1. The UK Market – online media investment

Display advertising spend saw a 31% year-on-year increase, whilst the core formats – banners, skyscrapers and embedded rich media including video – grew by 45% to £592 million.

Ad networks increasing in importance – the IAB say “Sales houses and networks are responsible for growing and monetising the long tail of internet sites, accounting for 40% of display advertising in 2007″.

Paid search marketing grew by 39% to £1.6 billion (£1.2 billion in 2006), while its market share remained similar at 57.6% (57.8% in 2006). The report noted there were 1.7 billion searches in the UK in January 2007 according to Forrester.

Online advertising formats

Formats or tactics used showed a continued dominance of paid for search

• £1.2 billion (57.8 % share) on Paid for search
• £453.7 million on display advertising (including banners, skyscrapers and online sponsorships)
• £379 million (18.8% share)

For more information read the full report at: http://www.davechaffey.com/Internet-Marketing/C8-Communications/E-tools/Interactive-Advertising/UK-Internet-Advertising-Statistics-2007/

2. US Ad Impressions stats

But to get a more accurate picture of the situation it could be worthwhile undertanding the market stats by industry for ad impressions. We have chosen the US stats as it is the largest ad market.

Ad impressions for October ‘09 were up by over 20 percent, with growth in almost every vertical category with the exception of entertainment and software, according to data from Nielsen Online.

Impressions in the financial services, travel, retail, web media and telecommunications sectors all grew substantially month-on-month, perhaps suggesting the beginnings of economic recovery, or simply reflecting increased marketing activity in the run up to the holiday period. Back in 2008, however, overall impressions grew just 3 percent over the previous month.

Read the full report at: http://www.clickz.com/3635758

The online advertising chain was a bit confusing for me at the beginning, so I decided to start documenting my knowledge so as to help others understand how their website or service fits in.

The product that is traded in the chain can be described as the “advertising inventory” or the “ad impresssion”. A good definition is: Advertising inventory is the supply of opportunities to display advertising in a particular medium.

Each player has a stake and adds value in the process of advertising online. The key drivers all these stakeholders are facing are:

• promotion of the advertised products, targeted appropriately to various customer segments
• diminishing public interest in online ads and low conversion rates
• increase in absolute Internet usage and Internet usage scope worldwide

But lets get into the details of the process:

1. A company (the Advertiser) which wants to be advertised needs to find another company that will design and develop the creative deliverable (the banner, in flash or js format).
2. The company also needs to deliver the deliverable to the Agency that will be responsible for the ad campaign. The business objectives are set (e.g. impressions, dates, target websites/URLs, target audiences etc…) and the Agency provides these to the Ad Network.
3. The Ad Network plans the campaigns and is laso responsible for providing a plug and play ad serving mechanism that will serve the ads in the target website (the Publisher)
4. Finally, the Publisher is informed about the proposed ad campaign that will be run on their site.

However the story is not always a happy one! As a lot of  online websites are built based on heavily customised Content Management Systems, and the JS codes are custom creative deliverables, things may go wrong. And if the ad cannot be served, the Agency will, in turn, not be happy about it, and will decrease the Publishers leverage in forthcoming discussions.

Local Businesses I get over 3000 hits every 30 days to my FREE website. Local search is an amazing tool for brick and mortar businesses to lower advertising costs and reach customers when they are researching and ready to purchase what your selling. Below is activity from just one site I use and this is a free site.

Activity Tracker

(Visits in the last 30 days – updated nightly)

I have compiled an ebook outlining how to get over 5000 local visitors to your local websites and all of the sites are FREE to use. It’s called the small business guide to free promotion. If you can type you can use all the info and skyrocket your exposure and sales.

Send me an email at bigticketpromos@gmail.com for more info

It is getting tougher for the small business to survive. Nevermind the statistics regarding how long small businesses last. In this economy a sort of social darwinism and David vs Goliath come into play.

Marketing and Sales are typically grouped into one category. Yet, it is important, especially for the small business to recognize the differences in these two equal although separate disciplines.

Right now the Goliath’s make headlines, while the David’s struggle to capture attention.

This is where good marketing strategies come into play.

A good small business marketing strategy:

• Works together with a sales team.
• Provides a sales team with visibility.
• Differentiates the business from competitors.
• Leverages and blends Guerrilla Marketing tactics to be noticable.
• Doesn’t need a huge marketing budget, just some time and some creativity.
• Uses the “marketing mix” to communicate advantages.

