Marketing in Europe? Display Works
comScore released a new study today examining the effects of display advertising in the European market—and it’s pretty dang impressive. The study (well, actually, report based on more than 20 studies) indicates that, despite minimal clicks on the ads themselves, “those exposed to online ad campaigns in Europe were 72 percent more likely to visit the advertiser’s website and 94 percent more likely to conduct a trademark search query on the advertiser’s brand, compared to a control group of similar Internet users who were not exposed to the campaigns.”
These figures are pretty staggering—especially when compared to US figures, which comScore reports as “an average lift of 49 percent in site visitation and 40 percent in trademark search queries across hundreds of ad effectiveness studies.” The European lift effects were most significant during the first week after exposure, but didn’t drop off dramatically.
comScore Director of Marketing Solutions Mike Shaw said in the press release,
These results help illustrate how online advertising works. Despite the long-held obsession with using clicks to measure campaign performance – which reflect only the immediate impact of an ad — the comScore studies demonstrate that the Internet is clearly effective as a latent brand-building medium. Europeans appear to be particularly receptive to online advertising, and whether it’s due to better creative, less ad clutter, or greater receptivity to online ads, the implication for brand advertisers is clear: ignore online as a brand-building channel at your own peril.
And I guess it also shows that it pays to know before you go . . . ad shopping.
What do you think? Why might Europeans be so influenced by display ads?
Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community
New MSN Homepage Goes Live…Really!
Unlike last time, there’ll be no snafu about whether the time is right to reveal the new MSN Homepage–it’s now officially live for all.
New features include:
- TrendWatch – Highlights the day’s top trends and movers on Twitter
- Hyper-local Tweets – Uses the power of Bing to highlight tweets from your location, available on the new Local Edition
- My Cities – Personalize MSN Local Edition and save up to 3 cities to follow – making it easy to keep up with your friends or family across the entire country
You should already see the new design at MSN.com or you can head here: http://www.msn.com/preview.aspx
Thoughts?
Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community
Facebook Increases Local Ad Targeting Capabilities and SMB’s Rejoice
With all the talk this week about Facebook valuations and the money that they are making (OK so it’s a guesstimate but what the heck……it’s the Internet!) it makes one think about just how Facebook plans to continue to grow top line revenue. One way was revealed as the ability to target Facebook ads locally increased considerably. Inside Facebook explains further
In its latest move to expand its performance advertising program, Facebook is offering what it tells us is “thousands” of new cities in its self-serve advertising tool, meaning advertisers can more narrowly target users across the United States and around the world. From social game developers to the various large and small businesses already using the service, the information could help them boost their returns on investment.
Well, it sure looks like local is the new black. It makes sense but the degree to which local online advertising seems to be expanding is still surprising. It’s not like the concept is new but the varied ways to reach the local consumer have emerged, developed and grown so rapidly that the sector is poised to really kick into gear.
For the SMB’s of the world there is now a better source to reach very segmented groups who are only in their backyard. Oh and it’s cheaper than other options. For now.
What is your experience with running local ads on Facebook? While traffic may be a good thing has the traffic converted?
Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community
Yahoo CEO Asks, “Facebook, what’s their revenue?”–Er, About $1 Billion Carol
Yahoo celebrated its 15 year anniversary yesterday and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz decided that it would be the perfect time to take a swipe Facebook.
When asked why Yahoo wasn’t as hot as Facebook, she replied: "Facebook? What’s their revenue?"
Oh no she didn’t!
Well, as if on cue, Inside Facebook comes up with some compelling calculations that suggest Facebook will hit $1.1 billion 2010.
First, their calculations for 2009–keep in mind these are simply guestimates.
Then, estimating revenues for ads, partnerships, virtual goods, and such, they come up with their 2010 prediction:
A wide variety of sources we spoke to expect Facebook to pass $1 billion in revenue this year, possibly reaching $1.1 billion. This is significant growth, but likely still the start of the hockey stick.
And boy, it is some hockey stick!
The company will, in our view, gradually chip away at brand advertising spending on other big web sites, including Yahoo and MySpace. The optimistic case for Facebook, in terms of its brand advertising revenue, is that will get most of this advertising and bring in up to $20 billion per year, eventually.
