Marketers increased the amount spent on U.S. search campaigns between October and December 2010 -- especially retailers -- compared with the year-ago quarter. Spend rose 35.5% overall and 36.6% in retail, according to the SearchIgnite Q4 2010 U.S. Search Market Report released Tuesday. Paid-search spend bounced back in 2010, making the line on the graph decline slightly in Q3, but climbed like a hockey stick during the final quarter. Marketers increased spend by 18.5% last year. Compared with the prior year, findings also point to a 20.6% year-on-year increase in clicks for Q4 2010, a 2.3% increase in impressions, and a 17.9% increase in click-through rates (CTRs). Metrics in Q4 show positive results with a 20.6% year-on-year increase in clicks, a 2.3% increase in impressions, and a 17.9% increase in CTRs. Economic uncertainty in 2009 stopped marketers from opening budgets and planning ahead. Uncertainty regarding how consumers would spend kept wallets closed. That changed in 2010, and experts believe it will begin to get "substantially" better in 2011. Retailers will spend more as consumers buy more. "We're seeing strong sentiment among clients for the potential in 2011," says SearchIgnite CEO Roger Barnette. "I think it could become a very positive year across the board." The price of keywords fluctuated depending on the search engine. In Q4 overall, the CPC on Google rose 9%, whereas combined Yahoo and Bing came in flat. Demand for a word or a phrase drives up the price of keywords or terms. Using branded keywords can sometimes help marketers control costs. Brand owners will typically pay the least for their branded terms. One of several reasons this holds true is because consumers are three times more likely to click and convert on the terms, so Google makes its money more easily. So American Express would pay less for the same term than their competition. That's why it's important for marketers to bid on their own branded terms, Barnette explains. It may seem obvious, but if someone is searching on Google typing on a marketers' brand term they are typically ready to buy. If the marketer isn't bidding on its company's branded terms than they are missing an opportunity. No surprise that Google's share of U.S. paid-search advertising continues to grow, ending Q4 at 82.6%. The combined Bing and Yahoo market share fell to 17.4%. Barnette believes it's still too early to tell whether the Bing-Yahoo relationship will work. Using war terms, he says Internet marketers were in the "throes of battle in late October" because campaigns picked up and strategies can change quickly. Marketers should view the Bing-Yahoo integration as a new opportunity, but few seem to take advantage. Barnette says they should develop and test new creative pieces and ad copy, analyze conversion rates and look for the ad copy combination that delivers the best conversion rate. Do everything companies have been doing in Google AdWords for years, but now it's time to start from the beginning on Bing and Yahoo. "You do it because it's new, though you don't know how things will work out," he says. "It's a missed opportunity."
Online media buyers expect their budgets to expand 11% during 2011, according to a survey conducted by the equities research team at Deutsche Bank. The survey, which was conducted recently among 31 media buyers representing more than $5 billion in annual online ad spending, indicated that budgets should continue to expand at "double digits over the foreseeable future" for both paid search and display ads, and that other emerging digital media platforms such as mobile, social and group buying communities should also "ramp nicely" supporting the overall growth of digital media advertising budgets. The Deutsche team, led by lead Internet analyst Jeetil Patel, said the outlook should hold at least through 2015, and that based on the outlook it is recommending four Internet stocks to investors: Google, InterActiveCorp, comScore and MediaMind. "As has been the theme over the past few years, online advertising would continue to grow, gaining share from traditional media," the analysts said in the report sent to investors late Monday. Noting that traditional print media appears to be "most vulnerable" from the reallocation of advertising budgets to online and digital media, the Deutsche team projected that mobile advertising would likely become a "billion dollar segment" in 2011, more than doubling its 2010 base. "Advertisers are increasingly dedicating separate budgets for mobile, indicating that mobile ad spend is slowly moving out of the 'experimentation' phase," the analysts said. "Online media buyers are keeping tabs on new themes within online advertising such as radio, social, mobile and group buying," they continued. "As these new business strategies flourish online, it does appear that online advertising growth would remain robust for the foreseeable future. While currently a limited number of players (ad networks and publishers) have the critical mass with these emerging ad formats, we do anticipate these categories to evolve into much bigger opportunities, likely expediting the share gains from offline ad spending. Just as important, online data analytics remains an important area of focus for media buyers in their daily online toolset."
