24/7 Real Media suspended by IASH for ad misplacement

admin — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:34:43 +0000

WPP owned 24/7 Real Media has been suspended by the IASH for failing to comply with an a audit of ad placement in July. This news follows hot in the footsteps of recent evidence of ad misplacement by networks, the most high profile advertiser being Orange.

Ad misplacement is a key issue when considering the use of blind networks as part of a display advertising programme. Although these networks offer certain “guarantees” with their placements and you can select to appear on certain channels, by the very nature of the channel, you can never be 100% sure that misplacement isn’t occurring. You have to rely on the regulatory bodies like the IASH conducting regular audits and clamping down hard on any offenders, which thankfully they appear to be starting to do.

The temptation is always there, due to the rock bottom CPMs, to utilise a network within your media plan but cost is not always the best way to plan display advertising. After all, the primary aim of any display campaign should be to build brand awareness within your target customer base. Blind media buys achieve neither of these objectives as you open yourself up to the risk of negative brand association with unsuitable sites, and you don’t know who is seeing your ads.

Blind networks are becoming a thing of the past as companies expect more from their online advertising and this can only strengthen the position of intelligent media planning agencies. My advice is to avoid them when planning other than in extreme circumstances. Get you lower cost impressions and clicks from paid search and focus your display advertising on reaching the right people at the right time with the right message.

Yahoo changes keyword mappings

admin — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:29:01 +0000

Yahoo sent out an email last week to its partners announcing some changes to the way it will be mapping keywords from July 29th. In the past Yahoo has mapped certain keywords to others within its paid search listings much in the same way as Google broad match works. As a former pay per click campaign manager this often caused me head aches as their mapping, which was supposedly done to improve the quality of their search results, seemed to penalise the professionals willing to spend the time building high quality keyword lists. Funnily enough, it also had the affect of reducing the keywords available in their market by mapping low cost keywords to higher cost ones, hence making them more money. Strange that isn’t it.

The other issue with their system was that they just weren’t very good at accurately mapping keywords together. One specific example I vividly remember is when they decided to map all the listings from the keyword “home loan” to the keyword “mortgage”On the face of it these may sound like pretty similar words, but in the finance market a home loan is another way of describing a loan secured against you existing property, not a mortgage to buy a property. What this meant for advertisers (I was working on secured loans campaigns at the time) was that overnight, you started to receive a large amount of costly, irrelevant clicks and aso ended up displayed irrelevant ad text. There was no warning with these changes and at the time went they were gong through this mapping process it was a case of keeping a very close eye on keyword level spending to understand when a change may have been made.

It seems that no Yahoo has seen the error of its ways and is unmapping an initial list of 772 keywords, although they havent disclosed how many this leaves still mapped. This is good news for professional PPC managers as it makes the job more complex which brings more need for their services. It is easy for an advertiser to manage a keyword list of maybe 100 keywords but if this keyword list becomes 1000 or even 10000, with targeted ad text needed for all, it becomes a lot harder.

A fill list of the keywords to be unmapped can be found here

Is Affiliate Marketing Set to Benefit from the Credit Crunch?

admin — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:40:10 +0000

Over the coming months it is safe to assume many advertisers will be tightening their belts and reducing or even halting their media spend. When times are hard it is often the marketing budgets which are the first to go, with companies focussing on maintaining, rather than growing their operations.

However, when affiliate marketing is done correctly, it should be guaranteed return on investment, with zero risk to the merchant company. So if you were a marketer, looking for the best place to spend your budget in a time of uncertainty and increasing pressure to perform, where would you turn?

The volume of business is never going to be on the same scale as other media channels but when you are just looking to cut costs and keep a business ticking over that isn’t necessarily going to be your biggest concern. So maybe affiliate marketing is going to see a bumper period as the recession continues. It is certainly a good time to be pushing the “no risk” message that only really affiliate marketing can truly tout. Before jumping in feet first however you must ensure you have a sound affiliate strategy and the correct quality assurance system in place to ensure you avoid some of the common pitfalls associated with affiliate marketing.

Google Launches Media Planning Software

admin — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:14:37 +0000

Google has this week launched into closed beta testing its new media planning and buying tool, to be know as Google Adplanner. The web based software enables media planners and buyers to build schedule’s for their clients using Google’s placement network. The functionality looks pretty neat with the ability to filter the sites based on demographic and geographic factors and the ability to see all the volume information currently available through the adwords interface. In itself the adplanner tool is only useful for the placement network and so has limited use to the every day media planner. But you have to assume that somewhere along the line this functionality will be rolled out across non google sites, and if incorporated with double click adserving technology, will transform Google into an adserving and media planning provider. One to look out for as Google tries to strengthen its grip on non search related markets.

Google Launches lively.com

admin — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:52:00 +0000

Google’s long awaited entry into the virtual world has taken place in the last week with the launch of their competitor to Second Life, lively.com. According to the Google blog the initial idea came as they “looked around the social web and wished that it could be less static”. I’m not quite buying that seen as Second Life has been around for a while now but that
doesn’t mean it isn’t an interesting entrant. Much like in Second Life you create an avatar for yourself although in Lively.com this is in more of a cartoon vein and in more of a Sims fashion. You can also create your own rooms within the world and customise their look and decoration. You can then hang out with your friends in the rooms you create, which brings in the social element. The interesting part comes with how and where you engage with lively.com. The system enables you to embed your room into your blog or website, and interact with it directly without the need to visit lively.com. Whether this is enough of a selling point I am not sure but lively.com will certainly appeal to the youth market more than Second Life and lets face it, the younger generation are much more likely to spend ours chatting to friends online, even more so if they create a cool avatar for themselves in the process. I was never a big fan of Sims, and never really got into Second Life, so I don’t think Ill be rushing along to set my account up. But if the Alexa rankings below are anything to go by lively.com could create a bit of a stir in the world of social media.

