eReader adoption rates have surpassed those of tablets, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project report released Monday. Some search marketing experts believe the gap will widen as eReaders become more affordable and offer the most basic Internet-connected services for free. The share of adults in the United States who own an eReader doubled to 12% in May 2011, up from 6% in November 2010. Kindle or Nook, both portable eReaders, allow consumers to download and read books and periodicals. Amazon on Kindle offers 3G connectivity for free. This is the first time since Pew began measuring eReader use in April 2009 that ownership of this device has reached double digits among U.S. adults. Tablet computers designed for more interactive Web functions have not seen the same level of growth in recent months. In May 2011, 8% of adults reported owning a tablet computer, such as an iPad, Samsung Galaxy or Motorola Xoom. That percentage has only slightly risen from the 7% who reported owning this type of device in January 2011. It represents a 3 percentage-point increase in ownership since November 2010. Prior to that, tablet ownership had been climbing quickly, according to the report. Similar to the need to segment mobile from computers in paid-search platforms, such as Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter, it will become increasingly important for marketers to segment eReader campaigns from those running on tablets once the engines offer the service. Search on eReaders will become the device's most basic function, according to some experts. "Clearly, eReader manufacturers like Nook and Kindle will bundle deep Web functionality to capture more market share because many people only want basic access to the Internet services, such as email and Web surfing," said aimClear Founder Marty Weintraub. "It's a no-brainer, really. Searches will increase for these devices across millions of books, and we can expect manufacturers to poach market share from devices like iPad." Consumers have access to the Internet and search through eReaders, which are less expensive compared with tablets, less complicated to use, and book-centric for those who want the convenience of a digital device. The ability to access the Internet and search for information could keep eReaders "over the top" when it comes to adoption, Weintraub said, pointing to Kindle, which offers free 3G wireless connectivity. Search marketers also can expect to see companies such as Adobe to segment eReaders from tablets in analytics packages to support campaigns, according to Tim Waddell, director of product marketing at Adobe. "We haven't done that yet, but it will be something we will need to address in the future because the engagement is quite different," he said. "We segment out mobile search already. It's quite easy to do. We will do the same thing for other devices as they become available." Adults 18-65, Hispanic adults, college graduates and those living in households with income of more than $75,000 are most likely to own eReaders -- up from $30,000. One-fifth of recent college graduates own eReaders. Similar demographic patterns exist for tablet adopters, although parents are no more likely than non-parents to own these devices. However, in the case of tablet computers, men are now slightly more likely than women to own this type of device. Between November 2010 and May 2011, men had among the largest increases in tablet owners. Overall, the highest rate of tablet ownership falls among Hispanic adults and those with household incomes of at least $75,000 annually. Other adopters include adults 18-29, those with some college or college degrees, and those reporting household incomes of $30,000 or more. The survey -- which was conducted from April 26-May 22, 2011, among 2,277 adults ages 18 and older -- also reveals that laptops have become as popular as desktop computers among U.S. adults. As recently as November 2010, desktop ownership outpaced laptop ownership by 8 percentage points, 61% to 53%. While the popularity of mobile devices continues to rise, eReader and tablet computer adoption levels among U.S. adults remain well below these tech devices that have been on the market longer.