A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction ordering ad networks Chitika and Clicksor.com to stop placing ads with the site Pharmatext.org based on allegations that the site infringes copyright by offering pirated e-books. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns in Boston also ordered eNom's Whois Privacy Protection Service to disable Pharmatext.org and to disclose to the publishers any information about Pharmatext.org that could reveal the owner's identity. The injunction was issued at the request of publishers Elsevier and John Wiley & Sons, who allege in a copyright infringement lawsuit against the domain registrar and ad networks that they are contributing to copyright infringement by Pharmatext.org. The publishers have not yet sued Pharmatext itself, which allegedly offered free copies of e-books like "Development and Validation of Analytical Methods" and "Wiley Guide To Chemical Incompatibilities." While many content owners have sued sites that offer infringing material, it's relatively rare for a copyright holder to sue an ad network for allegedly contributing to infringement by placing ads on piracy sites. But at least one other similar lawsuit was filed recently: In August, Warner Bros. and Disney sued Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Triton Media (unrelated to Triton Digital Media LLC in Sherman Oaks, Calif.) for allegedly enabling infringement by placing ads on sites with infringing clips. But in that case, Triton allegedly is owned and operated by the same person who also allegedly operates a site that offers pirated video. Triton agreed to pay $400,000 to settle that lawsuit last October. Whether ad networks like Chitika and Clicksor can be held liable by providing ads to sites with infringing material appears to be an open question. But Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, says that the allegations in this case by Elsevier and Wiley don't appear sufficient to prove that the networks contributed to infringement. "The standard test for contributory liability is knowledge of infringing activity and material contribution to infringing acts," Goldman says. He adds that merely supplying ads to a site doesn't appear to materially contribute to the site's acts of infringement.
Bing and Yahoo search engines will begin to gain market share in 2011 as small- to-mid-size advertisers increase budgets to begin to take advantage of potential volume and stronger return on investments on the new platform, according to the Efficient Frontier Q4 2010 U.S. Digital Marketing Performance Report released Tuesday. The ROI metrics on the combined platform continue to bring smiles to the faces of search executives. Sid Shah, director of analytics at Efficient Frontier, says search marketers can gain nearly the same ROI on the Bing-Yahoo platform as on Google. This will prompt marketers spending about $10,000 or $20,000 monthly to pay more attention to Bing campaigns. That will help the engine increase market share. Marketers will increase search budgets by 15% in the United States this year, compared with 2010, according to the Efficient Frontier Q4 2010 U.S. Digital Marketing Performance Report released Tuesday. While 2010 became a strong year for combined display and social media advertising, Efficient Frontier estimates that advertisers will work harder to solve the cross-channel marketing puzzle by equipping themselves with tools to measure and monetize the impact. Those that do will have a leg up. While market share between Q3 and Q4 2010 did not shift, Google for the year gained 4.6%. The share came from Yahoo prior to the migration to Bing. That's when Yahoo's market share fell 5%. Google gained 4% and Bing 1%. Aside from market share for the year, Google gained 7.7% click share. The gain came mostly at the expense of Yahoo before the migration to Bing. Looking at spend and click share, it is evident that click-share losses from the Bing-Yahoo combination were offset by cost-per-click (CPC) gains. Google's impression share improved year-on-year, while the Bing and Yahoo combination declined by 8% during the transition as Bing's algorithms were more restrictive to the type of traffic that was served by ads. Only higher-quality Yahoo traffic was served with ads. Paid clicks on Google rose 8% year-on-year and Bing-Yahoo's clicks fell by 32%. CPCs rose on all engines year-on-year. The monetization of the click improved quite a bit. The revenue per click around September came in at 20% worse than Google, but by the end of December the revenue per click on the Bing-Yahoo platform vs. Google was virtually identical. As Bing and Yahoo worked to improve the marketplace, marketers took note and began bidding higher on the keywords in an effort to attract better quality traffic. Overall for the year, marketers spent more on paid-search marketing. Spend rose 23% year-on-year, but return on investment (ROI) fell 10%, as advertisers sought greater volume at slightly lower returns. While marketers spent 23% more in Q4 2010 compared with the year-ago quarter, return on investment dropped about 10%. Google increased market share from 75% in 2009 to 79% in 2010, but this was not because of the Bing-Yahoo integration. It occurred during Q3 when Yahoo lost quite a bit of market share.
