It’s January, and all the industry pundits are buzzing with their biggest and boldest predictions of what’s in store for the year. But let’s talk about what we’re not going to see in 2012: the return of user search query data from individuals signed into Google accounts.

Back in the fall, Google made a landmark announcement: in an effort to provide greater security to users of Google products, they would by default encrypt search queries entered by any individual who is signed into their Google account. All of a sudden, things got a little blurrier for digital marketers.

The search marketers’ neighborhood of the blogosphere immediately went ablaze, with the SEO community in particular crying foul over the deprivation of a significant amount of critical user data.

Research by Conductor indicated that about 9 percent of search queries were affected by the changes. Google spokespeople said single-digits were to be expected, but then HubSpot put the figure at 11 percent. Some people reported 20 percent or even higher. [For a comprehensive overview, see Jonathan Allen’s summary, “SEOs Strike Out as Google Encrypts Signed-in Search Data.”]

There are numerous implications to this announcement (and the industry repercussions that tend to follow big announcements from Mountain View), but this article isn’t intended to lament or speculate on the changes. Rather, the industry needs to think more about how to embrace the changes and move forward.

Marketers need to think more concretely about search queries as user-generated content (as we argued back in May 2010, “Estimating Word-of-Mouth Activity from Search Query Data”). As search engines and social media environments begin to look more alike, the lines will blur between these data inputs as well.

We know that Google’s strategy has been to always put users first, and this move toward encryption of search query data should be considered a long-term investment in the loyalty of Google’s user base (or, as Allen says, “an attempt by Google to barter web data in order to leverage security as a quality control factor”).

Consumers today are a savvy lot; in a short time they’ve learned how to meet most of their critical needs: hunting down obscure information, filtering content according to preference, engaging in deep exchanges of value. Privacy is not just a buzzword in Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley or Capitol Hill; it’s also one more basic human desire that consumers are smart enough to protect (or trade, for the right offer).

While it remains to be seen whether this secure data will make a comeback (perhaps in Google Webmaster Central or in the enterprise edition of Google Analytics), in the short run the brands that are able to wean themselves off this data will be the ones best positioned to forge ahead. The proactive solution is to build a comprehensive profile of the “Secured User”, to gain a better understanding of the faces who will be absent from the crowd:

Based on this sample data set, we can make a confident statement about our Secured Users on this particular website. Compared to their Unsecured counterparts, they are:

• More familiar with the website (and possibly the brand itself).
• More likely to reside in North America.
• More likely to land on a deep URL after a search query (instead of the home page).

This type of comparative insight paves the way for other executions that can help close the gap, for example:

• Reach more Secured Users in another Google environment, such as Google Plus, and then use social media monitoring tools to collect data on their interactions. It might not be search query data, but word-of-mouth data is still essential for meeting a wide range of objectives.
• Ramp up your efforts to attract more visits from Mobile devices – because for now the encryption doesn’t yet apply on phones and tablets. Create dedicated mobile-specific campaigns in AdWords, and offer mobile-optimized content for a good user experience and SEO profile, to help to make this happen.
• Adapt your destination URL strategy in AdWords paid search and/or Google Display Network. You might test for different URLs tied to branded terms. Or maybe there is a specific deep URL that skews high with Secured Users; building a retargeting campaign specifically around visits to this one URL is one way to wrestle back some influence with this crowd.
• Connect your Google Webmaster Central and Google Analytics accounts. It’s not as pretty as what we’d gotten used to, but you can still use Google Analytics to browse top daily search queries and landing pages, with the standard array of performance metrics: impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), and average position.

Through all of these growing pains, remember one important thing: there’s virtually nothing about Google’s change that will impact the demand for your products and services. Users will continue to use search engines as a primary component of their online experience.

Google will continue to be the search engine of choice in the U.S. And it’s unlikely we’ll even see a change in the share of visits sourced from organic search, compared to paid search.

Let’s just take this change for what it is: a gift from Google to its users. Users will repay Google with their loyalty, which ensures their long-term status as the stable audience the digital marketers need to keep brands happy, growing… and secure in their future.

Being able to address the complete digital media technology stack will soon be the key differentiator for advertisers when thinking about which agencies to partner with over the next few years. While Real Time Bidding (RTB) has enabled more targeted and cost efficient methods of media buying through Demand Side Platforms (DSP’s) it is also important to understand the role of DSP’s in the wider context of the digital media technology stack. This post examines the different elements of the technology stack and the roles they fulfil.
 
DSP’s 

The main function of a DSP is enable automated impression level bidding and impression level evaluation across a multiple sources of inventory i.e. ad exchanges & SSP’s.  The key shift in media buying through DSP’s and enabled by RTB is the targeting and buying of audiences and a shift away from buying site specific placements. DSP’s enable the advertiser to determine the definition and targeting of a specific audience rather than relying on the ‘blackbox’ targeting of many adnetworks.

Fortunately, most Search Engine Watch readers know at least the basics of using a search engine, and we’re not 7-year-olds drooling over the hottest toy of the 2011 holiday season. (Although, with just the right holiday cheer, we too can go into orbit like the kid who got the Nintendo 64.)

But the truth is, with the way search engines are evolving toward personalization and predictive modeling, it might not be long before any one of the aforementioned keywords might suffice in delivering relevant search results to users.

There’s a curious trend going on behind the scenes, one that hasn’t received a whole lot of publicity: the growing prominence of one-word search queries. We’re seeing one-word search queries’ share of total search activity growing fast: from 20.3 percent of all search engine queries  in January 2009 to 27.2 percent in October 2011, according to Hitwise.

That’s more than a one-third increase in percentage terms – in less than three years. Are things changing so fast in our digital ecosystem, that our impatience can be measured in such dramatic terms?

Maybe not. Let’s see if we can break down this trend and isolate the behavior for what it really is.

Growth of Mobile Search?

The first explanation that comes to mind might be that the meteoric rise of mobile search. With almost a quarter of mobile searchers inputting queries almost every day, and with the short form that lends itself to the mobile format, you might have a real insight on your hands. Alas, that Hitwise data excluded mobile devices.

Belated Effects of Google Instant?

There’s no doubt that the launch of Google Instant in early September 2010 touched off a sea change in search behavior, as hordes of search engine users gleefully rescued nanoseconds back into their calendars – and the occasional multi-word search query got truncated by the pre-emptive delivery of some useful search results.

Various people tried to quantify this effect. ComScore’s Eli Goodman probably came the closest, and in his verdict, only 3 percent of search queries saw a reduction in word count. Maybe that’s why Hitwise data showed a decline in the incidence of one-word search queries in September 2010, to 22.7 percent.

So we’re barking up the wrong tree there, too.

More URLs as Keywords?

When faced with the home screen of Google.com, a lot of users still are compelled to enter a URL as a keyword input – and those are generally counted as one-word keywords. With browsers emulating Google Chrome’s singular input field for both URLs and search queries, maybe this is in fact changing the face of search behavior.

But knowing what you know about the sophisticated online consumer, are you going to settle for that explanation?

Improvements in Geographic Targeting Search Engine Users?

Search engines have become a lot smarter about understanding the similarity between a search query for “leappad brooklyn,” and “leappad” queried from a computer or mobile device located in the Brooklyn area. If users have started to catch on that simply typing “leappad” delivers them a litter of Nearby Stores links among the search results, then yes, that could help to explain the downward pressure on query length.

Something Happening Further Down the Conversion Funnel?

We can deconstruct these trends until we’re blue in the face, but in all likelihood the behavioral insight here has less to do with the search engine, and more with the resulting action. About a year ago, we wrote about the relationship between search query length and predictive keyword research, and cited research that illustrated a correlation between the number of words in a search query, and its resulting conversion potential.

Yet one would assume that data analysts and economists at Google, Bing, and the like would have spotted this trend and started clamoring for a re-engineering of the search algorithm toward this behavioral sea change.

If long search queries are the highest converters, and search engines are seeing more one-word search queries than ever… are we at the nexus of the universe?

Or if you’ve got a simpler explanation, let’s hear it!

There’s so much good writing out there covering issues from both the brands’ and consumers’ perspectives, but what about the agencies? For independent consultants or ambitious entrepreneurs looking to build a viable business around search marketing services, there are relatively few resources out there to provide guidance.

With that, I’d like to provide a rudimentary step-by-step guide to building a search marketing business. By maximizing efficiencies and minimizing human error, this process can help you focus your time on delivering quality work – and investing the time to come up with truly innovative solutions.

1. Know the Campaign Brief, Inside and Out

There’s a reason we spend a lot of time up front writing and rewriting the brief before getting it approved; it’s the sacred text by which all is judged. In PPC, you’re constantly venturing into tiny minutia. After all, that’s why they hired you – to muck around in places where they don’t want to get their hands dirty.

But if you constantly have to schedule a conference call to hammer out these little issues, you’ll find out what it really means to work ’til you drop. And you might find that your clients aren’t as happy to hear your voice anymore.

So get it all on paper, and get the nod before doing anything else.

2. Define Critical Inputs Chronologically

The goals you set with your client – and the work it takes to get you there – should all be time-bound. For example:

• Drive cost-per-acquisition (CPA) down to $2.50 by February.
• Generate 500 qualified leads within three months.
• Send 75,000 unique visitors to the microsite over four weeks.

Furthermore, you can set your own internal benchmarks to help you fight small fires, before they become big ones.

Optimization methodologies should also be organized chronologically. For instance, adding new keywords might happen every two days, whereas negative keywords might not warrant attention more than once a week. If you don’t want to get that granular, you could simply bundle the optimizations into two categories:

• Short-Term: Check up on these every time you log into the account.
• Long-Term: You pick a few of these to address at intervals.

For an exhaustive list of all the things you could be doing to look after your PPC campaigns, here are two outstanding resources on building a paid search program from scratch and if you’re taking over an existing PPC account.

3. Use the Tools!

Some of these are obvious. Use AdWords Editor as opposed to working within the web-based AdWords. There are a tools built right into AdWords Editor as well (my favorite is the Keyword Grouper). Google offers standalone resources which are invaluable to anyone managing PPC – Google Insights, URL Builder, and AdWords Keyword Tool. (Too bad they got rid of Google Sets.)

There are also some very good third-party tools worth a look; to avoid digression into that abyss, just read SEW’s intro to bid management tools.

4. Build Some Tools of Your Own

Here’s where the essential processes of search marketing become interwoven with your own business.

An example: we wanted to build a daily pacing model which could tell us how current media spend compares to approved media budgets for the month, and for the duration of the campaign. We also found reconciling media invoices across all our PPC clients to be a tedious affair. With a flick of the wrist, we built an Excel-based resource that uses the same daily input to accomplish both tasks, saving us a ton of time.

Other optimization and management work that can be facilitated with custom tools:

• Building long keyword lists from a small seed list
• Bucketing keywords into campaigns & ad groups
• Mapping keywords across all match types

Actually, these three can all be done within one tool: Crosby Grant’s Permutator. And if you’re feeling especially ambitious, you might find yourself building assets of unprecedented value – such as Nate Walton’s Branded Search Volume Estimator.

5. Centralize All Account Management & Optimizations

You’ll be doing yourself a huge favor if you can consolidate all your materials in one place. Think of all the assets that accumulate while managing a paid search program:

• Contracts & campaign briefs
• To-do lists & project milestones
• Communications, internal & external
• Written approvals of day-to-day actions
• Performance reports, regular & ad hoc
• All the scrap work that leads to those reports
• Insights pulled from external data sources
• Collaborative idea logs for PPC optimization/expansion opportunities

Just to name a few. Web-based project management software, with its minimal cost and shallow learning curve, would be a great investment toward centralizing all these assets. By making them easily retrievable, pairing them with calendar or email notifications, and allowing multiple users to manage them collaboratively, you create efficiencies which translate into time savings – leaving you with more breathing room to think strategically and creatively about how to exceed your performance targets.

6. Document Processes

If you’re going to be in the agency business, you can count on two things.

1. Your time is going to be your most precious resource.
2. There are a lot of things you’re going to be doing over and over.

Take a little extra time to document everything you’re doing in a workflow, and you’ll be amazed at the payoff down the road.

At my company, before we ever get a new client started on a paid search campaign, we need to setup and configure the root Google account, Google Analytics, and Google AdWords. To manage this efficiently and minimize error, we have a checklist with over three dozen points on it. Over time we’ve improved on a process that can take a few hours… and reduced the risk of a mistake appearing later on down the road.

7. Communicate

With every client relationship, this cardinal rule trumps any marketing philosophy or industry best practice. Keeping your email threads centralized (see above) helps to minimize confusion, but also requires diligence in making sure that all relevant information is spelled out in writing. If important conversations take place in person or by phone, it’s important to document everything relevant to the account (especially client approvals) and clearly identify action items.

If you’re going to have multiple people actually getting their hands on a PPC account, be diligent about role definition. For example, you could have one media planner dealing strictly with ad copy while another handles keyword management, and a third person overseeing budget allocation and campaign/ad group structure. For bigger spending accounts, this kind of coverage can be extremely useful.

Some bid management tools have good collaboration features – and AdWords Editor’s sharing functions are a good option, too.

That’s all, Folks!

There are also a few things you can only fix by first watching them break. If anyone else has words of wisdom from their own experience, let’s hear it!

“Six out of ten Britons & Americans do not want to engage with brands through social media, leading to companies creating mountains of digital waste.” Source: TNS Digital Life study (surveyed 72,000 consumers across 60 countries), November 2011

Furthermore the active audience primarily engaged when a promotion or special offer is involved, thus questioning the true integrity of the relationship.

Putting Tactics Before Strategy

Poor engagement leads to the creation of “Mountains of Digital Waste”, caused by the accumulation of thousands of brands rushing online to speak with customers “quickly” and “cheaply”, without considering who they want to talk to, and why. Their efforts are not carefully planned and considered.

Essentially, they put tactics before strategy and do not consider bigger picture.

Social Media is all about conversations and developing relationships, so it’s important to not only consider ways to generate engagement, but essential to have a strategy for responding back to your community in order to facilitate a two way dialogue to be formed.

Importance of Successful Engagement

Social Media offers brands a double edge sword; publishing complaints are a marketers worst nightmare, yet they present an opportunity to show off great customer care.

Rolling out a structured Engagement Strategy can provide a positive experience and develop valuable relationships with key stakeholders, thereby turn brand detractors into promoters and satisfied customers may become your most influential brand ambassadors! Furthermore higher engagement leads to higher reach on Facebook (for more, see Web Liquid’s Facebook Reach Analysis published in late 2011).

Case Study: Cass Business School

In March 2011, Cass Business School approached Web Liquid to help define their Social Media Strategy.

Objective: to drive growth in high calibre student applications across all products / courses by creating positive sentiment and brand perception, driven by engaging with potential, current students and other stakeholders and leveraging their positive experiences.

Initial Results: The first initiative focused on the August Student Intake period and concentrated on leveraging Facebook.  This Facebook re-launch saw 434% more interactions than August 2010.

So, what are the secrets to building impactful and meaningful Social Media Engagement?  I call them the Five P’s of Engagement:

1. Proposition
2. People
3. (Be) Provocative & Personal
4. Policies
5. Process

To find out more about the Five P’s, please see the presentation below, “The Secrets to Successful Social Media Engagement.”

Earlier this year, eMarketer released a report documenting the meteoric rise of Internet radio . Market leader Pandora, emerging beast Spotify, and various other players are clearly riding a wave of explosive growth… but in this and other similar research, there’s a face clearly missing from the party.

What happened to the podcast? Did it ignore any crucial items on its to-do list?

“If at first you don’t succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.”
– David Brent, Wernham-Hogg Paper Company
(portrayed on “The Office” by British actor Ricky Gervais)

Let’s look start with the brighter days.

The 1980s and 1990s brought vast improvements in the technology used for transmitting digital audio. The dot-com crash shook out many of the earliest players, after which innovations in RSS and blogging software paved the way for improvements in aggregation and syndication of digital audio content – and the dawn of audioblogging.

British journalist Ben Hammersley, writing for the Guardian in early 2004, suggested that this revolution would pair nicely with the rising popularity of the early generation iPods – and suggested it might be called “podcasting.” Apple took the ball right to the hoop, publishing podcast directories, integrating podcasts with iTunes, and even building podcasting features into its QuickTime and Garage Band software.

Consumer interest in podcasts (as measured by search queries) exploded by late 2004, and hit its all-time high by early 2006. And “The Ricky Gervais Show”  was quickly recognized as the most successful podcast of all-time.

“Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue.”
– more wisdom on losing, from Ricky Gervais via David Brent

Since 2006, however, searchers’ interest in podcasts has slowly leveled off – along with a lot of the promise originally seen by digital media enthusiasts.

In early 2011, marketing research firms Arbitron and Edison Research teamed up on Infinite Dial 2011, one of few recent studies evaluating podcasts alongside more popular digital platforms such as social media, mobile devices, e-readers and video (online & on-demand). Surveying U.S. consumers ages 12 and up, here are a few things they learned:

• Awareness of podcasting has tapered off at 43-45 percent since 2009.
• Just 25 percent of U.S. consumers had ever listened to a podcast.
• Only 12 percent listened in the past 30 days.
• In naming the most “loved” media channels, audio podcasts and video podcasts were mentioned only 9 percent and 7 percent of the time, respectively.
• Joining podcasts at the bottom of the heap: LinkedIn (how many 12-year-olds do you know on this site?) and MySpace (no comment).
• And which platforms actually inspired more love from their users, compared to podcasts? A few hot properties (Pandora, Facebook, YouTube, Hulu), traditional media heavyweights (network/cable television), and yes – even local AM/FM radio has outdone the lowly podcast. [Sadly, HAM radio seems to have missed the cut.]

Where does this leave the podcast? Once an usher of liberated 21st century communications, today it’s the Christian Laettner of digital media: all the potential in the world, but really just a big disappointment. For comfort, we can again turn to the prince of podcasting himself:

“Where there’s a will… there’s a relative!”
– Ricky Gervais, once known as David Brent

In this case, the relative is search – both search technology as well as search marketing.

How Can Search Technology Help Create a New Future for Podcasting?

Google Translate can already convert any audio into text, which means that it ought to be within the realm of possibility to apply this technology to embedded audio within a podcast – provided someone can make a strong business case. More on that in a second.

There are already plenty of podcast search engines; that light bulb went off years ago. Do a Google search and you’ll find a bunch of them (including a Search Engine Watch post, “Video and Podcast Search Engines”). But this stuff is all from six or seven years ago. Why can’t you find fresher results? It’s not like podcasting fell off the face of the earth. Again, there needs to be a justification that makes business sense.

How Can Search Engines and Podcasts Come Together to Create a New Digital Medium?

Despite losing some of its digital street cred to newer kids on the block, let’s not forget that there’s still an audience out there worth fighting for. 31 million Americans ages 12 and up listened to a podcast in the last month – and they’re likely to be a pretty digitally-savvy lot.

Google gets about 360 million search queries per day, according to comScore. If we’re to assume that these podcast listeners conduct search queries as often as as non-podcast listeners (highly likely to lowball our estimate), we’re left with a conservative guess of 43.3 million search queries conducted by this podcast-friendly audience every day. Strip out search queries that navigational or transactional in nature, and you still have at least 80 percent left over.

Here’s where it gets interesting. If Google were to add podcasts to the news, videos, maps, and other filters along the left side of search results, even a paltry click-through rate of 0.1 percent could turn into a million clicks or more per month. Isn’t that enough to persuade Google to index this content, and offer the public an alternative to searching for podcasts within via iTunes?

Quicker, more comprehensive, and blended with results of other formats… if it works for virtually every other type of format, shouldn’t podcasts be indexed in search engines the same way?

If search marketers were given the opportunity to extend their keyword lists into podcast inventory (e.g., the way keywords work in contextually-targeted Google Display Network campaigns), they could offer clients an additional reach opportunity with the same ROI-driven accountability that drove them to invest in paid search. You think that might be a compelling alternative proposition to the advertisers who pay a flat rate to sponsor a podcast that mightbe reaching the right audience?

“If you’re gonna be late, then be late and not just 2 minutes.
Make it an hour and enjoy your breakfast.”
– David Brent, master of the missed opportunity.

Let’s face it, not every company should do a social deal like Groupon or LivingSocial. It may be the direct marketing flavor of the month, but the truth is that very often these deals prove to be a mistake for many businesses and a real issue for their customers. So while businesses need to think long and hard before they decide to run a social deal (Nate has an upcoming decision tree on this topic, stay tuned), customers also need to speak up about their experience.

We’ve prepared the following open letter to reflect the customer sentiment we’ve experienced around social deals, so that others can use it to express their own experiences with the companies they do business. Feel free to take these words and make them your own…

Dear [business, owner, marketing director name],

As a regular customer, your recent [Groupon/LivingSocial, etc name] daily deal was a raw deal for me, here’s why:

I really like your [product/service] and I’m happy to see you grow and succeed, but my experience was ruined by this [Groupon/LivingSocial/etc]. When you sell your [product/service] at 50-70% off it makes me wonder if it’s really worth what I pay everyday. I mean, can you really afford to sell your product/service for 50-70% off? If so, shouldn’t I get that deal for my loyalty instead of these noobs who probably came just for the deal and won’t ever come back? I’m committed to your success and happy to pay a fair price, these daily deal freaks on the other hand, are not.

Plus, it really hurts me to know that the people paying less than me are also making my experience worse. It seems that it’s more difficult with all these new customers, perhaps even overwhelming your ability to provide the quality I’m used to . That makes it hard for me to want to come back and continue to be your customer.

But here’s the thing, I think you’re better than this. If you need more customers I’m happy to help for a small incentive that won’t crush your bottom line. Consider how my loyalty can be your best marketing investment and I’m sure we can find a win-win. There’s a reason I and many others like what you sell, so let’s not lose sight of that.

Thanks for your consideration.

Just prior to the the recent unveiling of the new Facebook Insights we got curious about how user engagement with a Brand’s Facebook posts would affect the resulting reach of that post as dictated by Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm. And we were made more curious by these findings which indicated that more engagement does not equate to more reach. We weren’t particularly convinced given the sample of that study so we conducted our own, enlisting a large number of brands to participate in something more definitive.

We gathered 3-months of data (March-May 2011) from 16 brands and a total of 1,527 brand posts through that period. Collectively they have over 3.5 million Facebook Fans. The participating brands represent everything from consumer products to fashion icons and major international sports leagues, with Fan counts from a few thousand to well over a million each, and many in between. All of which makes this the largest known analysis of Facebook reach on behalf of marketers.

This report aims to shed some light on how people interact with brands’ Facebook content and whether their behaviors affect the number of other Facebook users who see that content. Put simply there are three specific insights in this analysis:

• The correlation between post engagement and reach – it’s there and it’s strong
• Affects on reach by post frequency – posting more generally equates to more reach
• Affects on engagement and reach by post type – some posts are more engaging and drive more reach than others

While straightforward, the analysis is anything but simple. It carries implications for anyone managing a Facebook page with the intent to reach and engage as much of the Facebook audience as they may be able to. [The complete Facebook Reach Analysis can be download in PDF format.]

[You can also view & download the slides by clicking here.]

Throughout the webinar, we made reference to research, blog posts and other resources — we’ve posted them below for your reference:

• What is ROPO? [Research Online, Purchase Offline] – We covered this on Search Engine Watch in early 2011; its implications for both online and offline retail are far-reaching. Click through to read The ROPO Effect: Measure, Search & Destroy.

• Rising media costs – See Google’s earnings report from earlier this year, in which they indicated that average cost-per-click (CPC) was up about 8% over the first quarter of 2010, but actually decreased about 1% compared to the fourth quarter of 2010 (i.e. the holiday season).

• Using Google Insights to project search query volumes – See our four-part series on Search Engine Watch showing seasonal search query trends for a number of gifting occasions: graduations, back-to-school, the summer slowdown… and of course, the early extended holiday shopping season (which we learned today is germane to at least half of U.S. consumers):

• Gifting Online & Offline: A Seasonal Analysis
• Gifting Online & Offline: Not Just Holidays Anymore
• Gifting Online & Offline: Shopping and Behavioral Search
• 6 Ways Search Marketers Can Capitalize During Holidays & Seasonally

• Overview of Retargeting technology – See the video below for an introduction to retargeting (also referred to as remarketing).  We’ve seen this tactic add tremendous value to paid search, organic search, display advertising, and even social media campaigns.

Full Report:

Key Points:

• p5 – While the USA still leads the world with the most and most valuable internet companies, the world is catching up with China and Russia leading the charge
• p6 – Many of the top (USA-based) web properties have much larger visitor populations outside the USA while properties like Tencent & Baidu (China) have no real penetration in the USA
• p7 – In the last 3 years China added more internet users than exist in the USA! And there’s substantial growth still to be realized.
• p7 – China, India, Nigeria, Russia & Iran are the biggest adders of Internet users. Each of these markets also represent populations with substantial global market influence
• p7 – Penetration in Nigeria is currently 28% (Go Super Eagles!)
• p8 – USA (6.8hrs/mo) lags analysis of time spent online with Israel (11.1), Argentina (10.8), Turkey (10.3), Chile (10.2), Russia (9.7) leading the way.
• p11 – Mobile adoption in the USA has come more quickly than AM Radio and the Internet, a similar pace to TV despite a very different economic environment at the time of adoption
• p12 – 3G mobile penetration is lead by Japan (97%), Korea (82%), Portugal (73%), Australia (71%) – USA lags at (56%), UK (51%)
• p12 – India (1050%) and India (172%) lead in 3G adoption growth
• p14 – Smartphone adoption has been dramatic but still has huge upside potential relative to ‘dumb’ phone ownership
• p15 – ipad shipment trends dwarf iphone and ipod ‘siblings’ – despite speculation, the newest device is firmly finding its place in our lives
• p16 – Android phone shipments outpace and far exceed iphones – understanding that Android resides on many hardware variations with a wider variety of features and price points than iphones
• Mobile is presently dominated by Android and iPhone (phones), iPad and Kindle (tablets) – iOS is leading the charge in mobile experiences and expectation setting across devices
• p19 – Mobile search is exploding – an increasingly important consideration for all marketers, particularly those with location relevant propositions
• p20 – Mobile advertising impressions are growing in all markets, driven by Asia, North America and Europe
• p21 – Mobile app and ad revenue is up 17x over 3 years, with apps leading the charge
• p26 – While touch interfaces have been the latest UX innovation, audio is predicted to far exceed the touch-based interfaces. Ubiquitous connectivity from headsets to car audio providing 2-way communication (Siri) for informative and entertainment content.
• p29 – ecommerce growth continues to outpace general retail, and shows significantly better performance in the last year
• p30 – ecommerce penetration remains relatively low, meaning the fast growth has a lot of headroom
• p31 – 2010 was a milestone year for mobile commerce with dramatically increasing adoption. Notable mobile sales growth from all major retailers and processing systems such as Paypal and Square
• p33 – people abandon in-store purchases as they find better deals online, more so than at competing brick-and-morter stores
• p34 – The combination of local offers, 3G/smartphone penetration, local search and mobile social/WOM have come together to push the mobile/local commerce trend
• p36 – Internet and Mobile share of advertising budget still have room to match time spent with each channel, while both time spent and budgets for each continue to increase
• p36 – Time spent with print and radio are declining while share of budgets decline and remain flat respectively
• p36 – Time spent with TV has flattened but ad budgets are on the rise
• p38 – avg CPC on Google continues to climb as advertiser adoption keeps pace with user adoption in the bid-based marketplace
• p39 – Time spent with social sites has surpassed time with portals online as of June 2011. A landmark shift in Internet use suggest more socially-curated content consumption
• p40 – Social advertising’s impression share dominates content advertising across content types and CPM rates are increasing
• p42 – content aggregation is growing (think huffingtonpost and google) while creation and curation from sources (newspapers, magazines) experiences 5 straight years of decline. This trend cannot continue indefinitely as aggregators require new content, but content development is clearly more commoditized and will remain so in all but highly niche situations.
• p48 – realtime is REAL – great visualization of twitter messages to/from Japan immediately before and after the earthquake on March 11, 2011
• p49 – Commercial wireless signals now cover 85% of the world’s population, more reach than electricity
• p52 – global connectivity, time and info shared online is pulling back the personal curtain and demanding great authenticity personally and professionally
• p54/55/56 – Economic uncertainty remains high amongst the public, corporate capital spending budgets have recently been revised downward showing commercial uncertainty, and IMF forecasts of GDP have been revised downward globally
• p58 – global exchanges are bucking the trend with recent, consistent upward movement, suggesting increasing confidence amongst the investment community

The 2011 Holidays: Feast or Famine for E-Commerce?

The holidays are coming… and the question right now is: where will the grinch be spending winter break?

If you read what eMarketer and comScore are saying, we’re projected to see growth in holiday e-commerce spending somewhere in the order of 12%. At the same time, there’s no denying the reality all around us: unemployment and underemployment, vulnerabilities in the financial markets, and no obvious end in sight. These suggest a reining in of consumer spending, which might dampen an otherwise rosy outlook for the holiday shopping season.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised before… but the memories of 2008 are still fresh, when e-commerce spending actually fell during the holidays. Digital marketers can manage this risk in two ways:

1) Making smarter cross-channel investments: beyond search marketing into display, mobile and social media

2) Finding unique ways to connect with consumers.

In this webinar, Paul Burani of Web Liquid Group examines the most essential holiday e-commerce trends, providing insight and actionable recommendations for what to do next.

Click here to register.

Google has conducted some major triage on a number of its experimental Google Labs products in recent weeks. One cut in particular really pained me: “Google Sets, one of the first applications in Google Labs, allowed you to automatically create sets of items from a few examples. Sets identified groups of related items on the web and used that information to predict relationships between items.”

To understand the void that Google Sets will leave behind, let’s start by retracing its evolution.

Originally launched in 2002, Google Sets was truly an innovation in the keyword research tool landscape. Described as “an inside peek at how Google groups keywords by concept,” the initial Google Sets patent filing from April 2003 was the brainchild of two rockstar engineers from the early days at Google.  Simon Tong had pitched in on early iterations of PageRank, AdSense, and Gmail. Jeff Dean was best known for his work on crawling, indexing, and query serving systems.

In their filing, Tong and Dean outlined a system that could field a number of user-generated list items. Adding weight assignments to (presumably) a deep dive into Google’s accumulated search query data, they’d present the user with a much longer list. The product hung around for a while, and then 2009 marked the arrival of Google Squared, a multi-faceted visualization of data that built largely on Google Sets.

Lists and Data. Data and Lists.

If you’ve ever launched a paid search (PPC) marketing program, or conducted a search engine optimization (SEO) audit, or even tried to write site copy in the hopes of it being found on Google, you know how important it is to organize your data into lists.

Here are just a few examples of what Google Sets allowed search marketers to do with ease:

• Quickly and thoroughly build a competitor keyword list. You type Coke, Pepsi and 7Up, and the system reminds you of Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Sprite, Fanta, Fresca, Mr. Pibb – even digging into the long tail with your occasional Good-O or Inca Kola. How long would it have taken you to come up with that list on your own?
• Fuel your ad copy brainstorms. One past client of ours was a chain of full-service auto body shops. When asked what they specialize in, the answer was, “We’re the best at everything!” Not helpful when it came time to write ad copy. But Google Sets helped us to populate ads with all kinds of auto parts that break down and require solutions: brake pads, power steering, fan belt, air filter, etc. This not only helped us deliver a more targeted AdWords program, but it also gave us more data points to test for user engagement and conversion.
• Generate extensive keyword variations. Let’s say you sell furniture, and a popular armchair is available in brown. There are many shades of brown to search for (and monitors often depict them very differently), so you would want to make sure that taupe, chestnut, russet, camel, and sepia are captured in your keyword list as well. The incremental traffic might be small compared to brown, but odds are the cost per click (CPC) would be lower, and the conversion rate might be substantially higher.

Bring Sets Back!

While some of products discontinued before and as part of Google’s announced “fall spring-clean,” will live on embedded within other ongoing projects, it doesn’t appear that Google Sets or Google Squared was so lucky.

In the nine years that Google Sets was available, I never really had a clear sense of whether this product was truly under-the-radar (and/or seasoned search marketers were simply keeping mum on one of their favorite secrets)… or if the SEO & SEM communities failed to find any value in it.

So let’s find out. If enough people from the search marketing made enough noise, we could convince Google would bring it back from the dead.

If you’d like to see Google Sets make a comeback, please leave a comment on the original SEW post and let’s rock this vote!

______________________________

• Background
• What is the role of cookies?
• What is the new legislation on cookies in the UK?
• When is the legislation on cookies coming into effect?
• What should you do?
• Our view on the UK cookie legislation
• The different forms for obtaining consent
• Recommended next steps
• How we can help
• References & Sources

______________________________

Background

Earlier this year, the UK government implemented an amendment to the EU’s 2003 Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive. The “UK cookie directive” requires businesses running web sites in the UK to get informed consent from visitors to their web sites in order to store and retrieve information on users’ devices. {1} While the new legislation is a significant change from previous policies, the government’s view is that there should be a phased approach to the implementation of these changes.

What is the role of cookies?

Cookies are the most obvious manifestation of ‘store and retrieve information’ and are the centre of the new legislation. Cookies are text files that are dropped in users’ hard drives by the server being accessed (through the browser) when they access a site or view an ad.

It is important to note that the consent rule does not apply to all cookies. At the present time, the only exception to this rule is if the cookie is ‘strictly necessary’ for a service requested by the user. This applies to cookies used throughout a shopping cart, including ‘add to basket’ or ‘proceed to checkout’. {2}

What is the new legislation on cookies in the UK?

In simple terms the new “UK cookie directive” require a user’s consent if an organization wants to store a cookie on their device. The revised rules replace the requirement of the 2003 Regulations that users must be 1) told how cookies are used and 2) given an opportunity to refuse cookies (an “opt out”) with a requirement for user consent.

When is the legislation on cookies coming into effect?

The legislation came into effect on the 26th of May 2011. Given the difficulties in establishing specific guidelines, organizations have until May 2012 to comply. {3} These timelines might change but on the date of publishing this document, these are the timeframes set forward.

[Click here for Part 2 of 'The future use of cookies in the UK: From informing to obtaining consent']

What should you do?

Unfortunately there is not a defined set of exact guidelines to ensure compliance. The main reason is that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport who are responsible for drafting the exact steps that businesses should follow have not finished these.

However a series of industry bodies and organizations including the IPA and more importantly the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), have issued initial recommendations to ensure organizations are prepared. This document serves to outline key considerations as well as recommend a set of initial actions to ensure readiness once specific guidelines have been defined.

Our view on the UK cookie legislation

The legislation will not stop users receiving online ads. More importantly, the legislation does not forbid the use of cookies that are not considered “strictly necessary” – it simply requires organizations gain consent by giving the user specific information about what they are agreeing to and providing them with a way to show their acceptance. In most cases consumers will be happy to allow you to track them if it makes their experience more enjoyable and useful.

