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Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
General Motors, one of the biggest advertisers in the world, says it is no longer going to pay for advertising on Facebook – as the popular social network readies its initial public offering on the stock market.
Facebook is a free service with some 800million users worldwide: it makes its money from data-related, targeted advertising. The IPO valuation puts the company somewhere around the $100bn mark – based on potential revenue streams such as paid ads.
The timing of GM decision could prove to be the first dent in Facebook’s IPO plans.
According to Reuters, the company is yet to confirm the reason behind its decision. GM was thought to spend around $40m a year on Facebook – with around $10m of that paying for advertising.
GM has been one of the biggest proponents of social media ads – even using an entirely digital strategy to launch the Chevrolet Sonic last October.
The move to withdraw from Facebook’s advertising appears to be down to a lack of return on investment.
GM is quoted by Reuters as saying it will continue to maintain its free Facebook brand and car pages, as these continue to be “a very effective tool for engaging with our customers.”
GM said: “It’s not unusual for us to move our spending around various media outlets. In terms of Facebook specifically, while we currently do not plan to continue with advertising, we remain committed to an aggressive content strategy through all of our products and brands.”
Conversely, Ford Motor Co – another leading company in the world of Internet marketing, and an early embracer of social media – says it plans to boost its spending on Facebook, including paying for more adverts.
Around 20% of their marketing budget goes on social media marketing initiatives – including a huge push for the Fiesta, a car absent from the US market for almost 30 years. As a result of that campaign, costing $5m, Ford claims 60% of Americans were aware of the brand – something which may have cost $100m to achieve with traditional ads and marketing.
Whether GM’s decision does eventually impact on Facebook’s IPO, raises questions about the longevity of its financial strategy, or causes a cascade of advertising pull-outs from big brands remains to be seen.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Tags: advertising, budget, cars, facebook, Ford, GM Motors, internet marketing, IPO, online, Paid Ads, Social network, US
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Monday, May 14th, 2012
Paid search advertising can be a bit of a minefield – tactics which work on one PPC campaign aren’t always transferrable to another.
Managing profitable pay per click services involves a lot of foresight, analysis, and just a touch of guess-work. This experimentalism is absolutely imperative to ensure your paid ads are displaying to the right people at the right times, and getting the right results. Without experimenting, most PPC strategies will fail. Or, at least, fail to meet their potential.
Google’s always been acutely aware that the more tools it can give to search marketers, the more people are likely to spend on search marketing.
If you can analyse properly – to see where money is best spent and best avoided – you can afford to invest more in paid ads as you know you’re more likely to get the conversions you want.
As such, Google’s AdWords tool has, for some time, given search advertisers ways to project and forecast how a PPC ad may work at both the keyword and ad group level. Now Google’s improved its projection tools, allowing advertisers to forecast simulations at campaign level, too.
The change is designed to give advertisers a way to create reports on potential future campaigns even without the requisite level of data to do so at keyword or ad group level.
The tool allows advertisers to swap variables to check effects – such as lowering all bids by a certain percentage.
The system feeds back on how an advertiser can then use the data on a real campaign – with projections on potential necessary campaign budget and a downloadable summary. An AdWords Editor file is also available showing simulated bid amounts and applicable groups.
The changes have already gone live – check the Opportunities section of AdWords.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: ad group, advertising, adwords, campaign, display, Google, Keywords, Paid Ads, Pay Per Click (PPC), PPC, projection, search marketing, SEM, SEO, simulation, tools
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
Around £4.48bn was spent on online advertising in the UK in 2011: representing the biggest year-on-year rise in half a decade.
Spend grew by 14.4% over the last 12 months – with paid search, or PPC services, accounting for around 58% of the total.
PPC advertising rose 17.5% year-on-year, whilst spending on video-based advertising doubled, to £109m.
Video now represents 10% of all display ads – with Yahoo! and YouTube focussing on watchable ad content.
