So after all the hoopla about Google removing the trademark protection from its Adwords system (of which I only got chance to write about once as I was too busy doing something about it at work!) what was the outcome?  The removal happened on Monday (bank holiday, coincidence? I think not) while most of us were enjoying the good weather or a badly played round of golf in my case.  You can be damn sure there were no affiliates out on the golf course as they were all in-doors getting on as many brand terms as possible to make the most of the changes.

The net affect from what I have seen is the obvious rise in brand ownerships CPCs (about 30-60p increase on average) which is a big deal if you are somebody who relies no their brand sales to bring down the overall cost of the medium.   Affiliates and clued up competitors are having a field day at the moment with not many people following Tesco’s moral stance of not bidding on competitors terms.  I personally think it will all begin to die down as people realise the inflated CPCs they are going to have to pay to bid on competitors terms due to their lack of quality score will see a lot of them decide it is not worth the bother.  But many companies are going to have to review their affiliate strategy and make sure they have clear guidelines on what is allowed and what isn’t otherwise they will end up paying out a small fortune to affiliates who are doing nothing more than brand bidding.

Is microsoft about to revive the rumours and constant wondering about Facebook buyouts?  After every billionaire tycoon and his dog were linked with buying the social media phenomenon it has all been quiet for a while.  Now apparently it has come out that Microsoft has put the feelers out about a purchase of the social network.  Full article from search engine watch below:

About Face(book): Microsoft Feels Out Social Network Acquisition

Though Bill Gates was out there telling people Microsoft is not interested in making non-Yahoo acquisitions right now (at least in the search/social world), word comes that Microsoft bankers have sent “feelers” to Facebook about a full acquisition.

Here’s why this is a solid move:

1. Microsoft already owns 1.6% stake in Facebook, worth $240 million
2. Microsoft formed a data portability partnership with Facebook and 4 other networks
3. At least two Google execs have jumped ship to Facebook in recent months

While Facebook has yet to “overtake” MySpace in the social media market, it is a viable competitor. And I’m sure Ballmer would love for Microsoft to own a social network that even Apple has used as a marketing ploy as of late. Recent commercials for the iPhone entice potential customers through the ability to access Facebook on the popular mobile device.

Additionally, internet users are turning to their social networks during their search process. Consumers want answers and reviews and social networks help them get opinions from trusted sources.

The Facebook move would likely be seen by many as a better fit than Yahoo. But expect just as many to see it as a negotiating ploy in their bid for Yahoo. Though Microsoft has officially withdrawn its bid for Yahoo, many analysts expect Ballmer and the team to return to the table for another stab at a grab for the search engine.

Slightly old news as it was announced 14 days ago but Ive been a little busy so am finally getting round to posting about it.

Yahoo! has purchased web analytics software solution Indextools for an undisclosed fee.  The tool which one commentator described as”one of the best kept secrets in the industry” has been bought as a direct response to Google Analytics, this is easily shown by the fact that the first thing Yahoo! have done, is make it free! (remind you of any other analytics package?).  Yahoo! has had its own tracking solution for a while but lets face it, it was pretty rubbish.  So this purchase and the immediate action of making it free of charge puts Yahoo! firmly in competition with Google in the combined search, analytics market it in my eyes, gives them an advantage.  I have used Indextools for a number of years and can honestly say it is 100x the package that Google analytics is.  This is a full on, analytics, campaign management, usability, all singing, all dancing tool, which when used correctly can do some pretty impressive things.  Realistically most people wont use all the best bits of Indextools but the savvy internet marketeer could actually get for free with Indextools, what would have cost them £500-£1000 a month in the past, bargain!

I am intrigued as to what Yahoo!’s plans are for Indextools as if they are to continue to offer it for free then are they going to remove some functionality to strip down the software functionality?  I hope not but it probably makes more business sense.  Maybe then offer the additional functionality at a cost, but does that go against what Yahoo! are trying to achieve?

In order to qualify for the package at no cost existing customers are required to sign a new Yahoo! agreement.  I haven’t seen this agreement yet but it will be an interesting read (if such documents can actually be interesting!) as one of the concerns around using Google analytics, and now Yahoo! owned Indextools is the data you are passing to the search engines about your campaigns.  Who owns this information and how can it be used is key in determining whether by selling out to Yahoo! Indextools is likely to lose all its clients.  It may seem a little big brotheresq but would you really want Yahoo! knowing the details of all your online activity?  not just search (and therefore Google) but also you display, affiliate and email campaigns?  because that is what Indextools is best at, compiling data into a logical dashboard enabling you to see all your data in one place.  If Yahoo! is then going to use this data to make competitive decisions then nobody is likely to want to use Indextools anymore.  I suppose we will just have to wait to see the contents of this agreement and its approach to data usage, but I just hope by buying one of the best, most usable tools on the market, Yahoo! hasn’t inadvertently killed it.

