competitors and close down their product or have it renamed.

You can always create an account with Advertising.com AdDesk and test the software for yourself, but since its a beta test their might be a delay in approval…

No comments Posted in display ads

Yahoo linking online to offline with Nectar

Posted on March 22, 2010 by

As the search engines continue to work on improving their user experiences but at the same time need to examine to how increase the amount of money advertisers are spending online.  To accomplish the switch for traditional offline advertising dollars to move online, there needs to be a better link between online activity and tracking of advertising effectiveness and offline purchases. Yahoo has long been one of the leaders in developing technology such as behavioural targeting of users on its Yahoo content networks and this test allows advertisers to match their ads to peoples offline shopping habits.  The concept seems easy enough as Nectar’s database will link in with Yahoo’s behavioural advertising system powering its content network, giving advertisers a whole new mass of data to target and profile.

To reduce privacy issues the system is currently opt-in with consumers have to elect to have their Nectar data used in this way, but incentive points had drawn around 20,000 consumers when the sign up started earlier in February. The platform seems very similar to Facebook’s Beacon which was shut down due to privacy complaints, but does this platform go further by using consumers past shopping habits to decide what ads to show in the future? While user tracking and re-targeting are beginning to be more common they don’t draw offline data. The former head of DoubleClick today launched MAGNETIC which is a rebranded search re-targeting platform that gathers its data from search engines and website partners to offer more targeted self-learning ads.
While it seems that advertisers can better target their advertisements to users online, can it led to eventual harm of consumers as is there too much loyalty programs like Nectar know about your life habits.  The opt-in feature will satisfy most privacy laws but as this is expanded as more companies seek to sell business insights into their consumer data do you actually have any rights? Late in 2009 AMEX started its consumer data analytics and consulting division and was followed in January by MasterCard who offer Merchants Solutions that package its consumer data and sell it back to marketers and retailers.
The concern is that merchants such as MasterCard can potentially track your purchases online to offline products such as movie tickets and using basic items such as cookies start to build a profile on your behaviour.  Each time you visit partner sites MasterCard and its affiliates can begin to learn more and more about how your online behaviours match to offline behaviours. Credit card companies know more than loyalty card and retailers about your purchase behaviours, frequency and even preferences so when you purchase flights at your local travel agent don’t be surprised to see matching hotel ads for the same destination or recommendations for travel insurance. So next time you visit a website that seems to match your offline purchases or shopping behaviour remember this article predicted it.
One comment Posted in Yahoo

StumbleUpon new AD System launches

Posted on March 10, 2010 by

StumbleUpon has surprised the market with fresh and new relaunch of their less well know paid platform “StumbleUpon Advertising”, which mixes in paid suggestions with its automated suggestions to users as to pages that might interest them.  The new platform seems to solve the key issue which is easier account management of your StumbleUpon Advertising campaigns, which previously had proved fairly time intensive to set up and understand campaign results. The advertising model is built around matching websites and webpages to their users predefined expressed topics of interest, which is fine tuned across millions of users stumbling millions of new items each month.

  • New Advertiser Dashboard – StumbleUpon now makes it easier to manage and optimise multiple client campaigns
  • More payment options – You can now fund your Ad campaigns with Credit Cards
  • Greater control over spend – StumbleUpon offer the ability to control spend at the individual campaign level
  • New Topic Recommendation Engine – StumbleUpon can now automatically suggests new topics to target more audiences
  • Improved Reporting – StumbleUpon offers increased visibility into your viral traffic sources and content of interest
The new StumbleUpon Ad platform offers advertisers the ability to see the full picture on your campaign reach, combining both Paid & Free views for each of your StumbleUpon campaigns.  To better match other Ad platforms, you can now track campaign history to get a better view of your campaign performance over time.  The next feature to be added allows you to download your StumbleUpon campaign results as a downloadable CSV report, which can be imported into third-party software such as Bid Management Systems or Excel spreadsheets. The StumbleUpon Advertising process is quick and easy to create a new campaign and start driving targeted traffic to your web page, the targeting for audience size also allows for large or small campaigns to be quickly setup.  The ability to target users by their interests by the 500 categories…
How your StumbleUpon Ads work:
  • You can target the audience you want by category, demographic and/or geography
  • Visitor traffic comes direct to your site, no click-through required
  • The more users like it “stumble it”, the more traffic you will get
The new reporting platform also allows for some more advanced targeting but also offers a simplified dashboard for campaign reporting.  The daily budget can be specified in dollars, and further refine campaign targeting by demographic and geographic settings.
The new dashboard brings the ad platform closer to an advertising solution as it now provides more transparency around paid versus free traffic for your particular campaign.  This allows marketers to better calculate the viral campaigns true traffic uplift from the paid campaign and how it influenced the free stumbles. The Free stumbles are shown below and above in green with the paid stumbles clearly shown as blue on the charts.
StumbleUpon ads seek to resolve some of the common problems by not using Pop-ups, Interstitials or Click-Throughs to display their advertisers web page.  The CPV is also influenced by free traffic which allows for successful campaigns to have a lower overall cost-per-visit.  The better the targeting and the quality of content the more likely the content will benefit from some viral traffic and have a much lower campaign cost.  If you want to get a better idea about the new StumbleUpon Advertising platform we suggest that you give their feature tour a try.
No comments Posted in Social Media

