More $$$ Spent on Digital Marketing

“Marketers see digital as the future, and expect digital ad spending to grow over the next year as traditional media ad spending declines. Business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing will command the largest chunk of company revenues, according to marketers. That’s the word from eMarketer. Read more.

Consumers Know Social Media Is Listening, but…

“Most US internet users across all age groups are aware that businesses frequently listen to what they say online. According to a December 2012 study conducted by J.D. Power & Associates for NetBase, US internet users between the ages of 45 to 54 were most cognizant of this phenomenon, at 72% of respondents. Millennials between 18 to 24 years old were least likely to be aware of companies listening in, although still over three in five knew this went on,” reports eMarketer. “What’s more, most consumers reported that they actually wanted companies to listen to online conversations. A majority of respondents in every age group except for those 55 and over reported this preference.” Read more.

Social Media Good for B2B Marketing

“For B2B [business to business] small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Facebook is for traffic, and Twitter is for leads. That, at least, is the conclusion of an analysis of 600 US B2B SMB websites conducted by Optify,” according to eMarketer. “The study, which parsed over 62 million site visits, 215 million page views and 350,000 leads in 2012, found that visitors coming from Facebook made up 54% of all social media-sourced site visits, and those from Twitter just 32%. Nevertheless, Twitter accounted for 82% of all social media-originated leads, while Facebook accounted for a paltry 9% of leads. LinkedIn played a relatively minor role, accounting for 14% of site visits from social and 9% of social leads.” Read more.

The ‘New’ Mobile Device—the Phablet

“Apple’s competitors are finally doing a better job of making the kinds of phones that customers want,” according to a section of a New Yorker article about Apple’s financial fate. “The most notable of these is an oversized phone dubbed “the phablet”—Samsung’s Galaxy Note is the leader in the category. The phablet is bigger than a traditional phone, smaller than a tablet, and as ungainly as its name—too big to fit comfortably in your pocket and cumbersome for making calls. In the U.S., the phablet is still very much a niche product, but overseas, particularly in Asia, sales exploded in the second half of last year. And, unfortunately for Apple, there is no iPhablet. The analyst Peter Misek, a managing director at Jefferies & Company, told me that he had been an Apple optimist until last fall. ‘We assumed, as Apple did, that a buyer of a smartphone would also be a buyer of a tablet, so you’d have one device for mobility and one for surfing the Net,’ he said. ‘But what we’re finding is that, especially in lower-income areas, people can’t or don’t want to buy both. So they’re buying the one device that combines the two.’ Read more.

How could this device affect digital marketing? Advertisers could enlarge the size of display ads, miniaturized for mobile phones. They also could create more dynamic videos that viewers could play on devices with screens larger than those on smartphones. It could lead to easier navigation and viewing from tweats, emails, and links on advertisements to brand home pages or social media sites. In theory, it might lead to less eye fatigue, making it easier for the viewer to stay connected. The problem: How would an individual carry it around? Would they want to? Women could stick the device in a pocketbook, but men usually forgo such items. Will men just hold them? Or will men end up getting two devices—a smartphone for walking around and a phablet for work since they can stick it in their valise? If men get two devices, then how is that different from the current market of individuals owning a smartphone and a tablet? And for marketers, if men and women do carry the devices in cases—whether a pocket book or valise—will they use it as frequently as a smart phone, which they can slide out more easily?

I have written these ideas and asked these questions to show how a mind can work with new data. Since the phablet will not enter the U.S. market for a few months, no one can predict with any accuracy how Americans will perceive the product and, eventually, how they will use it. If you read the questions carefully, if you think about them for more than the time it takes to read them, and if you connect it to the information you currently know about Internet marketing, you can come up with some unique concepts.