When considering the requirement to obtain consent it is important to note:

1. Organizations are required to provide information about cookies and obtain consent before a cookie is set for the first time. Provided you get consent at that point you do not need to do so again for the same person each time you use the same cookie (for the same purpose) in the future. {4}
2. The use of cookies for “functional purposes” including remembering previous settings or collecting information about how users’ access and use a site (e.g. analytics cookies) at the present time still require consent. Possible ways of obtaining consent for these functional cookies is discussed in the next section of this document.
3. Organizations using cookies provided by a third party in their sites (placing pixels from media publishers such as Specific Media on their sites) may need to make users aware of this and point them to information on how the third party might use cookies and similar technologies so that the user is able to make an informed choice. This is by far the most challenging area in which to achieve compliance and have yet to be defined. {5}

The legislation in its current form and wording highlights challenges that will require further interpretation and clarification including:

• The definition of “user consent” based on their access device. In many cases a device is utilized by multiple users (e.g. home computer accessed by a family of three). Cookies are set at the device level as opposed to the individual user level. For example, if three people access an organizations’ site via the same device and browser it would require each user to be indentified individually.

• The legislation does not explicitly define the consent requirement relative to an “opt-in” or “opt-out”. The current interpretation leads to the “opt-in” option which is an important consideration.

• The definition of cookies serving “functional purposes” requires further validation in the context of Digital Marketing. The use of cookies for analytics and site optimization do serve a functional purpose in the fact they improve the user experience. However, their classification is yet to be completely defined.

• Larger third party organizations such as Google and Microsoft could gain higher acceptance due to their brand recognition as opposed to their specific privacy policies. If Google’s cookies used for their search engine, checkout service, analytics and advertising network gain wide acceptance over other providers, it could establish a monopoly of cookie data in the future.

• The legislation will accelerate the adoption of the ‘Advertising Option Icon’ (being developed by the Internet Advertising Bureau Europe, the World Federation of Advertisers, the European Advertising Standards Alliance, the Direct Marketing Association and the Incorporated Society for British Advertisers) which will be shown on or near behavioural advertising and will provide consumers with further information about behavioural advertising in the relevant European language when clicked.

The users will also be able to manage information preferences or stop receiving behavioral advertising via a new pan-European website.

[Click here for Part 3 of 'The future use of cookies in the UK: From informing to obtaining consent']

______________________________

• Background
• What is the role of cookies?
• What is the new legislation on cookies in the UK?
• When is the legislation on cookies coming into effect?
• What should you do?
• Our view on the UK cookie legislation
• The different forms for obtaining consent
• Recommended next steps
• How we can help
• References & Sources

______________________________

The different forms for obtaining consent

Various methods for obtaining consent are currently being discussed and evaluated by the ICO and industry bodies. Below is a description of the most significant.

The use of browser settings. Unfortunately at the present time most browsers do not include advanced privacy setting which would allow for the user to consent individual cookies. While this is an option that could advance quickly it’s not one organization should rely on. One of the most significant challenges with this approach is that not all website visitors will have the most up-to-date browser with enhanced privacy settings. {6}

The use of pop ups and splash pages. While the use of pop-ups has been suggested as a way of gaining consent, it is an option that could seriously compromise the users’ experience on a site.

The use of terms and conditions. While the use of specific terms and conditions can be used to gain consent, it is important to note that changing the terms of use alone to include consent for cookies would not be good enough even if the user had previously consented to the overarching terms. To satisfy the new rules on cookies, you have to make users aware of the changes and specifically that the changes refer to your use of cookies. {7} This is most commonly obtained by asking the user to tick a box to indicate that they consent to the new terms when they register to their existing account or open a new account.

The use of footer or header copy. When related to the use of functional cookies, one possible solution being discussed includes the placing of text in the footer or header of the web page which is highlighted or which turns into a scrolling piece of text when you want to set a cookie on the user’s device. This could prompt the user to read further information (perhaps served via the privacy pages of the site) and make any appropriate choices that are available to them. This applies to cookies deployed when a user makes a choice about how the site works for them. In other instances, some objects are stored when a user chooses to use a particular feature of the site such as watching a video clip. In these cases, consent could be gained as part of the process by which the user confirms what they want to do or how they want the site to work. {8}

The functionality used to gain user consent is not yet defined nor have best practices been defined. It is important all organization research and keep abreast of developments in this area. On their site http://www.ico.gov.uk the ICO has implemented a very rough form of consent from users accessing the site.

[Click here for Part 4 of 'The future use of cookies in the UK: From informing to obtaining consent']

______________________________

• Background
• What is the role of cookies?
• What is the new legislation on cookies in the UK?
• When is the legislation on cookies coming into effect?
• What should you do?
• Our view on the UK cookie legislation
• The different forms for obtaining consent
• Recommended next steps
• How we can help
• References & Sources

______________________________

Recommended next steps

Given the lack of specific guidelines on the implementation of the new legislation we recommend undertaking the following steps:

1. Undertake an initial audit of your site and the way cookies are being used. The audit should classify the individual cookies based on the role they currently play – from “strictly necessary” to “not necessary”. The audit should also aim to define how third party cookies and partners are approaching the new regulations.

2. Review your site privacy and terms of use to ensure details are provided about how cookies are being used. Your site cookie policy should accurately describe how you use your customers’ data as well as the data practices on your site, including your use of analytics software and your advertising practices. Furthermore, the policy should include links to cookie advisory sites such as www.allaboutcookies.org.

The privacy and cookie usage policy adopted by the BBC is one of the most comprehensive – including a detailed description of all cookies used and for what purpose. http://www.bbc.co.uk/privacy/bbc-cookies-policy.shtml. British Airways has actually included a stand-alone “View our cookie policy” link on their global landing page instead of simply adding the cookie usage information within their legal information section.

That’s what happened with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) implemented the new law with existing technology, over 90% of site visitors declined to accept a Google Analytics cookie, thereby disappearing from their analytics.

3. Involve your legal council to ensure there is a common view within your organization.

Every organization needs to ensure they are doing everything they can to get the right information to users and that they are allowing users to make informed choices about what is stored on their device. Not taking action is not a choice. Every organization affected by this legislation must demonstrate that it is taking specific steps to comply with the new requirements on user consent.

If a complaint about a website is received by the ICO they are likely to take a negative view of an organization that cannot show that it is taking steps to change current practice to bring about compliance with the new laws.

How we can help

In response to the legislation and the needs of our clients, we have developed a Cookie Audit solution which provides organizations with an audit of the cookies on their site. The audit will provide the following deliverables:

1. List and categorize all cookies being served across a specific site including a) first party cookies and b) third party cookies.

a) First Party cookies
b) Third party cookies:

i) Analytics (e.g. Google Analytics)
ii) Ad-Server (e.g. Doubleclick, CheetahMail, Commission Junction)
iii) Advertising (e.g. Specific Media)
iv) eCommerce
v) Surveys
vi) Blogs
vii) Widgets
viii) Server Functions

2. Identify the specific data points captured by first party and third party providers including ad networks and media publishers.

3. Define the impact on the current Digital Marketing practices resulting from a possible low level of user consent on specific cookies

4. Present findings and recommendations on an MS Word brief.

The cookie audit has a one-off cost of £4,950 and takes 10 working days from the day of sign-off. If you are interested in discussing the contents of this document further, please contact Alain Portmann, Head of Strategy at 0207 253 4133 or by email: alain [at] webliquidgroup [dot] com.

[Click here for Part 5 of 'The future use of cookies in the UK: From informing to obtaining consent']

______________________________

• Background
• What is the role of cookies?
• What is the new legislation on cookies in the UK?
• When is the legislation on cookies coming into effect?
• What should you do?
• Our view on the UK cookie legislation
• The different forms for obtaining consent
• Recommended next steps
• How we can help
• References & Sources

______________________________

References & Sources

(1) Source: ICO “Advice on the New Cookies Regulation, 09/05/2011, Version 1
(2) Source: ICO “Advice on the New Cookies Regulation, 09/05/2011, Version 1
(3) Source: ICO “Enforcing the revised Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), 25/05/2011, Version 1
(4) Source: ICO “Advice on the New Cookies Regulation, 09/05/2011, Version 1
(5) Source: ICO “Advice on the New Cookies Regulation, 09/05/2011, Version 1
(6) Source: ICO “Advice on the New Cookies Regulation, 09/05/2011, Version 1
(7) Source: ICO “Advice on the New Cookies Regulation, 09/05/2011, Version 1
(8) Source: ICO “Advice on the New Cookies Regulation, 09/05/2011, Version 1

______________________________

• Background
• What is the role of cookies?
• What is the new legislation on cookies in the UK?
• When is the legislation on cookies coming into effect?
• What should you do?
• Our view on the UK cookie legislation
• The different forms for obtaining consent
• Recommended next steps
• How we can help
• References & Sources

______________________________

This week, as models walk down runways during New York Fashion Week, people will be tweeting their favorite looks, brands will be live streaming their shows, and bloggers will be blogging about it all, peppering the internet with exclamation points. It would be a hard won argument to say that social media hasn’t had a profound impact on fashion; but the industry was late to the game, left to play catch up with the millions that were already posting haul videos on YouTube, creating their own looks on Style Caster, or blogging about that quintessential fashion meme: the “outfit of the day. Always careful of their image, labels began reaching out to and collaborating with bloggers, while creating the requisite social media accounts. Today, brands as diverse as Burberry and Oscar De La Renta are held up as exemplars in the realm of companies leveraging social media, having quickly managed to establish their place in the conversation; still, one can’t help but get the sense that fashion brands could be doing more with all this word-of-mouth, and impact their bottom line in the process.

There are few industry events that so engross the public consciousness as Fashion Week. The most important week in the industry eight times a year renders the internet rapt with the aforementioned blogging and tweeting. And between the hyperbolic punctuation marks are authentic, no holds barred evaluations of your newest collection – collections that you will be showing the following week to buyers from the stores at which your critics will shop. By monitoring online word of mouth, the fashion industry has the ability to identify trends in the perennial conversation and use those insights to, among other things, predict future behaviors – an increasingly important proposition, given the long lead times between fashion shows and when collections begin appearing in stores). In other words, one could analyze data from Fashion Week and, the following week, tell buyer’s exactly why they should stock up on your new collection. (PRO TIP: Because the consumer said so). Using these same insights, buyers could make similarly informed decisions about the orders they place.

Inevitably, you’ll find that some pieces are being discussed more than others, and you can use these insights to decide what to bring with you to a desk side. You could also tap in to the cadres of stylish netizens sharing with each other every outfit worn, accessory they’d die for and purchases they’ve made, integrating those insights in to the development of visual merchandising – so that as soon as a shopper sees it, she can see herself in your clothes. That’s what it means bridge online and offline.

More tactically, knowing where and in what context these discussions are taking place has media planning implications: echoing the communities lexicon in your search ads, or targeting specific websites as part of a display campaign.

Let’s be clear: I’m not saying that fashion’s promotional approach to social media should be abandoned; to the contrary, there are a number of brands that are doing great things on a variety of platforms. But when you silo social media into becoming a communications or promotional tool, one finds themselves relying on those channels alone for feedback; it’s not just about Twitter and Tumblr. The Stylish Web – as I’ll call it – is bigger than that.

It’s an increasingly important service as our recent Social Media Monitoring Survey shows, which means there’s a lot of competition for users and dollars. But we found that very few tools can suit the needs of Word-of-Mouth and Social Media researchers, marketers and brand managers who use social Media Monitoring tools to find legitimate insights that inform big decisions with serious downstream implications. In fact we started with a list of about 40 available tools and quickly narrowed it down to 5 that we believe can fit such a demanding requirement.

Our team set about putting these 5 tools through the paces in a systematic and controlled test allowing them to identify each tool’s strengths and weaknesses. The resulting analysis includes details on ease-of-use, data depth and breadth, data quality, SPAM management, resources efficiency and more. As a result, I think our team has set the bar for the Social Media Monitoring market with this buyer’s guide – highlighting important considerations buyers should keep in mind as well as pushing each tool to address the needs of the more sophisticated end of the market.

Each of the Social Media Monitoring providers that we tested deserves kudos for agreeing to take part in this buyer’s guide. Alterian, Brandwatch, MutualMind, Radian6 and Synthesio all let us take a hard look at their tools and speak honestly and objectively about our experiences. For the most part, they all shine in one way or another as we believe they represent the top-tier of the market. So this buyer’s guide truly does help the Social Media Monitoring tool buyer gain a better understanding of the tool that should best match their specific needs.

Click here to download your copy of the Social Media Monitoring Tool Buyer’s Guide.

Footnote: All of the Social Media Monitoring Tools considered for this Buyer’s Guide:

• Actionly
• Alterian
• Artesian
• Beyond the Arc
• Brand Pulse Check
• Brandwatch
• Buddy Media
• Buzzworthy
• Caleris
• Cision
• Converseon
• Crimson Hexagon
• CustomScoop
• Echosonar
• Evoapp
• General Sentiment
• Hubspot
• InfoGlutton
• Jitter Jam
• Lithium (Scoutlabs)
• Meltwater Buzz
• Moreover Tech
• MutualMind
• Nielsen Buzzmetrics
• Position2
• Post Rank
• Radian6
• Raven Tools
• SaS
• Shoutlet
• Simplify 360
• Social Eye
• Social Mention
• Social Rain
• Social Report
• Sprout Social
• Syncapse
• Synthesio
• Sysomos
• Tracebuzz
• Trackur
• Viral Heat
• Visible Technologies
• Vocus

Below is the Executive Summary and here you can download the entire Social Media Monitoring Survey.

Few would deny that Social Media is the most talked-about marketing opportunity in recent history, yet its value remains debated amongst marketers. Does it influence purchase behavior? How should ROI be measured? What metrics actually matter? What is Social Media Intelligence? Questions the digital marketing industry is trying to answer, including the many companies that provide Social Media Monitoring services.

The options for monitoring Social Media range from simple automatic search engine alerts (e.g. Google Alerts) to channel specific data queries and highly sophisticated research companies offering broad datasets masterfully collated and presented for a premium subscription. There are no less than 150 companies providing some level of Social Media Monitoring services that allow marketers to better understand the intersection of their brand and consumers’ social behavior.

But with such vast options in this emerging channel we wondered how many marketers actually use these services and among those that did, what value they perceive? The following is the result of a social media monitoring survey conducted in partnership with RSW/US in May & June of 2011, aimed at getting answers to such questions directly from digital marketing executives – 237 senior marketing executives participated in our survey.

Social Media Monitoring (SMM) is an important emerging marketing research and brand management function. In this early stage of its development, many marketers are merely dabbling… and there is a tremendous opportunity for those who get it right.

Most marketers are doing some form of SMM and virtually all of these have seen some value in the practice. However, less than a quarter report being extremely satisfied with their tool(s) of choice. Further, we’ve observed an overall lack of sophistication in use of SMM tools – 59% of those doing SMM rely solely on Google Alerts, a practice cautioned against in this report from November of 2010: Google Alerts for Social Media Monitoring.

Marketers who use paid social media monitoring solutions are twice as likely to be “extremely satisfied” compared to those using a free solution. Given this, we believe now is the time for digital marketers to invest in more valuable SMM programs. The benefits of these investments are diverse, but the most commonly reported applications are in Communications Strategy and Customer Service (28% and 19% of users, respectively). With nearly two-thirds of respondents planning to increase their use of SMM, we encourage marketers to educate themselves on the tools currently available (request a copy of our 2011 Social Media Monitoring Buyers Guide) as well as the agencies with experience in applying these insights, or Social Media Intelligence, to optimize Social Media and cross-channel marketing efforts.

Who’s using Social Media Monitoring?

Nearly three quarters of marketing executives surveyed are actively monitoring Social Media through the use of both paid and free tools.

As one may expect, the large companies reported to be actively monitoring Social media more than medium or small companies. Large companies also report use of a paid Social media Monitoring tool more so than others, but it’s medium companies that most often report using free tools.

Relative company size based upon revenue:

• less then $100M = Small
• $101M – $500M = Medium
• $501M+ = Large

What tools are they using?

Google Alerts is the dominant Social Media Monitoring tool as marketers’ desire to retain costs often outweighs the quality and usability of the data. Amongst the paid tools, a vast set of options exist, but respondents to our survey reported their use of Radian6, Meltwater Buzz and Neilsen Buzzmetrics most frequently.

How valued is Social Media Monitoring?

Our data shows that those who do pay for SMM tools are twice as likely to consider them extremely valuable and in fact very few marketing executives find little to no value in the SMM regardless of their level of sophistication.

How is the investment in monitoring tools trending?


Most marketers reported a plan to increase their SMM investments in the coming year with very few suggesting that they’ll retreat from their current investment levels. To download the 2011 Marketers & Social Media Monitoring Survey, please use the link below.

With the growing opportunities surrounding Social Media, how can brands transform this corner of the digital landscape into a competitive asset? Inside Alain covers a number of concepts including:

• Social Proof: To resolve uncertainty of what to do and buy we look at what others are doing or have done.
• Service Over Solicitation. Promoters and detractors are shaped on the basis of the value you provide.
• Social Media as a Listening Exercise: It is about listening to the conversation and empower people to tell THEIR story. After all, every good conversation starts with good listening!
• Engagement: Degree of engagement is more important than the size of fan/connection/follower base
• And finally, the six components to derive a competitive advantage from Social Media:
1. 1. The Earpiece: Monitor Word Of Mouth
2. 2. The Proposition: Statement Of Purpose & Intent
3. 3. The Rulebook: Governance & Resource
4. 4. The Playbook: Tactics & Plan
5. 5. The Scorecard
6. 6. The Training Plan
]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-competitive-advantage/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-monitoring-automation/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-monitoring-automation/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:05:37 +0000 Ben Semmar /blog/?p=1345 If you or your clients participate in the digital space, then there’s a good chance that at some point you’ve heard about the benefits of social media monitoring tools. Indeed, for Word of Mouth marketers, the ability to gather insights into what your customer is saying about your brand – and where they are saying it – has huge implications across many digital marketing functions. At a basic level, knowing where your customers are discussing your brand allows businesses to make more informed decisions about which sites to target as part of a display campaign, for instance. One might also use the information to hone the ad copy used in a search marketing campaign and even for product development. The possibilities are almost endless.



Yet as with any opportunity there is a risk that the potential of what these technologies can bring becomes misconstrued. As a result people end up with the impression that the technologies alone can presently tell them, with enough accuracy as to be deemed credible and trustworthy, all they need to know about where their brand stands in the digital space.

Social media monitoring tools are entirely automated. A user enters a query, and the tool is effectively let loose to track and gather conversation across the web that matches said query. Once data has been collected, the tools conduct a plethora of analyses, visualizing the findings in pleasant looking dashboards that report on a variety of metrics. The vendors of these tools purport that, from these dashboard, marketers are able to glean the insights necessary to develop strategies that will enable them to engage their customers in a manner that is “relevant” and “speak your customers’ language”. This is a fallacy. But it is a claim that has led some people to rely solely on the automated functions of these tools, at the expense of careful analysis of and human interaction with the data.

Conversation is entirely too complex and nuanced a form of communication for a piece of technology to interpret at this time. Even we as human beings have verbal (and textual) misunderstandings – just think about how many fights have started thanks to a simple misinterpretation of what somebody had said (or written) to them. Computers don’t get sarcasm, the calling card of internet discourse. They’re unable to decipher the meaning behind cultural references or understand things in context. Put simply, computers can’t show you the meaning behind what your customers are saying, or how you should react to what the data tells you.

Take sentiment analysis, a standard offering of all monitoring tools. Through a variety of natural language processing and machine learning techniques, sentiment analysis is allegedly able to illustrate the emotion inherent in a given piece of text. In the case of social media monitoring tools, this is typically reported in terms of the conversation’s polarity (ie, positive and negative). As impressive as this sounds, the accuracy of these tools is less than stellar and, due to the reasons given above, typically requires a human to go in and correct the software’s error.

What all of this means, of course, is that in order to get the full value out of any of these tools it is essential that the data be validated by hand and that the subsequent analysis is both rigorous and based on a solid methodology. Surely a business’s ability to devote resources to an admittedly labour intensive task as this depends on the business. But when one considers the breadth of knowledge that social media monitoring tools make available, it’s not hard to see the value in putting aside resources to dive deep in to the database and glean actionable insights that you can then work into your existing strategies, or develop new approaches entirely, across all functions of your business.

“You would need to be situated outside life, and at the same time to know life as well as someone- many people, everyone- who has lived it, to be allowed even to touch on the problem of the value of life.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Social media monitoring tools have been positioned by some as finally giving businesses the chance to solve their customers’ problems. Yes, the tools allow us to situate ourselves outside the digital lives of our customers but, similar to what Nietzsche says above, we can only begin to address our customers’ problems when we as marketers mix what our customers are telling us with what we know as consumers (read:humans) ourselves, like how disappointing it is to get bad service. Or what it feels like to fall in love with a product.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-monitoring-automation/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/gifting-online-shopping-behavioral-search/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/gifting-online-shopping-behavioral-search/#comments Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:31:25 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1329 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on July 1, 2011.]

In recent weeks, we’ve looked at a number of trends related to holiday shopping, as well as other seasonal gifting occasions occurring at other points during the year.  Still relying on Google Insights data and some statistical analysis, let’s look at some of the nuances within Google’s defined Shopping category of search query activity.

Note: With the smaller data set inherent in a subcategory, we’re going to move away from the ASVI metric identified in earlier research (defined here). We can still look at patterns over time, but aggregating the indices for these smaller data sets could potentially lead us down the path of erroneous inferences.

Also, we’ll be looking at trended data for both the “gift” and “gifts” keywords (acknowledging that there is likely to be a substantially grey area where the top overlap, in terms of Google’s delivery of search results to the user).

When we look at the singular keyword “gift,” this generally reflects interest in Gifting Applications – that is, vehicles of gifting behavior such as gift baskets, gift cards, gift certificates, or even just gift ideas. The plural keyword “gifts,” meanwhile, is more commonly tied to Gifting Occasions, such as Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, or anniversary gifts.

Enough caveats; let’s get into the data.

Apparel & Clothing

[Includes watches, accessories, clothing designers, footwear, lingerie, undergarments, clothing retailers.]



Here we have the expected holiday shopping surge, but more importantly, look at what’s happening in April and May. What used to be a spike in search activity as recently as 2009 has flattened out a bit.

Flowers, Gifts & Greetings

[Includes party supplies.]



The holiday season is watching its dominance slowly erode. February appears to be the most important non-holiday month for flowers, gifts and greetings – though here too we’re seeing a steady decline. This could reflect a need for more display advertising, or earned media via social channels, to stimulate search activity and convert customers in the future.

Luxury Goods



This category reached its peak around 2005, but since has seen nothing but downward momentum in relative search activity. Even interest in Mother’s Day gifts (presumably skewing high toward jewelry purchases) is tanking. It would be interesting to see the trend in performance of loyalty programs relative to this trend – maybe the big brands are simply doing a better job in other channels like email or offline?

Collectibles & Antiques



Looks like it’s holidays or bust for these folks.  Note, however, that the drop in the red line (“gifts”) is far sharper than the blue line (“gift”). If Gifting Applications has fended off most of the decline, it could simply mean that people searching & shopping for Collectibles & Antiques online are a relatively sophisticated, motivated lot.

Product Reviews



Here’s where our analysis starts to get very granular. There’s virtually nothing we can extract from this data, except one insight: the relatively prominence of “gift” as opposed to “gifts.”  Clearly shoppers’ interest in reviews is more intimately connected to the gift itself than the occasion.

Coupons & Rebates



Here’s an even more pronounced effect of what we saw above with Product Reviews. And, for once, we’re actually seeing a slight upswing in search activity.  The economic environment, the rise of deals sites like Groupon & Living Social, and the average consumer’s still-rising sophistication in ecommerce environments – these are all perfectly good explanations for this trend.

Price Comparisons

Insufficient data  to draw conclusions – quite shocking when you consider that a keyword like “compare price” is queried 368,000 times per month in the United States.

Customer Service

[Includes warranties & service contracts.]



Much like Coupons & Rebates, we see a huge bias toward the “gift” keyword, and again this effect is intuitive.  Note, however, that this upward climb is actually quite sharp over the last two years.  This could be an indication that in 2011, manufacturers and retailers have a golden opportunity to tap into a new source of demand: people who search for gifts based on quality of service, not price.

To Be Continued…

Now that we know all about holiday shopping, other non-holiday gifting occasions, and all the subsets of shopping-related search activity, what’s a search marketer to do?  We’ll let you know in the last post of this series, “Gifting Online & Offline: a Search Marketer’s Checklist.”

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/gifting-online-shopping-behavioral-search/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/gifting-online-offline-holidays/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/gifting-online-offline-holidays/#comments Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:12:11 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1318 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on June 20, 2011.]

Last time, we began our look at behavioral search query insights around gift giving from a search marketing perspective by looking at trends in the use of “gift” as a search keyword in Google – and learned a few things in the process:

• When holiday shopping activity begins to heat up (October, going into November), we saw the Photo/Video, Food/Drink, and Beauty/Personal Care categories rising the fastest.
• Among gift purchases with a longer sales cycle, the Recreation category stood out, showing the fastest growth in gift queries from September to October.
• During graduation season in the spring, gift-givers frequently search for Recreation and Photo/Video gifts, but they also use keywords like ‘graduate’ or ‘student’ to qualify their research.

As we look beyond the spike in shopping around the holiday season, a number of interesting gifting occasions show their own unique patterns.

Reminder: the key metric in this analysis is called Average Search Volume Index, or ASVI. For more insight into our research methodology, see here.

With a New School Year Approaching, People Can’t Resist Giving More “Studious” Gifts



While we may not traditionally think of the back to school period as a big gifting occasion, whatever gift giving is going on indeed skews toward items of some educational relevance (the Arts & Humanities category). This is where book retailers really shine; are we perhaps seeing adult gift-givers trying to get school-aged gift recipients a little more excited about returning to the classroom?

The back to school season also doesn’t seem to diminish searchers’ interest in recreation: outdoor activities like boating, cycling, running, hiking, and camping, as well as crafts and hobbies. Note that this category doesn’t include sports like baseball, basketball, football, or soccer, which get their own separate category in Google Insights.

Several Key Categories Characterize a Slow Gifting Season in July & August



July and August can be relatively quiet from a gifting perspective. Summer birthdays notwithstanding, this slow period sits right between an active spring (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduations) and the busy fall, which is characterized by an elongated shopping run-up to the holiday season.

What are the biggest drivers of this decline? For starters, it looks like the Recreation category, highly active during the spring and fall, enjoys a bit of quiet in July and August. We know that outdoor activities are popular in the summer, but according to the data, the relative demand for those gifts in fact bottoms out in the summer.

A few other categories are not far behind:

• Food & Drink: while overall search interest in beer and bbq are high in the summer, for a great many others the data is scattered elsewhere around the calendar. The trend just may be that the more “giftable” food & beverage items are simply not associated with warm weather.
• Beauty & Personal Care: Fitness queries, and to a lesser degree weight loss, tend to reflect New Years’ resolutions. People love to give spa gift certificates, but they generally do so around the holiday season or Mother’s Day. It could be that the prevailing wisdom is, summer is when we need to look our best… so winter and spring are the time to be thinking about those gifts.

Gadgets & Computers are Popular Last-Minute Gift Purchases During the Holidays



Computers & Electronics is a little misleading here. Because we’re using a tricky metric based on averages of a normalized index, we’re exposed to a big weakness in the data.

If there happens to be an abnormally high figure for a certain data period, it pushes down the index value for all the other values, which dilutes the average. And that’s exactly what happens with this category, the week before Christmas. This could be an indication that digital cameras, computers & laptops, home video & audio, and personal electronics like iPods (but not iPhones) are very popular last-minute purchases for the stressed-out gift giver.

The same holds true for categories like Games (especially video games). As for the others, that’s anyone’s guess, including the outliers at the top of the chart.

To Be Continued…

Our analysis continues next time when we’ll drill down into the Shopping category, where a lot of important products and services reside: apparel/clothing, flowers, luxury goods, and collectibles. We’ll also get to see more about gifters’ demand for information like product reviews, coupons, price comparisons, and general customer service.

After that, we’ll wrap everything up and provide some best practices for how you can put this data to good use – as well as dig up an insight or two of your own.

Footnote. The following categories of industry classification are used in this data set: Arts & Humanities, Automotive, Beauty & Personal Care, Business, Computers & Electronics, Entertainment, Finance & Insurance, Food & Drink, Games, Health, Home & Garden, Industries, Internet, Lifestyles, Local, News & Current Events, Photo & Video, Real Estate, Recreation, Reference, Science, Shopping, Social Networks & Online Communities, Society, Sports, Telecommunications, Travel.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/gifting-online-offline-holidays/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/excel-tips-3-seo-word-of-mouth/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/excel-tips-3-seo-word-of-mouth/#comments Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:03:15 +0000 Nate Walton /blog/?p=1306 In this third installment of Microsoft Excel tips for marketers (Part 1, and Part 2), we are going to tackle some tips tricks and tools that I use in everything from media campaign trafficking to SEO to Social Media monitoring. Like usual, everything that appears in these tips posts works in both Excel 2008 for Mac and Excel 2007, and this time one of the techniques (the discussion of the FREQUENCY() function) actually covers a way to make up for Excel 2008’s lack of histogram chart type (which exists in Excel 2007).

Even more than in the prior Excel posts, the accompanying excel file will be critical to clarifying many of the following tips. Link to download:

Excel Tips for Marketers – Part 3 Excel File

So, let’s get started!

GENERAL TIPS

Using Excel to Build URLs for Media Campaigns

We frequently find our clients prefer Google Analytics, and if you are only running a Google Adwords campaign on the paid media side, you merely have to hook the two platforms together with a single check box. But what if you have more than just Google Search or Google Display Network in your media mix? Google offers all Analytics users the option of manually tagging incoming paid media using a certain set of URL parameters (more information here). Using Excel, one can quickly build all the URLs one needs for the rest of their media mix (Facebook advertising, Ad Networks, Microsoft Bing, etc).

The Excel demonstration file attached to this blog post outlines the actual steps required to take landing pages and media campaign information and turn it into click through URLs for your ad server of choice (whether it be Microsoft AdCenter, Mediaplex or Facebook’s adserving platform). The functions are relatively simple for this process; it’s mainly a matter of splitting out what changes and what stays the same for each click through URL, followed by a large number of concatenations (my preference is the ampersand connector over CONCATENATE(), as outlined in Excel Tips for Marketers – Part 2)

The end result of using Excel and URL parameters is the ability to see all your paid media broken out in Google Analytics right in line with the more commonly reported traffic sources:



Using Excel for SEO: Parsing URLs & Backlinks

Just the other day we provided a backlink profile for a new client of ours (a fairly standard SEO-related piece of work that we do standard). The results came back in URL form, namely a domain (such as “www.makerfaire.com”), followed by a slug (such as “/newyork/2010”). By separating the domain from the slug, one is able to begin several interesting different types of analysis. When one has just the domains, one can aggregate them to see which domains are particularly prone to linking back to the website on which the backlink analysis was done. With the slugs, one can aggregate them to see which pieces of content are most likely to be linked to. Next, a textual analysis of that most-linked-to-content can lead one towards an SEO content development strategy that better matches the audience of the website on which the backlink analysis was done.

The formulas in the accompanying spreadsheet may look rather complicated, but they become that way due largely to the myriad of minor ways a URL can be written that would break many an unsuspecting MID / FIND formula combination. Here is a more basic example of a MID / FIND formula combination that extracts the domain (~95% of the time without error*):

=MID([Cell to look in], 8, FIND(“/”, [Cell to look in], 8 ) – 8 )

*The domain has to have a URL that begins with “http://”, and follows with either a “/” or a slug.

Cross-worksheet Validation in Excel

If you use a reference to identify the list of items a cell needs to validate against, that reference has to be on the same worksheet as the cell for which you are trying to setup validation. This first time I encountered this I wanted to pull my hair out. Luckily, it turns out there is a better solution: Named Ranges.

Being able to store the list of valid values a cell can have on a worksheet separate from that cell is hugely helpful when setting up Excel workbooks where the input tables and the output tables are on separate worksheets. By using this technique, one can lock users from modifying output/presentation/results worksheets while still allowing them to add and remove categories/values for VLOOKUP() and SEARCH().

The example outlined in the demonstration Excel file attached to this is straightforward, as most of the work is in menus and not formulas. The one formula involved is this:

=OFFSET([Cell reference to the first item in the list of valid cell values], 0, 0, COUNTA([Cell range reference to all the items in the list of valid cell values), 1)

FUNCTIONS

Histograms with FREQUENCY()

Histograms are wonderful ways of simply showing the distribution of a set of data, whether it’s days during the year above a certain volume of revenue, or in the example spreadsheet, the mozRank of the websites that mentioned the client’s brand.

There are two critical aspects of FREQUENCY() not directly mentioned in the demonstration Excel spreadsheet. First, one has to select a range of cells that is the same size as the cell range that defines the buckets, before one begins typing the formula. Second, one has to press CMD+SHFT+ENTER when they finish typing the formula rather than just ENTER. This is because FREQUENCY() is known as an array formula (I discuss array formulas in the first installment of Microsoft Excel Tips for Marketers, and this is where I learned how to use them).

MORE ADVANCED TIPS

Microsoft Excel + Wordle

Wordle is an amazing, free tool for generating word clouds. Word clouds are a neat way of visualizing the frequency of individual words in a larger body of text. We use them as a method for analyzing word of mouth data, and discovering what the critical emergent topics are in the conversation that may affect our clients. Here is an example word cloud created with Wordle using the text of this blog post:



Simple word clouds can be created by selecting "Create" on Wordle’s home page, but we are concerned with the "Advanced" section. In the advanced section one is able to bring Microsoft Excel to bear to help create, in this example, word clouds that color topics by their sentiment.

The starting data is fairly standard Social Media monitoring (our take) data, from an aspect of our current monitoring software that allows us to identify trending topics. This monitoring tool also analyzes the sentiment of each instance of the discussion on each topic, so we are able to get percentages of positive, neutral and negative commentary.

The key step in this process is not actually turning the sentiment numbers into Red/Green/Blue color values, but the step in between where we index the positive, neutral and negative sentiment percentages in order to produce actually meaningful color values (as opposed to ending up with all brown/grey words in the final product). The basic formula is (example here is for positive sentiment):

=(([Topic’s % positive] – [smallest % positive out of all topics]) / ([largest % positive out of all topics] – [smallest % positive out of all topics])

This indexing method maps the smallest positive % in the range to 0, and the largest to 1, and maps all the remaining topics’ positive %s in between 0 and 1, and levels the playing field such that, for example, a 1% to 4% jump in negative mentions is noticeable compared to a 27% to 40% positive mentions.

Many of the above tips involve more than just Excel formulas, and as such I can’t recommend enough downloading the excel file accompanying this post and trying some things out yourself. On the flip side, I know not all of us are interested in rushing home and spending our free time in Excel, so, if you post your questions, comments, grievances in the comments we’ll see if we can figure them out!