Bayer consolidates marketing with Omnicom Group and WPP

Posted on February 12, 2010 by

AdAge finally broke the story regarding the consolidation news that Omnicom Group and WPP were now in complete control of Bayer’s $1 billion marketing account. Bayer had been looking for a full review of its online and offline advertising agencies since the total number had grown to over 400 around the world, not including outsourced partners and collaborations between local agencies.

MarketingWeek pointed out last year that within the UK a number of incumbent agencies were due to be affected by the review such as JWT, BBDO and Initiative.  Now that the review is over it appears the Interpublic’s Initiative lost the Bayer Consumer Healthcare media planning and buying duties. The interesting point was the sheer scale of the review as according to Forbes it is one of the biggest account consolidations and reviews in ad history. But is less than the General Motors $2.6 billion account review offered 2000.
But it appears that the original aim to consolidate all its account into one agency holding company didn’t succeed and WPP & Omnicom both emerge as big winners. Within the US, Bayer spends around $442 million across internet, print and traditional offline channels, but has rapidly increased its spending in magazines and online. The other two big consumer packaged goods companies to launch their marketing reviews are Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser who both have marketing budgets over $1 billion annually.
According to AdAge sources the process which has already started will take around 1.5 to 2 years to complete, and impacts on atleast 50 Bayer brands. Local Marketing Magazines estimate within Australia the Bayer account review is worth around $10 million annually.  The multiple brands within Australia that will be effected by the review include:
Bayer Animal Health
Bayer Health Care
Bayer Crop Sciences
Bayer Material Science
Bayer Business Services
Bayer Technology Services
Currenta – Chemical Industry Services
There is a number US Bayer companies due to be affected by the review are likely to be more noticeable as it accounts for at least 40% of Bayer’s annual marketing budget include:
Bayer Consumer Care
Bayer Diabetes Care
Bayer Pharamaceuticals
Bayer Business & Technology Services
One of the fastest growing segments is Bayer Health which was expanded in the 2007 with the take over to Schering Healthcare, and includes dozens of household products split between Bayer Schering Pharma and Consumer Care which are also included in the review. Some of the more controversial brands include Bayer Birth Control Products - Yaz & Yasmin.
Bayer defines its consumer care business unit as those products that are classed as non-presecription drug products and dietary supplements that seek to relieve pain, treat infections, correct definciency states, and care for health. Some of the more popular Bayer consumer brands include:
  • Berocca
  • Canesten
  • Amolin
  • Aspirin
  • Alka-Seltzer
Watching US law changes and regulators cracking down on Bayer and similar companies in the past, the review includes one of the more difficult areas for advertisers is the pharmaceutical business that offers women’s healthcare, speciality medicine, diagnostic imaging and general medicine, and will likely be the one that will be the most closely watched and liable for more legal action. One of the easier areas for the marketing is around Bayer Animal Health as Bayer makes some of the leading providers of parasite control and prescription pharmaceutical solutions for cattle, dogs, cats and horses and don’t have to deal with regulators.  Some of the many Bayer Animal health brands include:
  • Advantix
  • Profender
  • Drontal
  • Advantage
  • Advocate
  • Prolong
  • Racumin
  • QuickBayt
  • K-O Tab
  • Solfac Pro
  • Zapp
  • Rametin
  • Tiguvon
  • Baymec
  • Kiltix
The ever expanding Bayer Crop Sciences has grown steadily since the aquistion of Aventis in 2002, and now leads the world’s crop science companies in the following areas: crop protection, pest control, plant biotechnology, seeds and genetic engineering of food. Some of the more well known consumer products include Bayer Advanced and Backyard by Bayer but also include joint projects with ADM.
So what about online?
The task is massive as even from just the online perspective of the number of agencies who currently handle search optimisation, social media, web analytics, link building, domains and web hosting is more than a mammoth effort to be centralised and even get reviewed.  Within Australia Bayer owns at least 19 domains and most with their own website for each popular product but its global office around 1735 domains supporting hundreds of websites as each of their countries has a local website for a majority of their products. With Bayer operating in around 50 countries and having up to 50 products marketed locally there could be as much as 2,500 websites worldwide.
No comments Posted in news