Almost 40% of North American Women Cutting Back on Using Social Media

“Remember the Roman Empire? It was the most influential force in the world. The place everyone wanted to be. The center of all news, art, commerce. Then it wasn’t (see “fall of the Roman Empire“). It was kind of like MySpace – burning bright, then burned out,” according to Marketing Pilgrim. “Do you think the same might happen to Twitter? To Facebook? A new survey from Weber Shandwick says it could be so. They questioned 2,000 North American women and found this startling fact: Nearly four in 10 North American women (38 percent) have decreased or stopped their usage of one or more social networks during the past six months.” Read more.

Crafting the “Right” Marketing Message

“Brands developing Facebook marketing campaigns will benefit from the social media network's most recent acquisition: the Atlas Advertiser Suite. In a recent Facebook blog post, Brian Boland outlined the deal with Microsoft to purchase Atlas and how it benefits both marketers and users,” reports Brafton. “Boland writes that today's digital marketing landscape has grown complex, and without the ability to understand cross-channel efforts [channel being one of the different media opportunities in the real and virtual worlds], marketers adopt siloed strategies for each campaign. This practice leads to inconsistent analytics reports [reports about who is watching what, where, and for how long] and preventing brands from improving their campaigns for long-term results. With Atlas, marketers will get a clearer view of their campaign performance, which will allow them to get the right messages in front of their target markets. In turn, companies need to ensure they have content marketing resources in place to act on the analytics and craft the right messages for unique audiences.” Read more.

Real World Impact of the Digital Era on Marketing

“Last week I sat down with Will Coleburn, a CMO employed most recently at Toy State,” starts an AdAge post. “As the name suggests, the company is in the toy and games business, an industry Will has served for decades, running marketing at several organizations along the way. In our conversation we discussed his journey from traditional marketer to digital CMO. At one point he summarized the difference between his job twenty years ago and his role today in a neat statement:”

In the old days our agency meetings were ninety percent about the campaign creative and then in the last minutes, we checked off the list of which media we would buy with our budget. Today, we start with the customer, then we figure out what channels or media we have to use to reach them, only then do we talk about the creative.

Read more about the impact of the digital era.

1.5 Billion to Watch Video Online in 2016

“Roughly 1.5 billion people will watch at least one online video by 2016, according to a recently released study by online video technology provider Ooyala,” according to ClickZ. “Ooyala says that viewership of branded videos grew 91 percent over the course of Q4 2012. According to the study, streaming video on smartphones and tablets grew exponentially in 2012. While watching live video on the desktop has surpassed video-on-demand viewership, Ooyala believes the study illustrates the importance of streaming video for marketers.” Read more.

Facebook’s Ad Revenue to Grow 50% in Two Years

“According to financial analysts Facebook Q4 revenue (including payments, fees) could reach $1.5 billion. Digital marketing technology company Kenshoo says that just over 20 percent (20.3 percent) of the company’s ad revenue is now coming from mobile,” says Social Media Today. “And as per eMarketer, almost 4 billion dollars in advertising budgets were spent on Facebook ads during 2012, and that number is expected to grow to more than 6 billion in 2014.” Read more.

Firefox Takes on Advertising and Privacy/Advertisers React

“You might be waiting a little bit for the privilege, but Mozilla will soon be implementing a new feature that will allow the Firefox browser to block cookies from third-party advertisers by default,” according to PCMag. “In other words, the browser will mimic the functionality that fans of Apple's Safari have already been enjoying for some time now. However, it's unclear exactly when the new feature might make its debut. The patch, contributed by Stanford grad student Jonathan Mayer, is scheduled to hit Firefox version 22 – we're currently on Firefox version 19….As one might expect, Internet advertisers are not exactly embracing the switch with open arms. ‘This default setting would be a nuclear first strike against ad industry,’ tweeted Mike Zaneis, senior vice president and general counsel for the Interactive Advertising Bureau.” Read more.