Free time in front of potential customers doesn't happen for advertisers often, but a video ad model on YouTube makes it a reality for Scripps Network and other advertisers -- as long as the viewer opts out before the 30-second spot concludes. The video ad format -- cost per view -- rolled out last fall on the YouTube network, but parent company Google also is considering making it available across the Google Display Network. Facebook, Pandora, YouTube and Twitter become the focus of the ad media buy for HGTV's "Design Star," with the new season airing July 11. The Scripps Networks wants to reach for "a younger and newer viewer base" that has traditionally attracted adults ages 45 and older. Gay men are avid fans of "Design Star," in addition to women. That demographic insight, in part, comes from monitoring metrics on YouTube. The metrics bleed into the overall ratings for the show. "After marketing a few shows, we're finding some pull in younger viewers," said Jonah Spegman, director of digital media and database marketing at Scripps. Going after younger demos, ads will run on YouTube tapping TrueView, which requires the brand to only pay when the viewer watches the entire ad. Promoted video ads will highlight the show's clips at the top of YouTube search results pages and in suggested videos. HGTV ran 30-second pre-roll spots on YouTube TrueView to separately promote the shows "Design Star," "Cash & Cari" and "Selling New York." "As the ad runs in the YouTube video, a big call to action lets viewers skip the ad, but we found 44% of people actively choose to watch the ad for "Selling New York" all the way through," Spegman said. "The other 56% still see the ad, but not in its entirety. The nice thing is they still watch between 25% and 50% before they choose to skip." A cookie gets dropped in the browser of site visitors who choose to view the ad. The cookie provides a metric that Spegman calls "view through." The metrics can't directly link it to viewership, but he knows a "huge" percentage of people come back to the site once they are exposed to the YouTube video ad. And when viewers don't watch the whole ad through TrueView, HGTV gets the partial view for free." Aside from YouTube, HGTV will buy a variety of Facebook ads that target the younger demos demonstrating through Likes an interest in competitive design shows. On Twitter, Spegman said the social network's sales team estimates HGTV can expect between 55 million and 75 million impressions on the day the ad runs. Internet radio also will play a role in the ad buy. Combining a computer-and-mobile media buy on the Internet radio station, Pandora will target women 25-54. When logging into Pandora, she will see a custom skin on the page that promotes "Design Star." The campaign will provide an option to run a video clip, but also offer an option to add a design-inspired Design Star branded radio station to their lineup. The media buy also includes ads run on SayMedia for video, Lotame for semantic targeting and Apple iAd, which Spegman describes as Apple iAds for Developers, a lighter-weight banner that lets users download to the HGTV iPad app. The iAd runs on a cost-per-click model, so impressions are free. Through the Apple iPad app, users can watch full episodes of the show. "Design Star" will sponsor People's iPad app. "We'll also have a considerable amount of ads running through ad exchanges and demand side platforms," Spegman said, clarifying that "considerable" means about 15% of the total media plan. "The efficiency of buying media through exchanges is tough to ignore." Through ad exchanges, the ability to target and remarket improves. It lets HGTV serve up more easily click-to-play or click-through in-banner video ads.
Bant Breen, the digital wunderkind who brought the agency holding company a lucrative stake in then-fledgling social network Facebook, is out of IPG. Breen, who most recently was worldwide CEO of search and social specialty agency Reprise Media, apparently left more than a month ago, following a reorganization in April of IPG's Mediabrands division under new global CEO Matt Seiler. Breen did not respond to a message sent via Facebook, but he has been posting columns recently on The Huffington Post that allude to new personal aspirations, and describe him as an "entrepreneur." IPG declined to comment, but a prepared statement indicates that Breen left of his own volition and may in fact be pursuing a new venture. "Bant Breen has left Reprise Media to pursue outside interests," it states, adding, "We wish Bant the best of luck in his future endeavors. As we orchestrate a deeper alignment among our digital brands, as announced by Mediabrands in April, Reprise will continue to operate as a world-class search organization that powers the IPG network. We look forward to announcing a number of exciting moves in the coming weeks." Breen's social media profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter continue to describe him as worldwide CEO of Reprise, a post he picked up last September after serving as global digital chief for IPG's Initiative unit. Early in his IPG career, Breen was seen as a rising star who might one day take its digital or media helm, or maybe even a bigger post, but was moved around following a number of reorganizations of its digital and media operations until his last role at Reprise, an acquisition Breen oversaw for IPG in 2006, and one of the few big takeover deals IPG has completed in recent years. But his highest profile contribution to IPG undoubtedly is the relationship he struck with Facebook, which resulted in a stake estimated to be about 0.5% of the social network's equity. Some analysts have put the current value of Facebook at more than $100 billion, and believe it could reach as high as $200 billion following an initial public offering. While IPG took the stake for strategic reasons, and not for a capital pay-off per se, the value of the investment is considered a happy accident inside IPG. In his most recent posting on The Huffington Post, Breen writes about the value of staying in touch with old friends in a hyper-connected digital world. In his previous post, he discusses an inflection point he recently had when he turned 40, which resulted in a personal goal to run a marathon. "At 40 I found that many things that were personal were getting pushed to the side for work and family commitments," he wrote, adding, "This goal setting seems to be working. My muscles tend to rebel a bit at times, but I am now five weeks into training and just passed the seven-and-a-half-mile mark on my long run. As I jog toward this marathon, I am more open to setting personal goals again. Maybe I will climb a big mountain, sail around something or think of new challenges. In the meantime I will keep running."