Display advertising itself has evolved massively in recent years – it became a £1bn industry in the UK for the first time in 2011.
Until relatively recently, most display ads took the form of banners and remarketed ads, placed on web pages either through Google’s ad distribution network, or directly hosted on relevant sites.
The rise of social media has caused a massive upthrust in spend, however – with the outlay on social display advertising rising 75% to £240m in the UK in 2011.
New figures from Pricewaterhouse Coopers, in the Internet Advertising Bureau’s expenditure report, show display ads made up 24% of all online advertising spending in 2011, up from 23% in 2010. The stats show the amount spent on UK display ads hit £1.13bn by the end of 2011 – the first time more than £1bn has been spent in a year.
The main social players – Twitter, Facebook and YouTube – all host display ads, with various formats giving Internet marketers a suite of advertising options.
The IAB said new display options – such as billboard ads – offered greater visibility for potential customers. Evolving advertising technology, with new ways to attract customers, should ensure this remains a growth area into 2013.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: advertising, Display Ads, Google Display Network, internet advertising, online marketing, paid search
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
Offline marketing still has its place, although many agencies seem to forget its existence and focus almost entirely on the online space. Many companies also continue to keep separate teams for online and offline marketing, and this can lead to unco-ordinated marketing campaigns and strategies.
Understanding the value of offline marketing is essential and tying this tightly to an online campaign can lead to additional benefits in audience reach and participation, conversions, and effectiveness. For instance, it is an old marketing adage that a prospect will require up to seven exposures to marketing material to act on the message. So, blanket campaigns have always been popular to reach the prospective audience as many places as possible. However, in the offline world, this type of campaign was only available to the richest and largest companies who could splash out on TV ads, magazine advertorials, billboards, newspaper full page ads etc.
The arrival of the Internet levelled that playing field and many small businesses have realised the potential of online marketing. But often at the expense of any offline marketing. For those who are online, and even for many who do not use the Internet, well, we have all heard of Google, haven’t we? But, Google is still ramping up the amount it spends on offline advertising, year on year, focussing particularly on TV, but also advertising on other mediums too. For instance, in 2010 Google spent $56million compared to $213million last year. Of that, a remarkable $70m went on TV ads.
It is interesting to ponder why Google needs to do this. Not only is it about gathering in those people who do not encounter Google on the Net by targeting them ‘wherever they are’, but the range of products Google now has is so extensive that even the most devoted Google fan has a hard time keeping up. (Google Play has arrived in the black toolbar recently, but many of the Google innovations are “hidden” in Product Labs within the relevant app eg Gmail).
Google is not a master at offline advertising, and some campaigns have garnered flak before now, but Google (the King of online advertising) has had to learn in order to reach the widest possible audience, just as we all do. By understanding exactly who the audience are, the triggers for action (be that a sale, a discount coupon, a freephone number, or a competition), and where the audience hangs out, offline marketing can help as part of a co-ordinated campaign.
We have seen how print and TV advertising has taken a hit because of the variety of options available to advertise online, but it is not wise to cut back entirely on local and regional advertising, print ads, newspaper and magazine press releases, or even a few simple guerrilla tactics to attract attention to your business.
What offline advertising tactics do you still deploy and how do you combine them with your online strategies?
Tags: advertising, Google, media, newspapers, offline, Press Releases, print
Posted in Blog, Google
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Wednesday, March 14th, 2012
Procter and Gamble (P&G), the world’s largest consumer packaged goods company, has been discussing Internet marketing initiatives to help cut advertising costs and reach a larger audience.
P&G sells household products from razors to shampoo in 180 countries, represents some huge brands – Fairy, Pantene, Pampers, Braun, Duracell, Olay and Ariel amongst them.
As such, P&G is also responsible for the world’s biggest advertising budget: and now new head of marketing Marc Pritchard is looking to shave $1bn from that annual cost by 2016.