“While privacy advocates applaud Mozilla's proposal to block cookies by default on the Firefox browser, it should be clear that this is yet another initiative that does not show how it protects people from harm. What's more, along with negatively impacting digital advertising, it could have an adverse impact on small publishers and do much to limit consumer choice online.” That’s the response in AdAge. “Why do companies want to track online activity in the first place? Small publishers rely on a host of third parties, such as analytics vendors, to understand the popularity of the content they publish. Third-party advertising technology companies generate the publisher revenues required to pay staff salaries and keep sites running. These third parties aggregate the content created by millions of small publishers and offer media buyers a reach of advertising opportunities that is comparable to that provided by large, vertically integrated publishers. But to be truly competitive, these advertising vendors must track the anonymous activity across their networks to offer frequency capping and other services offered by the largest publishers.” Read more.

Facebook Gets Serious about Helping Advertisers

“As long expected, Facebook ,,,has agreed to acquire Seattle-based Atlas Advertising from Microsoft for an undisclosed amount, in a move that demonstrates how serious the social media giant is getting about digital advertising,” according to a ClickZ post. “In a statement, Facebook said that the purchase of Atlas, whose software enables marketers and agencies to place and manage digital advertising campaigns, will help companies better measure the ROI of their digital media spend. It said that using the Atlas platform in conjunction with Facebook partners Nielsen and Datalogix will help advertisers compare their Facebook campaigns to the rest of their ad spend across the web on desktop and mobile.” Read more.

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Google Glass Versus Smart Phone

One of Google’s principals addressed a point raised in class on Wednesday: “Why get Google Glasses if I have a smartphone?”
“Sergey Brin spoke of the inspiration behind Google Glass eyewear during a brief appearance on Wednesday at a TED Conference,” reports News.com.au. “The Google co-founder playfully demonstrated his point on stage by ignoring a theatre audience to stare down at his smartphone, saying he was intent on a message from a Nigerian prince need of $US10 million ($A9.82 million). ‘I like to pay attention because that is how we originally funded the company,’ he quipped about a well-known scam. ‘Seriously, in addition to potentially socially isolating yourself when you are out and about using your phone, I feel it is kind of emasculating.’” Read more.

Instagram's Benefits for Content Marketing

"Social media marketing evolves as companies embrace new networks that prove to generate conversions and business for brands. In 2012,Pinterest marketing went through its coming of age, outpacing many other networks in terms of growth, referral traffic and adoption. Pinterest continues to expand and add new features to its ever-adapting interface, but the service is no longer the social-media newcomer - that prize goes to Instagram," according to Brafton. "Of course, the picture-sharing network has been around for a few years now, but businesses have just caught on to Instagram'scontent marketing benefits. With more than 90 million monthly active users uploading approximately 40 million photos per day, Instagram has already been adopted by 59 percent of the world's top brands." Read more.

Stumbling into Social Network Conversations

During  yesterday's class, I mentioned that marketers do not know how and why to enter "conversations" on social networks, noting that they do not want to irritate individuals. It happens. "Is it just me, or does it seem like every commercial ends with some half-assed attempt to drive social media traffic? What's the rationale behind adding a Facebook and Twitter logo to the bottom of a commercial with no page name and no call to action? Does the team putting the spot together think viewers will be pleasantly shocked to discover the brand has social channels? And that viewers love their brand so much that they'll drop everything to search for the right page out of their own curiosity? Or how about the ever-present hashtag? Am I supposed to be so excited about watching a commercial that I log on to Twitter to tell all my friends about it, using the guidelines the brand just introduced to me?" Those questions come from a marketing executive posting on AdAge.

Marketers Increasing Ad Budgets for Social Media

Reversing a trend that I noted in yesterday's class, marketers are increasing their advertising on social media sites, according to a report from eMarketer.
"Advertisers’ appetites for paid advertising on social media sites shows no sign of abating in 2013. According to a study conducted for digital brand measurement provider Vizu by Digiday, 64% of US advertisers planned to increase their paid social media ad budgets this year, with just 2% saying they intended to spend less money in 2013 than they did in 2012 on paid social ads." Read more.

eMarketer also reports that "marketers worldwide are continuing to invest in making sense of the surge of data produced by digital interactions with customers—68% said they will increase data-related marketing spending in 2013 and just 3% planned to decrease spending, according to a study by Infogroup Targeting Solutions and Yesmail Interactive." Read more.

