All users of retailers are familiar with the Amazon recommendations on books, but personalisation and recommendations services aren’t only relevant to retailers. This interview shows that recommendations engines are also increasingly used online by publishers and bloggers. Publishers are using these tools to increase engagement with their site while also increasing revenue through serving paid links to relevant sites.
I was interested to hear of this tool since it’s not only relevant to publishers, but also provides a way for marketers to increase reach and engage an audience through the type of content consumed based on a cost-per-click (CPC) model. Think of it as working similar to the Google content network. Here's an example, from the footer of Techradar which uses this service.
In the interview that follows I ask about the marketing benefits, users…
A real-world example of what works for LinkedIn Advertising
What did we do?
I recently launched a B2B social media campaign on LinkedIn and since I noticed there were relatively few live examples, I thought I would share what we found worked or not to help others who are wondering “is it worth it?” and “how do i do it?”.
The background to the campaign was that we had launched a new service for recruitment professionals and we wanted to build brand awareness to associate ourselves with the service and get signups to the service. You will have noticed I can’t be too specific about the service for confidentiality reasons, but I can be more open about how we optimised the ads which I’ll share at the end of the post.
How did we do it?
We were featuring four different products on our website. These were built as Landing Pages with…
The third report from the Pivot Conference and Brian Solis
Pivot have surveyed 230 brand managers and marketing professionals, this is their third report from that research. The report of course is helping promote something, an event that is pitched as providing tactical methods to effectively market to the evolving social consumer.
So, what's social advertising exactly?
It's good to ask the obvious question. Well it's most often Twitter’s Promoted Products suite, Facebook's contextual advertising, friend-based banners and “Sponsored Stories” program, and YouTube’s Promoted Videos, for example. You also have paid or branded Tweets/blogs, social media optimisation, Tweet/Like to win, paid placements, contests, viral videos and social ambassador programmes - though PR companies and social media agencies will claim that's their space.
(more…)…
Q. How effective is Facebook advertising?
I was recently asked this question by a student putting together a budget model for an online marketing campaign. I pointed them in the direction of this post on online ad clickthrough rates, but they specifically asked about Facebook, so this post is to answer the question and help others.
The best public source on Facebook advertising effectiveness I’m aware of, is the analysis of 2.2 million clicks from 4.5 billion impressions that Webtrends track as part of their analytics system which I’ll summarise here.
Well, the overall number of clicks compared to impressions above give their own story - response rates are low - around than 1 in 2000 page views results in an ad clicks. No surprise since banner clickthrough rates are low and we’re mostly online to socialise.
…
Including mobile advertising popularity
A short update looking at the variation of online advertising in Europe which I hope will be interesting for marketers working across different markets.
These chars are taken from a new report from IAB Europe on European online advertising.
Online advertising variation
This chart shows significant variation in the popularity of display advertising across Europe:
Mobile advertising popularity
This is the main reason I thought it would be worth sharing this new research - it's the first compilation I've seen of mobile advertising popularity. Despite the hype about mobile Internet usage overtaking desktop usage , mobile is still a small proportion of overall ad spend overall.
It's around 2-5% in most countries, but > 10% in Finland which perhaps gives an indication of future trends.…
What is Google Adwords Remarketing?
Remarketing within Google is a specific use of the wider Google Display (formerly content) network (learn more about the content network). When remarketing is set up & configured it allows you to target people that visited your website with adverts on other website which have opted into displaying adverts from the Display Network. Check out this video from Google which outlines just how remarketing works...
Some further reading can be found here if you are interested : Google Remarketing
Is it worth the time & effort?
The answer is yes but as with everything in life it comes with a few 'but's"... It has to be configured correctly, what I mean by this is:
You HAVE to define & segment your…
Key Internet advertising options for 2011
In a recent post, I asked readers of SmartInsights to give their views on Internet advertising. Although some who completed the survey were in favour of online advertising and use it regularly, the majority have either not used it or or tried it once and not used it again since it's less effective than other techniques.
This follow-up post is to show that there are an increasing number of options to use Internet advertising. These have the option that you can reach your audience outside of the search engines. This has the clear advantages that:
A finite number of searches occur for each keyphrase each month
The cost per click in many categories often makes Adwords expensive
People won't search if their unaware of a product type or category
Your ads outside the search engine can help increase searches for your brand term or increase conversion due to…
Time to think again about display advertising?
I think it's fair to say that many don"€™t think of display advertising as the most powerful online communications technique. It consistently fairs poorly when marketers are asked to select their preferred tools and is known for low ad CTR rates. For example, see this Econsultancy research below on the most popular traffic-building techniques.
We were interested to hear your views on display advertising, this is what you replied - thanks to anyone who took a look!
Note on completing poll: In this poll display ads are any graphical, rich media or video ads excluding Google Adwords text ads or similar. Display ads may be placed through direct media buys, ad networks or through the Google Display (content) Network.
2010 preferences for different online marketing
[caption id="attachment_3793" align="alignnone" width="661" caption="Source: Variation in different digital marketing…
A simple introduction to display advertising optimization through Google
Value: [rating=4]
Our commentary: Since the acquisition of DoubleClick Google has worked at integrating it with its other services such as Google Analytics etc.
A more recent integration is into Google's Website Optimizer which allows you to run A/B split tests and easily report on the results.
Following a similar theme, this tool from Google allows you to effectively manage your display advertising on the Google Display Network based on goals you dictate which means it can include on site activity such as sales or sign ups. Checkout the video below for more information about the concept and announcement.
Recommended link: Annoucement of Display Campaign Optimiser…
I find many articles are cynical about the value of RSS feeds for marketing their own services or for advertising in third party sites. But what about those in the know - the Feed marketing specialists?
In this interview I talk to Bill Flitter, CEO of Pheedo who pioneered RSS advertising back in 2003. Today, Pheedo are a major provider of in-feed RSS advertising services for publishers like Wired and Ziff Davis and are used by clients such as Cisco, Ford and Microsoft. As well as explaining why feeds are important and the feed advertising options, in this article, Bill has some great advice on using feeds for marketing too.
How does advertising in Feeds work
1. Let"€™s start with the basics. How does advertising in RSS feeds work for the…