Against a backdrop of company-wide savings totalling around $10bn, such steep changes to marketing – at such a massive firm – are bound to resonate globally too.
Mr Pritchard told the Wall Street Journal that, along with traditional cost-cutting measures such as job reorganisation, spending efficiency changes and reining in pricey TV ads, P&G were now looking at lower-cost digital marketing measures.
The 51-year-old, who has been chief of global marketing at P&G since 2008, said: “I took a small group of people when I first got here to learn everything we can about digital, and get that through the company.”
One of the cost-cutting measures will see combined brand activity around global events: the 2012 Olympics provides the perfect platform to test this.
“You’ll see some very heavy-duty activity for our Olympics program,” Mr Pritchard said. “It’ll be Twitter, Google, YouTube, Yahoo! Those are going to be some pretty essential parts of the whole program.
“We have more than 30 brands doing Olympic activities, 150 athletes, all those brands have Facebook pages, all those athletes have Facebook pages. Then we go out, create an event, talk about it, push it out, through broadcast and digital. Then we have community managers who are amplifying the discussion, engaging on Facebook, on YouTube, things like Twitter. That’s the way it’ll work.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Tags: 2012, advertising, ariel, costs, digital, duracell, facebook, fairy, internet marketing, marketing, olay, Olympics, P&G, pampers, twitter
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Monday, March 12th, 2012
The Advertising Standards Agency has ruled that a guerrilla social media marketing campaign on Twitter, by confectionary manufacturer Mars, did not breach advertising guidelines.
The ASA received complaints from Twitter users after several high-profile celebrities advertised Snickers bars on their feeds.
Mars said it had paid several celebrities to post a string of four “odd” Tweets that seemed out of character with their personality.
The celebs then posted a fifth Tweet stating “You’re not you when you’re hungry” – together with a photo of them clutching a Snickers, and the hashtag #spon (which highlights sponsored, or paid-for Tweets).
The ASA complaints referred specifically to posts by Manchester United footballer Rio Ferdinand, and Page 3 glamour girl Jordan (real name Katie Price). Twitter users did not complain about similar advertising Tweets posted by Ian Botham and Cher Lloyd.
Rio’s followers began to get suspicious when the bolshy defender – known as being a bit of a ‘lad’ – started talking about knitting. Jordan’s followers were equally stumped when the surgically-enhanced celeb began debating the intricacies of the Eurozone debt crisis.
The ASA investigated the social media marketing campaign to establish whether people reading the celeb’s Twitter feeds could have been mislead into thinking the Tweets were “genuine”.
The Agency said the four “teaser” Tweets were okay as they did not mention Mars or Snickers – and that the fifth Tweet, containing the “reveal”, was clearly an advert as it carried the #spon hashtag.
The watchdog didn’t agree with Mars’s assertion that only the fifth Tweet truly constituted advertising or marketing: saying the string of Tweets were an “orchestrated advertising campaign”. However, it recognised that the Tweets had come in quick succession, and that users were not mislead.
“We considered the combination of those elements was sufficient to make clear the Tweets were advertising,a nd that consumers would then understand each series of Tweets was a marketing communication,” the ASA said.
Industry experts say the ruling hasn’t shed any light on the use of celebrities on Twitter for marketing purposes – they want better guidance from the ASA to explain what is acceptable and what isn’t in social media marketing.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Tags: #spon, advertising, ASA, Jordan, Mars, Rio Ferdinand, Snickers, tweets, twitter
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
The long-awaited migration of Yahoo! search marketing accounts into Microsoft’s adCenter is set to begin today, as part of the search alliance originally formed by the two in 2010, according to an article published by New Media Age.
Search traffic for Yahoo! will also be powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine as a result of the migration – which has already launched in America, Canada and India.
Scheduled for completion at the end of April, the migration will allow search engine marketing professionals to purchase ads for both Yahoo! and Bing via adCenter.
Microsoft’s UK marketing manager, Cedric Chambaz, commented on the launch of the alliance.
