The end of MFA sites?

Google recently decided to give Adsense a spring cleaning in Adsense and notified MFA (made for Adsense) sites, their account will be deactivated as per June 1st.
Apparently Google decided to do so after many of his clients and end users complained about “parasite” sites that did not bring anything in terms of customer experience.
What are MFA sites? They are pages created to support Adsense campaigns, they usually have little or no content at all and heavily contribute to web pollution. A good example would be http://www.cosmeticsurgeryguide.net/cosmetic-surgery.html , when you search for cosmetic surgery on Google, they appear in the sponsored link section.

These sites can be really profitable (even if unethical) for their owner some of them claim to earn more than $10,000 a month.
This decision from Google will have at least one good effect on your campaign as it will potentially decrease paid search cost. By filtering those sites, Google will leave the Adsense program to “good” sites and so your ads will not appear on site listing as it used to. 

Google checkout adoption rate in 2006

I am not going to claim this as it does not come from me but I thought it was good to share.
Here are some conclusions from a JP Morgan survey conducted early this year on Google Checkout.

According to JP Morgan, Google Checkout Adoption hit 6% in first year. 
Although Google’s adoption rate is considerably lower than PayPal’s (42%), 6% is not a bad start.
Google’s aggressive promotions and discounting spurred the respectable launch.
In 2007 Google is offering free processing on all orders, for new sign ups.
Google Checkout Users Skew Male, Affluent, and Young. Google Checkout penetration rates are 2x higher among men.

Further, a hefty 34% of Checkout users have incomes over $75K (compared to 25% for PayPal, and 20% for all online shoppers). Finally, Checkout users are substantially younger (57% under 35 years old) than either PayPal (36%) or credit card users (35%).

Google Checkout Needs to Work Out Some Kinks. Despite 65% of credit card users and 44% of PayPal users reporting ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’ service experiences, only 19% of Google Checkout users said the same. As such, Google may need to shore up its payment operations before building lasting user loyalty.

PayPal Maintains Its Leadership Position. PayPal’s 42% penetration rate in 2006 was 7x that of Google checkout. Additionally, 43% of respondents indicated that they would continue to prefer PayPal over Google Checkout, compared to only 2% that reported the inverse. Finally, PayPal maintains superior brand awareness over Google Checkout. More than 56% of the respondents in our survey reported having no familiarity with Google Checkout.

Google will need to continue aggressive promotion in 2007 to increase product visibility.
As an incentive Google Checkout will see its adoption rate increase as Google merchants get priority placement in search.

For the full survey please click here

Google new interface tests

Every smart marketer and brand alike know testing is the key to keep you on the top of the game.

Google understands it as much as all of us and “just” launched 4 new interfaces to play with on “Google Experimental“.

Interface 1: Timeline and map views
Allows you to see your search results on a timeline or map. According to Google Search it works best with people, companies, events and places. As an example when typing Dell as a search query it gives you a timeline with events related to “Dell’s life” like when it started, how it evolved, different quacks….
This interface is also putting Dell “factories” on a map if you click Map views.
From a marketing perspective, brands can be using this interface to share more than product data with their customers / prospects, it is also kind of cool for retailers to point to the nearest store.

Interface 2: Keyboard shortcuts
Navigate search results quickly and easily, minimizing use of your mouse. Current keyboard shortcuts include:

Key	Action
J	Selects the next result.
K	Selects the previous result.
O	Opens the selected result.
<Enter>	Opens the selected result.
/	Puts the cursor in the search box.
<Esc>	Removes the cursor from the search box.

From a search experience stand point, it will give the user better comfort of navigation. From a brand or marketing point of view, it may help poor SEO ranked pages to be looked at

Interface 3: Left-hand search navigation
Search deeper in a particular type of content—patents, products or news, for example. Google searches across all kinds of content, then ranks results by relevance.
This interface is really interesting as an example the query “antivirus“ returns not only paid for results but if you look at the left nav, you will find related search like reviews, ratings, free…. It would give brand and marketers more flexibility and more creativity if Google associate a related search pricing a bit like what they are doing for contextual advertising.   Marketers may have the choice now between three types of Google campaigns ppc, contextual and related.

Interface 4: Right hand contextual search
Similar to the left-hand search navigation, right-hand contextual search navigation allows you to search deeper in a particular type of content or to search related terms.

Test them for yourself and let me know what you think!

Search engine still dominates EMEA market

Is it a good news or a bad news? You tell me !
Search engine ad spending was expected to grow 26% in 2006, in reality it grew by nearly 33% (need to check my numbers as no one -research or expert- really agrees on it), the bottom line is if you are in digital marketing and you are not doing anything around search, something is really wrong .