When it comes to participation in voluntary groups and organizations, the Internet -- and especially social media -- is playing a key role in how people interact and share information, according to a new study. Overall, 80% of Internet users are involved in groups compared to 56% of non-users and 75% of all American adults, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Social media users are more likely to be active, with 82% of social network users and 85% of Twitter users participating in groups. People also believe the Internet has helped make voluntary organizations more effective. Three-quarters of Internet users, and 68% of all Americans, for example, said the Internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to communicate with members. The majority of Americans, both online and offline, also said the Web had improved the ability of groups to gain attention, raise money and impact society at large. On a personal level, Americans who are active in groups indicate that the Internet has had a varying influence on their connection to groups. More than half (53%) say it has played a major role in helping them keep up with news and information about their groups, but less than a quarter (24%) found it had a major impact on their ability to volunteer time or contribute money to groups. The Pew study also found that groups are moving aggressively into the social media space to connect with members. In that vein: • 48% of those who are active in groups say those groups have a page on a social networking site like Facebook • 42% of those who are active in groups say those groups use text messaging • 30% of those who are active in groups say those groups have their own blog • 16% of those who are active in groups say the groups communicate with members through Twitter Furthermore, some 65% of social network users say they read messages and updates on social sites about their groups, and 30% have posted news about them. The numbers are similar among people on Twitter, with 63% following group-related updates and 21% posting news themselves on the microblogging site. Social network users are also more likely to be involved in creating and expanding groups. So half of social networkers active in groups have used the Web to invite someone to join a group, compared to 21% of non-social networkers. And 65% of Twitterers who are active in groups have sent out invitations, versus 34% of those not on Twitter. On the flip side, more than two-thirds (68%) of social network users participating in groups have been invited via the Internet to join a group, compared to 41% of non-social networkers. Likewise, nearly 80% of Twitter users have received invitations to join a group compared to 54% of the un-Twittering. "Use of the Internet in general, and social media in particular, has become the lubricant for chatter and outreach for all kinds of groups ranging from spiritual communities to professional societies to ad hoc fan clubs," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project, in a statement. "Even as Internet tools have become ubiquitous in group activity, people have quite nuanced views of where technology is the biggest help and where its impact is pretty modest." While most Americans have a positive view of the Internet's influence on group activities, college graduates, young people (18- to 29-year-olds) and social networkers are more likely to say it has had a "major impact" on groups than other demographic segments. Groups where social media users tend to be more active include consumer groups (roughly one-third), followed by sports or rec leagues, charitable organizations, trade associations and community or neighborhood groups. At the bottom of the list of about 20 categories are fan gtoups of products or brands, which drew only 5% participation by social media users. Although the Internet has become interwoven into civic life, the Pew study found that people learn about new groups mostly offline. Three-quarters of active group members say they didn't discover any of the groups they belong to online. But 46% of Web users who are active in one or more groups credit the Internet with helping them join a greater number of organizations. When it comes to achieving group goals, however, results for the Internet appeared to be mixed. Half or more of group members surveyed say they were in groups that either provided emotional support, financial assistance or raised money for a specific cause. But only 34% were in a group that solved a difficult problem or achieved change in their local community, and just 17% were part of a group that got a candidate elected to public office. But in looking just at groups successful in achieving their goals, the study found more than half (53%) of members said the Internet played a major role in getting a candidate elected and in raising awareness about an issue (46%). "In contrast, groups that solved a local problem or issue, and those that provided emotional or financial support to someone in need, were comparatively less reliant on the Internet to achieve these goals," stated the report. The Pew study on the Internet and voluntary groups was based on a survey of 2,303 U.S. adults conducted by phone from November 23 to December 21, 2010 by Princeton Survey Research Associates.
Demonstrating high demand for social media expertise, Experian on Monday said it bought a majority stake in social marketing specialist Techlightenment. Founded in 2007, the UK-based Techlightenment develops strategies and applications for social media marketing and advertising campaigns, while its brand research division monitors and analyzes social data to understand what people are saying about products. To date, clients have included Skype, Facebook and Lovefilm, along with GlaxoSmithKline, Universal Pictures, and Dr Martens. This acquisition will allow Experian to use its data, client base and geographic reach alongside Techlightenment's technology and digital expertise, to enable clients to build their brand and direct-response campaigns in the social media environment. "With social media growing at a phenomenal rate, this acquisition further extends the range of leading digital marketing capabilities we can offer to our clients," said Mark Zablan, managing director of Experian's Marketing Services Group for the UK and Ireland. Based in Shoreditch, London, Techlightenment will trade as "Techlightenment, an Experian company" within Experian's Marketing Services Group, and continue to be led by its existing management team, and report to Zablan. The startup's revenue for the year ending February 28 is expected to be nearly $8 million. Thanks in large part to the meteoric rise of Facebook, social media is officially big business for marketers. Forrester Research estimates that social media marketing will grow at an annual rate of 34% over the next five years -- faster than any other online marketing segment, and double the average growth rate of 17% for all online media. By 2014, Forrester suggests that social media will be a $3.1 billion business. To keep its edge in the highly competitive information services industry, Experian has pursued a combination of acquisitions and partnerships. Last year, for example, Experian tied up with search engine marketing and technology firm Kenshoo to offer joint services in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Also last year, Experian invested in addressable advertising company Invidi Technologies. As part of the deal, Kosta Skoulikaris, senior director of digital advertising services for Experian, will serve as an observer to Invidi's board.