He said: “Starting around 19 March, we expect to progressively start serving adCenter ads to Yahoo! searchers. The entire Yahoo! paid search volume is expected to be transitioned to adCenter within approximately two weeks from that date.”
More about the transition can be found on the Microsoft adCenter blog.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Tags: adCenter, advertising, Bing, Microsoft, Search Alliance, search engine, Search Engine Marketing, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine News
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Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
Facebook is planning to give away around £4.2M of advertising to help SMEs, according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, through the AdBoost programme. This campaign will offer £80 of Facebook ads to companies across Europe, hopefully encouraging more small businesses to use Facebook effectively for internet and social media marketing.
The new Facebook programme is being launched with the British Chamber of Commerce and businesses will be helped with the creation of Facebook pages, engaging with users, and using the ever-growing selection of Facebook tools for advertising on the network.
Small businesses can struggle to commit fully to social media marketing, often not grasping the importance of it for their business growth and reach, or finding it difficult to define a clear strategy for doing so. Small businesses also suffer from a lack of human resources and social media is, by its very nature, time consuming. However, this is where an agency can help, by offering additional resources, expertise and value for money marketing.
A simple Facebook page and associated advertising across the Facebook social network can help SMEs in many ways. For example, by allowing loyal customers to share their recommendations to others, including to their friends through posts on both their walls and the business page. For businesses who struggle to keep a blog updated, it can provide an easy, short form method for keeping customers in touch with new products, offers, sales, or events. However, it should be remembered that not all of the target audience of any business will use Facebook and so a more comprehensive internet marketing strategy will be required to attain maximum potential.
It is to be hoped that the free ad credits will not go to waste and that the 50,000 SMEs Facebook is intending to help across UK, Spain, Italy, France and Germany will benefit from the exposure. Start creating your ad today!
Tags: ad boost, ads, advertising, facebook, small business, sme, Social Media
Posted in Blog, Small Business Resources, Social Media
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Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
New research has suggested that Facebook is offering marketers a significantly reduced rate on PPC advertising campaigns, providing that the ads don’t direct traffic away from the social networking site, according to an article published by New Media Age.
The report, released by TBG Digital, stated that advertisers could receive a discount of up to 45 per cent on PPC marketing campaigns; this strategy has proven to be successful, with ad revenue increasing by 23 per cent – when compared to figures released at the start of 2011.
The Q4 Global Facebook Advertising report also displayed that the top five industries to utilise the ads were finance, retail, games, entertainment and food and drink.
CEO of TBG Digital, Simon Mansell, commented on the results.
He said: “The potential cost savings available by maintaining traffic within the Facebook environment is particularly compelling and demonstrates its effectiveness as an advertising channel and also as a ‘destination,’ with more and more clients investing heavily into their Facebook presence.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: advertising, facebook, PPC marketing, Simon Mansell, TBG Digital
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Thursday, January 12th, 2012
Diet Coke is set to launch a new Facebook application to coincide with the upcoming Love It Light advertising campaign, according to an article published by New Media Age.
Entitled ‘Get Glam’, the app is aimed at women and will provide fashion and beauty tips, as well as video chat tools and has been described as the “perfect accompaniment for getting ready with the girls.”
As well as this social media marketing initiative, the Love It Light campaign will be run across various media platforms, including TV and VOD (video on demand).
The campaign has been designed to be part of a three-year strategy to link Diet Coke’s advertising and marketing initiatives with fashion.
Commenting on the Love It Light campaign, market activation director for Coca-Cola Great Britain, Zoe Howorth, said: “The Love it Light campaign returns for the fourth time in 2012 featuring the distinctive Diet Coke puppets.
“The campaign demonstrates the brand’s light-hearted attitude and appeals to young fun-loving women,” she added.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Tags: advertising, application, Diet Coke, facebook, Love it Light, marketing
Posted in Social Media Marketing