Budget allocation for Google amounts to $3.7 million; $4.6 million for Yahoo!; and $4.6 million for MSN. [Outsell, Inc, February 2006]. Look at how Google stock performed in the last 3 years, it will give you an indication on how wealthy and lucrative the business is. I wish I had invested some money in it myself

Keyword costs, are rising due to the popularity of this performance-based auction-model of advertising, but according to Forrester, cost will be up to five-times more expensive in the US than in Europe this year.
Google’s audience has grown almost 2.5 times the rate of search’s. It now has almost 3 times the audience of Yahoo Search. [Source: Hitwise via Search Engine Watch, March 2007], this is just amazing. 10 years ago Yahoo! had an asset to play, a shame really.
Looking at market shares, Google had a 71.6% share of the global search market between August 2006 and January 2007. Giving Yahoo!, MSN and alike less than 30% to play with, and far from going down the trend is going up for Google, some even say the beast would currently have 77%.
Google made $10.5 billion in ad revenue in 2006, up 75% from 2005. [Source: SEMPO, 2007]

81% of global internet users (256m) visited a search engine in December 2006. [Source: Nielsen/NetRatings via Search Engine Watch, March 2007].

Search engine use grew dramatically in France (27% up YoY) where Google marketshare is now approaching 90%  and Spain (21% up YoY), ahead of the US (8%), though the US remains the largest search market.
Search by far the most popular media in the UK (85% of web query starts with a search engine), France (83%) and Spain (83%). For the US, the figure is only 77%.

What does Marketing 2.0 stands for?

Google definition is fairly straight forward:  there isn’t any, “define:marketing 2.0″ query came back with “No definitions were found for marketing 2.0“. 

Is Marketing 2.0 another buzz word?

Yes and No, we are definitely witnessing a 2.0 trend: Web 2.0, Commerce 2.0, Social 2.0, Life 2.0 but Marketing 2.0 is not a new concept as such, it is the evolution of marketing in the last 10 years.

Marketing has grown up, new marketing opportunities arise always more powerful, more integrated, more interactive.

Companies are really slow at embracing new marketing techniques, the population is happy to spend more than 50% of their time on-line but yet companies only invest a fraction of their budget in digital marketing.

Why is that? I do not have the golden answer to this, but I think companies have spend too much time replicating past successes and are a bit too shy in thinking out of the box even if consumer behavior changed radically.
Another reason could be the lack of digital marketer supply, talking to one of my friend HR have difficulties recruiting good profiles that understand on-line and the implication of the media, not only from a market stand point but also from a budget and ROI perspective.
Let’s face it, this is also difficult to get senior management engagement and commitment in a digital campaign, they understand the concept but are not too sure this is the right move.

Coming back to my first question, what does Marketing 2.0 stands for?
It is about understanding your customer better, engaging with them and see them as unique profile.
When off-line marketing is about putting people into categories (I will be a 30-35 female, with incomes of £50-80K per annum), on-line is about valuing me Aurelia Noel as an individual and as a consumer.

What do I mean by that?
Off-line will be what media to buy to reach 30-35 female, with incomes of £50-80K per annum, when On-line will be what are Aurelia Noel’s surfing patterns and on-line behavior I need to take into account to influence her purchases.
Marketing 2.0 is about, putting the consumer at the heart of your marketing strategy not the media.

Marketing 2.0 means putting yourself in question as a marketer, optimise on a daily basis, use multivariate testing and demographic targeting, always question your best practices to create new ones and adapt in the fast changing environment of the digital world.

Ultimately you can achieve better results without necessarily adding more budget. 

Do you twitter?

Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing.  This is a clever tool, a bit like messenger but you can access it wherever you are, online.

I came across it when doing some researchs on new web trends. Some may see it as the ultimate stalking tool but it has a lot to offer. Twitter is at its early stage but is already overtaking blog in the heart of the early adopter.

What are the benefits of twitter?
- One of the key feature I think is free remote access tool, offering a wide range of options (text messages, Google talk, email) so you can keep your community up to date with what is happening in your life (no matter how boring or great your life is).
- It DOES really take only 5mn to register and the registration process is not too invasive
- You can integrate your status on your website or your blog (you can tell I am not really good at this as my twitter status is not yet on this blog)
- Latest and by far coolest feature, you can update twitter from your mobile phone.
- Unlike the other kids on the block you have complete control and a computer is not necessary. You can also open your twitter status to selected people.

So far Twitter really is a cool widget to add to your web favorites tools. What will be the future? Not sure I have no crystal ball, but I can see it being used by savvy brands to increase customer loyalty and start creating VIP status.

Otherwise it will still be used by Internet geeks like me for fun

Finding your marks in mobile internet

There are 460 million mobile handsets in Europe and according to the experts 29% of Europeans use their mobiles for internet access (Comscore October 2006).

So with so many Europeans opening their browsers from their handsets, mobile Internet is going to be next Internet revolution.

In our “we want it all and we want it now” world, user will expect to find all their favorite sites on their handset. But the reality is far from having the whole internet in the palm of your hand.

Why? Because ordinary sites simply are not mobile friendly, technology evolves too fast and all handsets are different from one another, as a result getting a good customer experience across the board is next to impossible.