Prior Excel tips posts: Part 1, and Part 2.

And that’s all for now, but there will be more!

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/excel-tips-3-seo-word-of-mouth/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/gifting-online-offline-seasonal-analysis/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/gifting-online-offline-seasonal-analysis/#comments Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:20:09 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1300 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on June 2, 2011.]

The next time you’re shopping online and moving toward checkout, pause and think about the gift wrapping option. Your gift recipient gets a nice little package, but the retailer or manufacturer gets a nice little gift as well. These folks can learn a lot about their consumers by analyzing their gifting behavior – intelligence which can translate into huge profits when put to use.

EMarketer estimated 2010 U.S. holiday ecommerce sales at $38.5 billion, and total ecommerce revenues on an annual basis checked in at $152.1 billion. If we assume the total value of online gift purchases somewhere between those two numbers, and the reported ratio of online to offline sales holds true (between 3 and 7 percent of total), it’s clear that the total gift economy in the United States (combined online and offline) is worth at least half a trillion dollars – and probably much more than that.

It’s not an easy number to nail down; we know from our research on the ROPO Effect about the nebulous limbo that resides between online research and offline consumer behavior. But that’s where relativity comes in.

The keywords ‘gift’ or ‘gifts’ are queried approximately 200 million times a year in the U.S. Naturally they don’t mean a whole lot by themselves, but when tied to modifiers to research products like ‘gift card’ or ‘gift basket,’ the plot thickens. 

With added focus on seasonality, we observe relative shifts in this activity, around holidays and other special occasions. And where better to dig into trended search query data than Google Insights for Search?

This tool reports search query volumes (since January 2004) as a normalized index value pegged to the highest value for a time period. In other words, on the day a particular keyword saw its highest search volume, a score of 100 would appear – and every other date since 2004 would be measured on a 0-100 scale relative to that peak value. (Click for more on how Google Insights values are normalized.)

Using this tool we created a metric to gauge relative shifts in search activity, and find patterns to better explain nuanced gifting behavior from a search engine perspective. We’ll call it the Average Search Volume Index, or ASVI. (Google Insights reports search trends at the weekly level, but we chose to aggregate these to monthly.) 

When we see ASVI rise from month to month, we know that search query volumes have risen relative to whatever their peak may be. Using this approach we treated each of Google’s 27 search query categories as a unique subset of data (for the complete list, see Footnote).

Here’s where they begin to show their individuality.

Gift-related Search Activity During the Holiday Shopping Season

Let’s start with an easy one. We know that the vast majority of online shopping activity begins with a search engine. So what do we see in terms of gift-related search engine queries? 

Below is a categorized view of the percent growth in Average Search Volume Index (ASVI) from October to November:



Ever notice how many ads for digital cameras you see around the holidays? Photo & Video sees the biggest rise in overall search interest from October to November. This includes everything from equipment (camera, accessories, etc.) to software, sharing and printing services, and professional services.

Other categories of note: 

• Food & Drink (cookware, also gift certificates to restaurants)
• Beauty & Personal Care (always a winner with comparison shoppers)
• Recreation, Sports (people already making plans to come out of hibernation in the spring?)
• Computers & Electronics (know anyone who likes these as gifts?)

Gift-Related Search Activity During the Early Holiday Shopping Season

There are a lot of proactive consumers who start chipping away at their holiday gift shopping ahead of schedule. Certain types of gift purchases also require significant research or feedback and reinforcement from others who know the recipient well. Judging by growth in ASVI from August to September, Recreation tops this list by a long shot:



Clearly the amount of effort to plan boating, cycling, hiking, hunting, fishing and other types of trips and vacations call for added time to research and mull options.

Other categories of note: Food & Drink, Beauty & Personal Care again weigh in heavily. News & Current Events (especially gift subscriptions to newspapers and magazines) had a strong showing here, too.

What About Other Gift-Giving Periods Like Graduation Season Every Spring?

No, people don’t just buy gifts at year’s end. With most education degrees handed out in the middle of spring, May can be a busy month for gift-related search activity. 

The Society category scores highly for one key reason: keywords like “graduate” appear in the search engine query, skewing the results toward the Colleges & Universities subcategory which appears within this category:



For that reason, it helps to look a bit further down the list for other patterns. Two mainstays from the holiday season, Recreation and Photo & Video, again appear prominently: give a grad a vacation, or a camera to record it. The Shopping category (which includes coupons, auctions, shopping portals, product reviews, and offline retail) generally represents a sophisticated, perhaps more urgent type of gift giving – such as when you realize graduation is a week away and you still need to buy a gift.

To Be Continued…

Next time, we’ll look at a few other important data sets within this gifting context: 

• Back to School shopping season
• General decline in gifting during summer months
• A few holiday gift categories which cool down considerably in December

These insights are only as good as the execution that follows – so we’ll be sure to tell you how to put all this to use.

Footnote. The following categories of industry classification are used in this data set: Arts & Humanities, Automotive, Beauty & Personal Care, Business, Computers & Electronics, Entertainment, Finance & Insurance, Food & Drink, Games, Health, Home & Garden, Industries, Internet, Lifestyles, Local, News & Current Events, Photo & Video, Real Estate, Recreation, Reference, Science, Shopping, Social Networks & Online Communities, Society, Sports, Telecommunications, Travel.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/gifting-online-offline-seasonal-analysis/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/is-delicious-the-next-discovery-engine/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/is-delicious-the-next-discovery-engine/#comments Tue, 31 May 2011 00:47:11 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1287 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on May 5, 2011.]

Last month, I had the pleasure of tackling one of the more enigmatic trends in digital marketing today: social search. Since then, we saw a familiar name take a step into unfamiliar territory, when former YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley purchased Delicious.com from Yahoo! for an undisclosed sum.

Those who do search well (Google, Microsoft Bing) have taken steps to ‘socialize’ the search experience, but we’re still waiting to see exactly how the search experience will change once social feedback signals are incorporated into the search algorithms. Meanwhile, the large scale social media environments we know and love (such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr) are still bound by privacy settings (and their own territoriality). You can search within any of these sites, but from a behavioral point of view, search intent is very different compared to the Google home page. People know what’s here and what’s not. They’re not looking for someone matching a description, just whoever showed up at the same party. And these sites are having a hell of a time casting any spotlight on their search assets; for instance, how many people in the general public realize that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world?

In “Google +1: What Does it Mean for Search Marketing?” I put forth the idea that Google’s proven ability to make magic with consumer data could potentially turn Google +1 into a smash hit. This doesn’t offset the practical necessity for publishers and webmasters to roll out +1 functionality across their sites, and alas, to date Google has fallen horribly short on enabling this.

But out of this head-scratching incomplete product rollout, we gain a new perspective. If the world’s undisputed search giant still hasn’t had any luck ‘socializing’ user behavior in search engines, maybe the real solution is to reverse-engineer user behavior in social media, bringing it back to a root intention which brought them there in the first place. And this is where Hurley and Chen, now at the helm of AVOS, might be onto something. In the company’s press release announcing the Delicious acquisition, they cite the scourge of information overload on the web as a driving force in the future development of Delicious.

We’ll try to steer clear of all the tiresome statistics showing how much information we consume every day (if you haven’t, you can go here). But there is one I quite like: The world produces between 1 and 2 exabytes of unique information per year. Just to put things in perspective, let’s dust off our old analogy skills from SAT prep: an exabyte is to a gigabyte, as the population of India is to YOU.

While we’ve gotten pretty good at going out and searching for the answers to our questions, who is out there bringing answers to us? In today’s abyss of information, there’s a clear opportunity for someone to step in and do just that. If Google is the definitive search engine of today’s Internet, and Bing is the “decision engine,” then it’s plausible that the Delicious of tomorrow could be a true “discovery engine.” You’re going to trust the content flagged by your friends, family, colleagues, whoever – more than whatever content marketers push to you, and more than the results toward which the search algorithms pull you. The same way some TV viewers tune in, and others channel-surf, the arrival of a true discovery engine would complete the circle and cater to the needs of passive information seekers.



These are the same people who are exhibiting signs of information overload, and like it or not, in some way, shape or form: that’s all of us.

A number of sites have attempted to brand themselves as a discovery engine: YourVersion, PolyMeta, SnipSnap, and who could forget the aptly-named Discovery Engine Corp. Of all the sites which position themselves as a discovery engine, StumbleUpon would appear to be the most viable. They had a busy March 2011, first announcing a fresh round of funding and then launching an advertising platform. StumbleUpon claims to have 15 million users in its community, though the truer measure of the network’s footprint would be its number of active users, which is closer to 3-4 million users (monthly). Delicious’ reported head count of 5.3 million users hasn’t been updated since 2008, a time when StumbleUpon also claimed about 5 million users. If this is the gold standard for a discovery engine, clearly Delicious has the wherewithal to battle for Number One right away.

Surely, some changes are in order before the new site is unveiled in July. They could use a better array of browser extensions, make the management of privacy settings a bit smoother, and oh yeah, they’ll need a revenue model. It’s been some time since Hurley and Chen spun gold, but it starts with a vision of a need that must be met. So far, so good.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/is-delicious-the-next-discovery-engine/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/the-purchase-funnel-revisited/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/the-purchase-funnel-revisited/#comments Tue, 03 May 2011 22:00:31 +0000 Matthew Cronin /blog/?p=1264 All the way back in 2007 discussions of the next-generation Purchase Funnel seemed to be the rage (see here, here and here) and we contributed a model of our own to the conversation. Perspectives on engagement, influence, feedback, etc integrated the latest analytical insights and fueled a lively discourse. Digital data and the emerging appreciation for social media took center stage, but as these insights have grown deeper and more valued, actually making their way into marketing strategies, the conversation about the Purchase Funnel seems to have been set aside. So, is there a definitive “new” purchase funnel that accurately reflects consumer behavior in the 21st century? Did we crack the code? I like to think that we did, but like consumer behavior, it is constantly evolving.

In our model, we focused on two primary advancements to the purchase funnel concept: 1) consumer behavior after the purchase – developing and sharing their experiences; and 2) the significance of one individual’s post-purchase behaviors overlapping with another’s pre-purchase behaviors and influencing decisions. At the time we believed that the emergence of Word-of-Mouth (WOM) behaviors online, in the form of what we were calling CGC (Consumer Generated Content): review sites, blogs and forums/communities, was having a profound effect on the purchase process and the standard funnel simply didn’t reflect that.

We’ve employed this model over the years with great success, helping to shape the strategies for our clients and, in fact, galvanizing Web Liquid’s unique approach to digital marketing services which places insight from this word-of-mouth behavior at the foundation of all that we do. In that time we’ve re-confirmed that there’s no greater influence on purchase behavior than peer to peer Word-of-Mouth and that marketing strategies in any channel (search, mobile, display, social, affiliate, etc) which align, engage and support these conversations are capable of much greater success.

We’ve also developed a deep appreciation for the root human behavior of WOM, recognizing that it is an absolute truth which needn’t be reconfigured for the digital world. In fact, the more our interactions become digital, the more influence WOM behavior has across various aspects of our lives, further confirming this new purchase funnel model. As such, the industry is becoming more comfortable with using the term WOM instead of a new moniker like UGC, CGC, XYZ.

So roughly 4 years after we first introduced it we’re offering this slight modification which aligns the model with up-to-date terminology and a fresh look.



]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/the-purchase-funnel-revisited/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/google-plus-one-search-marketing/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/google-plus-one-search-marketing/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:15:14 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1187 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on April 7, 2011.]

It might be the biggest announcement in the digital world in a very long time – but both Google and the Search Marketing community have more work to do, to make the most of Google +1.

Remember the buzz about Buzz?  And whatever happened to Wave?  Google’s product launches in the social space have been anything but smooth in recent memory.  But last week’s announcement of Google +1 could very well be the end of that pattern – provided both Google and the marketing community do their part.

A few blemishes on Google’s record have nonetheless ushered in the requisite boos and catcalls from the peanut gallery, such as:

• “It’s the same as the Facebook ‘Like’ button, except that it’s five years too late.”
• “These +1’s don’t have much relevance as social cues, because it’s not just your friends pulled into the social circle.”
• “People aren’t going to bother +1’ing any content.”
• “It’s going to be way too easy to game the system to generate +1’s.”

While the answers to these criticisms will play out over a long period of time, search marketers should begin to look beyond them.  This begins with an evolving perspective of the elusive social graph – the universal map of the connections of everyone belonging to social networks on the Internet.  We’re beginning to see that the scope of social graphs also depends on the scalability of content within these networks:



In other words, a broad social graph is comprised of many users generating and interacting with a large amount of content.  It’s the network effect in action: the more people and content rolled in, the more valuable the network becomes.  In a closed system like Facebook, the limits on both are very apparent: the content created on Facebook is still a fraction of what’s created in other channels (and indexed by Google).  And even though 600 million users is an impressive number, it just doesn’t hold up to the number of people worldwide using Google Search and other products on the platform.

To date, the notion of “social search” has merely been comprised of layers of social data woven into search results.  With Google +1, social cues will now become a core ingredient of the search experience, inching closer to the next generation of consumer data.  As A.J. Kohn has pointed out, “(Google) wants to own a primary source of data, not rely on secondary sources. Particularly as Facebook encroaches on search and hides more web content from Google.”

And that’s the bottom line: even if the Google +1 button lacks the history, the familiarity and the functionality of the Facebook ‘Like’ button, even with slow adoption it won’t be long before Google’s social graph data exceeds what Facebook is sitting on.  Add that to a vastly superior interface for advertisers, and it’s a winning proposition.

It’s early; there aren’t too many tactics or how-to’s to speak of.  But for all of this to eventually make a difference to marketers, there is still plenty that Google needs to do:

1) Get that +1 button into the mainstream, ASAP!

Google announced the availability of this button on the Webmaster Central Blog on March 28, fully two days ahead of the +1 launch.  Presumably this was to give publishers a chance to get the jump on things, but shortly after Google issued a statement indicating “we’re still working things out and aren’t quite ready for this to be publicly available just yet.”

Without a content-side measure to drive engagement in social search, users are left to +1 links either on memory alone, or by taking the trouble to click Back in their browsers and flag up the link that sent them to whatever they liked.  Talk about a huge pair of bottlenecks.  The sooner Google gets out of its own way, the better off we’ll all be.

2) Begin addressing the spam issue.

It’s on everyone’s minds – how people will be able to game the system.  In principle, this is very similar to spam problems of the past: Google squashed paid links in 2007 and they can do it again.  They have already publicly confirmed that +1 is currently not a factor in quality score, but marketers with big budgets will need confidence that strategies built around Google +1 will operate in a stable environment.

3) Put more effort into promoting Google Profiles.

Across the worldwide Google audience, what percentage of these people have actually built and maintained their Google Profiles?  It’s a small share, and these folks are the only ones who presently are able to actively “plus-one” the content.  There’s still a lot of education needed.

Here’s some homework for Search Marketers, to make sure we get the most out of Google +1:

1) Poke holes and hammer Google with feedback.

Are A/B tests showing a difference in key metrics among +1 ads, compared to the control?  Will +1 activity ever show up in Google Analytics?  How will +1 ads with third party adservers?  In the words of a famous sports agent, we should all be telling Google: “Help me help you!”  (To help Google help itself, you can provide technical feedback here, and more general feedback here.)

2) Get ready for an eventual rollout of +1 on the Google Display Network.

We know that display advertising is an important catalyst for most search programs.  Once a more mature +1 technology reaches users beyond the search results – and in their actual browsing environments – the first movers’ advantages will be very apparent.  And the forthcoming GDN rollout is hardly far-fetched, given Google’s tireless pursuit of greater market share in the display arena.

3) Ignore speculation about +1’s effect on ranking and quality score algorithms.

The bottom line is, no one (possibly not even Google’s engineers) really knows how plus-one-enabled search behavior is going to play out.  Eventually, it makes sense that these social cues may earn some weight in Google’s algorithms; anything which increases clickthrough rate (CTR) is a prime candidate in this regard.  We know that other ad extensions have been shown to drive higher CTR (sitelinks and seller ratings come to mind).  And with that higher CTR will come more marketing dollars, and thus more data for Google to troubleshoot the aforementioned challenges: promoting adoption, refining its community, battling spam, and so on.

With a swift ironing of all the kinks, this could be the biggest boon to search marketing since PigeonRank!

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/google-plus-one-search-marketing/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/google-position-preference-adwords/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/google-position-preference-adwords/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 13:51:31 +0000 Tom Jones-Barlow /blog/?p=1179 Google has announced on the AdWords blog that it is retiring position preference, which automatically set bids to achieved a certain rank on the page. It will be removed in early May.

This change comes as Google seeks to convince advertisers to put less value in having their ads showing on particular ranks – in the same blog post announcing the change Google forwarded readers to another post by Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian, who was at pains to highlight that ad rank should not be used as a measure of performance and more importantly concluded that an ad’s rank has no impact on conversion rates.

This new advice may help to counter some views on clients who enter the PPC market with a goal to have their ads ranked above their competitors. There’s certainly advantages to occupying particular ranks, the obvious one being that the higher the ad rank, the more volume an advertiser may hope to generate in clicks but also some other arguments such as Google’s earlier pieces of research suggesting that users expect to see big-name brands in the higher positions, but this change shows that Google wants instead the focus to be on efficiency – finding the performance that works for individual advertisers, regardless of ad position.

Varian drew other conclusions, including stating that ads lower on the page may perform better than those higher – especially on high volume, high competition keywords where advertisers would expect to pay a high CPC for the top ranks, but actually receive a high level of volume regardless of what position their ad appeared on the page. In this scenario the advertiser still gets exposure on important keywords, driving leads and/or conversions, but enjoying a much lower avg. CPC than competitors battling for the top of the page.

In summary Google’s pushing hard to communicate that efficiency metrics, not ad ranks, should be the principle focus of Search activity and it can be expected that any changes to AdWords utilities in the future will continue to focus on their optimisation.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/google-position-preference-adwords/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/client-results/state-of-social-media-part-iii/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/client-results/state-of-social-media-part-iii/#comments Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:11:26 +0000 Ben Semmar /blog/?p=1171

When brands focus strictly on social media tactics they tend to barrage their fans and followers with brand-centric content and updates giving the impression that Billy May is somehow posthumously managing their social media accounts  – or, more plainly, they tend to “broadcast”.

A tactic, by its very definition, is a one-off effort; an action taken as a means to some end. And, according to the “experts”, content is king when it comes to social media. So when trying to drive sales quickly, it seems natural that, as a result of the real time, breakneck pace of social media, brands would so fervently push out content to their respective constituencies. After all, you can’t blame them for trying to get your attention. But when taking a tactical approach to content dissemination – especially on sites like Facebook and Twitter – brands run the risk of becoming inconsistent, and that has implications on one of the most important factors in a brands’ online success: the user (read: consumer) experience. 

The conventional wisdom put forth by the “experts” we discussed in Part 1 of this series is that, under whatever circumstances, brands must start a Facebook Page and Twitter account and then engage the resulting “community”. The communities often are built through “Like-baiting” or some other coercive means, and engagement typically takes on a look-at-me tone characterized by promotions or annoying calls to action. It’s as though brands are traipsing around the various social networks, Rickrolling everybody. (Hurts, doesn’t it?)

But the impact of this duplicitous behavior isn’t felt overnight – which is the reason it is thought to work. Because the fact of the matter is that there are over half a billion people on both Facebook and Twitter alone, meaning that there are plenty of people to come along and ‘Like’ your page, if only to watch one video.  As the Likes begin to pile up, everybody gets excited and claims wild success but what they don’t know is that this doesn’t mean a thing; we saw this with the Digital Death campaign. What’s actually happening is that because of content that’s all things ACME, people aren’t staying around. Thus, they’re not sharing your content or becoming ‘brand advocates’, which really just means that nobody is telling their friends about you. It’s like Times Square. where there’s nothing but flashing lights, huge billboards and tourists merely passing through, because all of the locals try to avoid it at all costs. Why? Because the real New York has nothing to do with Toys ‘R ‘Us, the M&M’s store, or the ESPN Zone. The real New York is Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, Brooklyn, Queens. It’s esoteric. And the only way to truly know the real New York is to experience it, authentically. Your brand should be no different.

Put simply, many brands aren’t yet able to build long lasting relationships through social media not through any fault of the medium itself. Rather, it’s because they aren’t giving the consumer what they want. And because of their strict focus on “building communities”, there is no higher objective that’s informing their actions; they don’t know why they’re building communities in the first place.

But while a brand’s objectives in social media are outside of the purview of this blog post, what we can talk about is what consumers want. And the answer lies in Word-of-Mouth (WOM).

As we saw in this post, and many others we’ve written here, a good Word-of-Mouth approach entails the monitoring of online conversation around a particular brand – what’s being said, where it’s being said, who’s saying it, etc. – and then teasing out insights based on the data. The potential applications of such insights to a social media strategy are manifold, but what intrigues me the most is the ability that a WOM program provides you with to target niche communities.

Take Sunshine Suites, a Realty Management firm that provides entrepreneurs and small business owners with affordable office space. With ambitious plans for growth they implemented a WOM-driven approach, with the goal of acquiring qualified leads among its target market. Being able to locate where entrepreneurs were engaging with each other, and understand the language that they were speaking, allowed Sunshine to develop a campaign that ultimately resulted in a 1200% acquisition increase.

The reason that this worked so well wasn’t simply because Sunshine Suites knew where their target market were having discussions, or even what they were saying. Partnering with MeetUp.com allowed Sunshine to create an experience for their prospective clients in a context that was familiar to them, which ultimately led to confidence in the brand – something that may not have been possible were it not for their WOM program..  And when consumers have more confidence, that means less persuading from the brand, an ROI-positive proposition if there ever was one.

Throughout this series, we’ve railed against the use of tactics in social media as a cheap means to an end. However, something needs to be made clear: tactics are an absolutely essential component to participation in any medium; critical, even. But they only prove useful when organized within a strategy that has clear objectives and that uses word-of-mouth insights to help create a user experience that is meaningful and conducive to the types of behavior that brands yearn so dearly for.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/client-results/state-of-social-media-part-iii/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/effects-new-york-times-paywall/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/effects-new-york-times-paywall/#comments Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:28:23 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1167 We recently posed the following question to our clients and partners: “Earlier this week, the New York Times implemented a new paywall based on visitors’ pageviews. What effect will this have on digital marketers?”

The results are in, but it appears the jury is still out.  Our audience was fairly evenly divided, with half believing that this change will bring about more investment in display media opportunities on NYTimes.com.  The other half believes that this change will usher in an attention shift among marketers, away from display media and toward more organic channels of engagement like SEO and Social Media.

A few things, however, are clear even at this early stage:

• These changes will put more pressure on the New York Times and other publishers to pre-emptively respond to the coming drop in impression volumes (Hitwise estimates a traffic decline of between 5% and 15%), before leery advertisers begin to put their money elsewhere.

• Given that the New York Times is not counting referral visits (e.g. from Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc) against each individual user’s quota, we’ll be seeing the viral side of news dissemination kicking into a higher gear.  [Though, this does beg the question: at what point does NYT's incentive to maintain a well-optimized presence in organic search begin to taper off?]

• With the ongoing privacy debates going on in the U.S. and beyond, consumers will need to face up to the reality that they cannot have it both ways.  If they don’t want to pay for content, publishers need to be more creative in how they can demonstrate ROI for marketers, and that means implementing all the behavioral targeting technologies that are under scrutiny.

One thing that won’t change with the new paywall: good journalism will always cost good money.  If being informed is indeed a priority for American consumers, in all likelihood we’ll have to pay for it one way or another.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/effects-new-york-times-paywall/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/7-ways-counter-rising-cpcs-search-2/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/7-ways-counter-rising-cpcs-search-2/#comments Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:34:30 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1163 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on March 10, 2011.]

In the early days, the prevailing wisdom was that once search had established itself as a viable marketing channel, higher budgets would follow and CPC’s (cost per click) would understandably rise.  What has followed is a more quantifiable account of the same view, with a number of voices in the search world proclaiming a future of prolonged rises in costs per click.  In late 2010, Efficient Frontier published a report charting significant growth in CPC’s across a number of verticals:

• Travel: +21%, from January 2010 to January 2011
• Automotive: +8%
• Retail: +7%
• Finance: +7%

By the end of the year, SEO.com came through with a not-so-bold prediction: “Only three things are certain in a search marketer’s life: death, taxes, and rising CPC’s.”  The panacea, this story goes, is to invest in process automation from the likes of paid search management platforms.  But in truth, there are a number of lower-tech solutions to stave off hyper-inflation within the paid search economy:

1)    Pay more attention to Average Position. This metric often takes a backseat to click-through rate (CTR), CPC and conversion rate.  By capping average position, however, search marketers retain control over ballooning costs.  Google AdWords even offers advertisers a position preference functionality which can be helpful in structuring test scenarios.

2)    Blow the lid off your keyword lists. The 80/20 rule is alive and well in the paid search world.  While the top tier of keywords will always provide the bulk of your impressions and clicks, they also attract the most attention from advertisers and thus are most prone to rising CPC’s.  By doing your research and extending way into the long tail, you’ll not only extend your reach, but you’ll find that better conversion rates await.

3)    Experiment with search networks. Google segments clicks in paid search between searches conducted on Google.com and its search network partners, licensees of Google’s search technology who provide custom search engines within their own sites.  Often times the difference in CPC between the two is substantial (in one direction or the other).

4)    Daypart bidding. As PPC tactics are concerned, dayparting is an oldie but a goodie – but too often we think of it in a black & white context: either your ads are running or they’re not.  However, you can also adjust bids based on dayparts.  If your analytics data shows that your conversion rates are lower in the mornings, shave a portion off your morning bids – this way you’ll manage your costs without sacrificing the reach of your advertising.

5)    Use ad extensions whenever possible. Sitelinks, locations, product ads, seller ratings… these all have one thing in common.  They are non-standard ad formats which Google has tested and re-tested, with the intention of assuring high click-through rates and efficiency for advertisers.  Given the nature of PPC auctions, these can be effective in managing CPC as well.

6)    Invest more in Mobile Search. Searches conducted on mobile devices come at a heavily discounted cost, less than half of what we pay in desktop & laptop search (on average).  Meanwhile, the surging sales of smartphones have grown the mobile share of total search impressions to over 10%.

7)    Scale up to a more advanced solution. Managing multiple accounts can be an immense amount of work, but a good bid management tool goes a long way in simplifying the process.  That will make your campaigns work more efficiently on the media side, but what about the performance of your website?  Even a small incremental gain in landing page performance can yield huge returns – and a systematic approach to conversion rate optimization can pay for itself.

When all else fails, you can also accept your fate and just steal some budget away from offline channels – there’s plenty to go around!

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/7-ways-counter-rising-cpcs-search-2/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/just-released-2011-customer-complaint-index/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/just-released-2011-customer-complaint-index/#comments Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:56:47 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1158 Click here to download your copy today!

The Customer Complaint Index helps marketers understand customer complaints, the search behavior that drives them, and the marketing opportunity surrounding them:

• Which brands are most commonly searched in Google for customer complaints?
• Which industries attract this type scrutiny from consumers?
• How well are advertisers capitalizing on opportunities to extend marketing reach around complaint-focused search behavior?



]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/just-released-2011-customer-complaint-index/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/web-liquid-nigeria-strategic/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/web-liquid-nigeria-strategic/#comments Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:44:33 +0000 James Agama /blog/?p=1139 A recent announcement by Web Liquid Group to open a substantive office in Lagos, Nigeria in partnership with local publishing group Naija Times and with board member support from Phillips Consulting (the largest wholly owned African Management Consulting firm) has no doubt raised some eyebrows?



Based on the world’s general perception of Nigeria, it may seem like a questionable strategy, given the other global options such as Asia or South America. And if you have to go to Africa, why not South Africa, Ghana or Egypt? Whilst there are pros and cons of all of these markets, the reality is that for a company like Web Liquid, internet penetration growth rates and digital marketing adoption are the key primary drivers for the decision.

As a Nigerian and a 10 year plus veteran of the traditional advertising space in Nigeria, I am particularly excited about Web Liquid’s move into this market and in my opportunity to be a part of this next generation of marketing for my country for a number of reasons.

Firstly the advertising industry for a long time has ‘boxed’ itself in. Offline media space has become very expensive with little or no way to measure the impact or ROI on huge investments. Organisations such as Web Liquid are likely to change all that.

Secondly the growth that has been witnessed in internet penetration in the last ten years is staggering. Before 2001, the internet was unattractive for personal or business use. Broadband services were abysmal with the cost beyond the reach of the average Nigerian. In fact, in an attempt to log onto Yahoo, you could take a trip to friend’s place hoping that by the time you came back the page would have loaded! This was largely due to the country’s underdeveloped and unreliable fixed-line infrastructure.

Ten years on, things are vastly different. In 2001 internet penetration was only 0.1%, 6 years later it rose to 3.1%. In 2009 it had arisen to over 16.1%. Going by these penetration rates, the number of Nigerians online is approaching or possibly has exceeded 30 million.

New powerful players from the fixed-wireless and mobile network operator camps have entered the market with 3G mobile and advanced wireless broadband services such as WiMAX. The Internet Protocol-based next generation networks currently being rolled out are enabling converged voice, data/Internet and video services. VoIP is already carrying the bulk of Nigeria’s international voice traffic. The arrival of a second international submarine fibre-optic cable (Glo-1) in 2009 broke the monopoly of Nitel’s notorious SAT-3/WASC cable and is set to revolutionise the market by reducing the cost of international bandwidth by up to 90%. Supported by the expansion of several competing national fibre backbone networks, applications such as e-commerce, online banking and e-payments, e-health, e-learning and e-government are rapidly evolving and it can only get better.

When the opportunities for mobile telephony opened in 1999, not many believed that anything good could come out of Nigeria. After making the first call in 2001, the telecommunication companies are now the most profitable businesses (after Oil and Gas).There are now well over 67 million mobile subscribers in Nigeria, with Smart phones firmly embedded in the top ten handsets sold there.

With such a substantial (and growing) online audience, there is a huge opportunity for a digital marketing firm such as Web Liquid to lead the way. Whilst success may not be a ‘piece of cake’, if you have the foresight to see beyond current infrastructure difficulties, the opportunities in this market are virtually endless. Add to that the pedigree of local partnerships Web Liquid has cemented, and the chances of success increase exponentially.

Make no mistake, much education and demonstration of skill and commitment will be required, but as has been the way of other global markets, clients will eventually focus on digital, and Web Liquid plan to be at the forefront of that movement.

Welcome to Nigeria.

James Agama
Client Services Director
Web Liquid Nigeria

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/web-liquid-nigeria-strategic/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/state-of-social-media-part-ii/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/state-of-social-media-part-ii/#comments Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:10:07 +0000 Ben Semmar /blog/?p=1145 This is the second in a three part series dealing with the current state of social media marketing. Part I dealt with the topic of social media experts and their effect on brands’ activities in the space. Here in Part II we will look at a specific campaign as an example of the effects discussed in Part I and Part III will put forth some alternative solutions to the way most brands currently participate in social media.

Last December, Steve Rahr, a pharmaceutical mogul turned philanthropist, donated half a million dollars to help those in Africa and India affected by AIDS. But the lives of sick children weren’t the only things saved that day. The $500,000 donation also managed to single-handedly save a poorly executed fundraising campaign from falling short of its mark.

The premise of the Digital Death campaign was relatively straight-forward: a handful of the most popular celebrities on the social web were to commit digital suicide on World AIDS Day (December 1^st), completely cutting off all communication via Facebook and Twitter. They would not “come back to life” until their fans and followers had donated a total of $1 million. Organised by Keep A Child Alive, Alicia Keys’ charity, the money raised would be used to provide medical support to African and Indian children and their families affected by HIV and AIDS.

Most of those involved thought this would only last a couple of days; after all, who wouldn’t be willing to make a donation to help sick children AND have their favorite celebrities start tweeting away again? As it turns out, Ms. Keys and her celebrity friends grossly underestimated their influence – five days in to the campaign, donations hadn’t even hit $300,000. Then, miraculously, Rahr came in and saved the day, much to the glee of Ryan Seacrest and the many other Digital Death participants.

In the days leading up to the donation, myriad social media pundits and experts took to their blogs, claiming that the reason the campaign was doing so poorly was due to the inherently egotistical nature of the concept or that there was no natural fit between the campaign and the celebrities involved. Maybe so, but the bigger problem with this campaign is that it comprised a bunch of different tactics, all while eschewing any apparent strategy.

The use of celebrities in building awareness around a cause or advertising campaign is a tactic that organizations have been using for years – sometimes these endorsements even lead to the creation of new brands. But the biggest problem with the Digital Death campaign was that there was no context to what these celebrities were doing. Indeed, the campaign was supported by mainstream media coverage, traditional and digital ads, and a micro-site – things all aimed at spreading the word, as it were – but they did nothing to bring things together. Instead what it did was serve to make the message work harder. Keep A Child Alive, the organization behind Digital Death, has a fairly active presence on Twitter but that doesn’t matter – this campaign was meant to be celebrity-driven. Simply sending out a tweet saying that you’re going away for a while until $1 million is raised isn’t exactly going to rally the troops, especially when those on Twitter that follow the celebrities involved don’t know why they should be donating money in the first place. If KCA would have sat down to think about this a little more they would have realized that, strategically, to build up awareness for this campaign, it would have to be done by the celebrities themselves.

And so the issue of influence is raised.  Among other things, a topic that any social media expert loves to talk about is “connecting with influencers” and the ways that brands can use them to their advantage. The rise in popularity by tools such as Klout, also point to a larger trend in the industry towards this. But as we saw with the Digital Death campaign, simply using a celebrity as part of any type of initiative won’t do anything unless it’s both relevant and unique. Twitter users that follow celebrities are familiar with them in very specific ways so rather than cutting off communications, perhaps these celebrities should have remained active, enlightening those that follow them to the strife and hardships these children and their families face even without having to deal with HIV/AIDS – and then driving the point home by shedding light on specific examples (remember, concreteness helps things stick and what’s more concrete than specific anecdotes about a young child dying from AIDS and their families’ subsequent struggles in dealing with it?).

A lot of people look to “influencers” in the social space as all encompassing and a sure thing to success. But the problem with these influencers is that, after a while, it gets old – just look at the slowly increasing resistance to fashion bloggers. The same thing is true with attempting to “go viral”. If a brand or organization is to be successful in social media, then the view must be long-term. Quick forays on Twitter and Facebook just aren’t going to work.

A strategy is absolutely crucial to the success of any social media program – especially in the case of non-profits like Keep a Child Alive where the difference between success and failure means the difference between life and death. Social media has been successful in helping a number of cause marketing initiatives achieve success – Pepsi Refresh is the low-hanging fruit of examples, but there are plenty of others – but they’ve come as the result of long-term commitments, not weeklong campaigns.