Whether you run a small mortgage firm, investment firm or sell landscaping supplies, each small business needs to be able to be found. The days of Yellow Pages and Newspaper advertisements are gone. The Internet is the new marketing medium. Creating a good marketing strategy and supplementing offline marketing tactics will help your salespeople sell and help your salespeople sell you.

Marketing Ingredients and Giant Purple Dinosaurs

Now that we have an understanding of the components of the marketing mix and the ingredients involved – what do we do now? Now, it’s time to put this puppy together and create a focus that makes your customers and prospects feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like a cup of steaming Starbucks white chocolate mocha on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.

If not warm and fuzzy, then your customers should stand up and take notice of you like a giant, funny looking, purple dinosaur standing on the street waving a sign to shop or he’ll eat you.

In examining the ingredients of your marketing mix, cross off those that don’t apply to you. (See previous post)

Highlight any of the ingredients where you have an advantage. This may be a price advantage over competitors or exemplary service. It could be that your product or service is available in more places than competitors. When doing this, keep your targeted prospective customers in mind.

Underline those components which may not be your advantage.

Let’s use a mortgage broker as an example:

Competitive Advantages:

Price – Packaged pricing advantage (i.e. free appraisal, credit report).

Product – More mortgage products available than local competitors

Place (Distribution) – Distribution channels through online loan applications.

Promotion – No advantage

People – Connections with top local Realtors

Areas Without Advantage:

Product – Length of time for loan approval (Service).

Price – None

Place (Distribution)- Limited local presence

Promotion – Limited online presence

People – Lack of connections to lower level Realtors

The next step is to brag! I’m not kidding. Take your highlighted advantages and write out what it is about these pieces of your business that make you better to do business with. Take your customer profile, your testimonials and see if your advantages match what your customers are saying about you.

Now that your head is like a hot air balloon floating off over the wine country and you’re thinking your just gonna start writing copy with your fancy dancy bragging, it’s time to come down to reality.

You do have a good framework from which to work. Take what you’re written, that customer profile and those testimonials and look for keywords or key phrases. Now you can carefully craft promotional copy that targets your customers, prospects and brags (professionally brags) about your business.

As you write this out, you can see how each ingredient in the marketing mix crosses over and blends together.

Where you have competitive disadvantages, you do not want to ignore those. With these, it’s imperative you take the necessary time to analyze those disadvantages and craft ways in which you can work them into the advantage part of the marketing mix.

Next up: Crafting  or changing a core message.

Andy Kinsella writes a nice blog post about web advertising hits rock bottom. Have a quick read.

Essentially, advertising for RPG Evony went from an angry little Medievil character to a rescue-worthy woman, to solely a pair of tits. This is demonstrated below.

I’ve just found this gem. I love the evolution of advertising.

If your small business doesn’t have a website, building one is easy. There are various low cost small business website templates and hosting available. If you already have one, here are some prime benefits and maybe some good reasons to make some changes.

Website:

Primary purpose and benefits from using a website:

• Lead Generation

• Communication

• Branding

• Publicity

• Relationship building and linking

• Affiliate Marketing

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for local market (makes your site visible locally)

A key component of using a website as a communications medium is to keep marketing in line with the CORE MESSAGE, Case Statement and Purpose Statement.

Websites can be good lead generation tools, courting prospects anywhere. However, ensuring consistency and providing readers with something of value builds credibility in the eyes of targeted buyers. A good website, links with all other marketing pieces and acts as a method to brand you in places where prospects can see you.

Frankie

Σύμφωνα με την εξαμηνιαία μελέτη online διαφημιστικής δαπάνης που διεξήγαγε το IAB UK σε συνεργασία με την PwC και το WARC, το Internet ξεπέρασε την τηλεόραση και έγινε το πρώτο σε διαφημιστική απορρόφηση μέσο στη Μεγάλη Βρετανία.

H online διαφήμιση άντεξε την κρίση κατά το 1^ο μισό του 2009, και σημειώνοντας άνοδο της τάξης του 4,6%, και αγγίζοντας τις 1,8 δισ. λίρες, παρά την ευρύτερη συρρίκνωση του διαφημιστικού κλάδου κατά 16,6%. Η Μ. Βρετανία παραμένει η πρώτη χώρα στην κόσμο όσον αφορά το μερίδιο του Internet στην αγορά, με ποσοστό 23,5%. Ακολουθεί πλέον η τηλεόραση με μερίδιο 21,9% και ο τύπος με μερίδιο 18,5%.