YouTube Video Ads

Posted on August 2, 2009 by

youtube logo

On of the biggest issues around video has been its been a typically one way medium, while people can comment back by text or video can it be used for viewer feedback.  Recently YouTube has shown the potential to offer multiple response options for advertisers interactive videos using the overlays linked to other videos. While it is not clear if this is a beta test or just a very smart and inventive person who is pushing the boundaries of the YouTube platform.

The video player is built in Adobe Flash so technically anything you can do in a standard flash application can be overlaid on user videos, and this is becoming increasingly common with popular videos.  The multiple choice survey test shown below is running on Machinima.com’s YouTube channel where, they are broadcasting game previews from Comic Con 2009. They are very clear with different choices with individual colours and even a text box at the top of the screen to explain what they want you the viewer to do. 

youtube-rate the game

The “rate this game” option is shown towards the end of the game preview.  When one of the options are selected a new YouTube video loads, with a clear title as to which option you selected, but could the video instructions be a bit more clear for the next steps as you can see in the screenshot below. 

The reason I feel that the steps are not clear is that around 15-20% of people used the 5 star rating system to provide feedback and not the text comment box below the video. Although the text is explaining the call to action is very large, since this is a visual element, a short video showing the desired action would make sense but only because its YouTube.

If you were running this on different medium/platform such as your website screenshots or flash animation could deliver the same visual explanation as not all users maybe used to using the comment field.

youtube-rate-ironman2

So how do you measure the results, the video requests for comments to be made in the text comment field below, but this also requires the user to have an account and login.  Based on the chart below based on the YouTube comments reaction more people are unsure if they want the game so they must analyze the comments for more understanding.

An easier way to measure survey results is to track which of the three videos options get the most views, the benefit is that the viewer doesn’t have to login to track their response.  From the chart below we can see that around 62% of views of the 3 options were that people want the game which may not be the perfect campaign result but to scale for large campaigns with thousands of comments its more efficient.

Comments can still be useful as they can provide feedback such as the “game lighting is too dark” or the “there appears to be glitches in background images” but the number of comments were a fraction of video viewings.  There is also the issue which is visible of users responding and interacting amongst themselves off the topic and even starting abusive attacks against other users commenting.

There are a few issues, one is that YouTube makes all videos public, so once one option such as “hate it” is selected it is easy to see related videos such as “not sure” and “want it”. If campaigns like this are to be more transparent, it should not be possible that users can select one option and then click to view other options skewing your results.

The obvious issue for analysis based on the chart below is that the number of comments were fairly consistent between each option so do not provide as much feedback compared to the video viewings, the lower the number the higher influence of duplicate posts, and multiple posters, spam…

youtube-responses

So how can web analytics help this test deliver better results for business?

Using methods such as A/B testing, they can test a different second trailer for the same game, using the same question but with 3 new video response pages.  This way they can test which particular scenes or clips generate the most positive reaction to the game.  This information can be further analysed as why but can be used to make a simple decision as to which would be best in an advertising campaign.

Further tests could be would you buy this game based on this preview, using the same call to action tracking and comparison of data to measure if a second trailer generated higher “want” results but also higher “buy me now” results.

Click to see the video Iron Man 2 Comin Con “Rate This Game”

One comment Posted in web marketing

Unified ECM vs Facebook

Posted on August 2, 2009 by

unified-ecm-logoUnified ECM based in Beverly Hills, California has started a class action lawsuit accusing Facebook with unfair advertising practices.

The case that has been filed in the Californian Northern District Court is Unified ECM, Inc v. Facebook, Inc. and the case was filed on July 27th 2009 and is case number 5:2009cv03430.

Facebook also based in California has been named in the lawsuit filed by Unified ECM for overcharging advertisers for ad space on Facebook’s website.  The basic overview of the website is that they claim Facebook is actually overcharging advertisers based on the reported number of consumers that actually view the ads on a daily basis.

The ad model that is being disputed is CPM which advertisers typically pay a specified amount for every 1,000 page views or ad impressions.  Using the Facebook advertising platform it is possible to set the amount you want to spend each day and how much per thousand views.