In Part I of this series, we discussed how social media experts have watered down what could potentially be an extremely powerful tool for business and today we saw the impact that tactic-centric engagement in the medium can have. In Part III we will be discussing alternative solutions to the way most brands currently use social media,

Until then, what were your thoughts on the campaign? Did you donate? Can you think of any others that fell short? Or that did well in your eyes? Let me know in the comments.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/state-of-social-media-part-ii/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/search-social-media-offline-purchase/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/search-social-media-offline-purchase/#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:23:17 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1132 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on February 10, 2011.]

Marketers continue to become, as a whole, an increasingly numerate lot. (What’s numeracy? It’s the opposite of innumeracy.)

It’s inevitable that we’ll wake up in a cold sweat every so often, facing up to the reality that some consumer behaviors can’t be measured intuitively, certain audiences just can’t be segmented, and the occasional performance metric actually does nothing to tell the story of how a brand fits into the marketplace.

Recently we discussed the ROPO effect (research online, purchase offline) and how a substantial portion of purchase behaviors initiated online will end up in an immeasurable black hole, never to be spoken of again.

While Google is pinning our economic hopes on an e-commerce led recovery, let’s not forget that offline activity still makes up the lion’s share of purchase behavior.

So if we’re going to speculate about consumer behavior, one channel is more free of bias than the others. We call it word of mouth.

Online Feedback Channels

Thousands of years ago, before the impression and the click, the earliest humans survived in part by specializing and bartering in hunter-gatherer societies. Word of mouth drove many of their decisions, similar in nature to the decisions consumers make today about where to live, what to eat, or with whom to do business.

The social media landscape is, in 2011, the truest manifestation of online word-of-mouth behavior — and in a ROPO context, this brings tremendous value to the search marketer’s table.

Take one example of a very obvious online feedback channel: product review sites. It’s not just about the ratings; these sites are loaded with very specific feedback coming from reliable sources (contributors already volunteer their time to post, so they are self-motivated to represent their opinions accurately).

These sites are a magnet for high volumes of consumer-oriented search queries. Here’s a sample of some popular review sites, followed by a measure of their online footprint in organic search:

• Epinions: 58.3 million pages in Google’s search index
• Yelp: 10.3 million
• CNET Reviews: 9.1 million
• Bizrate: 7.3 million
• TripAdvisor: 2.4 million
• Nextag: 1.9 million
• Yahoo Shopping: 1.6 million

And it doesn’t end there. Review sites are just one piece of the puzzle.

Consumers post the same type of content in forums and communities, in blog comments, on Facebook and Twitter, and many other online properties. These too are indexed by search engines (for the most part), and further fill out the online word of mouth picture.

If we expect consumer trends to hold steady, then we can expect that consumer activity driven by word-of-mouth will usually culminate in an offline resolution. It’s the ROPO effect at work.

So marketers will need to ask themselves, “Are we OK with all these offline purchases, and we simply want to better leverage the trend? Or are we really looking to push our customers toward online (e-commerce) destinations?”

On the heels of this key strategic distinction, here’s how to target the social media audience in search engines, guiding them in their offline consumer behavior:

1. Monitor Online Conversation

What are the most common concerns about your brand? What are its biggest assets, in the eyes of consumers? This provides strategic guidance in marketing communications, media strategy, customer service, product development… the list goes on and on.

A number of brand monitoring tools are available to acquire this type of brand insight.

2. Dig Into the ROPO Pain Points

What are the most common roadblocks to online purchase? How do consumers feel about their offline alternatives?

The volume and sentiment of this segment of consumer dialogue creates a unique profile representing your brand’s ROPO audience.

3. Strike back in Search

Use search engines to guide consumers to your preferred destination, online or offline. Here are a few search marketing tactics worth a try:

• ROPO-targeted creative: Flaunt your glowing testimonials right in the ad copy, with an incentive to buy either online or offline.
• Alternative keyword strategy: Target keywords that include the brand name tied to modifiers like ratings, reviews, etc. Also use on competitive brands (the word-of-mouth research will clue you in to your competitive advantage, which you can use right in the ad copy).
• AdWords seller rating extensions: Managed from your Google Merchant Center account, you can show searchers your pristine record right in the search results.
• Product availability: If you’re a brick-and-mortar retailer, you can set up a data feed to dynamically update product inventory right in the search results.
• Cherrypick the foot traffic: A lot of people use keywords like “store locator“; this is a natural link between online and offline purchase behavior, and a good opportunity to step in and bridge the gap with a nice incentive.

Summary

Selling product is the bottom line, and the environment in which those sales revenues are generated generally takes a backseat. As brands evolve, however, they are forced to look to new growth channels within certain cost boundaries.

Staffing, inventory, rent, insurance — these are just a few of the costs associated with maintaining an offline presence, and can provide a stimulus to increasing a brand’s online presence.

Measurement challenges will continue to be a bottleneck to understanding ROPO trends, but with analytical tactics aimed at extending reach (e.g. mobile search) as well as deepening consumer insight (the word-of-mouth approach), marketers continue to inch closer to clarity.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/search-social-media-offline-purchase/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/state-of-social-media-part-i/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/state-of-social-media-part-i/#comments Mon, 07 Feb 2011 17:43:29 +0000 Ben Semmar /blog/?p=1120



A lot of people have been complaining lately about “social media experts”. The Telegraph recently published a tongue-in-cheek profile on them and the sudden popularity of the The Anti Social Media blog suggests that the UK paper wasn’t alone. You’ve all seen the videos. But while there’s plenty of people complaining about it, nobody’s talking about what led to this in the first place.

A few years ago, the hangover from the social networking craze passed and people began to seriously look at – and question – the viability of social media for business. Early proponents of the space claimed that it had the potential to completely change the way businesses reach out to their consumers (which it has), while the naysayers said there was no way that it could deliver a monetary ROI, and that you couldn’t measure it anyway (which it does and you can). Whatever the case, the debate was heated.

Enter the likes of Mashable, Social Media Examiner, and Joel Comm. Blogs and “consultants” that seemingly came out of nowhere and were thrust to the forefront of the debate. To combat the naysayers they would blindly claim that social media was a golden gun for business and that platforms like Twitter and Facebook were its silver bullets. Tawdry Top Ten lists of the “best” ways brands could engage and build communities; paltry promises of immense growth. This is how they would defend social media as a business tool. And it worked.

It worked because these so-called experts were able to tap into the marketing community’s perpetual desire for an end-all, be-all solution.  As a result, people with little experience outside of reading articles like this landed jobs at both big brands and small businesses alike. It was all about Facebook discounts and Twitter giveaways to increase the number of fans and followers a brand had. If these numbers went up, the consultants were able to show their clients “results”, but nobody knew what to do next.

What these “experts” took for granted – and perhaps what some of these marketers didn’t realise – was that to participate, never mind succeed, in social media, one needs an identity. When it comes to brands participating in social media, only the brands themselves know what their objectives are in terms of how they want to be perceived. And even though in many cases a brand’s identity tends to be dictated by the community, the inherent nature of social media as an interactive medium affords brands a much better opportunity to get their core message across than, say, a print advertisement. But maximizing this opportunity starts not with tactics chosen because somebody else said it was a best practice, but a strategy that lays out how a brand intends to create an environment in which consumers can experience the brand.

Sure, if a brand starts a Facebook page and Twitter account and tells its customers, there’s bound to be a few thousand of them that are going to fan or follow you – although it’s telling that this may not be the case anymore. But this is the internet we’re talking about, where boredom sets in quick – people are constantly in need of something new to do online. Regardless of whether or not a brand has 100 or 100,000 followers, then, these consumers aren’t going to do anything with a brand unless the brand gives the consumer a reason to. After all, it is social media and you wouldn’t send somebody else to a social event in your place. So why should brands?

In most cases, the non-believers were proven right as a result, leaving a sour taste in marketers’ mouths. So when the second wave of social media adoption came, most businesses took it upon themselves to handle their social media activities on their own and played it safe. What we’re left with, then, is a watered down version of a powerful tool and an environment in which people are too preoccupied with tactical implementation, rather than the strategic implications of social media. Instead of writing about the industry in the same way that we explain to toddlers why things are the way they are, we should be talking about social POS systems and their ability to make location based social networks legit, measureable platforms to market businesses with or the benefits of WOM monitoring in tailoring your approach to engaging in the space.

Take a look at the tweet at the top of this post. The person that tweeted this, according to the resume on her website, has worked at a variety of “legacy” media companies in the US as a social media strategist and is, apparently, “generally within two degrees of separation from any media company in the USA”. This is what is wrong with the social media space.

In my next blog post, we’ll be looking at concrete examples of the effects that all of this has had on brands’ efforts in this space. In the meantime, let me know in the comments what your thoughts are on all of this? Have you had similar experiences?

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/state-of-social-media-part-i/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/presentation-social-media-search/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/presentation-social-media-search/#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:36:28 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1116

How can insights from Word-of-Mouth and Social Media be used to create tactical marketing opportunities on Search Engines?

We open with a discussion of our principles of Search marketing, and take a look at how search engines came to be associated with the bottom end of the purchase funnel.  With a discussion of Word-of-Mouth (WOM), however, the notion of building confidence in brands is tied to the importance of conveying trust to online consumers.  Trends in the search space, most notably the growing sophistication of the general public’s use of search engines, highlights a golden opportunity for marketers to leverage WOM insights.

How Word-of-Mouth and Social Media enhance Search Marketing

View more presentations from Web Liquid .

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/presentation-social-media-search/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/ropo-effect/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/ropo-effect/#comments Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:52:36 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1113 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on January 13, 2011.]

With the 2010 holiday season now over, the search marketing industry engages in a common ritual – measuring from all angles the most recent bump in spending, and its estimated effect on the overall e-commerce trends of the gift-giving blitz.  But what about the e-commerce sales that never happened?  Is anyone looking into these?

Virtually every consumer is handy with a search engine.  Roughly two-thirds of them are using search engines to qualify purchase behavior, and yet online sales represent at most 7% of total US retail sales.  So we’re not exactly going out on a limb here, saying that a lot of commercially-motivated search behavior is ending up in a black hole… instead of the shopping cart.

One explanation for this is the ROPO effect (research online, purchase offline).  In 2011, the overwhelming majority of offline purchases still include some online research component.  But ROPO is not a trend which will die off as digital consumer culture continues to evolve; Google estimates that offline sales influenced by online research will grow 12% this year, while online sales begin to flatten out.

The trick, for search marketers, is to acknowledge the offline world’s contributions to marketing innovation in the online world.  This starts with proper measurement of the ROPO effect to understand its contribution to revenue and profit.

Measure.

Passing from online to offline, the data attribution challenge becomes significant.  In one study, Google measured ROPO by monitoring different configurations of online & offline advertising in three German markets, and comparing resulting revenue levels.  This method alone is prone to various biases, but could be improved upon with an additional qualitative component.  A simple point-of-sale survey, asking the question “have you ever researched this product online?” would provide insight into the share of ROPO customers (and how much they spend).  Pivoting this against credit card data from the e-commerce side of the business de-duplicates multichannel consumers, and voila, you’ve sized up the ROPO opportunity.

Search.

If the ROPO share of your brand’s revenues is 25%, then it stands to reason that a sum equal to at least one-fourth of the search marketing budget should be earmarked for ROPO applications.

But what are these, exactly?  Any marketing tactic which bridges the gap between the consumer’s online and offline worlds constitutes a ROPO opportunity.  There are a number of tactics which come to mind, but for now we’ll focus on the low-hanging fruit: Mobile Search.

Tell me if this sounds familiar.  You’re walking around a store or shopping mall, and all you see is the tops of people’s heads as they’re buried in their phones.  Many of these people are researching their next purchase.  What’s the name of that thing again?  Can I get a better price by comparison shopping?  Does it come in fuchsia?

Today, the Mobile Search market (worth $250m in the US in 2010) represents only 2% of the entire search marketing industry.  That share will more than triple in the next four years – and it remains to be seen whether the researchers adequately take into consideration the radical innovations occurring in the mobile space.  It could be 10% or more, for all we know.  The first mover’s advantages are crystal clear.

How to target the mobile ROPO audience with Search:

1. Get into the habit of segmenting all your search campaigns, into Mobile vs. Non-Mobile.  It’s not just for budget control; you’ll see differences in searchers’ affinity for keywords and ad creative as well.
2. Aim for granularity with your keywords, right down to the product’s model name and number.  These will present uncompetitive, low-CPC (cost-per-click) opportunities for visibility.  (Tip: Remember how small those mobile keyboards are; you’ll want to add typos to your keyword list as well.  I’m a fan of Aaron Wall’s Typo Generator.)
3. Reach out with mobile coupons.  Roughly 8 of 10 smartphone users are receptive to receiving coupons on their phones (compared to less than half on their computers).  These can be used to push foot traffic to offline destinations using services like ShopText, Opt It, or Google Local Business Center.
4. Build up your efforts on the organic side as well.  Keywords like ‘reviews’ and ‘compare,’ when paired with your product category, will turn up popular sites for consumer feedback.  This is an opportunity to build a trusting rapport with the shopper when they’re close to the checkout.

Destroy.

How does the ROPO effect translate into success for a brand?  Let’s count the ways.

1. Showing an ad, absent competitors and so close to the point of purchase – that alone is enough to make marketers salivate.
2. Given the relatively low CPCs, generating incremental revenue from Mobile Search improves ROI overall, which makes you a lot of friends.
3. Running ads on Mobile Search, over time you’ll amass a vast repository of search query data.  This is in effect a snapshot of consumer behavior focused specifically on their needs when they’re somewhere between their home and the cash register.  In a channel where virtually every unknown ties back to consumer behavior, this could be the biggest catch of all.

Next time around, we’ll talk about a more qualitative approach to ROPO – at the intersection of Search & Social Media.

Update: Food for thought — research from Performics indicates that roughly 1 in 6 of all Google search clicks will be from Mobile Search by the end of 2011.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/ropo-effect/feed/ 1 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/its-good-to-talk/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/its-good-to-talk/#comments Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:48:08 +0000 Priya Thakur /blog/?p=1106 Who holds the POWER to communicate effectively in digital space today. Is this power held by the savvy and innovative marketers or by the persuasive bloggers who stimulate consumers who engage.

There appears to be an even split as both essentially have to work hand in hand. Businesses rely on building a social media persona, with the idea in mind that personalized marketing will be the most effective way to communicate to their target market. The problem always lies in deciding who your target market ONLINE is without meeting them, stressing online, as the assumption seems to be that those who buy in retail locations will purchase online. Is it really that simple? How are the needs for those who are not regular shoppers online catered for and how easy is their experience made?

When majority of businesses (of all sizes) in this day and age want to be seen as the “digital space champion” it’s no longer important to just be active in the space but generate quality of beneficial information required to reach a desired goal (at the time) . This quality comes from consumers speaking directly to the brand. Nowadays, when entering or leaving a website, at least 50% have an optional feedback survey option. More recently they can be seen to promote incentives to encourage engagement. I rarely know anyone who would actually spent the minute or two that it would actually take to fill them out… however, would have no problem voicing their opinion out loud to colleagues/ friends or on Facebook (example). It questions, what is the right thing to do in a situation?

Its important to understand what the feedback option suggests about the Organization. One perspective that most would not instantly think of, is that they care. They care to take the time to bother their target audience by asking their thoughts and experiences with the aim to improve their service. Another perspective may be that it’s the result of a recent change and are trying to measure the success. Another would be to generate conversation with their target market in order to get a clearer understanding of consumer concerns. Businesses should be smarter in engaging interaction and make it less like a form, that has the ability to out consumers off writing into them.

As marketers, we can often lose sight of being consumers ourselves and forget the value we place on this in our working roles. Is it important for us to also interact? in a word…YES. It’s more important for us to not be distracted or put off by the incentives which can make interacting look more gimmicky. The bottom line is that whether we are a regular or first time buyer online its takes less than a minute to explain the good or bad in your experience/review. If we keep in mind that a single opinion is equally as powerful as a shared voice by an online community, this shows that WE (as consumers) each have the ability to add something to a brand/ company, but need to make more time to voice this directly to them, as they can address the concern and provide a solution.

It just makes social sense.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/its-good-to-talk/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/language-of-search-marketing/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/language-of-search-marketing/#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:14:33 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1099 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on November 29, 2010.]

Where can I… watch movies online?
What is there… to do in Boston?
How much… does lasik cost?
Why do… clothes cling in the dryer?

Start typing a query into Google, and sometimes you’ll be surprised by what you find. It’s been finishing our sentences ever since Google Suggest (now known as Autocomplete) became a default function of the search experience in 2004.

As personalized search has grown in complexity, the appearance of these suggestions now begs the question: just how good has Google become at anticipating our needs?

Actually, not that good. While it might be a little eerie to see a suggested query that actually mirrors what we’re thinking, we can take comfort in the fact that we’re a dynamic species which constantly takes its cues from the world unfolding around us. If Google knows all our past queries, that alone wouldn’t help it anticipate our future ones.

And yet, there would be a tremendous commercial opportunity if search engines could adapt to do just that. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 82 percent of Internet traffic starts on a search engine. Does this suggest that the overwhelming majority of digital marketers’ opportunities reside in search?

Hardly. The problem with search behavior: it’s rarely as objective as we’d like it to be.

Far too much information about the searchers’ motivations and decision-making processes is lost in the nanoseconds elapsed in a typical search query. One crystal-clear metric, however, does get to the heart of this matter: search query length.

In 2003, a team of researchers from Rutgers University published a study called “Query Length in Interactive Information Retrieval,” in which they tested the relationship between query length and search effectiveness in interactive information retrieval (what the lay person calls “using Google”). What they found was that the length of search queries correlated positively with the user’s satisfaction over the quality of their search results. In other words, the more words you type into Google, the more likely you are to be happy with the results.

This study was one of the first indications that search engine users had evolved from the primitive 1990s into sophisticated information-gatherers, and that search engines were rising to the challenge. The two were speaking to each other in plain language, not some cryptic code.

A year after the Rutgers study, iProspect found that the percentage of four-word search referrals had tripled over the prior year, and for marketers, these longer phrases were converting at a higher rate than their shorter counterparts.

The downside of this evolution, from the search engines’ perspective, is that it has begun to erode, not improve, their ability to anticipate search behavior. By 2008, 20 percent of all the queries on Google were either brand new (keywords never before queried in the past) or hadn’t been queried in the previous sixth months. By 2010, that number is up to 33 percent (or higher) of all queries based on brand new keywords.

The implications of this trend are profound. Today, most search marketers trade on their ability to pore through reams of data at the outset of the keyword research process. Only with seed lists of eye-popping volume could a campaign ever have a reliable foundation.

The web’s vast array of keyword tools are the go-to resource for this process of building a keyword seed list. But those databases tend to be built from existing search engines, using information from *ahem* past queries.

Two years ago, this process could still give you a lock on up to 80 percent of the search opportunity. Now that number is just 67 percent.

What would happen if this pattern were to continue? It might not be long before the split approached 50-50.



Factor in the Pew statistic, about 82 percent of all Internet traffic beginning on a search engine, and the plot thickens:



The deduction we make here is that if the search engine remains prominent across the landscape of digital properties generating traffic across the web (i.e., the trend reflected in the Pew statistic holds up over time), then traditional search marketers will soon be in for a shock.

Search marketing experts such as Aaron Wall and Stoney deGeyter have always urged keyword researchers to extend beyond just what they can get from the tools. They recommend scouring forums and blog comments, plowing through the thesaurus, even interviewing customers to generate an augmented seed list around which to build a campaign.

It’s an arduous process that increases an already daunting workload. So it’s no surprise that agencies and consultants looking to turn a profit in SEM might cut corners at this point in the process.

The next wave of winners in the search game will be the ones who find efficient ways to marry raw data from consumer research with sound campaign design and management methodology. Search is as much about customer service as it is about marketing — and both essential business functions revolve around the customers’ intent.

Heading into 2011 and beyond, being found will be just as important to brand integrity as being searched.

If you don’t speak the consumer’s language, how will they ever find you?

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/language-of-search-marketing/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/brand-monitoring-google-alerts/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/brand-monitoring-google-alerts/#comments Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:17:26 +0000 Nate Walton /blog/?p=1065 Google Alerts has featured prominently in top ten (or top 36) lists across the internet as an effective tool for a brands’ online monitoring efforts. Witness comments on Mashable’s 5 Key Benefits of Monitoring (“I don’t think that there are any monitoring tools better than Google Alerts and Tweetdeck..”), or from a UK agency (“Few would question the dominance of Google in search engine terms”).

In our own work we have had clients tell us repeatedly that have reached a satisfactory level of monitoring via Google Alerts. The perception is Google Alerts is a good compromise between power, price and simplicity (see this, this and this).

Our position has been that Google Alerts is largely ineffective as a brand monitoring tool, no matter how free, simple or Google it is. Since no position should go unwarranted, we compared Google Alerts against our preferred brand monitoring tool: Brandwatch.

We setup a Brandwatch query and a Google Alert to both monitor the simple search “gatorade.” From October 4th through the 19th we collected data, and after some time to work through our analysis we present our results below. Section 1 is on query writing, section 2 discusses user dashboard features and data accessibility, section 3 reviews our analysis of coverage, speed test and mention quality and our conclusions are in section 4.

1. QUERY WRITING

Query writing is an easy win for Brandwatch and a loss for Google Alerts. Obviously one can write as simple a query as they desire in both systems. For the data part of our comparison we used a one-word search query. Where Brandwatch shines is its ability to move beyond simple Boolean queries (“AND”, “OR” etc) to more complicated proximity searches. For example, “gatorade NEAR/5 sports” finds all instances of “gatorade” within 5 words of “sports”. Brandwatch queries can also be written to search for particular domain names and page titles, among others (here is an excellent blog post on query writing and Brandwatch’s capabilities).

As an example, lets consider the new “G” branding of Gatorade. Searching for “G” (or better yet “g”) presents obvious difficulties in that people’s usage of “G” the letter will very rarely have anything to do with a statement about “G” the brand. Brandwatch allows us to build a query that puts “G” in context, reducing the otherwise huge number of irrelevant mentions (such as you would get through Alerts): “(g OR g2 OR gatorade) NEAR/4 (sport OR sports OR athlete OR drink OR drinks OR …)”.

2. DASHBOARDS AND DATA HANDLING

Brandwatch has an accessible browser-based dashboard with a variety of built in features which allow you to slice the data as word clouds, lists of domains, site type, mozRank and query and custom topics volume over time. Here is an introduction to Brandwatch’s interface.

One of the largest issues with Google Alerts is the inability to manipulate data that has already come in, leaving Google Alerts a poor brand monitoring, research and response tool for anything that hasn’t just happened.

One of the best aspects of Brandwatch, the ability to simply download all the mentions of your brand into one large excel file, is also conspicuously absent in Google Alerts. To obtain the results below we had to use a heavily modified Greasemonkey script (original script). All we were able to extract after several hours of tweaking was page title, date tracked and URL. Even with the script, the process was by no means automated: the extracted data had to be copied out of a web page, pasted into a .txt file and have various “Find and Replace”s run on it (one delimiter we ended up being forced to use: |@|#|$|) before it was fit for Excel. Again, we could not over-emphasize the “just works” aspect of downloading data from Brandwatch.

3. COVERAGE, SPEED TEST RESULTS AND MENTION QUALITY

Our results cover three topics: breadth of coverage, timeliness of tracking and mention quality.

Breadth of Coverage



Figure 1

From the above chart (Figure 1) you can see that Brandwatch was tracking nearly 14 times as many individual mentions across nearly 6 times as many domains. This staggeringly larger amount of data demonstrates the limitations of the tracking aspect of Google Alert’s proposition as a brand management solution.

Google’s Twitter coverage was surprisingly lacking, with Brandwatch registering 5390 mentions and Google Alerts registering 7.

Both tracking systems exposed holes in each others’ coverage. Brandwatch registered mentions from 51% of the same domains as Google, while Google only registered mentions from 9% of the domains Brandwatch covered.

The chart below (Figure 2) highlights the top domains (by volume of mentions) that only one tracking system managed to cover:



Figure 2

Timeliness of Tracking

From a sample of 280 mentions, we were able to establish how fast Brandwatch and Google Alerts tracked the same mention. We had to discard many mentions to maintain a solid data set – either URL or page title didn’t exactly match.



Figure 3

The above chart (Figure 3) shows that Brandwatch was able to record and process 11% of the 280 matching mentions before Google was. Brandwatch was able to capture 76% of mentions within 24 hours after Google had tracked and processed them, and only 1 mention took longer than 48 hours after Google for Brandwatch to process.

On average, Brandwatch was about 16 hours behind Google. While Brandwatch was slower, remember it was also tracking and processing 16 times more mentions per hour than Google Alerts (Figure 1).

Finally, the chart below (Figure 4) highlights the list of domains across which each tracking system established its competitive advantage in terms of speed:



Figure 4

Interestingly, Figure 4 shows that Brandwatch’s overwhelming competitive advantage was across the blogspot.com domain (a Google property).

Mention Quality

To compare quality we reviewed a sample of mentions from Google Alerts and Brandwatch. We randomly selected 200 mentions from each tool and categorized them as either spam or not-spam.

Out of 200, Google Alerts brought in 30 spam mentions (15% spam); from Brandwatch, only 18 (9%) were spam.

While this was an impressive difference, we want to clarify the extent to which we can judge based on these results. First, these are samples and as such there is always a probability that they do not accurately reflect the actual percentage of spam captured by each tracking tool.  Second, from brand to brand the percentage of spam each tool will inadvertently collect probably varies a fair amount.

The conservative bottom line is: Brandwatch’s built-in spam filter was at least as good as Google Alert’s filtering. Brandwatch closes the deal on spam filtering by allowing one to do additional filtering via its more advanced query language.

4. CONCLUSIONS

From a personal-use perspective, Google Alerts allows us to keep a casual eye on many topics simultaneously due to its ability to support an unlimited number of free queries.

While Google demonstrates the power of its crawlers in terms of raw speed, the inevitable take away is that Google can’t possibly be considered an effective means of truly discovering what is being said online about a brand. With varying completeness of coverage across domains, Google Alerts reveals its inability to deliver even a representative sample of the conversation.

Of course one argument is Google Alerts is free while Brandwatch is not. Given that Google Alerts delivers a small unrepresentative fraction of the total volume of conversation around a brand, the question of whether to use Alerts on the basis of price is resolved by the simple statement: there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Again, Google Alerts is good for only the most casual of analysis – monitoring your own name or your favorite sports team. Building branding tactics and strategies off of Google Alerts research would be risky at best, dangerous at worst.

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Click below for links to relevant agency/consulting services:

Social Media & Word-of-Mouth: Monitoring / Analytics / Community Development
Understand and leverage the conversations about your brand. Measure relationships, their strength and growth. Build digital spaces in which your brand advocates and prospects can engage.



]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/brand-monitoring-google-alerts/feed/ 3 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/industry-consumer-research-insights-action/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/industry-consumer-research-insights-action/#comments Fri, 12 Nov 2010 23:17:29 +0000 Ben Semmar /blog/?p=1052 In September of this year, Bain & Company, in association with Vogue magazine, released a study entitled “Why She Shops: The Fashion and Beauty Study”. The study surveyed more than 5,000 female shoppers that consider themselves “stylish” and asked them to evaluate 134 brands in the apparel, accessory and beauty verticals with the aim of “identify[ing] the preferences and purchase behaviors of female consumers and the winning characteristics of the brands that they buy.”



The study determined that among women who consider themselves stylish, while still skeptical about paying full price (11% agreed that they “usually pay full price”), the bigger concern is one of durability, with 80% of those surveyed saying that they are “willing to pay more for clothing that will last more than one season.” Other findings include the fact that 15% of style-conscious women account for 70% of luxury spending in apparel, accessories and beauty, with 55% of apparel spend and 40% of accessories spend occurring at specialty or vertical retailers over department stores.

This is all very interesting information, and the study sheds light on other interesting characteristics of the “style-conscious” woman, but how insightful are these findings and what sort of value does it bring to marketers? And of the insight one might gain from studies like this, is it actionable?

For example, towards the end of the study, six unique consumer profiles were developed based on the survey results and suggestions were provided on “how to find” them. According to the study the top two types, “fashion mavens” and “classic professionals”, visit beauty websites and blogs and utilize social media in a limited fashion. As Vanessa Friedman put it on her Material World blog, “[A]s far as I can tell, this doesn’t really tell us much of anything about the shopper.”

It would be much more valuable for marketers to know which exact beauty websites and blogs these customer types are visiting. What are they specifically talking about? What are their concerns? Are they advocating your brand or dismissing it? If their use of social media is limited, to what extent are they using it and on which properties? And so on.

A Word-of-Mouth (WOM) monitoring program can answer these questions and, in a lot of cases, bring to light certain issues or topics that you might not have known to look for. It allows you to know what people are saying about the brand, when they’re saying it, where they’re saying it and what they’re saying. In other words, it serves as an ongoing, real-time situation analysis that can provide marketers with much more actionable insights than an industry analysis. Gaining “ground level” perspective on where a company stands with customers relative to the competition, for example, leaves companies better prepared not just from a marketing perspective but in myriad other business functions. (For an example of this, you can check out the work that we conducted for Ramada Jarvis.)

The sheer reach of social networks, and their ability to spread information across the web, has profoundly shifted the marketplace, empowering consumers like never before. Word-of-mouth (WOM) research is invaluable not only because it provides marketers with further insight as to who their customer is, but also by better allowing brands to know exactly what the needs of their target audiences are and how they should deliver on those needs. That way, everybody wins.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/industry-consumer-research-insights-action/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/google-new-keyword-tool/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/google-new-keyword-tool/#comments Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:15:38 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1050 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on October 4, 2010.]

There’s been a good deal of controversy of late, surrounding the newest edition of Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool (which launched in September 2009 and came out of beta in August 2010).  A lot of marketers in the SEO and Paid Search communities have come out of the woodwork complaining about the wide variance in volume projections in the new version, compared to the old.  Their beefs are substantial: overpaying on keyword-rich domain purchases, business failures from erroneous projections, and much more.

Apparently, at the time of the new Keyword Tool’s launch, Google was less-than-explicit about an important caveat: the old version used combined data from searches on Google.com plus all of Google’s Search Network Partners, e.g. AOL, Shopping.com, parked domains, etc.  (Not sure what this means?  If you’ve ever conducted a Google search from within another site, that site is a Google Search Network partner.)

Despite this criticism, digital marketers should not lose sight of all the benefits of using the new Google Keyword Tool.  That’s why we put it at the top of our list:

1) The new Keyword Tool ignores traffic from Google Search Network partners.

Any search marketer knows the profiles of each search audience (Google.com vs. partners) can vary widely, with differences in cost-per-click (CPC), clickthrough rate (CTR), conversion rates, baseline ROI, and more.  Seasonal fluctuations in these core metrics also show different patterns, at times.  While the outdated combined view certainly showed bigger and bolder numbers, Search Network numbers were always harder to pin down when projecting critical success metrics.  Better to have a firm grasp on a smaller number, and look for growth down the road.

2) You can now run Search Query Volume estimates in any geographical market.

In the past, how could you do this?  Resisting the temptation to calculate search query volumes off of relative country population sizes, you’d probably have to go to a third-party keyword tool… but then face all kinds of hazards in harmonizing the data to Google’s.  Never a pretty picture.  Now, with a mouse click, you can roll in as many countries as you want.  For good measure, they also threw in language targeting.

3) Now you can estimate search traffic on mobile devices.

Behaviorally speaking, desktop/laptop search and mobile search are two very different animals.  Searcher’s intent, query language, context, even screen and browser limitations – these all vary widely from the big screen to the little screen.  The keyword “Italian restaurant” garners over 16% of its query volume from mobile devices, compared to 0.2% for the keyword “management consultants.”  Isn’t it about time we had a tool to help quantify mobile search behavior with that kind of precision?

4) New data filters ease the heavy lifting of all that search query data.

With the old tool, we’d often find a list with a heavy long tail of keywords showing little or no data.  Given that Google would limit the output of any list to 200 items, it often took several tries to build a useful seed list of keywords to analyze.  Now we can filter by query volume, competition, estimated CPC, etc.  And by the way, Google has done away with the 200 keyword limit.

5) Match type targeting is more intuitive, this time around.

One of the easiest ways to misinterpret data from the old Keyword Tool was to overlook the potential overlaps of search query data inherent in a Broad-matched seed list (example: showing “Italian restaurant” and “Italian restaurant Chicago” on the same list).  The risk is still apparent, but with simple check boxes in the new version, it’s become much easier to control for these potential errors.

Where to, from here?

Google, thankfully, has caught on to the confusion surrounding divergent query projections, and continues to communicate the Keyword Tool’s passage out of beta.

Meanwhile, the link to “Previous Interface” has conspicuously gone missing from the Keyword Tool, a clear message that the new version is here to stay.  Search marketers on the organic side will benefit from a more accurate reflection of natural search, while on the PPC side we’ll have lesser risk of faulty projections.

A few more thoughts, for the road:

• Always make sure your browser is logged into your AdWords account, when you use the new Keyword Tool – otherwise many of the advanced options will be disabled.
• Love it or hate it, the new Keyword Tool will still be an important asset, but David Naylor makes a good case for complementing your research with the Google Search-Based Keyword Tool.
• Remember the Golden Rule of search query projection: estimates will be far more useful to you on a relative basis, as opposed to a volumetric basis.  If the top keyword in your list shows 150k queries, and the next highest shows 50k, don’t focus so much on the raw numbers… just know that you can expect roughly triple the query volume.

And if you still feel strongly about this, drop a note directly to Google!

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/google-new-keyword-tool/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/microsoft-excel-mac-2008-tips-marketers-2/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/microsoft-excel-mac-2008-tips-marketers-2/#comments Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:26:11 +0000 Nate Walton /blog/?p=1023 This is the second part of on ongoing series on excel tips and tricks for marketers [Click for Excel Tips Part 1.].  My focus as a data analyst is on being able to rapidly parse data in ways that are presentable as final products to clients.  As a Microsoft Excel 2008 user I lament my inability to use Visual Basic for more fine-tuned (and easier!) ways of accomplishing some Excel tasks, but at the same time welcome the challenge.

I use many of the things I describe on a day-to-day basis. I’ve started with some easier tips in the “General” and “Formulas” sections. If you have any additional tips and tricks you use regularly, please feel free to post them in the comments.  Moving forward, I’ll try to keep it down to only a few things per post, so each individual post is less overwhelming.

Here is a spreadsheet I put together that contains an example of each of the techniques I outline below:

Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac – Tips for Marketers Part 2


GENERAL TIPS

Apostrophe Prefix

A handy little tip to know: if you put an apostrophe in front of whatever you are about to type into a cell, Microsoft Excel interprets it literally.  If you’ve ever wondered how to keep your in-cell-note to remind the client that a particular metric has doubled (“-this is important!”) from turning into “#NAME?”, this is for you.  Credit where credit is due: if you type in “–> this is important” Excel will tell you the formula contains an error and suggest the apostrophe (though it’s none-to-apparent to a panicking Excel user).

FUNCTIONS

SEARCH()

Filter works great when you want extract matches to the entire contents of a cell, or if you love repeatedly working through layers of menus (ugh).  What if you need to quickly, repeatedly scan a Search Query Report from your Search campaign?