Τα αποτελέσματα σηματοδοτούν μια σημαντική αναδιανομή των marketing budgets, καθώς οι διαφημιζόμενοι ακολουθούν τα κοινά τους online και εμπιστεύονται το Internet για περισσότερο μετρήσιμη και αποτελεσματική επικοινωνία.

Το paid search συνέχισε την ανοδική του πορεία, με άνοδο 6,8% σε σχέση με την αντίστοιχη περσινή περίοδο, και μερίδιο 59,8% επί της συνολικής online δαπάνης. Παρά την κρίση στους κλάδους των μεσιτικών, των αυτοκινήτων και της εύρεσης εργασίας, τα classifieds ανέβηκαν κατά 10,6% σε σχέση με την περσινή περίοδο, με μερίδιο 22% της συνολικής δαπάνης. Το display έπεσε κατά 5,2%, με μερίδιο 18,1% επί του συνόλου, ξεπερνώντας μια δύσκολη χρονιά, με τα υπόλοιπα μέσα να σημειώνουν συρρίκνωση άνω του 10%.

Τα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας έδειξαν πως ο κλάδος των Τεχνολογιών επένδυσε περισσότερο, με μερίδιο 19,1%, ακολουθούμενος από τις Τηλεπικοινωνίες με μερίδιο 13,3% και τα Χρηματοοικονομικά με μερίδιο 13,2%. Ακολούθησαν οι κλάδοι Ψυχαγωγίας και Media (11,8%) και FMCG (8,1%).

ΓΡΑΦΕΙΟ ΤΥΠΟΥ ΙΑΒ HELLAS

All of the hype about social marketing and social media might make you believe that people are flocking to this new form of communications in droves.

Well, if you think this … you’re right. And now we have the stats to prove it. The Nielsen Company has just released web statistics for the month of August that report that time spent on social networks and blogging sites accounted for ~17% of all time spent on the Internet.

Compared to August 2008, this figure is nearly triple the percentage of time spent on social networks and blogging sites just one short year ago. Seeing as how there is an upper-limit ceiling on the total amount of time available to spend online in any given day, the increased attention on social media is coming at the expense of the more traditional use of the web as an informational tool.

This is not to say that text and video content don’t remain central to the online experience, because that is clearly the case. But the ability consumers have now to use platforms like Facebook and blogging sites to “connect, communicate and share” is what’s driving much of the continuing growth of the web and online engagement.

Because of this new emphasis, is it any wonder more online advertising dollars are chasing social media than ever before? Nielsen pegs advertising on social media sites as representing ~15% of total online ad spending in August 2009. That’s more than double its proportion a year earlier.

Along with the shift in online ad revenues to social media sites, we’re also experiencing a major change in clickthrough behavior as it pertains to online display ads. Research published recently by comScore shows that the percentage of people who clicked on one or more display ads during a monthly period of Internet interaction – in this case March 2009 – was only ~16%.

How does that result compare with earlier surveys? It’s dramatically lower, and dropping. Just two years ago in 2007, ~32% of people online clicked on at least one online display ad over a month-long period – twice the proportion as today.

What’s more, the comScore analysis reveals that a very small portion of viewers represent the vast majority of the clickthrough activity. Specifically, only ~8% of the people are responsible for ~85% of all clicks. Of course, we can be sure that the robust clickthrough behavior of these 8% translates into equally robust product sales … NOT!

Clearly, any company that is attempting to promote products and services over the Internet needs to carefully study the composition of its market and the behavior of its online audience targets before making extensive online advertising program commitments.

The reality is, with the dynamics we’re seeing such as the behaviors noted above, it’s more likely an online promo effort will fail rather than succeed unless a dispassionate review of the situation is done beforehand and a practical, realistic program put into place.

But that’s so unlike many of the web advertising programs we’ve seen implemented up to now, which could be best characterized as: “Throw a bunch of advertising at the web and hope some of it sticks.”

Just the way we saw it with Facebook, when an enterprise decides to keep you on board, they deploy the stickiest strategies to do so.  Here is an example that I discovered on Avinash Kaushik’s Twitter account that I had to blog about.

FujiFilm ’s sticky approach keeps the customers subscribed to their newsletter.  Yes, Fujifilm contributes to the massive internet “addiction” and information “overload”.

Fujifilm unsubscribe Landing page smiles at the user

Internet marketing is getting more agile in its “subtle” marketing tactics.  It certainly makes us smile. The unsubscription from FujiFilm’s e-mail marketing messages is less dramatic than quitting Facebook and the seduction machine that Facebook has put on to keep their users glued to the social network.