It seems like Yahoo! may have finally given up trying to beat Google with the announcement that they are running a two week trial displaying Google AdSense listings alongside their search results in the US (more detail).  The initial trial will include the results displaying on no more than 3% of search queries submitted and will only be seen by Yahoo! US users.  Yahoo! claim the move is is part of an “exploration of strategic alternatives to maximise stockholder value”, i.e. make them more money.  Microsoft have already expressed their own concerns that should a future deal be struck this would take Google past the 90% market share mark and raise further competition concerns.

It concerns me what a future deal could mean for the search market as the it effectively means a consolidation of the market as opposed to the fragmentation we had seen coming over the past 2 years.  This simplifies the process and doesn’t necessarily bode too well for search marketing agencies.  From Yahoo’s perspective it may come down to purely monetary figures.  If they have decided that they are not going to get very far with challenging Google in the paid search market then displaying AdSense results would allow them to significantly reduce their staffing levels and technology costs.  Although it wont be nice for those people that end up getting the boot, the boardroom wont be concerned if the figures stack up.

It does make you wonder what sort of deal has been brokered for the trial and the possibilities beyond though.  A typical AdSense partner might be earning 40% of the click revenue generated but Yahoo! aren’t you standard partner! Could Google be willing to let Yahoo! keep all of the revenue for the sake of market share?

So Google have finally done it.  Sacrificed their morals on trademark protection in the name of more revenue by opening up all brand terms, whether registered trademarks or not, to anybody who chooses to bid on them.  This has been their system in the US and Canada for a while now and their arguement is that it provides a better user experience by offering the searcher companies which provide the same product or service as the one whose trademark they have searched for.  The changes will come into play on May 5th and from this point any advertiser will be free to bid for any brand terms they choose.  Fittingly this is a bank holiday in the UK and so the mayhem which will undoubtedly unfold will do so when the majority of industry representatives are away from work!  If you remember what happened when Google made changes to their minimum bid system (and it all went t*ts up!) it makes you wonder whether this date has been set intentionally by the big G.

So cue brands bidding on other brands, hiking the prices out of spite and affiliates of a field day.  But will this be the case?  No doubt initially companies will begin to bid on their competitors terms thus raising the price the brand owner has to pay.  But how will the quality score deal with this? Well you would like to think the competition will have to pay hefty minimum CPCs to even list in the first place given that their websites will have no relevancy at all to the keyword.  But will the big boys care about this?  They will probably be more concerned with stealing their competitors traffic and be willing to pay the price. 

Theoretically they wont be able to include the trademarked term in their creative but that doesn’t account for DKI which, no matter what Google suggest, isn’t going to change any time soon to combat this.  Therefore a clever search engine marketeer will get round this quite easily.

What do I think will happen?  Brand CPC’s increase, affiliates have a field day, the overall cost of PPC increases, and then when it all dies down it is back to business as usual and people forget the day brand protection was in place.  The trick is for companies to have a plan of action for May 5th, to know how they are going to deal with their affiliates, to develop and stance on competitors terms and closely monitor the first couple of weeks after this change comes into place.  Then to reassess and get on with the business of generating leads from paid search, after all we are all at the mercy of Google anyway, so why bother trying to fight it!

In a recent report into “Online Solutions” aimed at imparting advice on how to develop an effective web presence American Express have advised companies not to “waste money” on search engin optimisation specialists.  Apparently suggetsing that this is a sure fire way to get your site banned from the listings.  This is a very strong statement and one which Im sure please their incumbent SEO agency, Greenlight!  Imagine being the agency for a company who makes a statement like that! Cant fill you with much confidence for your next contract renewal.  I wonder whether the phrase “expensive” and the warning about being penalised refer directly to Greenlight’s work or whether this is jus a coincidence!?!