Display Advertising Networks under Investigation for Ad Misplacement

admin — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:16:28 +0000

An investigation has been launched by the IAB and the IASH into the misplacement of display ads within the ad exchange community. The investigation comes after the Yahoo! owned exchange Right Media was implicated for ad misplacement and NMA spotted ads for brands such as T-Mobile and easyCar on the explosivefightvideos.com and also large blue-chip companies such as ING direct and Orange advertising alongside pornographic content.

Right Media have responded by saying, “When content is inadvertently miscategorised by a member of the exchange, we help our members communicate to correct the situation. We have rigorous standards and guidelines for our members.” But critics are calling for all display advertising exchanges to become IASH compliant to ensure ad misplacement does not occur.

This instance and the examples listed clearly show the dangers of using ad exchanges and blind networks as part of your media plan. Although the promise of cheap impressions and large volumes can be tempting, the reality can often be misplaced adverts and ads appearing in inappropriate locations. If you are going to use these channels, then make sure they are controlled and regulated and don’t be tempted by the cheapest, run of site options, at least make it channel specific so you can have some idea of where you are going to be appearing.

Instant Messenger Users Drop

admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:18:25 +0000

I have previously blogged about the increasing use of socia l media impacting the number of users accessin g webmail accounts and now it appears the same is happening with instant messaging services. The number of minutes spent on instant messaging services has dropped by 1 billion minutes in the past year! A billion! bringing the total time spent to 2.9 billion, that over a 25% drop in usage.

The drop is being blamed on the emergence of social networks as communication tools. With Facebook now offering instant messaging and also the multitude of ways you can use to keep in touch through social network, messaging services are apparently becoming unnecessary. As with anything else it is unlikely to be “the end” for these services but it has certainly had an impact. I use messenger for work purposes and Facebook is obviously never going to take the place of that, and you could argue that Facebook is only a rival to messaging to the people who are constantly online, and wont apply to people who only check their account once a week. Either way, 1 billion minutes is a lot to lose.

Wii Fit YouTube video - Real or not?

admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:03:48 +0000

Was it a plant? Wasn’t it a plant? The guy who posted the video on Youtube and Nintendo claim that there is no link between them and this is not an attempt at social/viral media which has gone wrong. In reality the arguement is unimportant as Nintendo will have benefited massively from the exposure Wii fit has gained through this story so whether it originated from them or not doesn’t actually matter, it is still a huge success. Im not sure whether the viewers on Youtube are marvelling at the technology behind Wii fit but they are showing an interest in something!

Some of the articles relating to this story:

Wii Fit Underwear Girl a Marketing Hoax
Wii Fit YouTube clip gets two million admirers
Wii Fit turns YouTube sensation

And here is the link to the video, I would have embedded it but for some reason it is messing up the page layout!

Wii Fit YouTube Video

Google Enters the Comparison Market

admin — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:56:37 +0000

The finance comparison market has been a very lucrative and successful one over the past 5 years and it seems that Google has finally decided that it wants a piece of the pie! The screenshot below is taken from a Google UK search for secured loan (interestingly it only worked in IE and not in Firefox) and shows the Google Merchant Search function appearing above all PPC listings with drop down functionality allowing the user to select their desired loan amount before they even leave the SERP. Once an option is selected the user is taken to the Google Merchant page with their options shown based on the original selection, much like with all the other comparison sites in the market.

At the moment it appears this is just in Beta on the secured loan keyword but surely if successful this will be rolled out onto all other financial products. I couldn’t see where Google was getting these results from, and so I am not even sure if the providers know they are being compared (although I assume they are aware) and there is not indication of how a company would get its products listed, although this could just be a closed beta for now.

This could have massive implications for the comparison market, above and beyond the fact that there is another competitor in the market. In the first instance they have knocked moneysupermarket off the top PPC listing which will impact their volume, I am assuming they are not paying themselves a premium CPC for this position! They are also allowing themselves much more prominence on the page than a standard listing. 49 characters for a title and drop down functionality make it stand out on the page. Users could also see this as an easier option than clicking through a link and going through the whole process on a separate engine.

On top of this, if the beta is successful, what is to stop them adding in a variable to quality score which penalises other comparison sites? In one fell swoop generating themselves both more revenue from the sites willing to pay more and reducing the prominence of these sites and so driving more volume through their own tool. I may be a cynic but I can see it happening. Moneysupermarket spend a lot of money with Google but if they see a bigger opportunity in doing it themselves then they will surely pursue this avenue instead.

Is this the end of independent comparison sites? No, I doubt it, but if/when the beta is expanded it could be a big dent in their revenues and they will have to think of other ways to differentiate themselves. Some insurers (direct line to name one) are already boycotting the comparison sites and if Google is to offer this service for free, which they may well do in the name of stickiness and keeping people within the Google realm, more could follow suit.

Becks Searching for Fulltime Blogger

admin — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:51:37 +0000

In a bold move into the world of social media and UGC Becks has announced that it is searching for a fulltime blogger to become PAYE and work just for them. This is an interesting move by the beer brand and they have obviously given it some thought, at least I hope they have. Id be interested to see what they think somebody is going to blog about all day long in the beer/alcohol industry, The content produced will obviously benefit their site and hopefully keep people coming back but is this just a case of another company deciding they need to “do” social media, without fully considering what that means to them? Who knows. Im not sure I will be applying but it will be interesting to see the outcome of the project and whether it has any significant benefit to them as a company.

http://www.mad.co.uk/Main/News/Articles/7b004cd4e19e4330adeab76402946f2d/Beer-brand-Beck’s-hunts-for-full-time-blogger.html