The lawsuit allege that Facebook only offers two options to chose from when buying advertising space, CPC or CPM.  The interesting point is that this model is the same as the Google Adwords platform so does that mean Unified ECM is also accusing Google with unfair advertising practices.

The CPC or CPM model is common among most web marketing platforms, only affiliate marketers sometimes offer a CPA model.  The CPA model is where you nominate how much you would pay for a lead or a sale can be very expensive but offers a higher ROI.

The other element of the lawsuit is that Facebook is not being proactive enough to monitor or prevent ‘click fraud’.  If you are using the CPM model click fraud is not an issue as you not being charged per click.  It would be like complaining to a radio/tv station that you believed people were not dealing with the fact that people turned down the volume during ad breaks.

CPM works on the impression or eyeball model, the more people who see or have the option to interact with your ad the more you pay, with Facebook having around 250,000,000 active users that is a large potential audience.

The idea that you can launch a class action lawsuit because you are not happy with a websites advertising model lacks intelligence.  This seems more of a marketing stunt on behalf of Unified ECM to get exposure through its press release outlining the legal action they have taken.

I would assume that Unified ECM did not take the time to research their possible audience for the Facebook campaign.  So if they failed to use the daily budgets for the campaign and made a generic campaign it is their own fault and not a unfair advertising model, this is a failure to understand the platform not a conspiracy.

If you are thinking of running a similar campaign speak with a web marketing agency or your local digital agency.  The benefits of using an agency that understands PPC campaigns is that they can research the likely costs, potential audience reach and also examine your competitors current campaigns.

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3 comments Posted in Social Media

Yahoo Advertising Values

Posted on July 22, 2009 by

yahooYahoo is one company that understands their market and has moved towards strengthening their portal with a move towards personalisation. While existing members can currently customise their Yahoo homepage they have to use Yahoo widgets which limits its reach as platforms like Facebook & Twitter grow. Instead of trying to fight the move towards other platforms, Yahoo has moved to make integration easier for its 300+ million users.

The new move which has been launched today for the US market allows their users to customise their webpage with third party widgets/apps. The biggest change is that Yahoo has acknowledge that most people only use a handful of Yahoo services so has opened the platform. Yahoo users can now embed a Facebook app directly onto their yahoo page.

The new homepage rollout is being gradually rolled out across the world starting in the US market. It will be available to France, India and then UK followed by other markets. The interesting point is that the top market for Yahoo based on visitor data does not follow this rollout. This is likely not a political move but in fact issues due to language complications.  yahoo-visitors

The Top Markets

  1. USA
  2. India
  3. China
  4. Taiwan
  5. UK
  6. Iran
  7. Indonesia
  8. Germany
  9. Italy
  10. Brazil
  11. Canada
  12. France

The interesting point is that one of the biggest benefits of Yahoo having easy to add Facebook module, its existing users are likely to add these and stay within the Yahoo network.  The benefit for Yahoo is increased Ad placement rates and a improve ad revenue model as Yahoo can now run highly targeted contextual advertising.

yahoo-facebook-appAs you can see from the image the Facebook news feed talks about “baby” and likely other posts not displayed have references to “kids” or “children”. The Yahoo Ad platform can read this contextual information and can now display relevant ads directly within the Facebook module.  You can see that the Quaker advertisement is directly targeting these conversations using its Yahoo Ad network.

This increased relevance of advertising is useful for consumers, but very effective and interesting for prospective advertisers. They can now reach deep into these platforms previously out of reach such as Facebook using the Yahoo Ad network.

This new homepage allows Yahoo to increase their profits while providing an increase service to their members. You can see that the Yahoo platform now also looks cleaner and less cluttered and has through months of intensive testing to get this right.

So while people outside of the USA have to wait, it looks like it is worth the wait…

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No comments Posted in Yahoo

Try Yahoo! Search Marketing for FREE

Posted on June 27, 2009 by

Want to Try Yahoo! Search Marketing for FREE?
With Yahoo! Search Marketing’s BIG BANG offer you will get a 3 month campaign to a maximum value of $150 setup which ever is first.  The Ad campaign will be optimised by a Yahoo! certified local specialist.  Yahoo will run your ads across Yahoo!7 and Ninemsn exposing your product upto 1.1 billion searches every month**

Yahoo gives you the power to test their ad platform and make a impact on your bottom line today! Just fill in their expression of interest form and Yahoo will call you! To be eligible to take advantage of this offer you must have the campaign accepted by 31st July 2009, and must NOT be an existing Yahoo! Search Marketing advertiser (direct or through Yahoo! resellers). For more details about Yahoo! Big Bang full terms and conditions click here.

