Google Venture-backed Trada, a paid-search marketplace connecting companies with experts, will announce Thursday a partnership with Microsoft and Yahoo. The two companies formed an alliance to power search and paid-search marketing with technology from Microsoft across their respective company's engines. Through the search alliance, Trada becomes a certified reseller to support small and medium-sized businesses spending between $3,000 and $50,000 monthly on engines powered by Bing. The company gains technology and marketing support for helping the alliance reach SMBs. Working closely with Trada allows Bing and Yahoo search engines to support a higher volume of SMBs. Advertisers running campaigns through the search alliance frequently get between 7% and 8% conversion rates, which Niel Robertson, Trada founder, said is significantly higher than the norm. "We see about 35% of search marketing spend from our clients going into the search alliance," Robertson said. "It's actually much higher than normal. If you took all the budgets for Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter, I don't think it's reflective of the underlying search market share. But because we have the insight to see where small- and medium-size companies should spend their budgets, it turns out well for advertisers and the Yahoo and Microsoft alliance." U.S. searchers conducted more than 17 billion explicit core searches in May, up 5% sequentially, according to comScore. The data firm said Bing's and Yahoo's share of searches combined total 30% in May, compared with 30% in April 2011 and 27.5% in May 2010. While Google and Bing offer agency programs, both also have support for resellers that provide marketing services to companies like Comcast and AT&T Interactive, which sell to a high volume of companies. Robertson said his company's business model falls between the two definitions. Trada's marketplace model taps a form of crowd-sourcing by relying on many PPC experts for one campaign. These experts create keywords, ad copy and ad groups for advertisers lacking the resources and knowledge to design, manage and run paid-search campaigns on multiple ad networks. Robertson said Trada doesn't play favorites when it comes to supporting companies through paid-search advertising on engines, considering that Google Ventures in July 2010 led a Series C VC round with founding investor Foundry Group, infusing $5.75 million in the paid-search marketplace.
Citing the "first signs of weakness," Interpublic's Magna Global unit this morning issued a downgrade to its outlook for U.S. ad spending in 2011, revising its downward two-tenths of a point to 2.9%, from 3.1% in its previous forecast. "In light of recent economic reports, we are revising our forecast slightly downward," the Magna team reported, noting that the estimates, which bring its 2011 U.S. ad spending projection to $173.1 billion, exclude the impact of political and Olympic advertising. "While we see the disruption from the earthquake in Japan and high gas prices as temporary, the economy still suffers from a depressed housing market, sluggish employment conditions, and fiscal retrenchment at all levels of government. Our previous forecasts had already conservatively assumed a slowdown in the second half of 2011." Despite the overall downward correction, Magna remains bullish on online ad spending, noting that the medium's growth "exceeded our expectations in the first quarter as the share attributed to national media (primarily reflecting digital display and online Video) was significantly higher than recent trends would have predicted. Though some premium display publishers may have seen a slowdown stemming from the broader economy, National Online advertising overall benefited significantly from strong momentum in online video and social media as large national advertisers begin to invest more in building brand awareness online." Magna's upward revision in online ad display spending follows other recent upgrades, including a fresh round-up released by eMarketer. "Many of these advertisers are also investing more in paid search, allowing direct online media to outperform our expectations," the agency unit noted, adding, "We believe recent improvements made in search quality have benefited the sector and many more monetization opportunities exist in social media. Online advertising and Paid Search in particular, was likely helped by continued growth in e-commerce, which accelerated during the first quarter by 17.5% compared to the prior year period. For 2011, we now expect $30.1 billion in online advertising, up by 15.6% from 2010 levels. Among more traditional national media, Magna cited "strength" in network and cable TV ad spending, pumping up the overall national marketplace, and showing local media to be the primary laggards. "In total, we expect national TV to grow 7.9% in 2011, up from our previous estimate of 6.5%. Despite upward revisions to national mass Media, signs of a slowdown are concentrated in local mass media, driven by weakness in newspapers, radio and outdoor advertising. Direct media (which incorporates Internet Yellow Pages, paid search, lead generation, directories, and direct mail) has been particularly impacted by sharper declines in directories and a slowdown in direct mail," the agency said.
