The term "not provided" found in marketing analysis reports now accounts for nearly 40% of referring traffic data from organic search, up 171% since Google introduced the policy one year ago, according to a study released Tuesday. Some believe it will spur the use of ad retargeting and social media. Some 64% of companies analyzed in the study see between 30% and 50% of their traffic from Google as "(not provided)," and 81% see more than 30%, according to Optify's report, Google (Not Provided) On the Rise. The report details the impact of Google's SSL enhancements on SEO referral data collected by publishers. The study suggests that recognized referring keywords from organic search declined by 49%. Last year, Google gave signed-in search engine users an option to encrypt their search queries using Secure Socket Layer. The process encrypts Google search queries, meaning that data about visits from organic search queries no longer provides information, such as referring keywords, on each individual query. Rather than the exact word, Google began passing publishers the term "not provided" as the referring keyword for visits from search engine queries and clicks. Google's intent was to provide security and privacy, but it has had an alternative outcome. Doug Wheeler, CMO at Optify, said "our No.1 keyword term is 'not provided.'" The landing site still receives information that a site visitor came from Google, but the encrypted search terms are excluded from the referrer headers as part of the request sent to the result site visited. Wheeler believes the percentage of "not provided" data will grow — and it will force brands to do more retargeting. Marketers may need to develop other metrics to confirm performance. In the long term, it means marketers will not have the option of measuring performance of SEO efforts by connecting a search term with Web site metrics like traffic, conversion rate, leads, engagement, and revenue. The Optify report also suggests marketers will no longer have the ability to use referrer data to customize and personalize the experience for site visitors. For example, don't bother using referring keywords in lead nurturing rules, or score visitors and leads based on their referring keyword. Optify analyzed the organic traffic to 424 business-to-business (B2B) Web sites between Nov. 1, 2011 and Oct. 1, 2012, tracking 17,143,603 visits from organic search -- an average of 1,428,634 visits per month. During that time, the company captured 7,241,093 referring keywords.
When it comes to mobile ad pricing, iOS apps have long commanded a premium over their Android counterparts. A recent report from Opera Software showed the iPhone and other iOS devices drive higher eCPMs and nearly twice the ad revenue of Android-based devices. New data from mobile ad exchange Mobile today shows iOS advertising still gets top dollar, but that Android saw gains in pricing in the third quarter. From July to September, eCPMs for impressions on Android phones rose 26% from 34 cents to 43 cents, while those for iOS held roughly steady, with a slight increase from 70 cents to 72 cents. Rates on Android tablets grew even faster, increasing 30% from an eCPM of 37 cents to 48 cents during the quarter, while rates on the iPad went up from 88 cents to 94 cents. What accounts for the uptick in Android pricing? Elain Szu, MoPub’s director of marketing, attributed the increase to factors including improved audience targeting on Android and standardization through the MRAID set of technical standards for mobile rich media ads. The MoPub study showed that MRAID-compliant ads achieved an eCPM of 74 cents in September compared to 50 cents for non-compliant ads. “With Android devices, there are so many different screen sizes, with different resolutions, getting that standardization from MRAID probably helped” lead to higher pricing, she said. The iPhone, however, remained the most popular device, with 3.5 bids per completed auction compared to the average of three bids across devices, including the iPad and Android phones and tablets. In terms of ad formats, medium rectangles and smartphone banners (320 x 50) had the strongest gains during the quarter, with eCPMs for the formats increasing 42% to $1.09, and 20% to 60 cents, respectively. On the iPad, banners (728 x 90) rose 11% to 90 cents but those for full-screen interstitial ads dropped the same percentage to $1.76. Looking at ad categories, health and fitness apps proved the most popular among advertisers during the summer months, with titles in that segment drawing an average of 4.8 bids per completed auction. That put it just ahead of news (4.2 bids), entertainment (3.5), games, (3.5) and social networking (3.3). The overall number of winning bids on the MoPub exchange increased 162% compared to the second quarter, even with a growing supply of