Adobe Systems continues to build up features in SearchCenter+ for marketers. The company recently launched a retail reporting feature for inventory management to activate keywords based on inventory status. The feature is managed through the platform's dashboard or user interface. Knowing what's in stock can save brands money -- not only in terms of sales, but for search campaigns too. About 9% of sales are lost from out-of-stock inventory, said Tim Waddell, director of product marketing at Adobe, quoting industry stats that he agrees seem a bit low. Aside from the ability to activate or deactivate keywords based on inventory availability, retailers or publishers have tools to generate campaigns automatically. Predictive modeling also remains on Adobe's product road map. "What happens if I change my keywords pricing or add new ones to the mix?" Waddell said. "It becomes more important when looking across search and display." Most marketers focus on paid-search keywords, but when a consumer types a query into the search engine, they just want results. Knowing the nuances of organic search helps to hone paid-search campaigns. Some search marketers will have top keyword listings and low bounce rates that turn into high conversion rates, but not all. Having the ability to alter paid-search listings based on organic search results increases performance. Adobe Systems has been working on features such as tying together organic and paid-search results to support marketers. "Sixty-two percent of customers don't know the difference between paid and organic search listings," said Tim Waddell, director of product marketing at Adobe. In March, Adobe released a new version of SearchCenter+ integrating search engine optimization data into paid-search marketing. The platform, supported by Omniture, and search firm Conductor, relies on Adobe Genesis to automate the ability to share data between the two companies. Adobe acquired SearchCenter+ through the acquisition of Omniture, which has offered a version of the tools for about seven years. In 2005, Omniture integrated SearchCenter with its analytics tools. That version introduced rules to guide bidding, the ability to manage millions of keywords, and alerts and reports on suspicious click activities.
When you think about the places that are hotbeds of innovation for publishing best practices, Bangor, Maine may not immediately spring to mind. Still, The Bangor Daily News provides a wonderful case study in the use of technology to make the act of publishing more efficient, effective and engaging. But why should marketers care about how a small town paper is innovating in the online publishing sphere? Marketers are developing content marketing strategies because the nature of the Web and how people use it is changing -- fast. People don't want to move from one static Web page to the next, propelled along by links and search engine results, to essentially consume brochureware and click on CTAs. Instead, people are looking to make connections with other people. When thinking about buying something, they want to look the proverbial shopkeeper in the eye before opening their wallets. Leveraging Technology The challenge for marketers, then, is how it is they move beyond the static and figure out efficient ways to engage with their customers that is authentic, but also scalable and efficient. As always, technology can help. So what can we learn from The Bangor Daily News? Writing in MediaBistro's 10,000 Words blog, Lauren Rabaino talked about how the paper moved from two expensive content management systems -- one for its print operation and another for its Web-based operation -- to a single, open-sourced and cloud-based system using WordPress, Google Docs and InDesign. Here's the new workflow: 1. Reporters and editors compose all stories in Google Docs. Using labels and native commenting, the stories get sent through the editing process. 2. When a story is ready to publish, it gets sent from Google Docs to WordPress with one click. 3. In WordPress, editors can publish the story to the Web, then set up a print headline and print subhead. 4. The story then appears in inDesign, where print designers can lay out the print newspaper. Three simple technologies to power an entire publishing enterprise. While I get that marketers don't worry too often about integrating a Web and print publishing operation, there are lessons here. Workflow Matters Marketers must learn what publishers have long known: efficient workflow is key. Most marketing organizations already get the importance of keywords and the need to integrate these into a range of marketing outputs to ensure good SEO. And as I've already written about in this series, content efficiency is key, especially as it relates to integrating content and social strategies. But as internal teams increasingly take on the task of content production and distribution, finding the best systems for enabling these activities is just as important. I hear too often from marketing folk that IT is a barrier. This shouldn't have to be the case. With so many terrific SaaS / cloud-based applications out there, content marketing is easier than ever before and shouldn't have to rely on any IT resources. So, where to begin? I recommend you hit the pause button, and: 1. Look at what