As companies develop or acquire media management software, online and broadcast TV advertising will discover closer ties. In that vein, Google bought the technology from SageTV, a company that makes home theater software for PCs, also known as HTPC. Jeffrey Kardatzke, chief technology officer and founder of the software company, announced the news over the weekend. The SageTV software offers full digital video recording capabilities -- the ability to skip commercials and easily browse movies and content. In allows Internet video support by category, and Hulu and Netflix support for the living room, desktop, mobile and cars. Google will no doubt roll in some SageTV technology into Google TV. Although there has been no word on why Google wants the technology, it is speculated that it will likely create a place-shift-type technology geared toward advertising for live and stored content. In 2002, SageTV's technology became one of the first to turn computers with TV tuners into DVRs. The technology can support nearly any audio or visual file. The company released version 7.1.9 of the software last week, announcing it via a Twitter post. The open technology will likely give developers access to more options to develop features and apps. "We've seen how Google's developer efforts are designed to stimulate innovation across the Web, as developers have played a core role in the success of SageTV," Kardatzke wrote. "We think our shared vision for open technology will help us advance the online entertainment experience." Google had partnered with Netflix, Sony, Logitec and NBC for streaming services and hardware, but since the launch, the first version of the TV had mixed reviews.
The rise of the Web has made it easier than ever for people of like minds and passions to organize themselves and work together toward a greater good. Movement marketing comes out of a desire by brands to join something that taps into the mutual passions of their customers and their employees. Some brands have been successful at creating their own movements to build affinity for the brand and forge deeper customer engagement, like Tom's Buy One Give One movement or Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. Most others, however, tap into a movement their customers have already joined and are passionate about, such as the Avon 2-day Walks for Breast Cancer (though the website looks as if its been sprayed down with Pepto-Bismol, these walks are hugely popular). Other brands will either create or join movements that help to offset a negative perception of their brand. Chevron has created the We Agree campaign to get behind the movement for renewal energy solutions. Consumer packaged goods providers are getting behind anti-obesity and diabetes prevention campaigns. But what do these efforts have to do with a content marketing strategy? In short, a lot. When joining or creating a movement you create opportunities not only to create and highlight your content, but that of your customers. Everything from blog posts to videos, photos to podcasts associated with the movement and its activities can be featured in company websites, microsites, Facebook pages, newsletters, LinkedIn Groups, ad units and mobile apps. All of this content can and should reinforce your keyword strategies, of course, but also align with the values both your company and the movement embrace. You can improve SEO, social sharing and repeat visit metrics, and market or mind share. Know Your Values Before starting or aligning with a cause, a brand must know its values and what it stands for. Moreover, it is important that brands know the values of its customers and what they typically stand for. Creating values statements isn't a marketing exercise, either; it's a corporate exercise and must be embraced by the CEO and every single person at work in the company. Only by deeply knowing who you are as a brand and deeply understanding your customers can you hope to align successfully with something you jointly care about. Creating the Win-Win-Win When embracing a cause, the goal should be to create a win for the brand, a win for the customer and a win for the issue you jointly stand for. And your engagement with a movement has to be genuine -- the real deal. Your customers who believe in something will know immediately if your involvement is shallow or lacks commitment, and it will have been a wasted effort when all is said and done. Go all-in or don't go at all. Embrace a Process When I work with clients to create or join a movement, I typically take them through a four-stage process that I'd recommend to everyone embarking on a movement marketing strategy: Stage One: Strategy - lay out the movement you seek to create or join, the reasons why and what the win-win-win will be. Stage Two: Declaration - let the world know that you've joined your customers in aligning with the cause. Stage Three: Activation - activate your customers who are already engaged in the movement plus all those sitting on the sidelines through activities, promotions, events -- you name it. Stage Four: Sustained Momentum - settle in for the long haul and demonstrate your commitment to the cause each and every day Key throughout is a measurement strategy that looks at brand engagement, movement engagement and conversion metrics that relate to the campaign. Obviously, there isn't enough room in this column to cover all the ideas and nuances involved with executing a movement campaign as part of an overall content marketing strategy, so leave your comments and ideas below. But if you're at a company that knows what it stands for and deeply understands what motivates your customers, consider adding a cause to your content marketing strategy. Next week in this series: publishing technologies that lead to efficient and effective content marketing. If you'd like me to consider including your technology, email me!