The full article is here and I have copied the offending paragraph below:

—  optimize your search engines

Search engines, like Yahoo! and Google, are usually the first place people will look for you. Make it easier for them to find you. Yahoo! and Google offer tools to let them know the site map structure of your Web site. Also, using clean U.R.L.s such as yourdomain.com/store/widgets instead of yourdomain.com/store.php?id=42&categoryID=widgets will increase your chances of getting indexed in a search engine. Finally, don’t waste money on so-called Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.) specialists. Search engines are very quick to penalize sites that try to trick their filtering techniques, and once your site has been put on Google’s blacklist, it will take forever to get off.

I spotted something on Google today which I hadn’t seen before and is a new development in universal search.  On a search for “times” I was presented with the standard search results you get for a brand term but then in addition to this there was a search box contained with the results! On entering a search phrase into this box I was presented with the site search results but still with the Google SERP.  This functionality is well known and nothing new but the inclusion of the search box in the results is not something I have seen before. 

It is obviously just another element of Universal Search in action but is alos a good tool for Google to make their results as accurate as possible and keep people within their pages.  By allowing them to search within Google for keywords contained within a site you are not only enhancing the user experience but promoting loyalty and boosting query numbers at the same time, win all round.  On top of this they are also able to produce additional Adwords results on the secondary search and potentially boosting revenues as well.

 

Google this week announced the launch of a free adserving solution which is to be known as Google Ad Manager.  According to the release notes this will be a free service allowing the serving of ads across the Google network but also on third party sites.   This is an interesting development from Google and Im sure the fact the announcement was made a couple of days after the Double Click purchase was approved is no coincidence as the platform will undoubtedly harness some of the Double Click technology and.  But what does this mean to other adserving providers in the market?  Are they about to see customers leaving in their hoards to move towards this free platform? I doubt it.  If we take Google Analytics as a case in point then we can see what is more likely to be the result.   Google Analytics provides a stripped down version of many of the bigger tracking solutions which is great for smaller advertisers/website owners who want to know what an idea for what results are coming from their online activity without the complexity and in depth analysis capabilities of a full analytics package.  Many small to medium size companies use it because it is free and serves their needs.  I am expecting the same will be the case with Ad Manager.  I can’t see it holding all the sophisticated functionality of the top ad serving solutions but how many smaller advertisers actually fully utilise the capabilities of adserving? Not many I would argue.  Functionality such as retargeting, ad optimisation, message testing, are available within all the big suppliers, but are rarely used due to the necessary investment of time and resource.  So a stripped down version will appeal to these advertisers as it provides what they need for no cost.  For the advertiser/agency which fully utilises the functionality of their adserving tool, AdManager will not have the same appeal and so these people will stick with their current solution and be happy to pay a price for the increased functionality. Another reason people may stay away is the potential IP you are giving away to Google.  If you run and Adwords account, use Google Analytics, have a Google Site Map, a Google Product Feed, and then and Ad Manager solution, you are essentially telling Google everything you do to promote your website online.  Is this the sort of information you want to hand over about your company?  Another question to ask is how long is it going to be free for?  Google Analytics is going to be a chargeable service from next year and the same could be planned for Ad Manager.  It will be interesting to see how many people stick with Analytics when it is no longer free. So is Ad Manager going to change the face of adserving? I doubt it.  In fact the more interesting proposition is the suggestion by Google that it plans to make DoubleClick free in the future, but that’s a post for another day!

I read an article in last weeks revolution which made me laugh out loud.  I have known for a while that some of the more traditional media types are way behind in the digital channel and many of the larger media buyers get by on their buying power and ability to schmooze a client about the brand exposure of their digital activity.  This article however took the biscuit with its naivety about measures of performance in the digital channel.  The basis of what the author was saying was that clicks aren’t an accurate measure of online activities performance.  YOU DONT SAY!

Isn’t the biggest benefit of digital communications is measurability and accountability?  The ability to track PAST the point of impression, and all the way through to conversion (whatever the desired outcome may be).  With this is mind it shocks me that people would still be using the click as a measure of performance.  Obviously in certain instances the objective is to promote awareness and so the fact that the add got clicked on is an indication people are paying it some attention and are showing an interest in what you have to say, but these instances are few and far between.  The measure of performance should be based on the desired outcome of the campaign, whether that be sale, quote, enquiry, application, this is dependant on the industry in question.  It is archaic to still be using clicks as a measure for performance as the article rightly points out these can be out for all sorts of reasons.  Please guys, wise up and become accountable for your work.  Stop playing the vanity game with branding and clicks and begin playing the real game of driving acquisition and accountability for your clients!