$20 billion a year in revenue? That’s a big number, maybe one that will even get Bartz’s attention. 
Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!
Apple Takes HTC to Court, At Least That’s What the Documents Say
The battle between Google and Apple is heating up and how it shakes out is likely to influence how a lot of online business is done both now and in the future. You know things are serious when one of the partners, in this case Google’s partner HTC, gets hauled into court by Apple for alleged patent infringement and Google, who is not even named in the suit, comes to support HTC.
TechCrunch provides some intel
As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, Apple has filed a lawsuit against device-maker HTC over 20 patents they control. As you might imagine, Google has something to say about it too.
“We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it,” a Google spokesperson emailed us.
A little odd that Google would proactively send us a statement for something they’re not technically involved in. But, as we’re all well aware, this suit is much more about Google’s Android operating system than HTC. And it seems that Google is well aware of that too.
The territorial lines being drawn and the results in the marketplace are going to be significant because these battles are only going to intensify. As they get worse they will affect how these companies run and eventually how regular people can do business through them. As a result, these things, which seem like a “That’s their problem” scenario are really everyone’s potential problem.
What do you think about the Google v. Apple stance that is being more and more solidified on a daily basis? How will it impact your ability to do business? Will it even matter? Are you taking sides?
Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community
News in the Age of Participation
We all know that news is changing. How we get news, where we get news, how we react to news, what we do with news when we get it and on and on. It’s one of those factors that are known to all but hard to quantify as to the true impact of our news habit both for now and into the future.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project has published a report that takes a look at this rapidly changing area of our lives and the impact it has. As we always do here at Marketing Pilgrim we always want to see the marketing side of issues and this particular paradigm shift is making marketers move like never before.
So what is it about Americans and the news? Pew sums up the gist of this subject with
In the digital era, news has become omnipresent. Americans access it in multiple formats on multiple platforms on myriad devices. The days of loyalty to a particular news organization on a particular piece of technology in a particular form are gone. The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, including national TV, local TV, the internet, local newspapers, radio, and national newspapers. Some 46% of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. Just 7% get their news from a single media platform on a typical day.
We know the plight of newspapers but this phenomenon is much bigger than that. While everyone in the online space cries victory over traditional media the fight ahead for the online news gatherer, participator and disseminator will be intense and difficult. Becoming one of the several sources used by someone online will not be easy and not all will survive by just “being there”.
Here are a few pieces of data to consider about news:
Portable : 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
Personalized : 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
Participatory : 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.
What kind of news would people like to see more of online?
44% said scientific news and discoveries
41% said religion and spirituality
39% said health and medicine
39% said their state government
38% said their neighborhood or local community.
News now is a social thing as well. We get first hand reports from disasters when possible and these bits of information are spread rapidly through the Internet. The truth is most peple want something to talk about
Getting news is often an important social act. Some 72% of American news consumers say they follow the news because they enjoy talking with others about what is happening in the world and 69% say keeping up with the news is a social or civic obligation. And 50% of American news consumers say they rely to some degree on people around them to tell them the news they need to know. Online, the social experience is widespread:
75% of online news consumers say they get news forwarded through email or posts on social networking sites and 52% say they share links to news with others via those means.
51% of social networking site (e.g. Facebook) users who are also online news consumers say that on a typical day they get news items from people they follow. Another 23% of this cohort follow news organizations or individual journalists on social networking sites.
So as marketers how so you corral this dissemination of the news? How do you make sure your message is getting in front of the right people at the right time? Will there come a time where there may be too much choice? For marketers that may be true because this moving target of where people get their information is not going to be easy to track or contain.
We as marketers welcome greater segmentation in theory but when it comes to actually seeing which segments are where in an ever expanding group of content deliverers one has to wonder if marketers should have been careful what they were asking for.
Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community
China Says Google as Vital as Electricity…This Just In, Google Becomes Electric Utility
Not since chocolate and peanut butter have two things ever meant to go together as much as these two stories.
First, we have researchers in China opining that they can’t conduct their research without Google:
“Research without Google would be like life without electricity,” says Xiong Zhenqin, an ecologist at Nanjing Agricultural University in Jiangsu province.