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Calibri"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; Last week, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, my wife and I went for a walk on the High Line, the incredible park that's been created from an old elevated freight-train track on the southwest side of Manhattan. It's a dramatic experience, and to my mind, one of the best projects in New York City going back decades. The High Line is remarkable for many reasons: the stunning and unexpected views of the cityscape, the unusual design and landscaping of the park itself, and -- not least -- the unwavering tenacity of those who spearheaded what was largely a community-funded project. But what strikes me most about the High Line is its story of reclamation: The park transformed a dilapidated old train track -- a blight on the urban landscape -- into a world-class destination in its own right. With the creation of the High Line Park, New York City created space without piling another forty stories onto an existing structure. And the park is more than a serene city retreat. It's also an enormous commercial success story, having generated billions of dollars in nearby real estate appreciation and development. How does this relate to television, you ask? As the High Line recaptures space, DVR-assisted television viewing recaptures time. As DVR adoption has increased over the last few years -- and more than a third of American households now have DVRs, according to Magna Global -- viewers have gained the freedom to choose how, when, and where to watch the shows they like. And they can choose whether to watch or skip the advertising. For years, this prospect freaked the heck out of advertisers and networks. They'd taken for granted that time-shifted viewing would have a significant impact on the way television programming and advertising were consumed, but until recently, it wasn't clear what the nature of that impact would be, and whether it would lead to lower, more selective overall television viewing. But even with the broad adoption of DVRs, TV viewing remains on the rise, according to Nielsen. A report released last week, "State of the Media: Cross Platform Report," showed that Americans watch an average of 22 minutes more television per month than they did a year ago. The lion's share of the increase is, not surprisingly, tied to more viewing on mobile devices and online, but even good old TV sets showed a small jump. This says to me that people optimize their viewing behavior in the same way that the transformation of the High Line has optimized the NYC landscape. They're recapturing time they might have spent watching ads, and using it to watch more television. Like the stressed-out city dweller who has a new oasis in the midst of urban chaos, television viewers can now enjoy content that -- without the time-saving benefits of the DVR -- they might not have had time to experience. Ad-skipping is of course a tough pill to for networks to swallow, but there is a silver lining here: the fact that consumers are watching more and more diverse programming. For advertisers, this means it's more important than ever to hone their messaging and the placement of their ads so that they can find the right audience for their brands. The High Line turned one of the city's liabilities into an asset by transforming what was peripheral to something that is premium. DVRs may have been considered by networks to be the old elevated freight line, but by looking at purchaser behavioral data, advertisers can find the right audience and make it their own "High Line." Still need to think about it? I suggest a walk on the High Line.
A federal judge has signed off on a $2.5 million settlement of a privacy class-action lawsuit stemming from the alleged use of Flash cookies by Quantcast and Clearspring. The resolution, which U.S. District Court Judge George Wu in the Central District of California approved this week, calls for the companies to pay around $2 million to various advocacy groups and institutions that do privacy research. Carnegie Mellon, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Fordham Law School's Center on Law and Information Policy, and University of California, Berkeley will each receive $250,000. Several other law schools and organizations will receive between $50,000 and $100,000, while the 18 consumers who were named in the lawsuit will each receive "incentive" awards of $1,500. Attorneys for the consumers will receive more than $500,000. The resolution was unopposed. The litigation against Clearspring and Quantcast stemmed from a 2009 report by researchers at UC Berkeley stating that many of the most popular sites store information about users on Flash cookies, which were harder for people to find and delete than HTTP cookies. Some of those sites appeared to be using that information in order to track people. Shortly after that report came out, consumers filed class-action lawsuits against Clearspring, Quantcast, Specific Media, and various other advertisers and publishers. The litigation against Clearspring, Quantcast and the companies they allegedly worked with was consolidated into one action. That's the case that was settled this week. A separate case against ad network Specific Media, and companies it allegedly worked with, is proceeding in front of Wu separately. Wu recently dismissed the lawsuit because the consumers who are suing hadn't sufficiently alleged that they suffered any economic injury. (Specific Media denies that it used Flash cookies to track users.) The consumers revised their complaint and refiled it last month. Other recent privacy lawsuits have reached a settlement similar to the one in Quantcast and Clearspring. For instance, a lawsuit against Google for its launch of Buzz ended with Google shelling out $8.5 million, of which $6 million went to a host of privacy groups and schools; most of the remainder went to the plaintiff's attorneys. (At launch, Google Buzz caused a privacy uproar by revealing information about users' email contacts, if users activated Buzz without changing the defaults.) A case against Facebook for the Beacon program -- which told users about their friends' e-commerce activity -- ended with the social networking service agreeing to pay $9 million, around $6 million of which is supposed to fund a new privacy thinktank. Again, much of the rest of the money goes to the lawyers who brought the case. The Flash cookie litigation, Google Buzz and Facebook Beacon were brought by some of the same attorneys, including New York lawyer Scott Kamber and Dallas attorney Joseph Malley. Unlike the Flash cookie resolution, the Beacon settlement drew several objections, including one from Facebook user (and privacy advocate) Ginger McCall, who says that the social networking site will have too much control over the new foundation. McCall appealed the settlement to the 9th Circuit, which is still considering the matter. (McCall is represented in the appeal by advocacy group Public Citizen, which represents MediaPost in an unrelated matter.)