The SEARCH() function is a great way to accomplish this.  The behavior of the SEARCH() function is quite direct: it looks inside a cell to see if it contains the phrase you’ve given it:

=SEARCH(“[your phrase]”, [the cell to look in])

Create a new column (next to the column you’re searching in is usually best), and paste this function into all rows with the data you are interested in searching.  Unfortunately, Excel 2008’s SEARCH() can be a little quirky sometimes, so if you find yourself unable to sort your SEARCH() column, copy said column with SEARCH() in it and paste values over your SEARCH() functions.  This will eliminate the functions themselves but keep the values (sort doesn’t really like to sort functions).

Shortcut for CONCATENATE()

CONCATENATE() is such a long word.  Instead, use the ampersand between cell references or text in quotes:

Example:

=CONCATENATE(“it is critically”, “ “, “important that you ”, A6)

is also

=”it is critically”&” “&”important that you ”&A6

Note: no efficiency gain for concatenations of more than 14 things!

MORE ADVANCED TIPS

Condense to Weeks

How to turn daily data from multiple sources into weekly, biweekly or monthly data when the online dashboards for your ad serving systems won’t let you?

Why force yourself into having to pull data from Google Analytics twice for the same report – once by day and once by week?  This is a formula I wrote to sum daily data to weeks, though it really could be used to condense daily data to any length period of time using a variety of aggregating functions (SUM(), AVERAGE(), etc).  Given the difficulty with explaining this formula in words, I think it’s worth just grabbing the demo / sample spreadsheet and working through the function itself.   The important base functions I use in my own function are: INDIRECT() and TEXT().   I use TEXT() to turn numbers into text, the text is cell references, which are interpreted by INDIRECT() (whose purpose is, not surprisingly, to turn text into cell references).

TEXT() may or may not be critical to what I’ve written, I’m just more comfortable when I explicitly state my data types.

Array Formulas

Time-series data such as impressions, clicks and conversions need not require hundreds or thousands of cells worth of calculations when you use Array formulas.

Array Formulas are covered quite well in a few other places on the internet (for instance: http://www.cpearson.com/Excel/ArrayFormulas.aspx).  I thought I would provide a mention to them here as well, as some examples in the demo / sample spreadsheet because they are quite powerful.  The simple premise is that they allow you to target a range of cells with a function that “normally” only takes a single cell at a time.  ROW() returns the number of which-ever row you give it.   {ROW()} (achieve the Array / curly brackets by pressing Cmd+Enter) returns all the numbers of all the rows you give it:

ROW(A1:A10) = 1 (What actually appears in the cell: 1)

{ROW(A1:A10)} = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (What actually appears in the cell: 1)

Don’t be discouraged by the fact that {ROW(A1:A10)} just shows 1 in the cell when you hit Cmd+Enter!  Excel cannot display more than one value of an array in a single cell, so it shows the first – but the other 9 numbers are still there!

To make use of a lot of Array formulas you have to include some kind of aggregating function that wraps around the Array you are interested in.  Try:

SUM(ROW(A1:A10)) = 1 (What actually appears in the cell: 1)

{SUM(ROW(A1:A10))} = 55 (What actually appears in the cell: 55)

And that’s all for now.

Future topics:
• Building and parsing URLs
• Using dates in conditional statements
• Using TODAY() in reports
• Excel + Wordle to make advanced wordclouds
• Conditional formatting and dynamic cell references
• Copy / paste series to make large tables

[Click for Excel Tips Part 1.]

Kind Regards,
Nate

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/microsoft-excel-mac-2008-tips-marketers-2/feed/ 1 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/reach-holiday-shoppers/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/reach-holiday-shoppers/#comments Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:14:42 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1042 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on September 3, 2010.]

“As the wage earner here, it’s your responsibility to show some consumer confidence and start buying things that will get the economy going, and create profits and employment. Here’s a list of some big-ticket items I’d like for Christmas. I hope I can trust you to do what’s right for our country.”




Fortunately, not every consumer is as fanatically logical as Calvin from the famous comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes. But at this point in early September, it’s hardly illogical for marketers to be consumed with talk of the 2010 holiday shopping season. In fact, with over one-third of U.S. consumers already shopping for the holidays, it’s not absurd to say these conversations should have begun months ago. The Search channel, combining hyper-motivated consumer intent with vast audience reach, would be a good place to start.

The Nintendo Wii, for instance, is poised for a big showing during the 2010 holidays. For marketers at Nintendo, to Wii game developers, to retailers selling the console – consumers searching for anything related to Nintendo Wii are easy pickings. These shoppers have clearly articulated what they want, and simply having a presence in Search allows these vendors to meet that demand.

This singular focus on meeting demand, however, leaves them vulnerable to a variety of challenges:

• With likely increased competition for visibility in Search, can marketers really expect the same media costs (cost per click)?
• If competitors begin targeting Nintendo Wii-related keywords to sell Xboxes, what will happen to Wii’s profit potential from the Search channel?
• When demand dies down in January, how will Nintendo bounce back and keep moving product off the shelves?

Just like any well-diversified investment portfolio, a broader and more intuitive digital channel strategy dampens the threat of these external factors. In fact, we can go so far as to make a bold claim:

To do better in Search this holiday season, marketers need to spend less on Search.

In an online shopping environment, relationship-building tends to precede the transaction of business (remember the role of social media in comparison shopping). It is around this premise that we can wrap holiday shopping demand in a neat package, surrounded by one key question: is the marketing department focused on just meeting holiday demand… or stimulating even more demand?

As December approaches, we can predict that in most cases, the volume of highly qualified site traffic will expand in size. These visitors typically convert at a higher rate and a lower relative cost. They’re the folks at the bottom of the purchase funnel:



Clicks at the high end of the funnel can be pricey in Search; by whittling down there’s now budget left over to address the channels that stimulate demand: word-of-mouth, social media, and display advertising, for example. These are the marketing investments that condition the marketplace. They make people aware of the product which meets their need, while giving the brand a relationship with consumers at a very opportune time in the decision making process: the introduction.

With more educated and motivated consumers collectively raising the bar on search query volumes for branded keywords, higher transaction volumes follow, and in our experience, also higher revenues per transaction. This leads to a better overall competitive position, and certainly a more comfortable posture in early 2011 when the holiday rush is over.

Worried that it’s too late to put this plan into play? There are many tactics which can be put to use, and many are accessible alongside Search campaigns, within Google AdWords:

• Retargeting. Most people that visit a brand/product website won’t buy on the spot. But they’re more qualified than most other people. Tagging these visitors and serving them display ads with tailored promotions is an efficient driver of more sales.
• Product Extensions. Instead of describing your product with two lines of copy, wouldn’t you rather feature it in a photo?
• Click-to-Call. A no-brainer for retailers. Mobile ads appear with a link to dial the store directly from an iPhone, Android, etc. Capture foot traffic while shoppers’ interest is at its peak!

You can find more of these on the AdWords blog and the Google Retail blog. And remember – this holiday season, to reach the Calvins of the world, think beyond just Search.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/reach-holiday-shoppers/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/branded-search-volume/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/branded-search-volume/#comments Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:02:51 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=1014 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on August 9, 2010.]

Not long ago I chatted with a friend over some tacos. He’s a brand manager for a large food & beverage company, and found himself in a bind. The Chief Marketing Officer viewed him as the digital guru, but when asked for an objective view on the brand’s overall performance in digital, a simple answer didn’t come easy.

I told him that one way of answering the question would be to look at the trend in search query volume for the brand name – if more people are querying keywords related to the brand name this month, compared to last month, that would be one way to answer the CMO’s question. This data is readily available from the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

But not all of the most popular queries are relevant to the product; take a brand like Subway, for example:

• subway sandwiches
• subway menu
• subway map
• subway coupons
• subway lines
• subway station

As any digital marketer knows, search behavior is far too complex to rely on just one tool for insights on brand health. So I went to Nate Walton, one of our data analysts in New York, with a question: “Is there a way to automate the process of weeding out irrelevant, ‘off-brand’ terms from a long keyword list, to help our clients gain a reliable measure of the volume of search activity surrounding their brand?”

Before we knew it, we’d unearthed a methodology for measuring true Branded search volume, one that is scalable and broadly applicable to virtually any brand. For this article, the brand we’ve chosen is financial giant J.P. Morgan Chase, the second largest bank in the United States. (Note: We’ve chosen to narrow our focus to Chase and not J.P. Morgan Chase, because Chase is the consumer brand with the lion’s share of search activity.)

Here’s how we did it:

1) Generate as long a list of Seed Keywords as possible – any keywords containing the word “chase.” There are a variety of tools that do this; we used Wordstream because it generates up to 10,000 suggestions, even in the free version.



2) Aggregate content from the brand’s website, creating a list of Relevance Keywords. These represent, as accurately as possible, what the brand is about. For this step, we used WebsiteContentAnalysis.com.



3) Paste the output from each into adjacent columns of an Excel spreadsheet. We then wrote a function to isolate only the Seed Keywords which match (at least in part) one of the Relevance Keywords.



4) The keywords which match become our Branded Keywords, and the rest are deemed Off-Brand Keywords. We then re-applied Wordstream’s ‘relative frequency’ metric for each group, and found that for Chase bank, the Branded Keywords’ overall share of total search queries is 34.3%.

(Note: the number above is unique to Chase, and varies widely when applied to other brands.)



5) Using this overall number of 34.3%, we go back to Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool and multiply it by the raw search query volume for “chase,” which was 30,400,000 in June 2010. The absolute number of Branded search queries for Chase in June 2010 was 10,427,200.

What do we do with this insight?

One metric means one thing today, but if we did this month after month, plotting the trend in Branded Keyword query volume vs. marketing investments tells us a lot about seasonality, buying cycle, consumer intent, and more.

We could also apply the Branded share metric to Google’s historical data, to project Chase’s Branded search query volumes for the past, which would help us project forward. Wouldn’t that be helpful for a brand manager, to know when to strike while the iron is hot?

If we used this process on Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and other competitors, we’d have a more accurate sense of how Chase stacks up.

And this is all just the Search channel. Query volumes are just one of a vast array of digital marketing metrics used to gauge brand health. Conversion rate of display media, engagement with mobile ads, Facebook “likes”, blog comments, even qualitative research findings from brand preference studies – these all provide a unique spin on the same core question: “How is our brand doing in digital?”

That ought to be easier to digest than tacos.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/branded-search-volume/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/microsoft-excel-mac-2008-tips-marketers/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/microsoft-excel-mac-2008-tips-marketers/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:25:23 +0000 Nate Walton /blog/?p=1003 [Click for Excel Tips Part 2.]

As a data analyst at Web Liquid, one of my responsibilities is designing and implementing reports, both internally and for clients.  I also provide strategic and tactical support to the rest of the team with all kinds of ad hoc research.  Microsoft Excel is a day-to-day keystone in all my work, and Excel resources for marketers are hard to come by, especially as a Mac / Excel 2008 user.

How frustrating it is to sort through all those Google hits of people using Visual Basic to solve their every problem!  I’m a Mac user but not an AppleScript user, and as such have had to do what I can with the built in functions in Microsoft Excel 2008.  What follows are some of the Excel tips, functions, formulas and general techniques I use every day.

I’ve created a sample / demo Excel spreadsheet that I recommend working through in tandem with this post, and as a general resource:

Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac – Tips for Marketers


GENERAL TIPS

Text to Columns

I use Text to Columns all the time, and as anybody familiar with Microsoft Excel will tell you it can be a critical tool for getting data into an Excel spreadsheet.  In Excel 2008 (the Mac version) you can find it in the Data menu.  Now for the marketing twist: this is as much about useful naming conventions for your site placements and creative as much as it is about the Text to Columns tool.

Have a central ad serving system, but produce reports for your client in Excel?  Don’t we all.  When I pull data from our display ad serving system, for instance, I generally pull it at the placement level (that is, where on a site a particular set of creative is running).  My placements all have the same naming convention:

[Site]_[Type of Placement]_[Size of Placement] (Example: NYT_rosbanner_728x90)

From here, it’s a simple matter of running Text to Columns on the placement names to extract out site, type of placement and placement size into separate columns.  From a PivotTable perspective, I now have 3 useful variables to pivot around instead of one!

“Right-Click” Fill Dragging

This is pretty straight-forward: when you are fill dragging (by clicking on the bottom right-hand corner of a set of or single cell you’ve selected and dragging), hold the control button (on the Mac) as you do so, releasing the mouse button before the control button (on PCs just right click and drag instead of left click).

This opens additional options, which I outline in the attached demo / sample spreadsheet.

Why build a chart just to extract the trend line equation?
If you select multiple cells and right-click (control-click on the Mac) fill drag you can fill in linear or growth  trend values directly – very useful for establishing the trend of time-series variables like impressions, clicks and conversions on the fly!

Copy / Paste Link

Tired of updating/forgetting to update the header info on every page of your Excel report?
You can find “Paste Link” at the bottom of the “Paste Special” menu (in the Edit menu on Mac and PC).  This is great for any content you want to recreate or copy over and over, but only have to edit in one place.  I use this when I need to replicate detailed instructions or header information across an Excel template.

FUNCTIONS

SUMPRODUCT()

PivotTables are also capable of producing the same numbers as SUMPRODUCT(), but what if your excel template format cannot handle all the cells a PivotTable has to reserve?

PivotTables can be quite bulky if you are just curious about a single value – for this reason SUMPRODUCT() is a great PivotTable alternative: it allows you to filter an entire set of cells by multiple conditions.  Exciting!  I use SUMPRODUCT() to build custom tables that aggregate statistics on our campaigns in various ways – whether it’s Site/Channel by Placement, or Placement By Creative.

The format for doing this is worth going over, as well as the limitations.  First, the format:

=SUMPRODUCT(([set of cells which include the 1st value you want to filter by]=[1st value you want to filter by])*([set of cells which include the 2nd value you want to filter by]=[2nd value you want to filter by]), [set of cells you want to sum that meet the conditions set in the two filter steps])

You might expect that Microsoft Excel would take issue with multiplying what appear to be equality comparisons that are going to produce answers of TRUE and FALSE, but actually Excel happily converts TRUE to 1 and FALSE to 0 upon encountering the multiplication.  This is the special nature of SUMPRODUCT().  Excel generates two lists of 1s and 0s and multiplies them together one row (or column) at a time.   Any row or column that does not return (1, 1) is reduced to zero (0*0=0, 1*0=0, 0*1=0).  Excel then multiplies this aggregated list by the set of cells you provided after the comma, returning the value (x*1) or zero (x*0) (this is the “product” in “sumproduct”).  The “sum” comes when Excel ads up all the values its created from that multiplication.

The major limitation is that you can only do one thing with your cross-filtered list, namely sum by your one variable of choice.  To take an average of a cross-filtered list, for example, you’ll need either a nested IF() function or an Array function (described below).

Nested IF()

These are good for internal reporting or on worksheets in a workbook that are not client-facing.

Nested IF() functions are fairly straight-forward – I use these if I don’t need to produce something as clean looking as SUMPRODUCT().  If you want to include a second IF() function in your first one, add it as one of the actions the first IF() function should take when it’s done with the logic test:

IF([logic test], IF([another logic test], [if true], [if false]), [if false])

OR

IF([logic test],  [if true], IF([another logic test], [if true], [if false]))

By playing around in the accompanying demo / sample spreadsheet you can see how nested IF()s relate to SUMPRODUCT().

CHARTS

These are best reviewed in the demo / sample spreadsheet appended to this post.   Note that these charts involve a lot of formatting via menus, so the locations of some of the options I use could be quite different between Excel 2007 and Excel 2008 for Mac.

Budget Chart

A budget chart should be able to display planned vs. actual expenditure – this chart includes those aspects of budgeting and throws in a way to account for contingency spend.

Times Series Chart

This time series chart demonstrates how to rig Excel for Mac 2008 to show a stacked line chart with future dates included.  I use this to provide a sense of what point we are in a campaign, or reporting period.  It provides a stable context for the data, as over the course of several reports the x axis values don’t change.

And that’s all for now!  [Click for Excel Tips Part 2.]

Kind Regards,
Nate

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/microsoft-excel-mac-2008-tips-marketers/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/the-real-costs-of-lowest-price/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/the-real-costs-of-lowest-price/#comments Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:18:47 +0000 Matthew Cronin /blog/?p=965 You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again. According to many marketing professionals, competing on price is a losing strategy. Yet it seems everywhere we look, advertising pitches goods and services with a proposition based upon price advantage. To remain competitive on this front, brands must push their costs lower, in turn demanding the lowest price from their suppliers creating an endless downward spiral. With a keen ear, we’ve noticed that a lot of terrible things happening in the world have been rooted in a low-cost focus. So we have to ask ourselves, how low can we go? What costs will we consider to be greater than price? At what point will we demand to pay more for greater assurances of quality? Just think of these recent examples:


BP, of course

We couldn’t overlook one of the greatest disasters of our time because once you look past the vast destruction of the spill, what is unanimously cited as the root cause of the spill is an over-emphasis on cost reduction ahead of safety.

Tata

A bold new car from Tata Motors proclaimed itself the least expensive production automobile at just $2,000 to the delight of many, yet once on the road it was clear that turning the ignition could literally ignite the car. Great visual aid, that photo of the car in flames!

Toyota

Once lauded for it’s value and safety record the brand suffered significant damage with a string of massive safety recalls in 2009 and 2010.

Indeed many products cost less now than they did years ago. Technology has streamlined processes, opened up the world’s labor forces and cut the costs of doing business. At the same time comparison shopping and price transparency have turned the lowest price proposition, once a marketer’s differentiator, into a consumer addiction. This price transparency, you could say, is forcing even the brands in the premium space of each category to compete on price.  All of which has lead many to proclaim this the age of the consumer. Yet it seems consumers are in fact less satisfied across a variety of categories than they were in the past. While we’ve gained price advantages, we seem to have lost many of the consumer experiences that create satisfaction and loyalty.

Now of course we all like to save some cash, but is the lowest price model still sustainable for marketers or the world? I don’t think so, here’s why:

1. You simply can’t win on price.
   There’s always a provider of the lowest price widget, but it’s never the same provider for long. New entrants, promotional discounts, varied business models and a variety of other influences are constantly changing cost models for each company in a unique way. As a result, the lowest price position is never held by one company indefinitely.
2. Innovation is expensive.
   In virtually all businesses profit is made by delivering on a principle product or service for which there is a known consumer demand. The consistency of this revenue stream allows companies to make their fulfillment efficient, increasing profitability and then allocating a part of that profit to innovation. But downward pressure on the price of the primary product or service can affect the allocation of budget between innovation and quality.
3. Businesses are like sharks, they have to keep moving or they die.
   If a business can’t innovate its days are numbered. So when budgets are tight and it’s quality vs. innovation, it seems safety, regulatory adherence, best practices often take the cut despite the risks.
4. Loyalty is based on quality.
   Once customers believe that quality has been lost and price is the only USP, loyalty will be gone forever. We often think of quality customer service as an under-appreciated marketing channel for this very reason.
5. Without loyalty, revenue becomes inconsistent.
   Inconsistent revenues often means that the core customer has walked away and the primary revenue stream is subject to the turbulence of too many external factors, threatening investment for either quality or product innovation.
6. Tight margins turn problems into catastrophes.
   Without a focus on quality and loyalty, shortcomings become catastrophes very quickly. Catastrophes are very expensive and often insurmountable.

But that’s just my opinion.

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again. According to many marketing professionals, competing on price is a losing strategy. Yet it seems everywhere we look advertising pitches goods and services with a proposition based upon price advantage. To remain competitive on this front brands must push their costs lower, in turn demanding the lowest price from their suppliers creating an endless downward spiral. With a keen ear we’ve noticed that a lot of terrible things happening in the world have been rooted in a low-cost focus. So we have to ask ourselves, how low can we go? What costs will we consider to be greater than price? At what point will we demand to pay more for greater assurances of quality? Just think of these recent examples:
BP, of course
We couldn’t overlook one of the greatest disasters of our time because once you look past the vast destruction of the spill, what is unanimously cited as the root cause of the spill is an over-emphasis on cost reduction ahead of safety.
Tata
A bold new car from Tata Motors proclaimed itself the least expensive production automobile at just $2,000 to the delight of many, yet once on the road it was clear that turning the ignition could literally ignite the car. Great visual aid, that photo of the car in flames!
Toyota
Once lauded for it’s value and safety record the brand suffered significant damage with a string of massive safety recalls in 2009 and 2010 – do we know if any of these recalls were directly attributable to cost cutting?
Indeed many products cost less now than they did years ago (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.walletpop.com/blog/media/2010/06/mnt-inflation-r4biggen.jpg). Technology has streamlined processes, opened up the world’s labor forces and cut the costs of doing business. At the same time comparison shopping and price transparency have turned the lowest price proposition, once a marketer’s differentiator, into a consumer addiction. This price transparency, you could say, is forcing even the brands in the premium space of each category to compete on price.  We could probably call on our experiences in luxury goods?  or at least cite some aggressive discounts/promotions launched by premium brands?   All of which has lead many to proclaim this the age of the consumer. Yet it seems consumers are in fact less satisfied across a variety of categories than they were in the past. While we’ve gained price advantages, we seem to have lost many of the consumer experiences that create satisfaction and loyalty.
Everyone likes to save some cash, but is the lowest price model still sustainable for marketers or the world? I don’t think so, here’s why:
You simply can’t win on price. There’s always a provider of the lowest price widget, but it’s never the same provider for long. New entrants, promotional discounts, varied business models and a variety of other influences are constantly changing cost models for each company in a unique way. As a result, the lowest price position is never held by one company indefinitely.
Innovation is expensive. In virtually all businesses profit is made by delivering on a principle product or service for which there is a known consumer demand. The consistency of this revenue stream allows companies to make their fulfillment efficient, increasing profitability and then allocating a part of that profit to innovation. But the downward pressure on the price of the primary product or service can stymie the prioritization of innovation.
Businesses are like sharks, they have to keep moving or they die. If a business can’t innovate its days are numbered. So when budgets are tight and it’s quality vs. innovation, it seems safety, regulatory adherence, best practices often take the cut despite the risks.
Once customers believe that quality has been lost and price is the only USP, loyalty will be gone forever. I think this is a great opportunity to point to the essential function of customer service, and how its connectivity to marketing is routinely underappreciated.
Without loyalty, revenue becomes inconsistent, subject to the turbulence of too many external factors, again threatening investment for either quality or product innovation.
Without a focus on quality and loyalty, shortcomings become catastrophes very quickly. Catastrophes are very expensive and often insurmountable
]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/the-real-costs-of-lowest-price/feed/ 9 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/google-social-shopping/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/google-social-shopping/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:48:35 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=957 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on July 12, 2010.]

Late last month, Google introduced seller ratings to its growing lot of ad extensions; in addition to titles, prices and thumbnail images, a searcher now gets treated to a 1 to 5 scale indicating past customers’ satisfaction with a particular merchant. Here’s how it looks (click thumbnail to enlarge):



Ad extensions incentivize advertisers to educate themselves and adhere to Google’s best practices in order to reap strong ROI – which ensures a smooth user experience in the process. They also allow Google’s engineers to better understand search behavior and adapt the search algorithm accordingly. The difference between these seller ratings and the other recent innovations to AdWords, however, is that this most recent announcement looks more and more like a thinly-veiled countermeasure to whatever it is that is going on over at Facebook, Inc.

Not long ago AllFacebook.com raised a ruckus over Facebook’s supposed intentions to make content available in Open-Graph enabled search results, only to be set straight by Facebook CTO Bret Taylor. While rumblings that Facebook is entering the search business may be overblown, the game-changing nature of this possibility is not lost on us.

With a user base nearing 500 million users, Facebook’s next big hit will likely be at the intersection of social media and e-commerce (note the 39% year-on-year growth in ad dollars pouring into advertising on Facebook, or the rise of self-contained social shopping environments like 1-800-Flowers’ Facebook page).

Advertising spend on Facebook currently occupies a small share of what is being garnered by the search engines (eMarketer estimates the total search marketing pie in the United States at about $3.94 billion in 2010, putting Facebook’s relative figure at about 11-12% of that), but the folks over in Mountain View have their eye to the future. As online shopping behavior becomes more sophisticated, the notion of querying products and comparing vendors will become stale, and the leading edge of online consumers will begin to abandon that paradigm. Instead, peer influence will become an increasingly important ingredient of a pleasant online shopping experience. After all, if faced with product reviews written by friends, versus those written by unknowns, which would you trust more? (This also explains why comparison shopping and trust are so conjoined in e-commerce environments.)

In the long run, the addition of the seller ratings ad extension benefits all parties. Consumers are treated to a more transparent online shopping environment, which allows them to achieve higher satisfaction more quickly. Advertisers who practice good customer service are rewarded for doing so, and achieve better ROI on their digital marketing programs. And for Google, this is yet another way to weed out less competent advertisers who stand in the way of their more profitable counterparts. The day might even come when a fourth beneficiary enters play – if Google extends seller ratings to ads served on partner sites through AdSense, then publishers will likely also reap rewards in the form of revenues from increased click volumes.

Can Facebook deliver such ubiquitous goodwill to every stakeholder in the media equation? That’s what remains to be seen.

Just one complaint for Google, though: why do the seller ratings only apply to merchants with an average rating of four stars or higher? This counteracts the basis of comparison shopping – the difference between four and five stars is hardly a broad performance spectrum, and it’s barely visible when measured in pixels on the screen. Why not give advertisers with lower ratings (or an insufficient number of ratings) a chance to throw their hats in the ring? We can probably assume that their clickthrough rates will be lower, but perhaps with more interesting inventory or more relevant promotions, they can still present the consumer with a compelling choice?

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/google-social-shopping/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/display-advertising-technology-landscape/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/display-advertising-technology-landscape/#comments Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:31:00 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=895 Earlier this year, GCA Savvian published an infographic called the “Display Advertising Technology Landscape” (subtitled: Dynamic Environment Ripe for Consolidation) which instantly sprung up on a wide range of industry blogs and publications. It’s a graphical representation of all the middlemen in the relationship between advertisers, publishers and consumers — all within a digital context.



Initially, we were only able to find this content in PDF and other image formats. The list is not necessarily exhaustive, but it’s nonetheless a helpful resource — and for anyone looking to put this resource to use, wouldn’t it be nice to have a text-based version with links to all the companies/technologies mentioned? We thought so too… so here it is.

(Was your company left off the list? Let us know and we’ll add you.)

Agencies
Web Liquid Group
Omnicom Group
WPP
Publicis
Razorfish
Interpublic
Havas
Aegis
MDC-Partners
AKQA
iCrossing
Innovation Interactive
Dentsu
Hakuhodousa
AT&T Interactive
WebVisible
ReachLocal
Yodle

Ad Servers
Doubleclick
Eyeblaster
Atlas
Pointroll
Openx
Zedo
Adtech

Media Buying Platforms
Omnicon Trading Desk
B3
Vivaki
Atom
Cadreon
Adnetik
Varick Media Management

Creative Optimization
Teracent
Snapads
Struq
Choicestream
Dotomi
Adready
Tumri
ADISN
Adroit Interactive
Dapper

Analytics
Omniture
Coremetrics
WebTrends
Marketshare
Google Analytics
Unica
Flurry

DSPs
Mediamath
Invitemedia
X+1
Turn
Dataxu
Appnexus
Efficient Frontier
Triggit
Adbuyer.Com
The Trade Desk
Xa.Net

Data Optimization
House of Kaizen
Aggregate Knowledge
Datran Media
Quantcast
Jovian Data
Adchemy
Permuto
Redaril
Brilig
Bizo

Verification/Attribution
Doubleverify
Anchor Intelligence
Ad-Juster
Convertro
Tagman
Click Forensics
Adsafe
Mpire
Vizu
Adometry
ClearSaleing

Data Exchanges/Aggregators
Bluekai
Almondnet
Magnetic
Demdex
Rapleaf
Exelate
Acerno
Track Simple

Ad Exchanges
Doubleclick
Rightmedia
adECN
Advertising.Com
Ad Desk
ContextWeb
Adbrite
Adap.tv
Openx

Data Suppliers
Experian
Acxiom
Datalogix
Targusinfo
Infogroup
eBay
Expedia
IRI

Ad Networks- Horizontal
Yahoo!
AOL Advertising
Google
Microsoft Media Network
Tribalfusion
24-7 Real Media
Audience Network
Valueclick
Undertone
Burstmedia
CPX Interactive
Casale Media
Interclick
Traffic Marketplace
AdDynamix
Adtegrity
ShortTail Media
Brand.Net

Ad Networks- Video/Rich Media
Sprout
Tremor Media
BBE
Videoegg
Brightroll
Yume
Eyewonder
Adconion
Vibrant Media
Scanscout

Ad Networks- Vertical
Travel Ad Network
Net Shelter
Gorilla Nation
Sportgenic
Jumpstart
Idgtechnetwork
Glam
Intergi Entertainment
Federated Media
Media6Degrees

Ad Networks- Targeted
Specific Media
33Across
Collective Media
Lucid Media
Turn
Lotame
Audience Science
Pulse360

Ad Networks- Performance
Epic Advertising
Rocketfuel
Moxymedia
Adteractive
Adconion
Adknowledge
Commission Junction
Marchex
Datran Media
Tatto Media
Vantage Media
Hydra
Theuseful
Neverblue
Linkshare

Ad Networks- Mobile
AdMob
Quattro Wireless
Millennial Media
Jumptap
Greystripe
Mojiva
Amobee
Inmobi
Crisp Wireless
Transpera

Publisher Tools
Fat Tail
Peer39
Lijit
Yieldex
Yieldbuild
Yieldbot

Yield Optimization
Rubicon Project
Pubmatic
AdMeld

Sharing Data/Social Tools
Facebook
Sharethis
Clearspring
Gigya

---

Click below for links to relevant agency/consulting services:

Site Conversion Optimization
Continuous improvement of conversion by focusing on dynamic landing pages, conversion optimization and site analytics.



Particle Data Intelligence
Our data intelligence platform used to store, optimize, verify, report and forecast digital marketing campaigns.



Social Media & Word-of-Mouth: Monitoring / Analytics / Community Development
Understand and leverage the conversations about your brand. Measure relationships, their strength and growth. Build digital spaces in which your brand advocates and prospects can engage.



]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/online-word-of-mouth/display-advertising-technology-landscape/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/comparison-shopping-consumers-trust/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/comparison-shopping-consumers-trust/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:18:30 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=908 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on June 14, 2010.]

No one study can sum up the complexity of consumer behavior in the digital space, but with a bird’s eye view of various studies we can see a pattern which says a lot about the roles of both consumers and marketers. Let’s start with a few truths.

1) Virtually every consumer is a comparison shopper.

No one doubts that comparison shopping sites are highly visible online; NexTag alone pulls in almost 230 million unique visitors a year, and if you add up the combined traffic of top ten comparison shopping sites, the sum is over a billion (Compete.com). Earlier this year, Alterian conducted a study of online purchase behavior in which they found that 95% of the online audience across the United States and United Kingdom uses price comparison sites, blogs or other search related methods at least some of the time in making purchases online. {1}

2) Comparison shopping takes many forms, but usually begins with a search engine.

Comparison sites are typically NOT the primary point of entry.  According to PowerReviews, a user is more likely to kick off the comparison shopping process with a search engine than brand sites, retailers and social media combined. {2}

3) The search continues, because search engines are not the consumer’s most trusted source of advice.

Nielsen’s Global Online Consumer Survey highlights the top three most trusted media channels among Internet users in North America: recommendations from people they know, consumer opinions, and editorial content. {3}  Notice that none of these trusted voices are coming from salespeople.

4) Once business is transacted, the consumer is motivated to influence his or her peers.

In a 2009 study, Ripple6 found that about 5 of 6 (83%) of online shoppers share information about their purchases with people they know. {4}  Nearly three in four social media users share their recommendations online {5}, and that’s not only to spread good news.  More than three-quarters of US internet users are compelled to tell their friends about a problem they experience with a product or service. {6}

What has the research told us?

We must acknowledge the fact that all the studies which contribute to this narrative were conducted under unique circumstances and subject to their own individual biases.  Acting on the assumption, however, that each study’s sample is sufficiently balanced to reflect the consuming population (at least in the United States), a path emerges – we’ll call it the Consumer Comparison Cycle (click thumbnail to enlarge):



Once the awareness of a particular need has arisen, there is very little upside in further solicitation of consumers.  Their desire to compare is driven by a need to position products and services side-by-side – and once they begin pursuing alternatives, the need for trust drives a consumer away from search engines and toward other destinations.  At the time of validation and ultimately transaction, consumers can be enticed by attractive promotions, but marketers beware: the potential downfall of these tactics are twofold:

First, the promotions cut into the top line of profit potential.  Second, they require additional advertising expense to get the word out.  The result is an increase in marketing expenditure, at a time when the consumer’s opinions are likely to be already formed.  This is the basis for the ongoing battle between persuasion and confidence.

Finally, the consumer makes a purchase and broadcasts the experience, contributing to the initial awareness of other consumers.

Lessons learned.

As marketers we need to continually remind ourselves of the value of service over solicitation.  The search channel provides an ideal model for this philosophy.  We can geotarget our ads and write ad copy which will attract a certain type of consumer, but ultimately it’s hard to solicit outright in search: the entire search query process revolves around the consumer’s proactive desire to be served.

As the research indicates, consumers begin the purchase process with search, but rarely do they end it with search – and the pursuit of trust is the turning point in that evolution.  We know all about the stigma of the pushy salesperson, and ‘trustworthy’ is generally not one of the adjectives that comes to mind when describing one.

One of the pillars of good customer service is making the answers to consumers’ question easy to find.  Beyond conversion volumes and strong ROI, search marketing plays a pivotal role in ensuring good service throughout the Consumer Comparison Cycle.  With steady commitment to service at all points of the cycle, we put ourselves in a position to leverage consumers’ energies in search, social media, and other marketing channels – and create a self-propelled machine for demand generation.

FOOTNOTES


{1} Alterian, “Your Brand: At Risk? Or Ready for Growth?”
{2} PowerReviews, 2010 Social Shopping Study
{3} eMarketer, “Making the Most of Earned Media,”
{4} Ripple6, “Social Commerce: Conversations Among Consumers”
{5} Razorfish, “Fluent: The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report”
{6} Alliance Data, The Influencer: A Consumer Voice with Legs

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/comparison-shopping-consumers-trust/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/building-a-balanced-scorecard-of-marketing-and-brand-performance/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/building-a-balanced-scorecard-of-marketing-and-brand-performance/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:25:56 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/?p=885 The on-going debate surrounding the disruptive noise created by the vuvuzela – the plastic horns adopted by locals and spectators during the South Africa 2010 World Cup, made me think of the disruptive “noise” created by data within Marketing departments.

Digital marketing is blessed by a high degree of accountability; unfortunately accountability comes at the price. Somebody once told me managing online data is like trying to drink water from a fire hydrant. In addition to the sheer volume of data, marketers are faced with identifying relevant metrics – metrics that help manage the short term and long term performance of a brand and marketing investments.