It has become so bad that people actually have to find tips to quit facebook and even guide on How to quit facebook and joining Facebook is Like a tattoo you regret!

First, determine why you wish to quit Facebook and delete your Facebook profile. Closing and deleting a Facebook account can leave some individuals feeling socially isolated and friendless. Create personal life goals that you wish to meet through Facebook (e.g. keep in touch with high school friends that live in other cities). Check to see how well Facebook meets your goals over the course of a month.

Second, notify all of your Facebook friends that you are quitting Facebook and deleting your Facebook profile. Closing a Facebook account affects not just you, but your Facebook friends as well. Give your Facebook friends time to establish other means of contacting you, such as email or instant messaging.

So, when are we going to see psychiatrists specialized in the Facebook detox practice?

As promised, here are some more tips on advertising and marketing basics for your business

Be consistent with your advertising.  Every day, every week, every month new buyers come into the market. You want to be in front of them when they convert from a looker to a buyer.  Plus, running an ad once doesn’t work — readers MUST see your ad at least 7-8 times before they notice and begin to consider acting on it.  We always advise our clients to do more long term verses larger ads or color ads for a few weeks. Frequency is what works!

Always include the Internet with your print buy.  That is of course the way things are moving as more buyers research their purchases online and gather their news there.  Our web advertising options are extremely affordable and offer effective 24/7 exposure to your core and secondary markets.  Northfulton.com is the highest hit regional web site in North Atlanta, averaging 30,000 page views a day.  Also, ask about “AppenClicks,” our new search-engine turn-key advertising program. 

I’ll blog some more tips again soon so you can make it happen with Appen! Scott 770-442-3278 x 107

By Joel Matthews

To conquer online marketing you should view your total wealth solution or join me on my personal blog.

As usage of the Internet on mobile devices like the Apple iPhone has become more prevalent, many businesses have been wondering how important it is for them to cater to these users through the creation of web sites that are optimized for mobile display.

Although creating a mobile version of a web site doesn’t have to be a major undertaking, it is “yet another task” to add to the marketer’s never-ending to-do list. So, just how important is it?

Chitika, Inc., a Massachusetts-based online advertising network, has analyzed the behaviors of “mobilists” and found some interesting results when it comes to their viewing of advertising and taking action. In tracking more than 92 million ad impressions served up by browsers, it turns out that mobile internet users clicked through at a far lower rate than those viewing ads on desktop machines.

How much lower? The overall clickthrough rate for mobilists was 0.48%, compared to a clickthrough rate of 0.84% for non-mobile users. That’s a serious difference, and gets about as far in the basement as you can go.

But why are the numbers so abysmal? More than likely, several factors are at work. First, consider the ways people use their mobile devices. It’s usually because they want to know something immediately … and it’s at times like those that folks are less inclined to get sidetracked by clicking on advertising links. By contrast, the “immediacy” factor with non-mobile devices often isn’t as acute.

Also, consider the load time on mobile devices – rather much slower. For that reason, mobile web content tends to be less informationally rich — or compelling in its appearance — thus decreasing its “stopping” power.

What this means for advertisers is that the key for succeeding in the mobile space is catching consumers at just the right time, not happening to catch them at any time. Easy enough in theory … but would anyone care to volunteer for putting this into practice? Best of luck to you.

From the perspective of the media purveyors, the Chitika findings certainly won’t make their task of attracting additional advertising revenues in the mobile sector any easier. Perhaps that’s why The Wall Street Journal announced last week that, beginning in November, it will be charging mobile users a weekly fee to access its content on mobile devices – and those fees will be charged to WSJ subscribers and non-subscribers both.

It’s further proof that relying on display advertising revenue simply isn’t cutting it as a practical business model in the mobile environment.

300×250 flash ad for 4 Daughters
Click on the image for a link to the flash version.

300×250 flash ad and coupon page for Airport Chevrolet
Click on the image for a link to the flash version.

300×250 flash ad for Aztech
Click on the image for a link to the flash version.

300×250 Wellness2000 flash ad
Click on the image for a link to the flash version.

300×250 Pacific Reef Resort flash ad.
Click on the image for a link to the flash version

, the Indian website has changed its home page again around a month back. But this one is really bold and just not cosmetic.