But as they say, where there is a will there is a way.

Mobile Internet is a great loyalty tool, if your customer find you on their PC they will expect to find you on their mobile browser. Plus it extend presence and create brand awareness. Ultimatly mobile network coverage being far better than broadband coverage, you can reach people wherever and whenever.

Start with the easiest, strip your site of all unecessary content, think simple and plan ahead. Do not think your mobile internet site, the way you do with your website.

Take Yahoo! One Search as an example, the portal is simple with an interface optimed for mobile screens. They chose the One Click strategy that is adapting well to mobile user need.

Please remember it does take time and efforts to crack the code but this is really worth it, Mobile Internet is a great way to engage with your customers and prospects, extend your presence and grow your revenue. 

Mobile internet is on the fast track, browsers are improving so is network speed. Being amongst the first to make a difference will definitly give companies and brands a competitive advantage.

My Love / Hate relationship with PPC Affiliates

Another one of these days where some affiliate is not only taking my display URL but is also calling himself an official site. I know this is early morning but I am NOT dreaming. Despite a good ppc agreement between myself and affiliates I still have a rogue one thinking he is above the law.

I love affiliate for what they are great business partners and this is why I always recommend to my clients not to trademark their terms or have strict policy in place. PPC affiliates are real allies especially if your product or brand is facing strong competition.

By having PPC affiliates, you can create a wallpaper effect on search engines and make it even harder for your competitors to highjack your brand. As Google and Yahoo! have quality scoring in place good affiliates will raise brand exposure through quality websites and of course increase your revenue by creating a non financially risky revenue stream.

So yes all smart advertisers need PPC affiliates, but my morning example is stressing the fact you also need to keep a good eye on them and take measures for them not to push your price up and ROI down.

For this reason I do not agree with affiliate experts asking for brands to let affiliates being in charge with the whole PPC strategy.

If there are 6 reasons to have an open keyword policy for affiliate there are also many reasons to keep some control over PPC either in house or via a search specialised agency.

1) Google is only allowing one ad per search for a given display URL, this ad should be yours and not your affiliates, you know your brand better than your affiliates and can control the overall customer experience. Plus as you will grow dependant on this given affiliate it will be difficult for you to get ownership back.

2) Let affiliate link directly to your site. I would say this is good but there are certain feature on website affiliate do not like like phone numbers. My advice will be more to create affiliate dedicated landing page and let affiliate link not to your site directly but to an affiliate friendly page.

3)  There are now so many agencies specialised in good PPC campaigns that you could get a better price and a flexibility an affiliate will not give you. You generally pay an agency a % of the budget spend and not of the revenue.

4) If your brand converts well the agency business model (budget + agency commission) can prove less expensive than CPA (affiliate commission on revenue, overid fee from network, network access fee and all other consultancy fee you may pay the network). ROI is now a KPI agencies understand well. Plus if you select your agency well, they will work with other brands in the same business as yours and be able to apply best practices on your account.

5) If you do not have anybody experienced in house, use an agency (Google certified), make sure you are involved at all stages so you can share the experience of your brand, products and market with the agency to increase performance.

6) Affiliates are your allies but work with them just like you do with your business parners, define rules everybody is happy with in YOUR best interest.

I will cite Craig Alinder ”Buy up domains with your brand in them and offer landing pages to affiliates that are mirrors of the site itself, but are on different domains.” Unfortunatly not many merchants are and believe me if you go this extra mile for your affiliates, they will give you the attention (and performance) a good relationship deserves.

   

Google Malware: the importance of brand reputation

According to a recent analysis made by Google on its search results, 10% of 4.5M pages audited got a “drive-by downloads” label, this means that 10% of searches you do on Google would install a spyware or malware on your machine. In the same audit, another 15% of pages could be considered as potentially malicious.

Adding up the results, 25% of Google search pages could be harmful. 

What does it mean for advertisers?
As people will get more and more aware of spys and spams issues, you need to differenciate yourself by building your reputation online. Internet marketing now goes beyond brand awareness and ROI.

There aren’t any simple ways to build your reputation but you can start with the following:
- Be Site Advisor friendly (for more info on site advisor click here ), software similar to site advisor can be found with Symantec or other software provider. I tested a few of them and liked Site Advisor as it is a non invasive and reliable tool.
- Continue to develop your understanding of what people thing about your brand and how the market sees your brand (through blog, reviews, forums…)
- Interact with your community, a bad comment or a bad review is not the end of the world, unless you are not doing anything about it.
- Optimise your social media reach by engaging with your comminity and detractors

For the time being, Google is taking the issue really seriously and is working on finding ways to solve the problem.

Well Done Trade Doubler!

Opodo and Trade Doubler signed an exclusive affiliate marketing deal, that will cover EMEA.

Opodo and Trade Doubler started working together in 2002, but Opodo is now ready to take affiliation to the next level and chose the network for its European reach and flawless account and affiliate management.

Well done to the TD team, well deserved