you're producing across all aspects of your marketing efforts; 2. How that stuff is being produced and by whom; 3. The channels through which it is being distributed; and 4. The ways in which you might leverage technologies to accomplish all this effort more efficiently. The folks in Bangor discovered a way to knit together the majority of their publishing workflow using just three technologies that have learned to play well together. You can find similar workflow solutions through technology. It will take some time and consideration. But it all starts with understanding your current workflow and how you can make those more efficient and effective while still achieving your content marketing objectives. As the charts in this blog post on the Wall Street Journaldemonstrate, there are a fantastic array of technologies and services available to marketers of all stripes. Embrace the right technologies and you'll better enable the kind of marketing activities that will keep pace with the fast-changing ways of the Web. Share your ideas in the comments below. Next week in the content marketing series: developing effective distribution strategies for content marketing.
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "Calibri"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } "We know our digital advertising works," a client recently said, "because when we stop running it, our site traffic and revenue drop." His company spends over $100 million each year on digital advertising; they are sophisticated marketers who want to use data to improve results. If you ask him what the stacks of reports on site traffic, ad impressions, etc. he gets actually tell him, he'll tell you, "not much." Why? Because he and most digital marketers are accountable for getting results, they want specific, actionable information -- what to run with and what to change -- about creative, site and page placements, position, size, frequency, and other factors they can control. Measuring web sites and online marketing campaigns has kept marketers, agencies, and others busy for years. Web analytics report visits, page views, visits and other counts of site activity. Ad server analytics report impressions served, clickthroughs and other silo-specific measures. Once upon a time, each delivered the "hot metric." But, as soon as we begin to understand what each "hot metric" tells us, we begin to understand where it falls short, and we begin again to search for the "Golden Metric" that we can confidently use. The latest Golden Metric candidate is attribution. Attribution recognizes that people are touched by advertising and content in many ways as they move from first impression to action. It brings together ad serving, site and other data to identify sequences that represent the full multi-channel path-to-action and enables you to assign credit to the ads, search words, content and other factors that influence people to take action. Because it can help you understand what contributes to online success, attribution is gaining acceptance even as it evolves. Attribution's promise is that it is moving us closer to the Golden Metric that will tell us which actions will improve performance. Its focus on paths, enables you to see which sequences result in the most conversions, assign economic value to sequences, discover where viewers derail, determine how to shorten the path, and more. And, perhaps most importantly, it enables you to know how to shift marketing resources to generate more of the most effective ones. Today some attribution providers offer "U" attribution, which gives weight to first, last, and intermediate views and clicks along the path. "U" attribution is a significant step forward, but it isn't the final stage in attribution's evolution, especially when the weights are assigned "intuitively" rather than from patterns in the data. If we knew before we started what the "right" weights were, then there'd be no reason to do any analytic work. But, marketing analytics repeatedly reveal that our intuition for which campaigns, creative, placements, etc. will work best is often wrong when we see the data. The rigor of determining the model weights from the data gives us more confidence in our ability to act on the results. The best modeling approaches use campaign goals as input to model, recognizing that information gathering and buying processes differ for different products, services and ideas. Our tactics and measures of success vary based on whether we looking to increase awareness or targeting highly qualified prospects, so our model should vary as well. And, they provide analysis of all the factors we can act on-breaking results down by placements, page position, creative, size, etc. It's not enough to know that our digital ads help drive business. We want to know exactly what to do to improve results. Getting reports by the ton doesn't help. Moving beyond simplistic measures that don't accurately reflect complex interactions online is hard work. Doing it right is far tougher than most consultants and analytics vendors are willing to admit. It's only when we recognize the failings of our current approaches that we are willing to do that. But, if we want a Golden Metric, we must demand data-driven, actionable information, not just the next convenient measure.