Since 2003 we have been faced with this challenge – clients, publishers and partners requesting a methodology that extracts the most value from their data. Before we molded our silver bullet, we reviewed several business principles to help guide our approach.

Kaplan & Norton’s (Harvard Business Review, February 1992) use of “the balanced scorecard” principle shaped our approach. What they essentially said through the balanced scorecard approach was that when managing the performance of a company and its assets (in this case data), there were many interests and data points to take in account. To be of any value measures have to be inter-related as opposed to exist in isolation. Our interpretation of “the balanced scorecard” principle led to a simple tailored belief.    

In order to combine a long-term roadmap with short-term actionable insight, data has to be interlocked to develop a “balanced scorecard” of marketing and brand data - compared to history, the industry or a competitive set.

 We call it a Brand Dashboard.

Our Brand Dashboard combines proprietary, third-party and public data to provide a full view of your brand’s health. With our Brand Dashboard you can not only capture more insights from the existing sales funnel, but also introduce new sources of data to enrich your consumers’ profile in the digital space – and ultimately widen the funnel to capture more revenue.

The Brand Dashboard includes a series of brand metrics with weighted influence, grouped into four manageable brand facets:

1. Awareness
2. Engagement
3. Loyalty
4. Efficiency 

These four brand metrics are benchmarked against three individually-weighted dimensions: 1) performance relative to competitive set, 2) directional performance trend across date range, and 3) rolling average of competitive or directional performance.

The ATLAS Institute confirms the value of our brand dashboard. Most brands only measure 6% of the consumer purchase funnel, focusing almost entirely on qualitative metrics. While these qualitative metrics are incredibly valuable, they need to be complemented with engagement metrics.

Alain Portmann, author of  ”Building a balanced scorecard of marketing and brand performance” is Web Liquid’s Founding Partner, Head of Strategy. Visit www.webliquidgroup.com for more thought pieces.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/building-a-balanced-scorecard-of-marketing-and-brand-performance/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/word-of-mouth-activity-search-query-data/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/word-of-mouth-activity-search-query-data/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:47:36 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=870 [This article ran on Search Engine Watch on May 17, 2010.]

While most digital marketers embrace the wealth of data generated by their campaigns, one of their biggest challenges is to leverage that data beyond the specific channel in which it is generated.  It can be a great frustration to make sense of numbers at the highest, most general level – but within that problem lies a significant opportunity.

Let’s use discount wine retail as an example.  A store owner may be proud of their e-commerce site, but if they’re not connecting with the clientele on a more personal level, they’re leaving a lot of potential value untapped.  This is frequently a motivator for having a presence in social media.  Adding a blog as a complement to the e-commerce experience would be a great way to build a presence in these word-of-mouth (WOM) channels.  We know that WOM is highly trusted by consumers (McKinsey estimates it is the primary factor in up to 50% of purchase decisions), but how do we identify the relevant conversations going on?

Tapping into related search query activity is one easy way to do this.  Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool is a free resource offering a robust view of how frequently people search for different keywords.  Let’s take it for a spin.

[Note: Earlier in May, Google updated its AdWords Keyword Tool interface.  You’ll find it is easier to use the old version; just click Previous Interface.]

1)    Go to the Keyword Tool and type “discount wine”.  (Make sure “Use synonyms” is checked, and both options beneath “Filter my results” are unchecked.)

2)    You’ll get two lists (Related terms, Additional terms).  Click “Add all” for each, so that both show in the green section on the right.



3)    Output that list to a text file; this is now your Seed List.  You’ll then take this and drop it back in where you typed “discount wine” beforehand.  (This time, make sure “Use synonyms” is unchecked, and “Don’t show ideas for new keywords” is checked.)

4)    Export this new list to CSV, and open in Excel.



5)    Extract “discount” and “wine” from the whole list (first, go for related terms like “discounts,” “discounted,” “wines”).  This leaves you with the most common search modifiers related to discount wine.

6)    Re-sort the list by keyword to remove blanks, and sort again, descending by Global Monthly Search Volume.  At this point, it’s useful to cap the list to only those terms with a search volume X or higher (for “discount wine” I used 1,000 as my cutoff).

7)    Next to the search volume column, divide the number by 1,000 for each term.  You’ll understand why in a second.  Let’s call this Adjusted Search Volume.

8)    Create a column next to the keywords where you fuse each term with a space (use the CONCATENATE function with the keyword followed by a space in between quotes.  Example: =concatenate(A1,” “)

9)    Now create one last column for your final output, where you multiply the keyword by the number shown in Adjusted Search Volume.  This will give each keyword the proper relativity in the finished product.  You can use the REPT function in Excel to do this.  It will look something like this:



10)    Take that output and drop it into your favorite tag cloud generator (at Web Liquid, we like Wordle).  And voila’, here’s a visualization of the top search modifiers related to discount wine (click to enlarge):



Is the word “red” cluttering things up too much?  You can go back, and paste everything but the top keyword.  Watch how the cloud changes:



Still not inspired?  You could just limit to the terms that have monthly search query volumes between 1,000 and 10,000:



This process offers an objective, relative view of the conversation surrounding a root keyword, as reflected in search activity.  It’s a very scalable approach as well, with room for conversion, geography, seasonality and other filters.

When adding search-enabled WOM insights to the other creative priorities surrounding new content development, the net result is an airtight method for populating an editorial calendar and positioning its content for maximum visibility in search engines.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/word-of-mouth-activity-search-query-data/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/correlation-causation-and-confirmation-bias/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/correlation-causation-and-confirmation-bias/#comments Tue, 11 May 2010 15:17:35 +0000 Nate Walton /blog/?p=866 This post is less an indictment of data mining, and more a word of caution.  Data mining should never be a marketer’s first strategy for gaining insight, and a combination of logic and psychology can show us why.

A special report in the Economist, referenced in the post “Data Exhaust, from the Woods to the Highway”, had this to say about the overwhelming amount of data being collected:

Sophisticated quantitative analysis is being applied to many aspects of life, not just missile trajectories or financial hedging strategies, as in the past. For example, Farecast, a part of Microsoft’s search engine Bing, can advise customers whether to buy an airline ticket now or wait for the price to come down by examining 225 billion flight and price records. The same idea is being extended to hotel rooms, cars and similar items. Personal-finance websites and banks are aggregating their customer data to show up macroeconomic trends, which may develop into ancillary businesses in their own right. Number-crunchers have even uncovered match-fixing in Japanese sumo wrestling. (from “Data, Data Everywhere“)

After the awesome size of “225 billion” wears off, I start to wonder: what if I had that dataset of 225 billion flight and price records, and decided the price of farm machinery and the population of zebras in central Africa were the deciding variables in price prediction? You would think it a terrible price predictor and probably tell me so.

But, what if I decided to include the time of day of the flight as well as the weather conditions, for which I used a proxy of temperature?  What if including both caused variance inflation factors to skyrocket, because lower temperatures are correlated with nighttime?  What if I didn’t have time to check, or didn’t think to check the variance inflation factors – and this model was published on the Internet for consumers to use?  What if customers, upon inputting their preferred time of departure, received improper predictions because the weight applied to that variable in this model was biased? What if nobody could tell anything was wrong?

The science of data mining — systems, networks, and complex multivariate statistics — is critical to bringing understanding to the new data age, but the bottom line is most people do not have the time to learn and/or apply the most complicated algorithms and statistical methods to their data.  In these day-to-day situations, the hidden problems of a strictly data-driven approach grow larger without ever becoming more apparent. The human mind is still the best analytic thinker around and an analytic framework, again, should always come before the data processing.

It can be very tempting to defer to algorithms or statistical techniques far enough beyond our comprehension that we trust they will work away behind the scenes, providing us with deep insight as we ask them basic questions (think Google). But, as the current literature on computer learning algorithms and statistics attempts to demonstrate, we still have a long way to go before we have computers with any human semblance of theoretically sound pattern-matching, and thus any statistical methods which can deduce real causation.

While computers don’t have an intuitive grasp of how theory should be applied to patterns, we humans do, and we have to be careful to apply our intuition to the problem before we apply our computers to the data.  The order is important due to the risk of overlooking the problem at hand, focusing instead on the output from the computer.

If we directly apply our analytical skills to the output from the computer, we are hunting for a solution without ever properly defining the problem.  The actual causal process becomes a needle in a haystack of other temptingly similar looking needles.  And at this point, I think all of us would just choose the needle we like the most.

Researchers have a term for this: it’s called confirmation bias.  And marketers, like researchers, earn their keep by making decisions that are as free of bias as possible.  While data mining has become an essential weapon in the marketing arsenal, consumers remain complex in their behavior, and human intuition is still required to foster their brand relationships.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/correlation-causation-and-confirmation-bias/feed/ 2 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/comcast-net-neutrality-consumer-behavior/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/comcast-net-neutrality-consumer-behavior/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:45:23 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=825 “In this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.”

That was Clint Eastwood in “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,” but how many of us ever likened the American media landscape to the Wild West?



On April 6, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) squared off against Comcast Corp. in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia — a veritable high-noon showdown between two of the agenda-setting heavyweights in the mass communications landscape. Who’s the sheriff, and who’s the villain? We’ll leave you in suspense on that one… at least for a moment.

Let’s start with the perceived issue that led to the court battle in the first place. A few years back, as peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing continued to gain in popularity, ISPs (internet service providers) not surprisingly began to notice a huge spike in consumption of their bandwidth. Philadelphia-based Comcast Corporation, with 15 million broadband subscribers on a leash, decided to bite back by choking that flow of traffic (specifically file transfers taking place on the BitTorrent P2P service).

With that, the Net Neutrality movement gained a widespread following. Consumers far and wide cried foul, claiming that in a free democracy, no corporation had the right to restrict access to information. The FCC agreed, and ordered Comcast to put a stop to it.

But Comcast came back fighting. They asserted that the FCC in fact had no jurisdiction over the matter, and geared up for a fight… which was apparently resolved on April 6th. According to the New York Times (“US Court Curbs FCC Authority on Web Traffic“), the court’s ruling leaves regulators with “limited power over Web traffic under current law” and “the decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites, and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users.”

As is often the case, the immediate aftermath of this decision is hardly as grave as the slippery slope in its interpretation. What happens if Comcast begins to identify other streams of traffic that clash with its business interests (Hulu.com comes to mind), and begins to throw its weight around in the face of a newly under-regulated environment? What if a future candidate for governor, senator, even President proves to be more friendly to the telecom lobby than his or her opponent — can we expect fair and balanced coverage of the campaigns? If the Federal Communications Commission is not fit to arbitrate these potential conflicts of interest, who is?

The scope of power held by the FCC is defined by the United States Congress, so it’s likely that this is where the Net Neutrality movement will turn next.  On the heels of January’s Supreme Court ruling that the U.S. government cannot ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections, and with the midterm elections right around the corner, this is sure to be a gritty battle. Beyond the current battle being waged from Washington, DC to every corner of the country, it’s worth a pause to consider some of the other battles which may heat up as a result of the April 6 ruling:

1) Just another front in the war over copyright protection.

BitTorrent, the original target of Comcast’s preferential treatment of data streams, is largely used in the unregulated trade of copyrighted content. It also happens to chew up a lot of bandwidth, given the size digital audio and video content. We’ve watched the entertainment industry grapple with an outdated business model for years on end… are we paying proper attention to their role in the Net Neutrality debate? As a anonymous commenter on Broadband.gov has stated, “What this really points to is the absolute need to rigorously divorce content from transport.”

2) A halt to the progress made toward eliminating the digital divide.

We’ve made some progress on making high speed internet ubiquitous, but it’s not coming fast enough. Currently, barely half of rural households in the United States have access to broadband (see graph below, courtesy of Digital Nation). If telecoms have more power to direct traffic toward their own commercial agendas, and the FCC less authority to oversee it, will we as a country remain committed to this fight? Without access to high speed internet, rural populations in the United States will be at a major disadvantage in terms of building and maintaining resources and skill sets, and the dynamism of the American economy will suffer.



3) Consumer perceptions of the role that this ruling may play in our economic rebound.

Are your ears burning? Here’s where digital marketing could be impacted the most. If Americans begin to lose faith in the internet as a democratic medium, with free and open access to all, it won’t be long before consumer behavior follows suit. The industry already faces significant challenges, especially in terms of protecting privacy, maintaining channel loyalty, and managing perceptions of information quality. Just as consumers are beginning to feel a weight lifted off their shoulders, they may begin to feel like the internet is not to place to be spending those dollars. A company with diversified media holdings like Comcast could weather the storm pretty well, but what about the rest?

The next time around, this fight won’t necessarily be fought by the FCC. It could be fought by each and every consumer, who resorts to packing a 45 (figuratively speaking) in defense of their right to free access to information. If Americans decide to hold their elected officials accountable, and fight on their behalf, we’ll be back on our way to the innovative drive that has fueled a lot of our growth in recent memory.

Otherwise, when high noon rolls around, there will be more shootouts… but one of the cowboys will be a mean guy like Clint Eastwood, and the other a little more like Marty McFly.

Who would you bet on, in that fight?

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/comcast-net-neutrality-consumer-behavior/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/data-exhaust-digital-brand-marketing/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/data-exhaust-digital-brand-marketing/#comments Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:03:46 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=729 A few weeks back, The Economist published a special report on what it calls the “data deluge” (see the February 27th edition).  In it, the paper introduces the notion of “data exhaust,” defined as “the trail of clicks that internet users leave behind from which value can be extracted.”  According to the author, the internet economy is increasingly being driven by the insights therein.  The article (“Data, data everywhere“) cites as a prime example Google’s use of clickthrough data to match search behavior to relevant results.



It seems a bit limiting to focus the discussion only on clicks, given that consumer behavior on the Internet can be measured by a multitude of other metrics.  However, Google is indeed a worthy model of this trend.  Take a single search query as a case study: “st patrick’s”.  Each time a user queries this keyword (Google estimates about 3.3 million queries in March 2009), several parallel processes spring into action:

1) Google scans the user’s personal profile and search history to gain a sense of what kind of search results would be most interesting.  Are they looking for details on the parade?  Maybe they feel like wetting their whistle, and want to know about St. Patrick’s Day promotions at local bars & pubs.  Or maybe, for a history buff, the query is about the life of Saint Patrick, and how the holiday is celebrated around the world.

2) The auction for sponsored advertisements begins.  Any advertisers bidding on keywords related to “st patrick’s” are participants, and those with the most relevant ad copy and landing pages (and sufficiently high bids) will get to show their ad on the results page.  It could be a local bar or pub, a general retailer selling green novelty hats, or an auto shop offering a one-day discount on an oil change.

3) The real-time portion of the search engine results page (Google calls it “Latest results”) begins to rotate relevant results from within news sites, the blogosphere, social media, and so on.  They refresh about as fast as the user can blink.

This dynamic presentation of these results amounts to a very rich testing environment for Google.  Every search will yield slightly (or vastly) different results, and once they are revealed, they are hardly static.  If Google has 3.3 million chances in a given month to test various hypotheses on what results should be shown for the keyword “st patrick’s,” it’s easy to see how they can continuously improve the algorithm.  Even after segmenting the audiences by geography, user profiles, time of day, query context, or any of the other criteria around which these tests are constructed… the sheer sample size is undaunted.

Data exhaust does not only benefit search engines.  There are a variety of other contexts in which this type of construct applies:

• Publishers – With every action they take, visitors leave a rich trail of behavioral insight behind them.  How did they get there?  Where do they go?  How long do they stay there?  What prompts them to take their next action?  What causes them to leave?  How soon before they come back… and why?  All of these can be easily captured in numeric form.

• Retailers – What channels drove the highest quantity of visitors?  The highest quality?  And quality measured by what?  If they buy, what do they buy?  How much of it?  How can they be enticed to buy again?  It’s all in the numbers.

• Brand Marketers – What types of marketing communications drive the most awareness?  The highest level of engagement?  The most loyal audience?  The most efficient return on marketing investment (ROI)?  It’s the overlay of data exhaust on the strategic building blocks we call Brand Facets that led us to develop the Digital Brand Dashboard.

Remember the tale of Hansel & Gretel?  Left to starve deep in the woods, they found their way back home by following a trail of pebbles intelligently left behind by Hansel on their trip out.  Evil stepmothers and cannibalistic witches aside, if he had kept using pebbles instead of switching to bread crumbs, he and his sister would have always found their way home.

For marketers, the analogy rings true.  Those pebbles take the form of the multitude of metrics available to marketers through digital media.  Consumers and their wallets await; will marketers find their way out of the woods?

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/data-exhaust-digital-brand-marketing/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-gladiators-fight-death/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-gladiators-fight-death/#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:53:30 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=723 Have social media begun to reinvent the way we use search engines?

To understand what might be in store for this marriage in 2010, we can start by looking at a chain of events that started last October.  First Microsoft announced a deal with Twitter, allowing Bing to index Twitter’s entire public stream. The same day, they announced a similar deal with Facebook. And before that day was through, Google announced their own deal with Twitter. A busy 24 hours for the real-time search revolution.  Later on, in December, Google made a vague announcement of a content deal with Facebook which just might have been similar to what Bing had pulled off.  By the end of 2009, the two big players in search had each teamed up with the two big players in social media.  The digital community finally had their John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Why is this such a big deal?  Consider this week’s report from eMarketer (“Facebook Dominates Social Content-Sharing“) which identifies Facebook as the the top social media site on which U.S. internet users share online content (representing 44% of the audience).  Twitter was second at 29%.  Combined, that’s almost three-quarters of the U.S. internet population.



(By the way, Google has MySpace streams in its index, too. Take that, Bing.)

In the new front of the war for search engine dominance, Google’s tremendous lead over Bing in terms of market share (65% to 11% according to comScore, or 65-28 if you factor in the eventual consummation of the Yahoo-Bing search alliance) matters little.  The new front is social search, and the playing field is far more level… especially with the recent news that Google would be indexing content posted to Facebook pages.

That is indeed a nice step forward, but here’s what it’s not: personal status updates.  Those go to Bing.  So in the world of social search, there’s a clear line in the sand beginning to emerge.  Facebook Pages, at least the most visible and content-rich ones, tend to be managed by organizations.  And status updates, those are managed by individuals.  Is Facebook pitting Google and Microsoft against one another, giving each party one half of the puzzle, and letting them fight it out?

Let’s add one last layer, just to up the ante once and for all.  Apparently Facebook has not charged either Google or Bing a single penny to access this valuable data.  According to Danny Sullivan, Google did all they could to keep the financial terms ambiguous… but Facebook was happy to talk.

The battle for social search is a battle for individuals’ motivations, aspirations, biases and opinions.  Mastery over these translates into a gold mine of consumer insight. This was the basis for our discussion back in January about commercially-oriented behavior in the social media space (“Peer Purchase Influence: Quantifying the power of word-of-mouth“).  There are a lot of people out there using social media to gainfully influence consumers’ behavior — for example (source: PostRelease survey conducted by Synovate):

• influencing a decision about a product purchase – 54% of U.S. internet users
• sharing advice based on online research – 41%
• rating/reviewing products online – 26%
• outright recommending a purchase to someone – 25%

And nowhere are these actions, or the seeds that underlie them, captured with more accuracy and scalability than on Facebook.  If one social search engine indexes pages, and the other indexes personal status updates, each is left needing a key missing ingredient to complete the circle.

In time, we may see that Facebook teaches these two giants a lesson in Marketing 101: a loss leader today could pave the way for a windfall tomorrow.  If social search continues to evolve within Google and Bing, the absence of the other half of Facebook’s data will become ever more apparent… and ever more costly to rectify.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-gladiators-fight-death/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/trials-of-toyota-search-engines/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/trials-of-toyota-search-engines/#comments Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:40:38 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=683 [Our 2010 Customer Complaint Index was featured in MediaPost's Search Blog: "How To Capitalize On Competitors' Failures In Search."]

Live by the search engines, die by the search engines.

Not too long ago, if you went into Google and searched for the keyword “toyota”, you’d be presented with the corporate website (toyota.com), a bunch of ads for Toyota dealerships (and perhaps some competitors), and some news articles, likely praising Toyota for their efficiency, their innovation, anything that would solidify them as the world’s top automotive manufacturer.



How times have changed.  This morning, the top ad in the sponsored links carries the headline “Toyota Recall.”  There are news results criticizing Toyota’s lack of transparency in dealing with the issues.  Further down the page, real-time search results refurbish other detrimental news items, sprinkled with negative commentary in very plain, consumer-generated language (i.e., a euphemism for the creative ways in which consumers voice their discontent for a product or service).  Quite simply, the search engine results pages lately aren’t such a beacon of Toyota’s market dominance.

On Friday, Web Liquid issued the 2010 Customer Complaint Index, where we frame this transgression in a bigger discussion of tactical marketing.  As search engine marketing has evolved, and with that evolution pushed towards greater saturation of ad dollars, finding focused audiences — and standing out in their eyes — has become more and more difficult.  What the Index finds is that attaching a brand name to the keyword “customer complaints” presents an opportunity for marketers on two fronts:

1) When negative attention (such as customer complaints) is drawn to our competitors, participation in that dialogue can deliver immense value.  As Woody Allen famously said, 80% of success is simply showing up.

2) When negative attention is instead focused on our brands, presence in that forum, and ownership of that dialogue will always pay off over ambivalence.

The goal is to take advantage of this digital marketing opportunity that is intimately tied to customer service.  If a competitor fails, the marketer has a golden opportunity to step in and save the day.  If it’s their own product or service that fails, they can still leverage the situation for data capture, opening a powerful remarketing channel for when the problem is resolved.

While Nissan, McDonald’s and Hewlett-Packard topped the list in terms of absolute monthly search queries related to customer complaints, there is one brand which leads the pack in terms of the relative share of complaints to total branded queries — by a wide margin.  A hint: it’s another automotive brand.  Another hint: it’s not Toyota.

To see which brand has earned this dubious honor, have a look at the 2010 Customer Complaint Index.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/trials-of-toyota-search-engines/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-roi-through-retargeting/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-roi-through-retargeting/#comments Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:37:02 +0000 Matthew Cronin /blog/?p=653 Social Media as a word of mouth marketing channel continues to prove its value in terms of reported customer behavior and it remains a top priority for many marketers in 2010. But along with the broadly accepted belief that social media and word of mouth are effective, comes the question of ROI and how to measure it. Most often the answer to Social Media ROI comes in the form of metrics with undefined value, for example: number of Facebook fans & twitter followers, site traffic, conversation index, customer insight, etc. All of which are very valid and valuable returns from an investment in Social Media, but all of which fail to get to the definitive point – how much money is being made by the Social Media/word of mouth effort? The irony is that the digital space offers more revenue data than any other marketing channel, and in fact, measuring Social Media ROI in revenue terms can be easier than it seems. Here’s one way we do it – Social Media Retargeting.

Many marketers employ a “hub and spoke” model of Social Media engagement, placing one primary social platform (hub) at the center of their effort and then using complimentary channels (spokes) to syndicate the content and engage incremental audiences and communities. Ideally these points of engagement are drawing people to interact and, in some way, convert. Both the hub and the spokes become channels to initiate user tracking, such as adserving tags, to measure the users’ engagement and ultimately their conversion.

Practically speaking, imagine a company blog that is used as a customer service channel and SEO portal. As users arrive at that blog they can easily be tagged and tracked through to conversion. We’ve found with many of our clients that customers originating in these channels convert at a much higher rate and spend substantially more money – proving that social media channels can deliver higher quality customers – an important consideration in calculating ROI.

Further, point of engagement and tracking methodology can be paired with the media tactic of re-targeting. As the diagram below shows, users who engage with a company through social channels, thus qualifying them as a potential customer, can be reached with display advertising as they go about their daily web use and cross properties represented in an Ad Network.



When a marketer implements this model of Social Media retargeting, Social Media demonstrates its revenue ROI immediately in two ways. Users form social channels who enter into the purchase funnel without seeing a retargeted ad will be measured as a conversion (with corresponding revenue data) sourced directly from the social channel – represented above by the dotted line. Alternatively, a user who leaves the social channel and later engaged with a social media retargeting ad, will be tracked as having had that compound influence of social media and display advertising – all correlated with definitive revenue value. From there the ROI calculation of investment in Social Media, Social Media retargeting and corresponding revenue, is relatively straightforward.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-roi-through-retargeting/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/peer-purchase-influence-word-of-mouth/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/peer-purchase-influence-word-of-mouth/#comments Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:16:57 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=644 Earlier this week, eMarketer published an analysis of online and offline social media/word-of-mouth (WOM) activities (“Harnessing Active Brand Advocates“).  This public data provides interesting insights into the brand evangelism of the adult Internet population. How do people reflect on their past purchases?  How does it impact their behavior going forward?  How does it shape the type of input they have into the consumer behavior of their family, friends, coworkers, and peers in general?

We chose to go one further and analyze the data relative to its respective sample sizes.  The resulting index provided us with a more objective view of the relativity of social media/word-of mouth (WOM) activity across different age and gender groups, leading to a few additional insights.

The experimental set is defined by behaviors that include input and advice on the purchase process, posting of ratings and reviews of products/services, participation in forums and blogs, and event attendance.  It is based on this range of behaviors that we’ll define peer purchase influence (for the time being).

• The most common peer purchase influence activity (taking place on social media sites) is helping friends or family members make purchase decisions.  More than half (54%) of adult internet users reported engaging in this behavior.

• Not surprisingly, younger internet users (ages 18-34) index high for peer purchase influence activity across social media sites.  Older internet users, however, are not absent from the party.  Blogging among 45-54 year olds is an example of an activity which extends beyond this highly active 18-34 set.

• Gender disparity in social media usage varies based on the nature of the activity.  For many social media activities there is very little different in relative participation among female vs. male internet users.  However, contributing to online forums, recommending purchases and publishing blogs all skewed significantly toward males.

• The peer purchase influence activities in which the Internet public are least active (e.g. organizing/attending events, blogging, contributing to forums) are precisely the activities for which the younger age groups skew the highest.  Insight: Despite the emergence of older consumers in the social media space, 18-34 year olds are still driving much of the peer purchase influence.

Click on the chart below, to see index scores across all age/gender groups.




Given the growing sophistication of sentiment analysis within the evolution of WOM monitoring, we’d like to see eMarketer and one of its research partners study trends in sentiment as they relate to peer purchase influence.  Who is most likely to bad-mouth a product or service?  Who is mostly likely to take heed to these warnings?  Which brands or industries meet the challenge head on by organizing and managing outlets for this kind of participation, e.g. Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, third-party forums or directly on the brand’s website?

With that level of insight into the dynamics of social media, marketers will gain a better sense of how and why to take control of the word-of-mouth space in managing their brands’ reputations.


]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/peer-purchase-influence-word-of-mouth/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/url-shorteners-social-media-analytics/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/url-shorteners-social-media-analytics/#comments Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:44:55 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=635 2009 was “the year” of many things… but one trend which has not received enough attention is the recent rise to prominence of URL shorteners.  As always, there’s the early entrant (TinyURL), the sharper alternative which dominates the market in its adolescence (Bit.ly), and then Google jumps into the fray.  We’ve assembled a short guide to URL shorteners, and set the table for future discourse on where their impact will most be felt in 2010 — social media analytics.



Download “The Long and Short of URL Shorteners” in PDF format.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/url-shorteners-social-media-analytics/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/video-on-demand-online/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/video-on-demand-online/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:26:28 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/?p=630 In the late nineties I bought a WebTV set-top box, one of the first services that promised to integrate my TV and the internet. Looking back I can now understand why the experience wasn’t great…
• The set-top box had limited processing and memory resources (just a 112 MHz MIPS CPU, 2 megabytes of RAM and ROM)
• The set-top relied upon a connection through a 33.6 dialup modem to connect to the WebTV Service.
• WebTV reformatted pages to avoid sideways scrolling, a problem when trying to reformat PC-sized web pages into the 560-pixel width of a United States NTSC television screen. 

Thirteen years on the promise of TV and internet convergence is finally a reality, fueled by consumers changing media consumption patterns, cheaper and faster broadband and improvements in video streaming technology.

One significant change from the early days is a shift from “device convergence” to “on demand” services and content. Networks and ISPs are focusing on delivering video on demand services including Telstra BigPond TV in Australia, Hulu in the United States and BBC’s iPlayer in the United Kingdom. Gaming console manufacturers including Sony and Microsoft are making the push to deliver video downloads and unique content online – in fact Sky subscribers can view movies and live sport on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 over the Internet, without a satellite dish. Television and set-box manufacturers are focusing on televisions that are ready to connect to the internet straight out of the box. Futuresource Consulting forecasts that one in five flat-panel TV’s shipped in Europe next year will be ready to connect straight to the internet. By Christmas 2010, the first TV equipment based on Project Canvas, the BBC’s internet-TV joint venture should be available.   

On demand services such as video on demand (VOD) presents a whole new set of challenges for broadcasters, who have never dealt with the costs of distribution. The dual costs of piping internet video into the home and licensing content from producers might – both paid out on a pay per view basis – will challenge long term profitability and even survival. Every time a program is viewed online through video on demand (VOD) services broadcasters have to pay companies such as Akamai and Level 3 – in the UK one half-hour programme costs between 2p and 5p to stream which for broadcasters such as BBC which registered 60M TV shows in November adds up to over £1 million a month!

The added difficulty for broadcasters in that services such Hulu and BBC iPlayer are free, setting the tone that makes it harder for everybody else to charge. Broadcasters will have plenty of time to figure out the economics of on demand services, given internet video is likely to account for 5 to 10 percent of total TV viewing by 2020 according to Enders Analysis.

The subsription model should not be ignored. My prediction is that Hulu will start charging users for premium access to programs in early 2011. Why? Comcast, the top U.S. cable company, today launched Fancast XFINITY TV a web based video on demand service. Weeks ago Comcast agreed to take a controlling stake in NBC Universal (which partly owns Hulu) from General Electric. Fancast is part of a cable industry initiative called TV Everywhere to make popular shows available over the Web to paying subscribers.

Advertising seems to one way of clawing back the costs of distribution, presenting interesting opportunities for marketers. Case in point, Time Warner Cable launched a video on demand (VOD) service called Promotions on Demand that will allow viewers to browse a range of long-format on-demand advertising (organized into such channels as “Automotive on Demand”) and in less than a week, receive coupons and other promotional material by mail or email for the product or service whose advertising they have just watched.

Alain Portmann, author of  ”The Internet is coming to your television” is Web Liquid’s Founding Partner, Head of Strategy. Visit www.webliquidgroup.com for more thought pieces.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/video-on-demand-online/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/response-to-lets-kill-the-cpm/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/response-to-lets-kill-the-cpm/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:46:08 +0000 Brad Hutchins /blog/?p=620 Shelby Bonnie, founder of CNET, wrote a very interesting article for Tech Crunch in September, arguing that the time has come to for both advertisers and publishers to do away with the CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions) model. Bonnie offered several reasons as to why the CPM, a pricing model commonly appearing on media plans and often used to decide which properties make the buy, does not work for the buying and selling of online display ad space.  Bonnie correctly identifies several issues while making the case against the CPM, and concludes that the CPM, ultimately, undercuts the opportunity to execute innovative & creative campaigns  However, the leap from outlining the drawbacks of the CPM to it’s termination, is hardly warranted as a solution to these challenges  (or likely to happen).   Where Bonnie’s argument goes wrong lays in the fact that the CPM, which has historically been used as a model for purchasing media long before the days of digital, has never been used as a performance metric by digital marketers.

Why? Data & measurability, two cornerstones of the digital space, are key drivers of advertising effectiveness.  When a campaign is properly managed relative to the end objectives (such as reach, engagement, conversions or revenue) this should mitigate the impact of a single metric, specifically and especially CPM, on campaign success.

For example, he writes:

“If you pay for impressions, you get impressions. Is that, in the end, what marketers really want? How about engagement? How about impact? How about actually selling product? A glut of impressions has helped no one.”

True.  When a user is presented with several ad placements during a single-page view, the advertiser is often paying for 3 or more impressions, which, at best, can only reach, engage or convert one consumer.  If that user views several pages across the same site or network, the ratio of impressions to actual viewers continues to decrease. This potential for duplicitous & duplicative flighting of impressions, however, can easily be considered as the planner makes decisions on how to the structure a media buy.  If not, the publisher may certainly deliver tons of impressions that have little impact on an advertiser’s end objectives.

The major fallacy with this argument is that no consideration is given to campaign management.  What sets digital media apart from its traditional counterparts, is that the planners job is not complete after the creative is trafficked.  If the planner finds that placements on a site or network are receiving “junk” impressions and fail to meet any of the advertisers performance objectives, she should optimize the campaign by moving that investment to placements that perform.

If Bonnie’s contention that the columns for impressions and cost are often viewed as the most important on a performance spreadsheet is true, then there is no reason for publishers not to focus on maximizing the number of impressions sold without regard to quality.    It would also suggest a dilemma much larger than that of the CPM.

Bonnie also argues that the scale and quality of impressions available through digital channels have completely eroded the intrinsic value of the impression.  From the agency and advertiser perspective, however, this and other points outlined by Bonnie do not necessarily represent a reason to discontinue using the CPM model. This is because CPM is a pricing model and not a performance metric.  CPM or eCPM would offer very little insight and value as a lone performance metric.    While there is no one universal metric that does, marketers should look to a combination of engagement, conversion and efficiency metrics to gauge how successful their publisher and network partnerships are at achieving advertising goals.

The industry may not be prepared to deliver a coup de grace to the CPM until a better and convenient replacement is made available.  For now, the CPM model as originally and correctly intended, works just fine.  As a marketing performance metric, it’s worthless.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/response-to-lets-kill-the-cpm/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/participation-new-roi/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/participation-new-roi/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:55:43 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/?p=613 What is the most valuable metric in marketing, outside of Return on Investment? Participation. Participation is the ultimate engagement metric, sitting between persuasion and confidence. Let’s be honest, advertising aims to persuade. It puts forward a Marketing Promise to consumers. While effective at eliciting response, it does little to build confidence. Word of Mouth is the ultimate driver of consumer confidence. Participation is the desired output of both advertising (persuasion) and advocacy (confidence) investments. Referencing our own visual representation of the relationship between persuasion and confidence (“The Nexus of Persuasion and Confidence“), participation is the starting point of the purchase decision; it initiates both the consumption of content and the researching of a brand’s offering.

The different degrees of participation can be identified through the Power Law of Participation that plots a scale of participation relative to specific actions including commenting, engaging and tagging ads and conversations. In simple terms, user participation patterns transition from content consumption in the tail, to content production at the head.

The value of participation is significant; as it dictates the value of a community and the value of a marketing message:

• In Wikipedia, 500 people, or 0.5% of users, account for 50% of the edits
• 0.16% of YouTube’s total traffic was made up of users who uploaded videos
• Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the posted content
• 16% of Internet users account for 80% of all clicks

Participation can be embedded into every element of an online campaign, including the creative, messaging and media. For too long, marketers have broadcast messages to consumers, without providing a mechanic for participation. Equally, publishers and content owners such as Politico.com are realizing they can build critical mass through the participation.