mobile ad inventory -- “in our view, an indication that advertisers understand the value of RTB in terms of being able to reach audiences in the moment they are accessing their applications,” said Szu. The company says its third-quarter data reflects 20 billion monthly ad impressions a month on its real-time bidding system across the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Earlier this year, mobile video ad platform AdColony teamed up with Nielsen and Universal Pictures to test the effectiveness of 15-second video spots for a new movie release across TV and mobile screens. The multiscreen effort delivered much higher brand metrics than just the TV ads alone. In its latest ad test, AdColony worked with Nielsen, an unnamed CPG brand, and Horizon Media to assess the performance of the same 15-second spot in live campaigns across TV, online and mobile (smartphones and tablets). The study found that consumers exposed to the mobile video ads had significantly higher brand awareness, favorability and purchase interest. Specifically, the mobile video ad resulted in 79% general recall, 58% brand recall, 48% message recall, 24% ad favorability and 15% purchase intent. Here’s how those figures compared to online and TV across the same five metrics: General Ad Recall: Mobile video was 2.7 times higher than online; 1.6 times higher than TV.Brand Recall: 4.8 times/online; 5.8 times/TV.Message Recall: 5.6 times/online; 7.5 times/TV.Brand Favorability: 3.4 times higher than both online and TV.Purchase Intent: 2.5 times/online; 3.8 times/TV. The mobile video ad also outperformed established ad norms for online and TV across all metrics. The findings were based on a survey fielded from May 13-27 with a total of 838 respondents, including 156 who were exposed to the mobile video ad (test group) and 782 who weren’t (control group). The sample included only men 21 and over. “We know that mobile works well for brands looking to engage consumers, but we wanted to dig deeper to see how well mobile fared relative to other leading mediums in video advertising,” stated Sarah Bachman, mobile director of Horizon Media. “This new research further validates our investment in mobile video for our clients.” Video is still a small fraction of overall mobile ad spending. Earlier this year, eMarketer projected mobile video advertising will total $151 million, or 5.8% of the estimated $2.6 billion in total U.S. mobile ad spending this year. But that would represent an increase from 4.7% in 2011. Video is expected to reach 10% share of mobile advertising by 2016.
The amount of time Americans spend watching “TV” via a traditional television set continues to decline, according to the latest edition of Nielsen’s quarterly Cross Platform Report. While television remains the overwhelming means most people use to watch “television,” usage of the medium declined 1.7% over the past year, according to the second-quarter 2012 report. While still minuscule in total time spent watching TV, mobile phones were the fastest-growing means of watching television over the past year. All other sources were either flat (the Internet) or declined (DVD/Blu-Ray, video game platforms) in terms of TV usage. “Most of the content from these activities was delivered to us on the TV set in a traditional manner, over broadcast, cable, satellite or telco connection, and a growing amount was delivered by Internet connection,” Nielsen states in the report, adding: “Americans also added another five hours in front of the computer screen using the Internet or watching video content and an increasing amount of time using smartphones this quarter.” Almost as many Americans (236.5 million) watched TV on their phones during the second quarter of 2012, as watched it on a conventional TV set (283.3 million), albeit for much shorter durations. While the average American spends nearly 145 hours per month watching TV on a traditional TV, Nielsen didn’t even report the average time they spend watching on their phones. But mobile subscribers watching video on their phones -- a smaller sub-segment of about 37 million Americans -- spend an average of five hours and 20 minutes watching TV on their phones each month, an increase of 31 minutes over the second quarter of 2011. Time spent watching TV via other connected devices -- an Internet-connected computer, DVD/Blu-Ray and video game consoles -- also declined. The report also sheds some light on another sub-segment of the population -- people who watch TV via a connected device accessing either Netflix or Hulu. The study shows that both users watch about an average of five hours and 20 minutes of content per day, but much more of the Netflix users’ total time (23.4%) is spent doing something other than watching television, such as playing video games, playing pre-recorded software or streaming media.