What is the benefits of Yahoo! Search Marketing?
By choosing Yahoo! Search Marketing, you get all the latest features and benefits. These include:

  1. Target who you want to – whether you run your ads across the entire network or target locally
  2. Spend as much as you want – You decide on your monthly budget – it can be as little or as much as you want it to be
  3. Optimisation – Ongoing refinement of your campaign to best meet your marketing objectives
  4. Know your performance – Ongoing insights into your campaign performance
  5. Yahoo will give you the support you need – Yahoo! certified local specialists will take care of everything

If you have no website, can I still take advantage of Yahoo! BigBang?
Yes you can request the Yahoo! resellers to build a website for you at a cost, or you can take advantage of your Free TrueLocal listing.  We can send all the visitors during your campaign direct to your TrueLocal listing. If you want to learn more about the Yahoo BigBang promotion visit their FAQ section.

** Stats Purple, Y!SM – Internal Reporting. Average monthly figure based on searches, consisting of Sponsored Search and Content Match products, from October 2008 to February 2009.
No comments Posted in web marketing

Media need broadcast revenue not online

Posted on June 24, 2009 by

It is not a secret that many media companies have been struggling with falling ad revenues as advertisers cut back and ask for more bang for their buck.  But how does their online strategy affect their advertising revenues and how serious do these companies take this future revenue model?

It is not known how much extra revenue is made from running sponsor sections and onsite advertisements but it is likely not enough to halt the revenue lost to reduced broadcast revenue.  A report today outline that Ten showed a 15% decline in third quarter revenues which goes against the growth of its online audience this quarter.  This online growth was supported by quality content and user generated material built around a few key shows such as SYTYCD, which is still generating interest online.

So the interesting point is that until online makes up a larger portion of overall revenue for a majority of the networks, they will remain dependant on broadcast revenue which is likely to continue to fall.  As the networks fill screens with reality shows and encourage their audience to engage with the show through user generated content they can keep costs low. Networks need a sustainable Ad platform to not just support costs but contribute revenue and allow them to re-invest this to expand online projects.

Online Competitors?

With TV losing audience numbers and potential revenue to iTunes Store, Hulu and Bittorrent how are they faring against their competitors?

We have looked into their competitors with the leader in the online space ABC Networks, with a massive lead with a larger share than all their competitors combined.  This government sponsored network places it in a very similar monopolistic position similar to BBC in the UK and has the advantage of being able to allocate significant online resources without requirements for ROI.

Australian Media Companies Online Market Share

Unique Visitor Statistics

Ten.com.au (28,000/month)
Unique Visitors Stats for Year up by 62% with 12 month ASX Share price down by 21%

au.tv.Yahoo.com (21,000/month)
Unique Visitors Stats for Year up by 91% with 12 month ASX Share price down by 26%

Ninemsn.com.au (428,000/month) – Unique Visitors Stats for Year up by 28%

Abc.net.au (908,000/month) – Unique Visitors Stats for Year up by 0.2%

Sbs.com.au (29,000/month) – Unique Visitors Stats for Year up by 31%

Competitor Site Reviews

Even with its extensive reach of Yahoo, the Seven network continues to struggle for online market share, lagging behind the smaller niche network of SBS.  Yahoo is following the NineMSN revenue model of branded sites for sponsors but they ensure they don’t over kill the ads and use the site to promote their TV shows.  SBC follows a similar model with limited onsite advertising but appears to have a much more successful layout and design for a media portal.

yahoo7sbs

The ABC website is the direction that the Network 10 seem to be taking their website, with minimal relevant promotion and the ability to watch full TV shows for free.  The only difference is the use of screen real estate with ABC making it easier to find its Podcasts for Triple J and Network 10 hiding them below the fold.

abcten

The interesting point that the millions that have been spent on building NineMSN into a online powerhouse has paid off in unique visitor figures, but they have taken the advertising model to the extreme. Its recent Transformers promotion takes over the whole frontpage with a mini animation that ends with a large promotional screen advising that Transformers is now in cinemas.  This seems to be more annoying and a little too pushy to be an ongoing promotion, while this may work for one-off deals because of the intrusive nature it is likely just to irritate users.

ninemsnninemsn transformers

I think the biggest point to take forward to media companies is to look towards the industry leaders such as BBC and even ABC who make it easy to download, listen and share their content.  There is no point fighting the battle against iTunes, Hulu & Bittorrent but I feel online advertising can contribute towards overall revenue but needs to be done right and not follow NineMSN.

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