IKEA, the Swedish retailer has embraced participation in the launch of its new store in Malmo, Sweden. A profile for Gordon Gustavsson, the manager of IKEA’s new branch was created in Facebook. Various images from IKEA showrooms where uploaded to  Gustavsson photo album. Consumers where told that the first person to tag their name to a product got to take that item home. As consumers tagged themselves, the IKEA images were seen by friends via profile pages and Facebook’s news feed, spreading the word about the new store.

Alain Portmann, author of  ”Participation is the new ROI” is Web Liquid’s Founding Partner, Head of Strategy. Visit www.webliquidgroup.com for more thought pieces.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/participation-new-roi/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/publishers-search-engines/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/publishers-search-engines/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:11:40 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=601 Rupert Murdoch has again put himself and News Corp. in the centre of a debate which is gaining considerable steam:

Have newspapers and large publishers found a viable strategy to stave off extinction, by de-indexing their content from search engines?

After much discussion of subscription based models which would shift the commercial focus away from ad revenue, Murdoch made headlines recently with talk of an exclusive deal with Microsoft to provide Bing users with access to News Corp. content (which includes some heavyweights like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post).  That’s right, Google (and its 65% share of search activity) would not be invited to that party.  Bing’s 10% share does not exactly represent a swing for the fences… and according to a recent New York Times article, Google estimates it provides news organizations with 100,000 clicks every minute (“Google and News Corp. Do Need Each Other“).  That’s 144 million every day.

Brushing aside raw click volumes, let’s look at the quality of this traffic.  There are a variety of proprietary data sources which would help us valuate these audiences with some accuracy, but Google Insights is free to the public and, not surprisingly, very insightful.  Here we use the Wall Street Journal as an example:

In aggregate, we see the overall quantity of search queries including the phrase “wall street journal” at its highest in 2004, sliding in 2005 and flattening for a long stretch leading up to the Fall 2008 financial crisis.  At that time there was a major spike, with far higher query volumes than observed in 2004, but this quickly tapered off.  The trend then resumed its downward slide in the second half of 2009.  At the time of this writing, we’re at an all time low.

What does all this mean?

This downward trend doesn’t necessarily mean that online readership of the Wall Street Journal is declining.  All we’re seeing is a decline in the use of this brand name in search queries.  Even casual readers of the Wall Street Journal know that it can be accessed at WSJ.com, which bypasses the need for a search engine.  Another share of these readers may not remember the domain name, but likely have it saved in their browsers’ history.  This leaves branded search activity focused largely on these kinds of queries:

• AIG chairman quoted in wall street journal
• wall street journal article about lehman bros
• geithner on wall street journal front page

This type of search activity is fading for a variety of reasons.  One perhaps overlooked explanation is that newspapers’ brands simply don’t have the same appeal as they did in the past.  If a user wants to know what exactly was said about Lehman Bros. in that article, how important is it, really, that it came from the Wall Street Journal?  Certainly we cannot assume that 100% of the purveyors of news in the marketplace will deliver that quote in the proper context, but ranking algorithms in search engines like Google make sure that the authority of news organizations like The Wall Street Journal bouys those pages in the search results, ahead of fly-by-night bloggers and other armchair journalists.

Over time, this algorithm has only gotten better.  But the search query volumes continue to decline.  It’s looking more and more like a brand issue.  If Murdoch is serious about turning his back on two-thirds of the search audience, he better have a plan for how to replace them. And if it’s merely a negotiating tactic, as the above New York Times article suggests, where on Earth does this swagger come from?

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/publishers-search-engines/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/usability-standards-seo-consumer-behavior/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/usability-standards-seo-consumer-behavior/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:42:52 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=598 News broke last week that the speed of page loads will become a more important criterion for search engine rankings in 2010.  As marketers we know better than to pay too much heed to rumors about ranking algorithms, but in this case the word was handed down directly by Matt Cutts and Google.

Some may recall that this issue arose in early 2008, when Yahoo! announced submission of a patent application related to the automation of site usability reviews.

Then and now, there’s a noteworthy SEO consideration to this news, as the pursuit of a highly usable, fast-loading site will undoubtedly be added to search marketing firms’ list of tactics to conduct a proper SEO program.  However, in reality this does not fundamentally change the rules of engagement.  Search engines have always preferred pages that read cleanly and load quickly; they have a natural tendency to rise to the top of the rankings by virtue of their smart design.  The rationale is that with a smoother web-based experience, consumers are less encumbered by the operational aspects of their purchase behavior, leaving them to focus their energies on what they prefer: to spend their money on the products and services that reflect their needs and wants.

The real insight here is that in developed countries where internet adoption is starting to taper off, we’re going to see usability as a key catalyst in driving a higher level of quality in this adoption.  Demographics on the fringes of adoption, such as relatively young or old consumers, will be converted from casual users to a more engaged variety, certainly more empowered users of more advanced applications such as rich media, e-commerce, and social media (WOM).

In consumer-driven societies, we need to be paying close attention to usability as a critical engine of growth.  Google’s commitment to fast page loads in the context of search is just the first of many evolutionary steps which continue to make them key allies for marketers.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/usability-standards-seo-consumer-behavior/feed/ 1 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/root-keyword-search-query-volumes-ppc/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/root-keyword-search-query-volumes-ppc/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:30:39 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=545 Introduction

As the pay-per-click (PPC) channel continues to mature for search engine marketers, it’s become more and more important to anticipate search behavior in the process of meeting existing demand.  The objective of this analysis is to assess the viability of using URLs as keywords, in order to scale PPC programs and drive larger volumes of conversions.

Hypothesis

Individuals vary widely in the way they interact with search engines.  Some users are prone to querying broad terms such as “digital camera” and then drill down based on the results they find. Others use more focused queries such as “buy used nikon d200 digital camera.”  With the evolution of local search we see more queries like “dry cleaning wicker park chicago,” and with blended search results becoming more popular, users will search terms such as “youtube video will ferrell landlord.”

An important subset of search engine queries request entire URLs (or parts thereof), instead of keywords in the traditional context.  Search engines generally read periods as spaces, so querying the keyword “www.google.com” ends up looking like “www google com” — which is a fundamentally different investment within a marketer’s PPC (pay per click) advertising program.

Hypothesis: The presence of extensions such as “www” and “com” presents a unique commercial and competitive profile for keywords, and marketers should look to these as opportunities to improve overall ROI within PPC (pay per click) advertising programs.

Definitions

Root Keywords – these represent the single term shown between the periods in a root URL.  Example: for www.google.com, the Root Keyword is “google”.

Extension Keywords – these represent the prefix/suffix used in the URL.  For the sake of this analysis, the Extension Keywords under consideration include the prefix “www” and the TLD’s (top level domains) “com”, “net” and “org”.

Cost-per-click (CPC) in this analysis is defined as Google’s value for Estimated Averaged Cost Per Click, which is defined as the maximum CPC bid necessary to show an advertisement in one of the first three positions within Google’s sponsored links.  It should be noted that this estimate is privy to the unique characteristics of the auction, of which billions take place every day.  Therefore, we default to Google’s best guess.

Competitiveness in this analysis is defined as the quantity of advertisers worldwide bidding on a particular keyword, relative to every keyword.

Methodology

We analyzed thirty-one domains whose Root Keywords combined for over 2.2 billion global average monthly queries in Google.  The domains were chosen from among the most popular sites across the U.S. audience (measured in unique visits), with several notable exclusions, including compound names (e.g. “huffingtonpost” vs. “huffington post”), domains with multiple semantic applications (e.g. “live.com” vs. the verb “live” or the adjective “live”).  Monthly query volumes are based on Google data at the broad-match level, indicating raw volumes with or without other terms as part of the search query.

Using Google’s estimates for Average CPC and Advertiser Competition, we aggregated data across the experimental set, to generate unique figures for Root Keywords and Extension Keywords.

Results

• The presence of any or all Extension Keywords increased the average monthly query volume of the experimental set from 2.21 billion to 2.47 billion global monthly queries — an increase of 11.7%.

• The aggregate CPC for the Root Keyword set was $0.72, while the Extension Keyword set showed an aggregate CPC of $0.47 — a discount of 35%.

• The Competitiveness for the Root Keyword set was 99.94%, while for the Extension Keyword set we observed 98.59%.



<click to enlarge>

Analysis

Bidding on keywords which include extensions presents a significant opportunity for marketers to extend reach in the PPC channel at a relative discount of approximately one-third, measured in Estimated Average CPC terms.  The competitive profile of these keywords is not substantially different, but this does not offset the notable cost savings of this ROI-driven keyword strategy.

Appendix

The following domains were considered in this analysis: adobe, amazon, aol, bing, cnet, cnn, dell, digg, ebay, facebook, flickr, hulu, imdb, latimes, microsoft, mlb, msn, myspace, netflix, nfl, ning, nytimes, pandora, paypal, photobucket, twitter, ups, usps, wsj, yelp, zynga.

Limitations

We acknowledge that the reporting and analytical tools used in this study have limitations which might impact our conclusions.  Keywords estimated by Google at $0.05 CPC generally have a high standard deviation relative to this number.  Relying on Broad match, while essential to accumulating a large enough sample to derive meaning in this analysis, also introduces the remote possibility of extraneous terms occasionally appearing within the query.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/root-keyword-search-query-volumes-ppc/feed/ 1 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/video-using-ppc-data-to-improve-seo-efficiency/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/video-using-ppc-data-to-improve-seo-efficiency/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:36:34 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=550 If you’ve ever done any paid search advertising, chances are you’re sitting on a gold mine of insightful data.  Based on the premise that a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign is far more likely to generate a strong return if it is seeded with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) data… we have assembled a two-part video which explores this topic in detail, especially:
• How to leverage historical PPC data to increase your marketing ROI
• How to identify and realize efficiencies when managing SEO & PPC in tandem
• How a data-driven approach to Search marketing can influence your brand in other channels
• How YOU can begin to aggregate data for more effective integrated campaigns

The video is split into two parts, totaling about 16 minutes in all.  Here’s part one:

And of course part two:

These and much more are available on our YouTube channel.



]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/video-using-ppc-data-to-improve-seo-efficiency/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-holiday-ecommerce-marketing/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-holiday-ecommerce-marketing/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:05:01 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=590 Shop.org just published their eHoliday Study, and the primary insight is hardly surprising: retailers will be leaning more heavily on social media than promotions or operational efficiencies, in order to capitalize on the upcoming holiday shopping season:



While observing nearly half of retailers ramp up their social media marketing agenda is certainly noteworthy, it is the trends-within-the-trend that present more eye-openers.

For example,
• Nearly four of five (79%) of online retailers will offer conditional free shipping at some point during the holiday season
• Nearly three of five (57%) also will offer unconditional free shipping

As traditional consumers continue their evolution toward “enlightened digital consumer” status, price transparency has forced retailers to compete on alternative profit centers.  This is very apparent during the holiday shopping season, when increased transaction volumes create opportunities for further promotional incentives.  Shipping continues to be an important driver of marketing strategy during the holiday rush, a point we alluded to in “Green Monday is Coming!”

Retailers are investing in social media efforts across the board, with a majority of marketers planning enhancements to their Twitter pages (59%), Facebook pages (60%) and company/brand blogs (66%).  As discussed in a post last month about the relationship between social media and search activity, these investments show a measurable return in the form of upwardly mobile search query behavior on the part of consumers.  With so much of the e-commerce experience tied to search engines, and Forrester Research forecasting 8% growth in holiday spending compared to 2008, that sounds like a pretty smart bet.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-holiday-ecommerce-marketing/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/marketings-value-exchange/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/marketings-value-exchange/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:37:32 +0000 Matthew Cronin /blog/?p=425 Consumer purchase of goods and/or services is the goal of marketing, but isn’t there another critically important value exchange occurring before the purchase ever happens? This is the question facing us as marketing and advertising evolves from a challenge of being in the right place in front of the right people, to a challenge of creating valuable experiences.

The fight for your next customer has been heating up, and your next customer knows it. It’s no longer enough to market to people in relevant media with witty ads and expect them to buy from you when they need a widget or whatnot. Your next customer wants more – they want to be educated about the widget market, they want to hear what other people are saying about your widgets, they want to speak with a customer service rep, they want to see your widgets in action and know that it’s going to do what they need widgets to do.

For a long time we’ve talked about the nexus of persuasion and confidence as the point where someone makes the decision to make a purchase they’ve been considering. The role of building confidence in that process is a new realm for marketers, demanding that they give more to the next customer simply to make them a customer. This exchange of information, entertainment, sampling, guarantees, etc. is necessary to get true purchase consideration in return. That’s the marketing value exchange, no longer trading goods/services for money, but in advance of that, trading something of value for the time and consideration of your (potential) next customer. Some may think of this as giving the ‘milk’ away for free (so why should anyone ‘buy the cow’), but such a proprietary approach is proving to be a detriment in this modern competitive economy.



Product reviews, corporate blogs, customer service forums and support, social media, communities, white papers and unique content are all demonstrations of this effort by many marketers. Google has built a business on it and Chris Anderson wrote a book on it (and gave it away for free). And while support for this value exchange has been growing in the corporate boardroom, the struggle for many companies is their ability to measure such efforts on the same scale as their traditional advertising investments. Accountability in the value exchange, as with most other channels, is the key to evolved marketing.

So what do you think? Is the Marketing Value Exchange worthy of greater focus, or should advertisers stick to the tried and true?

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/marketings-value-exchange/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/risks-clickthrough-determinism/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/risks-clickthrough-determinism/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:35:01 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=519 AdAge.com recently reported on an intriguing trend towards lower participation rates in online display advertising (What to Measure? Only 16% of the Web Is Clicking Display Ads”).  The gist of the article is that only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks on display ads, and that overall, so-called “clickers” only represent 16% of all U.S. internet users.

Before we get excited and start pulling display budgets, let’s bear a few facts in mind:

1) On the User side: When a consumer sees a display ad, a click is only one of a multitude of actions they may take in response.  Telling a friend or colleague, typing the URL into a browser, or simply filing away that brand interaction for future reference — these are all actions of interest to marketers who are looking to drive true engagement with their brands… to say nothing of search engine activity, which is demonstrated to be a direct by-product of display advertising.

2) On the Marketer side: Clicks are just the tip of the measurement iceberg — beware the temptations therein!  The click may be widely-appreciated for its ease of measurability, but as marketers we need to resist giving in to “Clickthrough Determinism” — the tendency to boil down consumer behavior into the simple arithmetic of click patterns.  When a click on a display ad leads to a purchase, we need to be taking into account all the communications and actions that transpire upstream in the purchase funnel.  It’s here that we really impact the value of media, using more profound metrics such as conversions (post click and post impression), cost-per-conversion and ultimately, dollar-in/dollar-out ROI.

Microsoft’s Atlas Institute found that over the course of a ninety day sales cycle, only 6% of accumulated data is taken into consideration for marketing purposes:



Perhaps this is why, as the comScore/Starcom report indicated, this year’s study “focused more on alternative measurement, suggesting that a low number of clicks doesn’t necessarily mean banners don’t work, but that marketers are looking at the wrong success metrics.”  Acknowledging that the digital “channel” is actually comprised of a few dozen unique channels (search, display, affiliate, mobile, video, social, etc), we prefer to use a holistic approach to brand health assessment.

Acknowledging that marketers can dig far beyond click activity for insights, we also took note of a 2009 Eyeblaster study which indicated that 2 out of 3 senior marketing executives run cross-channel campaigns, but 88% do not integrate performance data across channels.  This has been the basis for developing our comprehensive reporting system for Digital Brand Management, with a concise and actionable dashboard.  By measuring brand health on a standardized relative performance scale across specific metrics — and comparing to history, the industry or competitive set — it is possible to answer the question asked by many a brand manager, “How is my brand doing in digital?”



We’re glad that Advertising Age has shed light on the dilemma of Clickthrough Determinism.  The big issue for 2010 is, what do marketers plan to do about it?  Reducing display budgets would minimize the impact of one of the most efficient, accountable and innovative channels in the digital landscape, but it’s hard to ignore the raw numbers.

When it’s time to report to the CMO on the health of the brand, a standardized approach removes all the bottlenecks from the assessment phase, leaving more resources available for action.  In any halfway competitive category, this kind of competitive advantage can translate into significant gains in market share — and that’s the ultimate, measurable return on investment.

For more about our brand dashboard, or our philosophy on measurement and analytics, drop us a line in London or New York.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/risks-clickthrough-determinism/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/webinar-ppc-data-seo-efficiency/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/webinar-ppc-data-seo-efficiency/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:52:00 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=516 Below is an invitation to our upcoming webinar, “Using PPC Data to Improve SEO Efficiency.”

If you’ve ever done any paid search advertising, chances are you’re sitting on a gold mine of insightful data!  A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign is far more likely to generate a strong return if it is seeded with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) data.

Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Time: 12:00 PM EST
Click here to register.


In this presentation, you will learn:

• How to leverage historical PPC data to increase your marketing ROI
• How to identify and realize efficiencies when managing SEO & PPC in tandem
• How a data-driven approach to Search marketing can influence your brand in other channels
• How YOU can begin to aggregate data for more effective integrated campaigns

At Web Liquid, we’ve always believed in a data-driven foundation for all digital marketing investments.  The analytical insights of Search Engine Marketing, from both the paid and organic/SEO channels, help us to paint a more colorful picture of all our clients’ initiatives.



]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/webinar-ppc-data-seo-efficiency/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/when-online-display-ad-spending-is-performance-based/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/when-online-display-ad-spending-is-performance-based/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:05:36 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/?p=415 A study by the IAB/PWC indicates 57% of display advertising was purchased on a performance basis last year. Figures for the first half of this year indicate online display ad spending continues shifting to pay for performance with greater velocity.



What are the implications for publishers, agencies and clients?

Publishers will have to invest into sophisticated yield management solutions to make up the shortfall in margin provided by CPM. Publishers will also have to realize that the distribution of content is now equally important to the creation of content – this new content reality makes behavioral targeting (targeting people as opposed to pages) the Holy Grail for for publishers and ad networks. This view is supported by research from eConsultancy that indicates 31% of advertisers display advertising budget is spent on online ad networks.

Agencies will have to balance the benefits of performance based media with a better understanding of their target audience behavior. Agencies will have to continue investing in analytics, insight and tools that provide a view on the impact each single buy has across the engagement, assist and completion of a conversion. Relying on performance based media, while effective in the short term is not sustainable in the long term. Cost per performance media should have a place in every media plan as a foundation program, helping support and fund tactical programs.

Clients will have to demand improved thinking and technology innovation from their agencies. On the other hand and while challenging, clients will have to realize a successful and sustainable Digital Marketing program requires a vision as much as short term targets. The temptation is to reduce investment in non performance based models to reduce risk – this is unfortunately done at the expense of the brand by placing more importance on the buying model than the actual communication and message.

In my view it is not necessarily about the buying model; CPC, CPA or CPM – it is about how the inventory and communication is continually optimized and managed to deliver both revenue and brand growth. Content, clicks and ad impressions are only of value when they continually optimized, monitored and tied to strong communications.

Alain Portmann, author of  ”When online display ad spending is performance based” is Web Liquid’s Founding Partner, Head of Strategy. Visit www.webliquidgroup.com for more thought pieces.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/when-online-display-ad-spending-is-performance-based/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/retail-social-media-search/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/retail-social-media-search/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:18:01 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=382 Here in New York, we’ve noticed a recent uptick in advertising activity for two key players in the Pharmacy Retail category: Walgreen’s and Duane Reade.  Transit posters, TV spots, and new in-store signage are just a few indications that the battle is heating up.  With the summer over, and the cold & flu season approaching, there ought to be a natural seasonal increase in the demand for their products and services.  This led us to ask ourselves, “how well are these two retailers and their competitors actually engaging with consumers online?”

One of our favorite resources to measure brands’ awareness and engagement in digital media is Google Insights, which shows trends in Google search query activity across a wide range of parameters.  Acknowledging that key players in the Pharmacy Retail segment have a significant opportunity to connect with their customers during this time, we chose to take a deeper look at four key players in this space: CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreen’s, and Duane Reade.

Definitions

Before going any further, let’s state the obvious.  By no means do we believe that search engine behavior is 100% congruent to overall consumer behavior.  We are well aware that people interact with brands in a variety of ways, through a variety of channels.  However, in recognition of the trend toward rising adoption of internet-enabled mobile devices, and the near-ubiquity of search engine usage among the US online audience, search engine activity is nonetheless very insightful to marketers.

By measuring volumetric trends in search activity, we can isolate patterns of activity surrounding the aforementioned brand names.  Here are a few types of Google queries that would be reflected in such an analysis:

• Where is the nearest Rite Aid?
• How does Duane Reade’s Rewards program work?
• Are there any good coupons at CVS this week?
• Will Walgreen’s be offering flu shots this fall?

We have chosen to limit our analysis to the New York City metro region, to allow for the consideration of a regional brand (Duane Reade) without skewing data.

Research

This is how relative search volumes in Google have looked since 2004, and project through 2010:



(Click on the chart to enlarge.  This image is a static depiction of Google’s search query volume estimates in October 2009.  For an updated estimate, see Google Insights for Search.)

As recently as early 2008 (and defined strictly by branded search queries), CVS has a strong #1 position in New York, with the other three all clustered in a distant second place.  In other words, CVS had done a far better job of promoting awareness for itself.  But watch what happens around the second half of 2008… Walgreen’s has begun to separate itself from the pack.

Here’s how the big four break down in terms of their social media efforts on Facebook:



We also thought it would be interesting to look into similar efforts on Twitter:



Notice a pattern?  Not only is Walgreen’s leading the charge, but the proportions are fairly constant across both Facebook and Twitter (two of the primary channels using in social media marketing).  This is especially noteworthy in light of today’s news from comScore, M80 and GroupM illustrating a “correlation between the discovery of brands through social media and search behavior, including increased lower-funnel searches and paid search click-through rates (CTRs).”  Here are some of the high-level takeaways:

• Exposure to branded social media increases likelihood to query that brand in search engines by 2.8X
• After querying the brand name:
  • click-through rate on paid search ads increases from 4.5% to 11.8%
  • likelihood of clicking on the brand’s site in organic search results increases by 2.4X

Clearly, a good portion of Walgreen’s growth in branded search query volumes can be traced back to their social media success.  (For more information on the study, see comScore’s press release, “Social media exposure is correlated with search behavior and click-through-rate; Introduces the value of media discovery for advertisers.“)

At Web Liquid, we tend to look at the word-of-mouth/social media space through a paradigm of “service over solicitation.” (We wrote about it back in early 2007: “Service vs. Solicitation“).  Given Walgreens’ social media dominance compared to the competitive set, their strong performance in the online space is not surprising.  With an audience actively engaged through social media, they enjoy many spoils: crystal-clear feedback loops, rapid deployment of promotions, opportunities to demonstrate quick, effective customer service… we could go on and on.

To Walgreen’s we tip our hats.  After all, in the retail business service is a hefty concern… and their progress in the social media space is an indication that they have embraced Service over Solicitation.  As it turns out, however, the increase in search activity around their brand name will, in fact, also spawn demonstrable commercial gains.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/retail-social-media-search/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/green-monday-is-coming/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/green-monday-is-coming/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:25:15 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=374 It’s the first weeks of October, which means we can still be comfortable knowing that we won’t walk into a store and hear smooth-jazz Christmas carols… at least not for another little while.  For marketers, however, in October ’tis the season to prepare for the e-commerce blitz — if in fact we are to be jolly.

We’ve come across some interesting data from Google and comScore which maps nationwide e-commerce sales across a daily calendar.  The focal point of Google’s holiday campaign countdown is Green Monday: “the last day for customers to order gifts online without having to pay for expedited shipping.”



Download “E-commerce & Holiday Shopping in 2009” in PDF format.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/green-monday-is-coming/feed/ 1 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/clicks-as-measurement/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/clicks-as-measurement/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:52:22 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/?p=371 Clicks are not a relevant measure of the impact of display advertising. Lets review the evidence put forward by Comscore:
• Two-thirds of users do not click on any display ads
• 16% of Internet users account for 80% of all clicks
• The demographics of clickers are skewed towards users aged 25 to 44 earning less than $40,000 a year
• Even search ads, are only clicked in average on 4% of the time on Google and 2% on MSN

So are low click rates evidence that a display ad or search query has not had any impact on consumer behaviour? Display ads do impact and influence consumer behaviour, in fact there is latency and branding effects even when click rates are minimal. Furthermore, the combination of display and search delivers considerable synergy as the combined elements are greater than the sum of the individual components.

Let review the evidence put forward by Comscore:

• Display ads lift visitation to an advertiser’s site by at least 46% over a four week period
• Display drives a lift in brand searches of at least 38% over a four week period
• Display lifts the likelihood of purchase on the advertiser’s retail store by 17% over a four week period

The problem is that if clicks are not the appropriate metric, what’s the alternative? Clicks are easy to measure, so it’s a good default. In reality the question is not about effectiveness but attribution. The current “last click wins” reporting model is flawed as it ignores all prior interactions the consumer has with a marketer’s message. Have a read of  “Why the click is the wrong metric for online ads” for a view on the current “last click” attribution model.

Lets’ consider alternatives to measuring the effectiveness of advertising based on clicks. After all, if you know most users that are exposed to your media will not click though – clicks provide a very limited view on the impact of your advertising. On the other hand, post impression metrics can also be challenging due to conversion latency.   

Unfortunately it is not as simple as replacing clicks with another metric, it is a fundamental change in the way media is tracked and evaluated – based on the cumulative impact of multiple media on consumer behavior. Some recommendations to consider:

• Measure the value of clicks and media relative to site visitation; specifically the value of new visitors and returning visitors
• Build an attribution model that assigns value based on the ability of media to 1) trigger a transaction, 2) assist a transaction and 3) complete a transaction
• Begin to consider “time spent” as an engagement metric – the growth of video advertising will force brands and agencies to look at media consumption metrics 
• Evaluate a first party ad-serving solution such as TruEffect which provides cookie ownership and a much richer set of engagement and conversion data than third party ad-servers

Alain Portmann, author of  ”Clicks as measurement” is Web Liquid’s Founding Partner, Head of Strategy. Visit www.webliquidgroup.com for more thought pieces.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/clicks-as-measurement/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/seo-copywriting-pov/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/seo-copywriting-pov/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:27:06 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=366 This is a POV on the state of search engine optimization (SEO), written in response to Fran Molloy’s article “Is SEO dead?” which ran on 16 September 2009 in Nett Magazine.

“Search engines are now so smart, that there’s no need for specialist SEO copywriting.”
- Glenn Murray, specialist SEO copywriter

I agree with a few of the fundamentals here, especially 1) SEO as a science goes far beyond the keywords appearing on the screen, and 2) the point at the end that picking keywords is an essential part of the process.  The robustness of this research foundation is often the best predictor of SEO success.

The notion of “specialist SEO copywriting” is indeed pretty baseless… as the search engines increase in sophistication, all they are doing is modeling human behavior with increasing levels of complexity and accuracy.  This inevitably means that mechanical tactics such as doubling the incidence of keywords on the page have, at best, a neutral effect on a site’s SEO profile.  They could also serve as a detriment, which we’ve been seeing for years now in the form of keyword stuffing penalties.  So in effect, with every passing day, “specialist SEO copywriting” looks more and more like just plain copywriting.

It’s for these reasons that on-page tactical SEO only gets real attention at the beginning of a project (something we alluded to in the post “Dinosaurs, Dodo Birds and Tactical SEO”).  Once the best practices are baked into the content development workflows and/or CMS, these tactics diminish in importance, deferring to the long-term editorial strategy which is so important for maintaining strong visibility in search over the long haul.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/seo-copywriting-pov/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/ppc-economics/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/ppc-economics/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:26:51 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/knowledge/ppc-economics/ Earlier this month, Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian put forth some very succinct findings on his AdWords auction research.  In short: Ad Position doesn’t affect conversion rates on Google AdWords.

Then why does Ad Position matter?

The simple answer is, as Varian acknowledges, is that when ads show higher up on the page, they generally garner more clicks, which theoretically leads to more conversions.

Digging beneath this surface-level insight, however, we observe several other meaningful implications.

1) It is well-known that the clickthrough rate (CTR) impacts Quality Score on Google AdWords.  The historical CTR of each keyword/ad combination, as well as CTR of all individual keywords, ads and display URLs, factor heavily into this score — which interacts profoundly with bid settings to determine how much the advertiser will spend.

In other words, maintaining a strong CTR program-wide is one way to mitigate costs and economize a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising program for the long term.

2) An ad showing high on the search results page will often be perceived more favorably than another lower-placed ad.  In 2008, iProspect conducted its Blended Search Results Study and found that 39% of search engine users perceive the companies showing ads among the top search results as the leaders in their field.  This figure has also shown a noticeable upward trend over the years.

So not only are we talking about budget management — we’re talking about brand perception in search engines.

What does Ad Position reflect in the AdWords auction?

Ad Position does not directly correlate with keyword bids or effective CPC (cost per click); this is a fundamental principle of Google’s quality-based auction system (see this video of Varian’s introduction to the AdWords auction).  However, by no means does this a direct inverse correlation — just because the spend level doesn’t directly affect ad position, we can’t say it has no impact at all.

How should Ad Position figure into PPC optimization strategy?

Where are we going with this?  Let’s start with some “ifs”:

IF we acknowledge that ads showing lower on the page will rack up lower costs,
IF we have some tolerance for lower CTR, and
IF we have other branding measures in place (ideally from display advertising or social media)

…then what we should be doing is placing all of our keywords into one of three categories, based on historical PPC data indicating keyword-level ROI:

1 = keywords with high ROI
2 = keywords with low ROI
3 = keywords with zero conversions

Group 1 keywords should receive generous bids (and of course be optimized for quality as well), in order to push high Ad Positions.  They will convert at a certain rate, but our goal is to push upward on budgets to attain maximum click volumes.  Nothing special here.

Group 2 keywords should be scrutinized the heaviest.  We look closely at the bid history and routinely push downward; the goal is to register clicks at a very low overall CPC.  Showing ads at the bottom of the page won’t generate many clicks, but thanks to Hal we can now be confident that these keywords’ conversion potential won’t be profoundly changed by low Ad Position.  This tactic allows us to actualize ROI even among the poor performers, maintaining a conversion stream which would otherwise be forfeited.  All keywords, even the weakest ones, have an effective CPC at which they are worth bidding on.

Group 3 keywords are a tricky lot.  Some of them won’t have enough accumulated clicks or spend for the marketer to make a confident decision.  The others, however, may have branding potential, or perhaps act as a gateway to other more profitable content.  These should be abandoned in PPC, and become the focus of a targeted SEO campaign.

Aim for the middle!

Segmenting a PPC program is nothing new, nor is throwing a lot of budget at the best performing keywords.  However, with this research, Varian has given us a fresh perspective on how to treat the average performers.

We can be sure that the aggregate quality scores of each competitor in a given category will improve over time; this is inevitable as agencies continue to evolve their search engine marketing (SEM) capabilities.  As a result, all other things equal, the bid price will slowly become a bigger predictor of Ad Position — and if Varian’s findings continue to hold true, marketers who master this type of segmentation will retain the maximum ROI from paid search.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/ppc-economics/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-hr/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-hr/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:27:46 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/knowledge/social-media-hr/ [This webinar will be held on Thursday 9/3/09, at 12pm EDT.  Click here to register.]

“Marketing brands in the social media space has provided us with insights into the power of community co-creation.  Our goal is to illustrate that these best practices also lend themselves to building collaborative resources within an organization.”

Paul Burani of Web Liquid Group discusses with Human Resources IQ, how to create a knowledge resource and sustain communities over the long run through social media. (Human Resources IQ is an online community for sharing ideas, finding human resources information, best practices, solutions, and interacting with the HR community.)

Specifically, the presentation covers the following:

• Techniques to build and sustain communities of people
• Ways to overcome perceived obstacles to social networking
• Lessons on tracking and success metrics
• Steps on how to address a broad audience, conservatively, and have a good time doing it
• The importance of amplifying positive experiences to the broader online community



]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/social-media-hr/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/web-liquid-and-superbreak-launch-uk-first-in-natural-search-targeting/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/web-liquid-and-superbreak-launch-uk-first-in-natural-search-targeting/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:55:05 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/press/web-liquid-and-superbreak-launch-uk-first-in-natural-search-targeting/ (PRLEAP.COM) SuperBreak, the market leader in the provision of UK and European short breaks has launched a new breed of customer targeting on its website www.superbreak.com.

Dubbed ‘Natural Search Targeting’, the initiative is a UK first, targeting users based on their submitted specific interests either on SuperBreak.com or Google/Yahoo. When (potential) customers search for one of four key criteria (theatre, weekends away, etc.), subsequent ads they see will contain that specific message. For example, if you were interested in ‘theatre weekend breaks’, keyed that in, and clicked on the natural search link to the SuperBreak site, any subsequent SuperBreak display ad seen by the user would be tailored to that specific criteria. In this example, theatre weekend breaks

This is the first time destination-specific ads have drawn on customer-submitted search terms to serve a display ad. It means that web banners are more relevant, not only increasing SuperBreak bookings but also improving the customer experience by only showing ads which are known to be relevant. Natural Search Targeting is a very powerful channel for messaging – allowing SuperBreak to engage on a user-generated demand for information.

The creative was designed in-house by SuperBreak; the campaign was planned and managed by Web Liquid working in partnership with MediaPlex.

James Hudson, Media Director at Web Liquid commented “This is a great step forward in bridging the gap between search and display. Using retargeting technology in this way allows us to become more advanced with both our buying strategies and media messaging”.

Khalid Amin, Online Marketing Manager at Superbreak added “In the last few months we have restructured much of our marketing effort at Superbreak and are now better able than ever to respond to new opportunities and initiatives within the online environment. Natural Search Targeting allows us just this in the natural search and display arenas.

About Web Liquid

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/web-liquid-and-superbreak-launch-uk-first-in-natural-search-targeting/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/microsoft-and-yahoo-search-agreement-all-about-real-time-search/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/microsoft-and-yahoo-search-agreement-all-about-real-time-search/#comments Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:33:41 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/opinions/microsoft-and-yahoo-search-agreement-all-about-real-time-search/ The Microsoft and Yahoo search agreement makes a lot of sense.

Yahoo will save USD $425 million in operating expenses from resources invested in infrastructure technology while keeping 88% of revenue generated from search advertising. On the other hand Microsoft not only gets a larger user base to further refine Bing, but Microsoft gets a 10 year lease on the Yahoo Search blueprint; which in paper should impact market share as well as advertiser share of wallet. Will the Microsoft and Yahoo agreement have a significant impact on the current search landscape? Depends who you ask.  

Predictions aside, the search agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo is not about gaining market share, it is about owning the emerging space of real time search. Companies such as Collecta and OneRiot who have pioneered the development of real-time search will become acquisition targets for Microsoft and Google. Google and Microsoft know the existing model of aggregating and indexing search is slowly becoming obsolete.