New data from U.K.-based affiliate network Affiliate Window indicates that mobile activity picked up in October with the approach of the holiday shopping season. The share of traffic coming from mobile across its network of 75,000 affiliate sites -- spanning niche content to large comparison shopping sites -- increased to 13.2% in October from 12.8% in September. In terms of m-commerce, the proportion of sales through mobile devices (including tablets) reached 10.7% -- exceeding 10% for the first time in 2012 -- up from 9.9% in September. That figure is also more than double the share of sales from mobile in the year-earlier period. Excluding tablets, about 4% of sales in October came through handsets. Underscoring the dominant role of the iPad in m-commerce, the iPad has accounted for 58% of mobile sales through the first 10 months of the year. A quarter have come from the iPhone, 12% through Android, 3% on BlackBerry and 2%, from other types of devices. Looking at conversion rates for mobile, they rose on average to 3.2% in October from 2.6% the prior month. As more advertisers continue to develop their site for mobile and add affiliate tracking for mobile-optimized sites, Affiliate Window expects conversion rates to continue rising through year's-end. BlackBerry has the highest conversion rate, at 6.6% as of October, but that’s partly a result of the platform generating much lower traffic volume than iOS and Android. The iPhone and Android handsets have conversion rates of just over 2%. Android’s share of traffic and sales has grown to about 38% for each in January, up from 31.5%, and 28.5%, respectively, in January. Android saw a 26.5% increase in sales volume in September, compared to 17% for iPhone. Given the growth of m-commerce on Android devices, Affiliate Window suggested marketers should optimize their mobile presence for Android as well as iOS. In the U.S., comScore estimated more than half of smartphones (52.5%) were Android-based handsets, while 34.3% were iPhones, and 8.4% were BlackBerry phones.
Oracle is working to build a social marketing initiative by showing marketers how to integrate social data into corporate business processes. The company will share its long-term vision Wednesday at its first Social Summit in an attempt to entice marketing and social community managers. Enterprise software companies like Oracle, SAP, IBM, Salesforce and Microsoft have been slowly building up an expertise in social marketing to integrate the data into traditional enterprise resource planning, and customer relationship management tools into social marketing tools. Meg Bear, VP of cloud social platform at Oracle, sees the integration with ERP systems as a differentiator for the company. Oracle Social Relationship Management launched last month. It integrates social data into traditional enterprise applications like Oracle Fusion Marketing, Oracle Fusion Sales Catalog, Oracle ATG Web Commerce and Oracle ERP. "There's room for any process-driven application to run more efficiently, especially if they're socially enabled," said Rob Koplowitz, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research. "It takes the human part of the process not generally captured today to provide better access to content, information and collective actions." Koplowitz said several acquisitions support Oracle's long-term vision: to layer social on top of other enterprise apps, like its ERP platform. Innovation through acquisition can quickly boost a company's profile and market share in a specific space. Oracle made several acquisitions related to social marketing and cloud computing to strengthen its offerings. The most recent was Instantis, announced Nov. 8, which provides cloud-based project portfolio management services. Others related to social include Involver, a social media development platform acquired in July; Collective Intellect, a cloud-based social indigence solutions acquired in June; and Vitrue, a social marketing platform provider acquired in May. Increasingly, large brands and retailers attempt to integrate profiles from across the Web, such as social and behavioral data with the goal of delivering a more relevant marketing approach, agrees Clark Fredricksen, VP of communications at eMarketer. Traditional enterprise software companies in the past year have acquired numerous social media companies. Microsoft grabbed Yammer for about $1.2 billion, and MarketingPilot, which provides cloud-based marketing automation. Salesforce scooped up Buddy Media, an enterprise social media marketing platform. SAP also continues to go after the social software products category. The company considers itself a major enterprise social player with help from the platform, SAP Jam, which combines features with SAP StreamWork. Jeff McRae, analyst at boutique research firm RealDealStocks (and an IBM employee), estimates Facebook makes $3.40 per user in North America. He says LinkedIn makes about $1.35 per user, worldwide.
Swrve, which makes a mobile app optimization platform, has raised $6.25 million in new financing from Atlantic Bridge Partners and Intel Capital. The San Francisco-based company said it will use the funding to ramp up sales, marketing and engineering operations and expand its customer base. Swrve’s system is aimed at helping app and game developers improve install and monetization rates by running sophisticated A/B testing scenarios on the fly. It also provides analytics and audience targeting tools. Along with its optimization platform, Swrve today introduced an integrated campaign tracker, allowing game developers to measure campaign performance and ROI on iOS devices. The new service will give users the ability to track real-time data on revenue generated by specific iOS-based campaigns, according to the company. Prior Swrve investors include Swrve SV Angel, the founders of Mochi Media (Jameson Hsu and Bob Ippolito) and co-founders of Playfish, Sami Lababidi and Shukri Shammas.