In fact a study reveals…
More than 80% use the search engine to find academic papers; close to 60% use it to get information about scientific discoveries or other scientists’ research programmes; and one-third use it to find science-policy and funding news…84% of the scientists who responded to Nature’s survey say that losing Google would “somewhat or significantly” hamper their research
Maybe these scientists shouldn’t teach their students how to hack into US networks then, should they? 
OK, story number two ties into this magically.
Google finally won approval…to be an electric utility…With their new approval to be a utility, Google could be a smart grid / smart charge service provider.
If I had a late night news show on the Comedy Channel, I’d so enjoy discussing the epic timing of these two stories! 
Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!
You Don’t Have to be Gullible to Work at the BBC, but it Helps!
The UK’s Guardian newspaper demonstrates that intelligence goes out the window, once someone gets drawn in to Twitter.
Apparently banks, politicians, and even journalists are falling for the "this you??" phishing scam. One unfortunate BBC correspondent is apparently blissfully unaware that he is a victim, as you can still find this tweet on his Twitter stream:
And you thought the Brits weren’t great lovers! 
Anyway, so you don’t fall for the same scam, this video explains what to be on the look out for…
Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community
50 Million Tweets Per Day? We’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat!
It appears Twitter is finally had enough of third-party analytics companies getting all of the publicity over tweet counts–so it’s spilling the official beans.
Folks were tweeting 5,000 times a day in 2007. By 2008, that number was 300,000, and by 2009 it had grown to 2.5 million per day. Tweets grew 1,400% last year to 35 million per day. Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day—that’s an average of 600 tweets per second.
I may have to admit to contributing maybe half that number on some days. 
Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!
Local Advertising to Make Gradual Comeback With Digital Leading the Way
Advertising in general has had a soul crushing last couple of years. That’s not a surprise. Combine the rapid changes to how everyone communicates with the worst economy in quite some time and you have the perfect storm for advertising woes. The ones who have the greatest difficulty in these times are the local advertisers because they have limited cash flow and limited ability to keep up with rapid change.
Hopefully there is an end to this cycle sooner than later. A study conducted by BIA/Kelsey sees the rebound in local advertising overall but more importantly a significant shift to digital which could account for 25% of local ad spend by 2014. ClickZ gives us some more to consider
The findings, reported in BIA/Kelsey’s “U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast,” did not surprise BIA/Kelsey President Neal Polachek, who said the recession and lingering economic doldrums have “triggered a more rapid switch to online digital stuff.” Even though companies are increasingly embracing digital media for local advertising, online/interactive was not immune to the recession’s ravages. BIA/Kelsey said there was a slowdown in the growth rate for digital, including search, display and classifieds, but it predicted that digital – now about 14 percent of total local ad spend – will encompass 25 percent by 2014.
I don’t know about you but I really appreciate Mr. Polachek’s technical terminology referring to “online digital stuff”. In the process of becoming 25% of all local advertising spend in the next few years digital spend will grow by 2.5 times to total $37 billion annually. Not a small number for sure.
Now, we have historically been skeptical of research here at Marketing Pilgrim. We always look for the angle as to why anyone would promote certain findings. Polachek further postulates on the impact of mobile by saying
Polachek said a key factor in the local ad market during the next five years will be mobile. However, he said predicting the scope of mobile’s impact is not easy. “I think one of key drivers during the next four or five years will be the phone and how the mobile piece transforms all this,” he said.
Not earth shattering, I admit. What he said next though will get some MP props because I have not heard this much from the research community.
“I don’t think any analyst out there, ourselves included, really knows what will happen.”
Please put up the applause sign for Mr. Polachek! Every other research report is positioned as if it came off a mountain in the form of tablets and should be taken as the truth because, well, the researcher said so. At least this research group has the stones to admit that looking into a crystal ball regarding where any of this goes is probably the least exact science there is.
So how do you view local advertising? Do you think that there will still be just a 25/75 split with online and traditional in 5 years or will online advertising take up more of that pie?
Given the dearth of news to start the week you should have time to comment.