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@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"; }p.ListParagraph, li.ListParagraph, div.ListParagraph { margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; line-height: 115%; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0in; }ul { margin-bottom: 0in;It seems as if all the talk in search these days centers on social signals. The way that people find and share content online has been forever changed by social media websites and web pages with embedded social sharing capabilities. Now those most popular social sites are directly impacting organic search engine results with social share data annotations. But with all this recent industry focus on social sharing and the impact it may or may not be having on real-time engine rankings, Google's announcement that it is now supporting the rel=author HTML markup attribute has been somewhat diminished. Since welcoming the summer of search in my last column, I've spent a good amount of time thinking about rel=author's potential impact. In short, where I've netted on this is that I believe rel=author could evolve into the single most important social signal available to the engines. What is rel=author and how does it work? In my last column, I briefly introduced the rel=author attribute: "This attribute allows authors to claim pieces of content as their own, so that Google can begin to identify and accrue additional social signals. This support is initially limited to a single domain, but will eventually allow guest bloggers/columnists to claim their work across multiple domains." Essentially if I were to write columns across a dozen blogs, I could claim those pieces as my own by placing the rel=author attribute within the HTML code. Once Google offers multiple domain support, those guest columns would all send relevancy signals to Google based on my stature and relevancy to a particular topic. What this will result in is a "personal PageRank" score, or as Google's Matt Cutts referred to it, "AuthorRank." Why is this important today? There has been a bit of chatter following this announcement that this is yet another element in Google's algorithm that can be manipulated for higher SEO performance. While I don't want to discount those views, let's set them aside for purposes of this conversation and focus instead on the upside potential of rel=author. This is big news today for three key reasons: 1) Authority is no longer determined exclusively at the domain and page levels - with AuthorRank in place, authoritative content is portable. It follows leading voices around online and enables credible information to bubble up to the top of the SERPs, regardless of the top-level-domain hosting the content. There is an additional, "sister" attribute to rel=author called rel=me which helps to confirm the authenticity of the content-domain match. This will help to mitigate the problem posed by content scraping websites. The net result will be that original, authentic content receives its proper credit, while copycats are likely to be penalized.2) It helps even the playing field for smaller, lesser-known sites - Smaller, niche websites may be the big winners here. Securing content contributions from authoritative voices within select categories, these lesser-known sites will have put forth compelling linkbait content that will help secure stronger backlink profiles. 3) Hiring guest bloggers and contributors becomes a more impactful SEO strategy - Want your website and content to appear more prominently across the SERPs? Hire a leading online voice to write a few blog posts. What is likely to happen is that AuthorRank will be convertible into PageRank, which can then be carefully transferred to the domain as a whole.Where this might be headed I previously mused that the longer-term implications of rel=author may be that organizations have to groom the online voices of their most talented employees. Any company that is serious about spreading its message and thought leadership may have to embrace the idea that online relevancy is now the domain of the individuals that comprise the organization, and not the organization itself. Think for a moment how incredible that might be. Companies will need to craft roadmaps for social media and content distribution that not only rely on the strength of the brand but also the individuals representing the brand. A huge component of a company's online stature may become the aggregate authority of the individual voices behind the company. And remember, relevancy is portable. Circle the wagons on the talent now, because poaching competitors' employees based on AuthorRank could become a popular tactic. With rel=author, content alone has ceased to be king.