A Buffalo Bills fan is suing the football team for allegedly violating a consumer protection law by sending him "excessive" text messages. Florida resident Jerry Wojcik says in his lawsuit that he signed up to receive text message updates about the team in September. He alleges that the online terms provided that people who opted in would receive between three and five messages a week. Instead, he received six messages in the first week after he signed up, and seven during the second, according to his lawsuit. "The excessive calls (i.e., more than five text messages sent during a one-week period) were made without the prior express consent of the parties," he alleges in his complaint, filed late last month in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. He is seeking class-action status. He argues that the Buffalo Bills violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits companies from using automatic telephone dialing systems to make calls to cell phones unless the owners have consented. The law provides for up to $1,500 in damages per violation. If the allegations are true, the football team appears to have technically violated the law, cyberlaw expert Venkat Balasubramani tells MediaPost. But he adds that the facts of this case could support an argument against damages of up to $1,500 per text. "If there was ever a case to challenge the statutory damages, this would be it," he says. "Presumably, if you're willing to receive five messages, there's no clear privacy violation from the sixth." He adds that two judges recently took a practical approach to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by dismissinglawsuits against companies accused of sending a single unauthorized message in order to confirm an opt-out.
Thanks to an audacious branded content strategy, Red Bull had the best social video strategy of 2012. That’s according to new research from AOL-owned video network gorival, which ranked top performers based on volume, total views and engagement for content uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook throughout the year. In order of rank, the top social video brands of the year included Red Bull, Google, Disney Nike, Samsung, Old Spice, Prada, Coca Cola, Nintendo and Adidas. Mads Holmen, planning director at goviral, attributed the winners’ social success to "bravery." “Brands like Red Bull, Old Spice and Nike are risk-takers, constantly disrupting what’s expected to spark agenda-setting conversation,” according to Holmen. “An effective social video strategy can elevate a brand beyond the product, creating an experience consumers really want to be a part of.” Both Apple and Microsoft were conspicuously missing from the year’s top 10 list, coming in 11th and 37th, respectively. Among luxury fashion brands, Burberry ranked relatively low -- coming in at 16th -- despite its aggressive social media strategy. On the car front, BMW came out top in 12th, ahead of VW in 13th and Mercedes Benz in 15th. Also of note, alcohol brands underperformed as a category, with Smirnoff topping the list in 90th followed by Corona in 93rd, and Jack Daniels in 99th place. Visa, meanwhile, proved the exception to the norm in the financial sector. At 24th, it benefitted hugely from an aggressive video content program for its Olympic sponsorship, according to Holmen. The brands evaluated were drawn from Interbrand’s 2012 Best Global Brands Report with the additions of Red Bull and Old Spice.
The rapid rise of mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, has triggered sweeping changes in media consumption habits. No medium is more affected than newspapers, which are transitioning to digital products. One global newspaper, The Financial Times, predicts that most of its readership will access the newspaper via mobile devices before long. In an interview with Media Week (UK), FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw said he believes “mobile will be the lead channel for delivery within three to four years” -- if not sooner, given the rapid pace of change. He noted that mobile currently contributes 25% of FT.com’s total traffic and around 20% of all new subscriptions, including print and digital. Grimshaw added that “the switch to mobile is bigger in magnitude than the switch from print to desktop, in terms of what it means for the way people consume content, and it’s happening faster.” The mobile channel’s high growth rate is especially noteworthy considering FT’s decision to withdraw from Apple’s iTunes store in 2011, which gave up a major sales platform. Since then, some 3.3 million users have downloaded FT’s HTML5 app. Overall, the newspaper’s digital properties -- including mobile -- have attracted 313,000 subscribers, compared to around 290,000 print subscribers. The digital subscriber base is up 26% compared to a year ago, while the print subscriber base is down 450,000 from a decade before. As noted, the potential market for mobile newspaper and magazine subscriptions is growing by leaps and bounds. According to Gartner, the total number of “smart” mobile devices in operation around the world will hit 821 million by the end of 2012, and increase to 1.2 billion in 2013; that’s roughly one smart device for every six people on the planet.
Digital music service Spotify is close to raising another $100 million in funding from investment banks and venture capital firms, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported the news on Friday. The list of investors for the most recent round of funding includes Goldman Sachs. The latest capital infusion values the company at around $3 billion, down from roughly $4 billion around the middle of this year. Previous rounds of funding have included investors like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Accel Partners, among others. Like Pandora, still the dominant online streaming audio service, Spotify has grown rapidly -- the platform currently has around 15 million active users, including 4 million paying subscribers -- but is struggling to find its financial footing. From 2010-2011, Spotify’s revenues increased 151% to $244 million, but losses also jumped 60% to $59 million, according to CNET. Even as listenership increases in tandem with smartphone and tablet ownership, the business model for digital radio services remains far from settled, as illustrated by Pandora’s woes since going public in June 2011. After a stock market debut at $16 per share, Pandora’s share price has dipped to less than half that, trading at $7.81 at press time. Digital radio services like Pandora and Spotify may face an even bigger problem in the form of Apple’s rumored plan to launch its own streaming audio platform sometime in 2013. Analysts say it poses a major threat, as it would leverage the ubiquity of Apple devices and the strength of the tech giant’s iTunes business.