Every users’ email, communication, IM message, comment, post, tweet has significant value as it represents knowledge of every day life that didnt exist before. In general terms,  Microsoft will leverage and aggregate this information via content (Bebo) while Google will  do it via technology (Google Wave). Having said that, Microsoft’s browser and productivity software backyard is no longer safe.  

The new real time search model is going back to the principles of the late nineties. Back in 1999 when Yahoo, Excite, Lycos and AOL where the kings of organizing the web, human editors catalogued every site worth visiting and decided which ones we should visit. While this model wrongly thought of the web as a medium, a sort of TV Guide, it was based on the principle of shared knowledge. The future of search is still closely tied to the idea of shared knowledge, the difference in that knowledge is not controlled by a few, but associated to millions of conversations, opinions, ideas and comments. The first significant test for Microsoft will come on December 2010. On December 2010, the agreement between Google and AOL to provide the search engine on AOL comes up for renewal.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/microsoft-and-yahoo-search-agreement-all-about-real-time-search/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/tactical-seo/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/tactical-seo/#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:27:52 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/opinions/tactical-seo/ It shouldn’t come as a surprise that, in recent years, the number of SEO experts at large seems to correlate with the amount of attention given by marketers to their digital media outlets.  It’s fundamental business opportunism: if more people are becoming sensitive to the need for their content to be visible in search engines, then the growing market for this type of partnership certainly lends itself to the growing cadre of SEO experts out there.  But how many of them are in it for the long haul?

SEO: a digital cottage industry.

It’s not hard to solicit a dozen SEO proposals in the blink of an eye.  One common approach to SEO consultation is to crystallize a process and then scale it with minimal variance; armed with a “proprietary” series of workflows, the SEO tactician goes to work.  Results may come and go, but irrespective of the end game, the client is often mystified by the process.  The relationship has not necessarily empowered them to do their jobs any better.

This, like so much else in the digital marketing world, is changing.  The SEO function has evolved from a mere collection of tactics into an art and science which needs to be tightly wound within the overarching business strategy (articulated very well by Jill Whalen just a few weeks ago; “Is Most Of SEO Just A Boondoggle?”).  Jill takes aim at “useless SEO parlor tricks” and instead issues an open call for a closer, more symbiotic relationship with the client.

Tempted to tweak?

Back in the day, we always knew enough about Google’s PageRank algorithm — the set of criteria which governs how one page outranks another in search results — to know that it was good practice to build lots of inbound links to one’s website.  Our ingenuity spawned a brilliant doctrine for modern webmaster relations: “you link to my site, I’ll link to your site.”  The problem is, links between sites with no apparent relevancy to each other began springing up all over the web, and search engines squashed the practice by limiting its impact on search rankings.

By 2007, people caught on and began buying links from “reputable” sources, until Google’s crackdown on paid links.  Remember when PageRank sculpting became all the rage?  Sorry folks.  Google engineer Matt Cutts shot down misuse of the Nofollow tag just about a month ago.

Death, taxes and search evolution.

The point here is NOT that a good SEO program simply needs to stay one step ahead of these algorithmic changes.  Instead, it’s to acknowledge the fact that search engines will continually refine their algorithms ad infinitum.  Marketers and SEO’s may be compelled to react with a scalpel, making small reactive changes to their website’s markup and server configurations.  Even in the absence of an overt media cost, however, these changes still require the allocation of human resources.  This frequently makes SEO micro-management a short-sighted approach — and more often than not, breaking news from Search Engine Land or SEOmoz won’t shake the foundation of a sound content strategy.

This means, quite simply, that what we choose to publish is far more important than the way we format it.  Fusing keyword research, competitive analysis and creative development, and applying a baseline measurement platform to benchmark progress across digital and offline channels is a much more sustainable path to search engine success.

All the essential SEO best practices should be baked into the digital marketing agenda from the start.  Ultimately, however, the profitable pursuit of search visibility will live and die by the intellectual capital put forth in the website’s most apparent public-facing asset: its content.

About Web Liquid

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/tactical-seo/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/southeastern-takes-over-national-rail/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/southeastern-takes-over-national-rail/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:23:00 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/press/southeastern-takes-over-national-rail/ On Monday 29th June, to coincide with the launch of the high speed preview service between Ashford International, Ebbsfleet International and St Pancras International, Southeastern ran a special content push down advert on the National Rail Enquiries homepage.

This will be the first time this specially developed ad format has run on the National Rail site. Southeastern took all regular ad formats on the page and when a user rolls over either the banner or top skyscraper, a large rich media ad unit will appear and push down the page content – to reveal, the high speed train. The execution  highlights the fact journey times from Ashford International to London will be shortened to just 37 minutes and from Ebbsfleet International the journey will take just 17 minutes.

Click here to see the Southeastern National Rail execution.  

The execution was negotiated, planned and managed by Web Liquid working in partnership with creative agency Gamaroff Digital. The execution is part of a larger campaign including standard display ad formats across various sites as well as offline media.

Katy Habisreutinger, e-Commerce Marketing Manager at Southeastern commented; “The execution supports our goal of delivering impact, innovation and awareness for our high speed preview service.”

The high speed service has proven so popular with passengers that Southeastern were required to double the length of the 0748 from Ashford International to St Pancras and the 1737 from St Pancras International to Ashford International form six to 12 cars.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/southeastern-takes-over-national-rail/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/avis-appoints-web-liquid-to-oversee-pan-euro-performance-network/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/avis-appoints-web-liquid-to-oversee-pan-euro-performance-network/#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 13:41:08 +0000 David Shiell /blog/press/avis-appoints-web-liquid-to-oversee-pan-euro-performance-network/ Following on from their recent success of having been appointed to handle Avis Europe’s Pan European direct marketing account, Web Liquid together with creative partner Acknowledgement, have won a separate, competitive pitch for the Avis pan-European display network account, initially expected to cover up to 11 markets.

Once again Web Liquid will lead the media strategy, planning, buying, data analysis and optimisation whilst Acknowledgement will develop and execute the creative strategy in close collaboration.

The agencies will be responsible for developing and expanding the direct customer channel in all key European media markets via a performance based program. A heavy focus on the progression of advanced technologies will be initiated in order to maximise ROI.

Nicola Stone, Retail Marketing Manager for Avis Europe commented, “Key Avis markets have already strongly benefitted from early adoption of online advertising network activity; these best practices and learnings are now required to be implemented across the balance of our main European markets. Our vision challenges Web Liquid to evolve this already successful model to become even more relevant and effective within our direct customer segment. ”

David Shiell, Founding Partner of Web Liquid added “This was a very involved proposal focused on an increasingly complex area. Whilst Web Liquid has a long heritage of delivering successful performance based media programs for other clients such as Hilton Hotels and British Airways Openskies, we had to strip back our model and rethink our entire approach to ensure we were offering Avis Europe a ‘best of breed’ solution that would fit their specific budgetary, business and operational requirements. This win once again highlights Web Liquid’s ability to compete successfully with large scale agency networks. I think what our team developed is ground breaking and will lay the foundation for how future performance programs are processed and optimised.”

Tom Jordan, Managing Director of Acknowledgement said “Successful online advertising needs relevant placement and great creative. Traditionally clients have had to choose between appointing an agency offering both media and creative (accepting that most agencies will excel in one aspect but not the other), or appoint a separate media agency and creative agency that don’t talk to each other. The partnership between Acknowledgement and Web Liquid is the perfect model for people considering digital campaigns. Each is a market-validated specialist in their respective craft and we have demonstrated through our joint pitch insights and suggested approach that we come together as one team to offer joined up thinking. We look forward to working with Avis on campaigns that deliver value, cut through and results.”

Read more at Brand Republic

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/avis-appoints-web-liquid-to-oversee-pan-euro-performance-network/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-keyword-research/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-keyword-research/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 16:14:38 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=470 Back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When trying to achieve high search engine rankings, it’s tempting to choose keyword targets based on what would be deemed to be the highest-traffic search queries.

With this approach, the site will be optimized toward this small handful of keywords, with all forthcoming content spawning from the same foundation. High rankings for some of these keywords may follow, along with some incremental traffic. What if every brand in every category took this approach? Actually, many of them do — and therein lies the opportunity.

The obvious keywords are rarely the most profitable ones. SEO is just not that simple.

In the Keyword Research phase, we appraise all viable keyword targets and prioritize based on a variety of factors, including:

1) Raw search query volumes across all major search engines
2) Amount and quality of competition for keywords and related phrases
3) Conversion potential based on nature of keywords and their contextual categories
4) Seasonal trends in keyword query volumes

The ultimate vision for SEO success hinges on the website’s ability to attract visits from a wide range of non-branded keyword queries, using terms related to the brand’s core persona.

Back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Keyword Research
• HTML Markup Analysis
• Server & Domain Configuration
• Content & Link Strategy

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-keyword-research/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-content-link-strategy/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-content-link-strategy/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 15:25:47 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=439 Back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO experts often agree to disagree on how to implement various strategies to earn higher search engine visibility for a client’s website. However, there is one tactic which is unanimously endorsed: the more high quality inbound links pointing to a website, the more likely the site will have a strong search ranking profile. Every so often, even the engineers at major search engines will go on the record to confirm this.

For the search engines to be confident in a domain, however, it is essential to have a link building strategy focused on quality, not quantity. Google, for example, uses its patented PageRank technology to automate the process of determining quality for every single page in its index. When a high-quality page links out to another page, the search engines consider this to be a vote of confidence for the receiving page — and thus the link passes authority from one page to the next. (Here’s Google’s explanation.)  With this knowledge in hand, a few outdated approaches to building links for SEO become apparent, including:

• Directory submission – As search engine optimization has become more competitive, the quality of directories has become an important consideration. A large majority of directory submissions are worth less than the time taken to submit… and some are insidious link farms. If a site shows up on one of these, it may actually harm its SEO potential.

• Reciprocal links – There was a time when webmasters would exchange links, to help each other’s search engine placement. Then the search engines realized that websites with unrelated content were linking to each other — degrading the relevancy profile they’d worked so hard to create.  Thus the reciprocal link exchange hasn’t really helped the web in its mission to be the information medium of the future.  When search engine crawlers detect Link A pointing to Link B and vice versa, it will often dilute the potential benefits in inbound links (also called backlinks). One way links are a much better long-term solution.

The Web Liquid way.

Any website with sound business objectives is, first and foremost, about its content.  We believe that good content creates its own links, especially if its development mirrors the insights from the Keyword Research phase. Rather than spam a thousand webmasters asking for links, or commenting on blogs en masse, we prefer to allocate SEO resources toward the development of a sound content development process, with an editorial calendar which supports the brand’s strategy while keeping SEO objectives close at hand. Each new page generates added traction for search engine spiders. Once the content is indexed, if it is truly relevant and unique, people will find it and link to it.

Back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Keyword Research
• HTML Markup Analysis
• Server & Domain Configuration
• Content & Link Strategy

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-content-link-strategy/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-server-domain-configuration/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-server-domain-configuration/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 15:23:00 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=437 Back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

How do search engines work?

We’re glad you asked. Search engine companies continually deploy spiders (programs which get their name for the way they crawl around the web searching for information) to discover new content on the web. They bring this information back with them, allowing the search engine to add more information to its index. When a search engine user queries a particular keyword, that index is the source for any and all potential search results.  The first and most important objective in SEO is to get as much content as possible included in that index.

The search engines, however, are not obligated to put you in there. That’s when it becomes essential to schmooze a little bit.

The problem with search engines.

These search engine spiders are robots, not humans; if they hit a snag while trying to crawl a website, they won’t stop and reason it out. They’ll just keep moving — and whatever they pass over could be the most critical page on your site.

Without configuring the domain and server for SEO, there’s the risk of leaving a lot of value on the table. Excess content which obscures the bottom line might be given too much emphasis. Old content which has gained popularity in search engines might be completely overlooked. New content may take weeks, months, or longer to get into the index — and could lose its impact in the process.

Google leads the pack, but other search engines still account for a large share of the market. Each represents a unique relationship that needs to be established between your website and the spiders. Pretty soon, SEO server configuration becomes a pretty big task.

The Web Liquid solution.

The spiders are pretty smart, but we take nothing for granted. Our goal is to make their jobs as easy as possible, so that the website retains all its SEO benefits.

We authenticate a site with major search engines, and conduct a thorough review of server-side system files to ensure that each page sends the right directions to the server. By selectively disabling link authority for certain content, we make sure the spiders know where to focus their energies. Once we have a look at the history of the domain and major changes that have taken place over time, we can clear out the dead weight which creates drag in the search engine crawl process.  When necessary, we create permanent redirects to capture search engine benefits of old pages which are no longer part of the site.

Think of it as spring cleaning, only we do it all year round.

Back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Keyword Research
• HTML Markup Analysis
• Server & Domain Configuration
• Content & Link Strategy

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-server-domain-configuration/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-html-markup-analysis/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-html-markup-analysis/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 15:19:37 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=435 Back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Here’s where SEO gets technical. We take the insights from Keyword Research, and streamline website markup (the code that lies beneath the surface of the web page) to optimally position these targeted keywords (e.g. title, description, filename taxonomy, image “alt” tags) for peak visibility in search engines.

This phase also consists of a lengthy and objective copywriting review to consider critical formatting characteristics. We’ll also make sure that your site architecture (e.g. link structure, anchor text optimization) is well-placed to pass link authority internally on your site. Here’s a partial list of the considerations we’ll look into: anchor text, headline structure, internal linking, keyword density, outbound link anchor text, title tags, keyword stems, image alt text, Pagerank, site architecture, URL length, content freshness, geotargeting, meta description, nofollow, relevancy.

Back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Keyword Research
• HTML Markup Analysis
• Server & Domain Configuration
• Content & Link Strategy

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/seo-html-markup-analysis/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/search-engine-optimization-seo/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/search-engine-optimization-seo/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 15:12:46 +0000 Paul Burani /blog/?p=432 Search engines like Google and Bing are a fundamental part of the user experience on the internet. Throughout the purchase funnel, from planting the brand’s seeds through to the last click, strong visibility in search is critical to success: nearly two-thirds of search engine users click on a link shown within the first page of results. {1}

The secret has been out for quite some time — any brand’s competitors are mindful of this as well. But while they’re focusing on directory submissions and search engine rankings, unearthing the true value of organic SEO begins with a research foundation to identify high-conversion traffic in this channel.

SEO Methodology

We work collaboratively with our clients to create a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program:

• What keywords advance the brand strategy, bringing the most qualified traffic to the website?
• Which search engine queries and linking strategies are profitable? Which will be a resource drain?
• How should strategy and execution differ in organic search, compared to paid search?
• Once the highest-value streams of organic traffic are identified, what can be done to amplify them?

Our SEO methodology boils down to a few key elements:

1. Keyword Research.
Without a knowledge base off which to optimize the site, there is the risk that SEO efforts will be misdirected.
2. HTML Markup Analysis.
The “on-page” tagging and formatting characteristics of every page set the tone for the site’s SEO profile.
3. Server & Domain Configuration.
Search engine spiders are smart, but can also be lazy… so managing this relationship is important.
4. Content & Link Strategy.
Once the tactical modifications are in place, new content takes center stage as the key driver of long-term SEO success.

How does SEO compare to Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

At first glance, SEO and SEM seem to be polar opposites. In Google, for example, SEO deals with the left side of the search engine results pages (SERPs), and SEM the right. SEO is largely content-driven, whereas in SEM content shares the spotlight with quality scores, bid strategies, keyword-based targeting, and more. Nonetheless, there is documented proof that the marketing effects of simultaneously investing in SEO and SEM create results worth more than the sum of the parts. {2}

Pairing SEO with SEM also offers cost benefits, as much of the research and ongoing insights from an SEO campaign lend themselves to effective pay-per-click advertising. (For more on the synergies across the two major search channels, see our two-part video series on how to use PPC data to improve SEO efficiency.)

{1} iProspect Search Engine User Behavior Study, April 2006.
{2} iCrossing Search Synergy Report, March 2007.

For more about SEO…

Our YouTube channel includes videos dealing with a wide variety of SEO-related issues.



]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/search-engine-optimization-seo/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/why-google-will-not-acquire-twitter/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/why-google-will-not-acquire-twitter/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:42:15 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/knowledge/why-google-will-not-acquire-twitter/ There has been much speculation about Google’s next acquisition. Late last week rumors emerged Google was in conversations with Twitter’s Evan Williams about a possible acquisition. In my view Google is not interested in an all out acquisition of Twitter.

Google recognizes five factors when considering its relationship with Twitter:

1. The overlap between Google searchers and Twitter registered users is significant. With close to 80% of the US search market, Google can acquire and reach/monetize those same Twitter users through other more cost effective channels.

2. Google’s social media record is poor – it is unlikely Google would know what to do with Twitter despite its acquisition of YouTube. Furthermore, Google Friend Connect, at the heart of the search engine’s social media efforts, is fully integrated  with Twitter, allowing Google Friend Connect sites to integrate Twitter content and users.

3. One of Google core UPS is quality and speed of indexing. What Google wants from Twitter is a real-time feed of updates to speed indexing. At present Google must independently index each Twitter user periodically to look for updates. This process is slow and expensive.

4. Google can establish a (risky but potentially lucrative) advertising partnership with Twitter. As reported by Adage Google was testing incorporating Twitter streams in AdSense units. Google has designed special AdSense ad units that pull the five most recent Tweets from TurboTax’s Twitter stream. TurboTax anticipates that the campaign will raise people’s awareness that the brand is listening and talking to their customers. Will it work? Time will tell.

5. Google is diversifying into the VoIP and communications segment. GrandCentral, a phone management service acquired by Google for $50+ million in 2007 is at the core of their strategy. Following months of modifications Google has released Google Voice. Google Voice proposition is simple – “one phone number for all your phones, for life.”

As opposed to growing the service organically, Google will acquire Skype. eBay’s recent announcement it plans to spin-off Skype (following a $1.4 billion write-down on the deal) provides Google with a unique opportunity to quickly achieve critical mass within the P2P VoIP segment. The integration of Skype mobile into Google Android and Skype Business into Google Apps would provide a significant boost to Google’s efforts to integrate VoIP into its staple of existing services. On the other hand, what Google has in reach, Apple has in community. Apple’s iTunes is probably the only platform where an integration  of Twitter makes any sense.  

Alain Portmann, author of  ”Why Google will not acquire Twitter” is Web Liquid’s Founding Partner, Head of Strategy. Visit www.webliquidgroup.com for more thought pieces.

About Web Liquid

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/why-google-will-not-acquire-twitter/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/consumer-behaviour-during-the-recession-four-key-consumer-trends/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/consumer-behaviour-during-the-recession-four-key-consumer-trends/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:38:29 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/knowledge/consumer-behaviour-during-the-recession-four-key-consumer-trends/ Recessions can bring upon radical and disruptive changes in consumer behaviour. The OTO Research report confirms that during this recession 80% of consumers are going to change their spending habits. 89% of consumers are going to systematically check online what and where the best products are, and what their value for money is. Consumers are getting savvy in the way they optimize their spending. During a recession, the role of your brand is to build trust and justify the value for money.

I have identified four major consumer trends that will shape consumer spending and behaviour during this recession, as well as beyond.

1. Cash Squeezing
With markets tumbling, property prices dropping and job security a distant memory, consumers are in a money saving mindset. Consumers are making full use of the Internet to save money. Case in point, visitors to online coupon sites increased 42% year on year, while time spent on these sites is also up by 28 percent year-over-year. In another example of the cash squeeze during this recession, consumers  are getting a cheaper caffeine fix at home rather than at more expensive coffee shops. Tesco in the UK has seen sales of coffee machines rise by 76 per cent and sales of ground coffee up 13 per cent compared to last year. Sales of thermal mugs have also risen by 78 per cent.

2. Sellsuming
Consumers, empowered by the Internet and cash-strapped, are embracing the idea of making money, instead of just spending it or saving it. As Trend Watching states in their latest report: “if saving is the new spending, then making money—from selling personal assets, properties and creations—outshines saving”. Established online platforms like eBay are serving this new trend well, however there are excellent examples of this sellsuming trend (my  personal favourites include):

• Parkatmyhouse.com – connects those who have parking spots to rent out with those who need them. Car owners can pre-book a parking spot daily, but can also make one-off bookings for a football match or a day of shopping in the city.
• Giftcardrescue – service that allows users to exchange their unwanted gift cards. Consumers create an account and provide details of the card they have and GiftCardRescue will indicate the redemption value it’s willing to pay.
• Ether.com Phone Advice – by signing up for a free Ether number (which is forwarded to any regular phone number), consumers with specific expertise — from holistic life coaches to PowerPoint wizards—can charge their customers per hour, minute or per call.

The government is also taking advantage of the Sellsuming trend – Assembly Bill 1920 (also called the Solar Surplus Power Bill) in California, which will enable solar power-producing consumers to be paid by their utility company for any excess electricity they generate on an annual basis. Michigan, Minnesota and Rhode Island are considering similar legislation.

3. Escapsim
Consumers are spending money on things to distract themselves from economic headaches caused by the recession, and the entertainment industry should be elated. Attendance to cinemas is up 13% year on year; Fast & Furious tore up the record for the most lucrative opening weekend for a movie released in April.

Brands that embrace and invite a positive proposition (embracing this need for escapism) will do well during the recession. Philip Graves, author of the Consumer Behavior Blog has a fascinating piece on the psychology of a consumer mind during a recession, and the need of many people to restore their emotional balance through what they consume.

4. Word of Mouth (WOM) Experience
Consumers are sharing and talking about their experiences with brands, products and services.  The OTO Research confirms 54% of consumers say that their primary source of information when choosing a brand is the Consumer Generated Content about the product and brand experience. Even for the mythical iPhone, PleaseFixtheiPhone.com proposed to users to list the product flaws, and asked Steve Jobs to fix them. More than 250,000 votes and 1,600 posts in less than a week! Monitoring and understanding what consumers are saying online about your brand is no longer an innovation but a necessity.




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Click below for links to relevant agency/consulting services:

Site Conversion Optimization
Continuous improvement of conversion by focusing on dynamic landing pages, conversion optimization and site analytics.



Creative Concepting
Making your brand part of a story that drives engagement, affinity and purchase.



Social Media & Word-of-Mouth: Monitoring / Analytics / Community Development
Understand and leverage the conversations about your brand. Measure relationships, their strength and growth. Build digital spaces in which your brand advocates and prospects can engage.



]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/consumer-behaviour-during-the-recession-four-key-consumer-trends/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/monetizing-twitter-is-what-will-kill-it/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/monetizing-twitter-is-what-will-kill-it/#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:21:33 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/opinions/monetizing-twitter-is-what-will-kill-it/ Less seems more these days. Google Adwords became one of the largest online advertising platforms by restricting advertisers’ copy to 95 (25 line 1, 35 lines 2 & 3) characters or less. Twitter has become the fastest growing media platform through a 140 characters-per-message limit. Twitter’s internal valuation has reached a stagerring $250 million.

Regardless of the hype behind Twitter, one its strengths is the speed at which it disseminates and shares information from the mundane to the highly relevant. Whole Foods is taking advantage of this dynamic, by catering to consumers with special interests and needs through Twitter. Another strength is the simple but effective API that has driven the development of countless third-party apps including TweetDeck, Twitteriffic and Twhirl.

Twitter is nothing more than another attempt to blend real-time communication and search within a social media context. Before Twitter there was Jaiku a Nordic social networking, micro-blogging platform launched in February 2006. Jaiku was purchased by Google on October 9, 2007 and shortly after decommissioned.

There is certainly scope for this type of integration, yet there are those that seem to have forgotten lessons from a decade away –claiming Twitter is a threat to Google and Facebook, (after all Google’s search index doesn’t keep up with conversations as quickly as Twitter and its user base is growing exponentially). As we learned during the dot-com bust, the value of technology and a user base is not in its ability to become mainstream, but the ability to be monetized. Why? Simple – profitability drives sustainability, R&D and innovation.

Twitter has four options to monetize its audience and build a profitable business model – advertising, subscription, research and apps download.

Advertising. While Federated Media recently announced an advertising revenue share program on Twitter creating programs such as ExecTweets, a collection of tweets from Microsoft executives, advertising will not be well received by Twitter users unless they are really clever about they way they engage this audience – few companies have been able to do so.

The latest attempt to build an advertising model is in the launch of The Discovery Engine brings real-time Twitter search right into the home page sidebar. When a user conducts a search, the results appear there, too, popping up in the big white box instead of on a new page. Users can also track the hottest trends on Twitter at any given moment within the same space. Think of it as Google Alerts for Twitter, built right into the site. The problem is that most people may never even bother discover it. How often do users actually use the Twitter.com interface?

Have a look at the latest Toyota ad on Twitter Japan. This model might become the norm for Twitter – make money from overseas markets while keeping the US version free.

Is there scope for search based ads, a’la Google Adwords on Twitter? There is, but while the ads would reach a large audience, their relevance would be poor. Revenue-sharing ad network Adjix has thrown its hat in, by launching an ad format that lets users embed text ads within “tweets” (Twitter posts). User can post small text link appears at the end of their tweet. As Kayte Kaye from Clickz reports “the value of search marketing lies in its ability to reach people who are seeking information, on Twitter, people are pushing out information as opposed to looking for information”.
Subscription. While successfully deployed by a handful of community sites including LinkedIn (Personal Plus and Pro), it would be challenging to justify the cost to the average consumer. With established media outlets such as the New York Times and FT.com struggling to make the “pay to consume” model work, Twitter does not stand a chance.

Research. While Twitter could be used to monitor and track the conversation and word of mouth of its user base, it would not only end up competing in a space dominated by aggregation of word of mouth (Technorati, Brandwatch) and more importantly, end up killing the spontaneous and “information promiscuousness” of its user base.

Apps Download. A promising model for Twitter based on idea of offering “power users” – mainly those in the PR industry – unique tools and applications at a cost. Case in point, CRM provider Salesforce.com recently launched a Twitter application costing $995 per month which allows its users to post and manage Twitter content. Yet, this model in itself cannibalizes the concept of equal access and influence, which is so important to social media.

Our friends in the industry have lots of different views on the future of Twitter. In an interesting exchange our friend Tim at Reactive brought up a good question – Is the question how will “Twitterers” make money from the service, or how will “Twitter” make money? What we all agree on is that the video Flutter, the next Twitter, is recommended viewing.

Sooner than later Twitter will have to choose between either remaining the Peter Pan of social media or stepping into the world of social media adulthood. The decision is likely to end up killing Twitter.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/opinions/monetizing-twitter-is-what-will-kill-it/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/avis-appoints-web-liquid-and-acknowledgement-to-pan-euro-dm-business/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/avis-appoints-web-liquid-and-acknowledgement-to-pan-euro-dm-business/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:20:54 +0000 David Shiell /blog/press/avis-appoints-web-liquid-and-acknowledgement-to-pan-euro-dm-business/ LONDON, 11 March 2009
Following a three-way pitch including Rapp and incumbent McCann Erickson, Web Liquid & creative partner Acknowledgement have been appointed to develop Avis Europe 2009 key pan-European campaigns across 13 markets.

Web Liquid will lead the media strategy, planning and buying with Acknowledgement developing the creative strategy and production.

The campaigns will be focussed on driving direct revenue whilst ensuring Avis maintains its position as a value for money, premium car rental option.

Nicola Stone, Retail Marketing Manager for Avis Europe commented, “The proposition offered by partnering with Web Liquid and Acknowledgement promises to deliver the best optimisation of Avis Pan-European direct marketing strengths for 2009 onwards.”

Tom Jordan, Managing Director of Acknowledgement said “We are delighted to be working with Avis Europe, and will work closely with them to ensure we build on the successes of previous pan-European Sale campaigns.”

David Shiell, Founding Partner of Web Liquid added “We have had a long and successful relationship with Avis in the UK and are very excited to be extending our relationship out to Avis Europe where our centralised management of Pan-European media strategy will allow us to create yet further efficiencies of scale alongside intelligent execution. The appointment also makes a statement to the industry that boutique independents such as Web Liquid and Acknowledgement can compete on a wider scale against the traditional agency networks.”

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/avis-appoints-web-liquid-and-acknowledgement-to-pan-euro-dm-business/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/openskies-biz-promotion/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/openskies-biz-promotion/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:00:12 +0000 Matthew Cronin /blog/press/openskies-biz-promotion/

Our latest effort for OpenSkies launched today – a great deal in BIZ between NYC, Paris and Amsterdam. Since the airline’s launch last year most of the advertising has been in support of the highly praised PREM+ cabin, so this is the first campaign to raise awareness and trial of the only fully flat bed/seat flying NYC-PAR and NYC-AMS. At a fare that’s much less than the other airlines on those routes, it’s probably the best deal flying.

The digital campaign aims to reach the elusive business and premium leisure traveler in New York, Paris and Amsterdam through a combination of contextual and behavioral targeting while the creative delivers a strong proposition – balancing the benefits of BIZ with the the promotional call to action.

]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/press/openskies-biz-promotion/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/web-liquid-at-the-2009-digital-marketing-conference/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/web-liquid-at-the-2009-digital-marketing-conference/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:26:37 +0000 dev /blog/press/web-liquid-at-the-2009-digital-marketing-conference/

Alain Portmann, Founding Partner of Web Liquid was a speaker at the 2009 Digital Marketing Conference. The conference held at the Le Royal Meridien Beach Resort and Spa in Dubai was organized by AMEinfo and Middle East Business Intelligence.

Alain presented on the subject of accountability and measurement as a means of increasing return on investment. The forty five minute presentation entitled “Conversations with Financial Directors” provided a series of measurement recommendations collected from actual discussions with Financial Directors from various Fortune 500 companies. The presentation shared Web Liquid’s approach to increasing accountability from online investments through a focus on 1) Profit on Investment 2) effective business metrics, 3) attribution of conversions and 4) Consumer Generated Insight.

For Alain’s personal perspective on the conference and analysis on the Middle East online industry join the Web Liquid Facebook Group. Further resources and insight on measurement and accountability include:

•  Measuring the gold dust of social media
• Pay per Performance – 9 tips to drive incremental revenue
• The last click gets to much credit
• Campaign analytics and measurement learnings
• What is return on investment?
• Measuring commercial and organic search
• Ad agency compensation is about Worth Creation
]]> http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/knowledge/web-liquid-at-the-2009-digital-marketing-conference/feed/ 0 http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/measuring-the-gold-dust-of-social-media/ http://www.webliquidgroup.com/blog/measurement-and-accountability/measuring-the-gold-dust-of-social-media/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:22:46 +0000 Alain Portmann /blog/online-word-of-mouth/measuring-the-gold-dust-of-social-media/ Don’t advertise on social media sites. Lets be honest, advertising is about persuasion while social media is about empowerment and service as opposed to solicitation. The difference boils down to consumer confidence – advertising and marketing messages are inherently persuasive and rightly perceived as biased whereas word of mouth messages naturally build (or diminish) confidence without perceived bias. Granted, the value of good advertising in social media or any other environment is in its ability to spark inspiration and need, emotion and thought; from those things that make up everyday life.

So why does traditional online advertising not work in social media? First, most consumers decisions on social media sites take place through the referral of friends. Case in point, 78% of respondents to the 2007 Nielsen Global Survey on Word of Mouth indicate consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising. Second, the push marketing approach does not apply to niche, fast-moving audiences found in social media sites. Three, the mindset of social media users is driven by self promotion and community (social engagement) in order to connect there has to be an exchange that is of value to the user. If you chose to advertise on social media sites be conscious of the need to give that audience something of value as opposed to a advertising message.


Twiter, Facebook, Flyertalk and thousands of community boards, blogs and social media platforms empower consumers to communicate, network, contribute and make decisions about their everyday life. The gold dust of social media is consumer generated content and the sentiment it reflects about brands dynamic word of mouth and conversation. The question is how to indentify, harness, measure and act upon the conversational gold dust. In simple terms the challenge is to define and tie key performance indicators to the content and sentiment being measured.

The first thing to understand is that social media and consumer generated content serves as a repository and public record of conversations and consumer sentiment about a brand. A number of companies (Nielsen Buzzmetrics, Brand Watch, Market Sentinel) have popped up offering technology to capture those conversations for analysis but much of the application of that technology is still quite tactical or focused on brand reputation management. In fact, the consumer generated insight research opportunity is to use that insight on a regular basis and with quality marketing-based analysis to derive valuable insights that can improve marketing communications.

In our experience, the single most important measurement metric for social media is a variation of Net Promoter Score ©. Creator, Fred Reichheld of Bain & Co., measured the number of consumer “Promoters” (those who would recommend a product or services) and “Detractors” (those who actively discourage the use of a product or service) of hundreds of companies across many categories finding that on average the NPS leader grows at 2.5x. While the Net Promoter Score © metric can provide a foundation metric, it is important to define additional metrics aimed at benchmarking the contribution of social media against other channels of consumer interaction.

Our work with Avis and OpenSkies on the social media space has allowed us to define a measurement approach to consumer generated content; based on five measurement modules.

1. Involvement
This set of metrics is aimed at understanding the propensity of involvement for either your own social media environment (community board, blog) or third party social media sites that drive users to your site. Assigning a unique referring ID to your social media property or third party social sites within your site analytics tool (Web Trends and Google Analytics) should facilitate this data.
- Site visits
- Time spent
- Pages viewed
- New vs. returning users
- Navigational path

2. Engagement
These metrics are aimed at understanding the specific actions and behaviors of users. Every engagement such as a comment should be equated to a call centre engagement or store visit. This approach allows for social media engagement to be viewed as part of the overall customer journey, providing a degree of benchmarking.
- Commentary volume
- Frequency of comments
- Sources of commentary
- Commentary creator segments
- Topics/Subjects

3. Sentiment
This set of metrics is aimed at identifying changes in positive and negative feedback across time and against competitors. This information can be used by Customer Service teams to proactively address specific issues being openly discussed by consumers.

- Net Promoter Index variation

4. Propagation
This set of metrics is aimed at indentifying the distribution of social media content and its impact on how other consumers find and participate on the discussions about your brand. A key metric is search engine indexing which is related to the incremental impact of natural search traffic and visibility derived from social media.
- Citations
- Trackbacks
- Search Engine indexing

5. Transaction
While not applicable to all brands, transactions from social media can be measured by leveraging third party ad-serving and site analytics data. Establishing a control test against your average transactional site data can be an effective way of identifying variations on behavior and value.
- Registrations
- Shopping cart instances
- Conversion rate
- Revenue per transaction
- Revenue by user

We have been working with one of our travel clients to define the contribution of social media to their bottom line. Our approach was to benchmark revenue by blog visitors versus non blog visitors. The results are not surprising and have strengthened our clients belief on the value of social media. The average transaction value of a blog customer is 1.16 times higher than average site user.

Alain Portmann, author of  ”Measuring the gold dust of media” is Web Liquid’s Founding Partner, Head of Strategy. Visit www.webliquidgroup.com for more thought pieces.

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