In the 25 years I've lived here, I've never had to say this -- indeed, I never believed I would ever say this -- but last Wednesday, I was ashamed to say I live in British Columbia. I wasn't the only one. I'm guessing the vast majority of the other 4.5 million people that call this Canadian province home felt the same way. In fact, the only people not feeling that way were the idiotic jerks that caused our collective shame. They were the ones using the Canuck's loss to Boston in the Stanley Cup final as an excuse to wreak havoc on downtown Vancouver. "You can't cure stupid." We went into the night holding our collective breathe, hoping the sad scenario of the 1994 riot, after a similar Game 7 loss to the New York Rangers, would not repeat itself. The Olympics had given us hope that we could be placed on a world stage without burning it to the ground. But, as one police spokesperson said, "You can't cure stupid!" Sadly, it proved to be true. B.C. is a breathtakingly beautiful corner of the world, but we definitely have our quota of stupid people, and last Wednesday, they all came onto the streets of Vancouver. You've probably seen news footage of the riot and, if you were disgusted, I get it. I was too. But there's another part of the story that also has to be told. To be honest, I'm not sure if it's a happy ending or an even sadder one. I'd like to hear what you think, but bear with me for another minute or so. Throw the Face"Book" at them Even though it appeared that we had learned nothing in the 17 years since the last riot, there was one significant difference between 1994 and last week's debacle. This year, it went viral. Much of the mayhem was captured by photo or video. Soon, it was posted online. And that's when something surprising happened. For most of our history as social animals, there is not much we can do when some of our herd runs amok. There are reams of research on the psychology of mobs, but one of the common themes is a feeling of invincibility that comes from being part of a faceless, mindless crowd bent on destruction. Most times, there is no response or retribution for individual perpetrators of mob violence. They get off scot free. But not this time. The mob that trashed Vancouver may have been mindless, but they certainly weren't faceless. The next morning, a Facebook page was started by the Vancouver police. They asked anyone with photos or videos of criminals to post them for identification. Within a few hours, the page had captured over 50,000 "likes." Within a few days, the police had over a million pictures and 1000 hours of video uploaded. As people were recognized, they were tagged so police could follow up with charges. The Insurance Corporation of BC offered police use of their facial detection software and crooner Michael Buble, who also hails from Vancouver, even launched a newspaper campaign asking for people to turn the guilty in through social media. Social Justice or Virtual Vigilantes? On hearing that, I felt that finally, justice was being served. We, the often-voiceless majority of law-abiding citizens, could do our part to right the wrongs. But, were we really interested in justice, or did we just want revenge? Is there any difference between the two? One blogger, Dave.ca, said "report the rioters out of civic duty..or revenge..either is fine." Is it? If we are holding onto moral high ground, should we rally and become a virtual "lynch" mob? It's brand-new territory to chart, and I'm personally unsure about which is the right path to take. Let me give you one example. One of the rioters is a provincial water polo athlete and he was soon identified online. His name was made public. His father is a doctor. Since his son's crime was made public, the father has had to suspend his practice and the family has had to move out of their home. Other exposed rioters have been subjected to violent threats and the comment strings are riddled with utterings that are in contention with the riot itself for sheer stupidity. When I started this column, I was convinced it was going to be a bad news, good news story, where social media would play the role of the redeemer. As I did further research on the aftermath, it seems that it's a bad news, good news, possibly worse news story. Much as I'd like to think differently, I'm not sure mob rule, whether it's pursuing mindless violence, or mindless revenge, can ever be a good thing. Social media has a way of exposing all that is human, at scale, and at velocity -- warts and all. How do we handle this new accountability, this new immediate transparency into the dark things we've always kept tucked away?