Last week eMarketer announced its forecast that total online display advertising spend will surpass total search spend by 2015. Google is spending $390 million on an acquisition of display ad company Admeld. MediaMind, a digital ad solutions provider, was acquired for $414 million by an offline advertising technology firm focusing on television. If the 2000s was the decade of search, it certainly appears that the 2010s is heading toward the decade of display. Is this true -- and if so, what does all this mean for search marketers? It is helpful to understand why display advertising is growing so rapidly. Rise of a biddable ecosystem for display. Yahoo's Right Media and Google's Ad Exchange have led the way in creating an environment where advertisers can bid in an open exchange environment for inventory based on its value to them. The subsequent introduction of real-time bidding and DSPs has only accelerated the adoption of display advertising by performance marketers. Rise of online video advertising. Consumers are engaging with brands on the internet in ways that were traditionally reserved for offline media. Online video and rich media are seeing huge growth due to the intersection of user adoption and technology growth trends. Adoption of attribution technologies that allow impact of display to be better represented. For performance-based marketers, the shift from display advertising to search advertising 10 years ago was precisely because the measurable return on investment of search was much higher. That is not always the case anymore, for multiple reasons. First, consumer behavior is changing in ways that allow for the entire purchase funnel to occur online, which naturally leads consumers to interact with more types of ads. No less important, though, is the adoption of technologies that allow advertisers to measure and attribute the impact of all the media touch points that ultimately lead to a conversion. Brand budgets. More brand ad budgets are shifting to online. Display and video are more natural fits than search marketing for most brands. Mobile. Mobile Internet access is undoubtedly an uber-trend. Mobile devices are inherently better suited for passive viewing of ads (display) than proactive viewing of ads (search). Opportunities/Threats for Search Marketers All of the trends listed above are only accelerating. To be clear, none of these trends threaten search marketing as it exists today. What it does threaten is the dominance of search marketing in the broader online marketing industry. I have often said that search marketers have the best skillset for the convergence of digital marketing channels. It's time to put that skillset to use and look over the horizon a bit. Search marketers need to understand the trends that are happening around them in other online marketing channels so they can better manage the digital marketing opportunities holistically for their clients.
The online landscape is getting more complex. Speaking from a marketer's perspective, there are more points of influence that can alter a buyer's path. At the last Search Insider Summit, John Yi from Facebook introduced us to something he called Pinball Marketing. It's an apt analogy for the new online reality. Hoping for a Strike In the past, marketing was like bowling. You would build a campaign with sufficient critical mass and aim it toward your target, hoping at the end of the campaign (or lane) your aim was good enough, and the ball/campaign had enough kinetic energy (measured in REACH X FREQUENCY X AD ENGAGEMENT) to knock down all the potential customers. If you think about marketing in this perspective, it explains the massive amount of pain traditional marketers are feeling as they pull their bowling-shoe-clad feet from the old world and gingerly dip their toes in the new. The bowler was in control (theoretically) and the success or failure of the campaign lay in her hands alone. The paradigm was simple, clean and linear, just the way we marketers like it. The new game of marketing is much more like pinball. The intersections between a buyer's decision path and a product's marketing presence are many, and each can send the buyer off in a different direction. Some of those intersection points are within the marketer's control -- and some aren't. Marketers now have to try to understand engagement and buyer impact at each of these intersections and, in the process, try to piece together a map of the buyer's journey, assigning value in the appropriate places. Repealing Newton's Law But even though the frenetic path of a pinball gets us a little closer to today's marketing reality, it still doesn't get us all the way, because there's one fundamental difference: pinballs don't have brains. Nor do they have emotions, feelings, or needs. Pinballs are just little metal spheres that obey the laws of physics. And therein lies the difference. How much more challenging would pinball be if, rather than relying on Newtonian physics to set the path of a ball coming off a flipper, it could decide whether it wanted to go right, left or simply stop dead in its tracks, refusing to go one inch further until you showed it a little more respect. As physicist Murray Gell-Mann once quipped, "Imagine how hard physics would be if particles could think." As we try to understand what influences our buyers, we tend to apply something like the laws of physics to unraveling attribution. We apply formulas to various touchpoints, mathematically weighting their respective values. We can weight it to the first click, the last click, or divvy up the value based on some arbitrary calculation. But, in the end, as we try to figure out the new rules of marketing, we tend to forget that these balls have brains. Go to the Source If we want to understand what makes buyers buy, we should ask them. We should base attribution models on decision paths, not arbitrary formulas. We should walk through the buying landscape with our prospects, seeing how they respond at each intersection point. And when we build our attribution models, we should base them on psychology, not physics. Is this approach harder than the holy grail of a universal attribution formula (or even multiple variations of said formula)? Absolutely. It's fuzzy and sometimes messy. It tends to squirm around a lot. And unlike Newtonian physics, it depends on context. What I'm proposing is riddled with "ifs" and "maybes." In short, it's human in its ambiguity, and that's really the whole point. I would much rather have ambiguity that's somewhat right than clarity that's completely wrong.