The new homepage just has a search bar, some news stories, a video story and 8 32×32 pixels icons of Cricket, Money, News, Movies, Rediffmail, iShare, My Page and Shopping. Besides it has a new tag line “Just Your Stuff” and a TVC promoting the site, however the ad has slightly failed to pass across the basic message.

Click Here to watch the TVC.

And all this without any advertisement on the main page (Like Google). This is really refreshing because it is coming from Rediff.com which is popularly known as one page-all work.

If you have browsed internet over Mobile network or on 3G you will notice that the new interface also befits a clean mobile interface. This can increase the user base of Rediff as mobile internet is going to a large way in India. This move can also be seen as a tactic to direct the traffic from Homepage to the inside pages which had less clicks earlier. But this can only work if Rediff provides rich content to its loyal user base.

It is now proved that one interested consumer is better than several uninterested consumers. And who else can better understand this than advertisers and this is where this new revamping strategy is more befitting. Because now advertisers can target better in the uncluttered site of Rediff. If a financial consultancy ad is to be placed, it has to be on the Rediff-Money page. And that will place Rediff on a higher platform where it may witness fewer ads but higher rates.

With uncluttered homepage, better Ad planning, and rich content Rediff.com may go a long way the field of web targeting and advertising.

What is your view?

Delle due l’una. O la Fieg è un’associazione fatta da persone che non hanno a che fare con il giornalismo e la comunicazione oppure credono di saperla molto più lunga.
Va da se ceh stimolare l’Antitrust ad indagare contro Google per abuso di posizione dominante a causa dellìAggregatore di Notizie Google News sembra più una mossa per farsi pubblicità che realmente l’intento di difendere gli interessi di categoria.
E’ vero. Google aggrega notizie di altri (salvo il fatto che lo fanno anche gli altri giornali con le agenzie e non mi dite che pagano tutto) e ci guadagna con la pubblicità ma è anche vero che dirige traffico sugli stessi siti di news che la denunciano che, guarda un po campano di pubblicità pure loro. E di traffico ne dirige parecchio. Sarebbe bello avere qualche dato quantitativo.
Quindi o sputano nel piatto in cui mangiano o meglio al cameriere che lo porta o, più semplicemente, si sentivano un pò abbandonati e hanno deciso di farsi notare un po.
Ma sarebbe meglio pensare a problemi come la libertà di stampa e il pluralismo magari

In the current business climate, companies are relying more than ever on new sales opportunities to replace business that has been lost with current customers. And it’s pretty clear by now that “search” has emerged as the form of online promotion that generates the best lead generation and conversion results — outstripping other e-promotional tactics such as online display advertising and newsletter sponsorships.

This isn’t surprising, of course. Search advertising captures the interest of online viewers precisely when they’re in “search mode” for specific products and services, rather than when they’re just surfing the ‘net for news and updates.

(In fact, some advertisers have come to believe that even print advertising outperforms online display advertising. That’s because readers are more likely to browse all the way through print publications. Compare that to visiting informational web sites where viewers are far more prone to selectively pick and choose the pages that they open. A well-placed display ad on a “new technology news” page, for example, might be invisible to the vast majority of viewers who come to the home page and then decide to click through to only one or two additional pages on the site.)

But back to search. Many advertisers wonder which is most effective: gaining high “natural search” rankings that occur based on the content of the web site, or opting for pay-per-click search listings such as Google’s AdWords program with their entries on the right side of the screen.

As it turns out, both tactics have their pluses.

In fact, a new year-long study that ended June 30, 2009 of more than 25 e-tail web sites by Engine Ready, Inc., a search engine software development firm, found that visitors who clicked through to the sites from paid search ads were ~50% more likely to make a purchase, compared to visitors who came to the same sites via clicking on a natural search link.

Specifically, Engine Ready discovered that the conversion rate from pay-per-click links measured 2.03%, while the conversion rate was only 1.26% from organic search clickthroughs.

On the other hand, various research studies conducted over the past few years demonstrate the clear popularity of natural search listings over paid search listings. It’s been shown pretty consistently that around two thirds of total clicks are made on natural search listings, compared to just one-third on pay-per-click listings.

So the key takeaway is that any marketing program worth its salt incorporates search marketing as a key component. And in most cases, that effort should encompass search engine optimization for natural search rankings along with a pay-per-click advertising program.

300×250 flash ad for Loan Refine
Click on the image for a link to the flash version.

300×250 flash ad for an Oregon Outdoors contest
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300×250 flash ad for the Art-in-Bloom festival
Click the image for a link to the flash version.