"Publishers" Struggle in the Digital Age

Some students in English 202 do not understand how advertising works in the digital age. Publishers--companies that maintain websites, such as NYTimes.com, Disney.com, WSJ.com, and ESPN.com, tell ad exchanges what space and time advertisers can buy on their webpages. Advertisers then buy depending on the demographics of the site. These companies conduct all these transactions on an automated basis. (Ad exchanges act as auctions of advertising space and time slots for websites.) However, not all publishers sell "all" their space on an automated basis. Advertisers and publishers agree that some space and time slots offer the best possible results, such as the opening page of each edition of the NYTimes.com. Publishers sell these spots to advertisers individually, and they offer only their most basic or generic "space" on ad exchanges, hence the reason for the following AdAge post:

Big publishers don't want to release premium inventory to automated purchase because they fear commoditization. The persistent fear is that selling through automated channels creates an opportunity for buyers to get the same inventory at reduced rates. And indeed, finding the same inventory via automated routes could make direct buys unnecessary. So publishers release generic inventory only, which undermines the potential of automation.
Premium display units are excellent tools for delivering branding messages, and automated technology enables advertisers to value impressions on their own terms. That sounds like a match made in heaven. If a highly sought-after audience target lands on a page that has premium ad slots available, several advertisers are likely to bid, which will drive up the price. Auction models reward the highest bidder, not the most conservative one – that's how Google has made so much money on premium search keywords for years. Read more.

Digital or Traditional Marketing?

"For media executives, there may be nothing worse than a viewer or listener who is not counted," starts the New York Times. "On Thursday, in a move that might help ease those concerns, Nielsen said that it would start considering Americans who have spurned cable, but who have a television set hooked up to the Internet, as “television households,” potentially adding to the sample of homes that are rated by the company, the standard for television ratings. In front of skeptical network officials, the company pledged to measure TV viewership on iPads and other mobile devices in the future." Read more.

"Trending" Affects News Presentation

"Digital subscriptions and online advertising haven’t turned into the gold mine newspapers were hoping for when they made the transition from print to screen. But when you look at the history of the newspaper industry in this country, digital is relatively new, so they’re still working out the kinks," according to Marketing Pilgrim. "What they need are some fresh ideas and the New York Times has that covered.  Michael Zimbalist, head of the NYT’s research and development department, talked to Beet.TV about a new concept in ad targeting. It’s called 'Sparking Stories' and it ties ads together with articles that are trending on Twitter." Read more.

Video Content Demand on the Rise

"Demand for video content is at an all-time high, with Brafton reporting that total video views in the United States increased by 23 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2012. The uptick mirrored 47 percent growth in visual ad volume over the same time frame, which shows that companies see consumers' hunger for video content as a marketing opportunity," notes Brafton. "Video marketing can be approached in a variety of ways, as indicated by the Harlem Shake trend and a recent FreeWheel survey. More than 60 advertising agencies rode the wave of the viral dancing clip, producing and uploading their own versions. While the trend may not be commercially relevant to every brand, it demonstrates the shift toward entertaining video marketing." Read more.

Which Is Worse--Google or Facebook?

"Google can be bad enough, with a paucity of humans available to answer questions and fix unjust algorithmically set penalties and the like. Earning itself the nickname the Robot Empire, Google's customer service has been limited to the bigger players, with small and medium businesses left to fend for themselves." So starts the post on Marketing Vox. "The search giant even makes many of its rules deliberately obscure, in the hopes that this opacity will help prevent people from gaming its algorithms. That ad is declined? "Read the guidelines," comes the response. From an autoresponder. This has not gained Google accolades for service among mid-sized advertisers, or even many larger ones. So Facebook had its work cut out for it in vying for the title of worst advertising service provider; but in the course of a very short period of time, it has managed to do just that." Read more.