Nielsen continues to build its social media research efforts -- now with the acquisition of TV program-focused SocialGuide.SocialGuide provides real-time social TV data for over 30,000 programs on U.S. TV channels in English and Spanish. The company provides marketers and other TV-related companies with analytics and data, which allow networks to engage with social TV consumer activity in real-time.The new business will be folded into NM Incite, Nielsen's in-house social media unit, a joint venture between Nielsen and management consultant McKinsey & Company. NM Incite says it provides data to the top 1,000 marketers, operating in 30 markets around the world.Terms of the deal were not disclosed.“The skyrocketing adoption and use of social media among consumers is transforming TV-watching into a more immediate and shared experience," stated Steve Hasker, president of global media products and advertiser solutions at Nielsen. "As TV networks see this phenomenon unfold, they require understanding of the impact of social TV on their programming, ratings and advertising effectiveness.”“There is no greater opportunity to establish industry metrics and standards in social TV than bringing Nielsen, NM Incite and SocialGuide together," added Sean Casey, founder of SocialGuide. Nielsen says social TV interactions continue to grow, affecting traditional TV viewing -- with, for example, more than 33% of Twitter users actively tweeting about TV-related content.
I just returned from London, where I gave a keynote presentation on Flip the Funnel and how customer service and customer experience will become the key strategic differentiator in an increasingly commoditized world.The next day, I witnessed complete validation of this hypothesis.As I was walking down Piccadilly, I passed an Audi showroom unlike any I had seen before. In fact, it’s the first concept store of its kind for the brand in the world. The showroom was exceptionally clean, with one or two models on the white floor. No desks. No papers. No chairs. Several color coordinated, well-dressed salespeople. Several interactive kiosks. And wall-to-wall giant synchronized TV screens.I proceeded to customize my swanky new S5 convertible using the interactive kiosks and with an effortless swipe, I was able to project my configured car onto the big screen. I was also able to swivel the car using gestures on the kiosk, but I was just get started. Using Microsoft’s Kinect technology, I was able to use my body as a joystick or mouse. I could take down the roof and watch it roll back in real time. I watched the car drive off and come back to rest with surround sound emulating the actual sounds of the car. I was truly surrounded by a realistic experience of what it might feel like to drive an Audi S5 Convertible. There were other gadgets, bells and whistles, like the ability to save my session to a USB and whenever I returned, pick up where I left off.The experience was terrific, but what really blew me away was the epiphany that bricks-and-mortar stores were not dead, but alive and kicking. They were about to go through an incredible revival or even renaissance. There were those who once said (and I’m probably one of them) that bricks-and-mortar stores were endangered species, and that everyone would shift to online shopping, customization and commerce. There were also those who said (I was not one of them) that no one would ever move to digital channels to purchase things like clothing, homes or cars. As it turns out, they were both wrong.What I witnessed in this London showroom was the future of retail: a holistic, immersive physical digital experience. One in which human beings still played a key role. The best of all worlds. In that moment, I realized that purchasing cars online is not the optimal experience. It just isn’t possible to get an accurate or lifelike feeling of what it must be like to drive an Audi S5. The most accurate experience would come from actually driving one — a test drive — but what I witnessed was pretty damn close.I believe the future of bricks-and-mortar stores is a bright one if – and only if – it is anchored around a core digital experience and supported by humans. Not only for traditional brands, but pure plays as well. For example, I expect to see an Amazon.com store in the near future; one without a single piece of merchandise in it. Why would you need a book, when everything can be swiped, synced and swooshed into your Kindle? I expect Barnes & Noble to be out of business if they cannot figure out a way — quickly — to emulate the Audi showroom and in the process, get rid of as many dust-gathering books (and space) as possible.People might continue to window show online using their screens as nose warmers, but when they want to actually buy, there’s a lot to be said for getting off their rear ends and making the physical commitment to get into a store.It’s back to the future, baby. With one hell of an ironic twist.