Facebook CPC advertising, which started to gain traction with advertisers last year, resembles the
early days of paid search marketing. Launching a campaign is done in a do-it-yourself interface, and that interface is where bidding is established, payment is done by credit card, ads are created and messages targeted. Also akin to paid search circa 2001 is that the execution of a campaign is mostly a manual process (as of yet there is no API).
As we saw with search, there is no doubt that Facebook’s features and tools will become more sophisticated and radically improve over time. Facebook would surely like to monetize its 450 million users, and we know there are enhancements to the program already in the works. With the attractive CPC pricing model, Facebook and would-be Facebook advertisers are lined up and waiting to sync up with APIs or at minimum, get easy access to reporting and some kind of bid management tool.
Looking into the future, could Facebook CPC ads ever become a force to be reckoned with in the media mix, matching or even exceeding paid search as a proportion of total online spend?
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Google has implemented a new policy affecting Internet pharmacies, HMO pharmacies, chain drugstores, and mass retailer pharmacies. Such companies must now be certified by The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) through its Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) program in order for Google paid search keyword campaigns to be approved. This policy extends to keywords associated with any merchandise on a website that sells pharmaceuticals – not just pharmaceutical products.
For those still awaiting VIPPS certification, Google shut down all keywords across all campaigns beginning last weekend. Many companies were affected by the policy and few were prepared. The implications of what Google would do and when they would do it were not clear enough. A week later, many of these companies remain dark on Google paid search. A great deal of revenue has been and continues to be lost while these pharmaceutical companies scramble to rectify the situation.
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Below is the second installment of our trade show roundup with thoughts and recommendations for some of the key conferences for online marketers.
Internet Retailer – Internet Retailer currently hosts two key shows each year – the Web Design & Usability Conference which was just held last week in Orlando, and the larger Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in June. This year’s main conference will be in Chicago from June 8-11. If you are actively involved in web design, the February show would be valuable to attend. For more general retail info, I am a big fan of the June show. It draws a huge crowd (great for networking and exhibiting), and there is a ton of great content. Our clients also rate this show highly for value and time well invested.
Shop.org – Shop.org hosts several conferences throughout the year. The best known and largest of all the online retail shows is the Shop.org Annual Summit in the fall. This show has frequently been held in Las Vegas , but it’s moving to Dallas for 2010. The change is unfortunate as I predict they are going to take a hit on attendance. The Mandalay Bay venue in Las Vegas was much loved and Dallas pales by comparison. The Shop.org shows have the reputation of being extremely retailer-focused, as opposed to eTail which is more vendor-focused. Shop.org has retailer-only days and retailer-only events. But despite their somewhat heavy-handed non-vendor stance, there are many sponsorships available to vendors, although some (like the vendor-hosted tables on retailer-only day) come with a pretty hefty price tag.
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I am frequently asked which of the industry trade shows are worth attending. While PM Digital can’t attend every event, we do have better visibility to these shows than most, so below is the first of two installments that cover our thoughts and recommendations on the ever-expanding online marketing conference landscape.
Because PM Digital has a heavy penetration of retail clients, we attend many conferences in the retail category as will be evident in this roundup. The list below takes into account that there are generally three reasons to attend trade shows: 1) networking, 2) keeping current, and 3) investigating new technologies.
eTail - eTail hosts two big shows each year. eTail West (which starts today) is the larger and runs from February 22-24 in Palm Desert; eTail East will be held in Baltimore from August 9-12. I personally love the timing of the February eTail show since it’s the first big event after the holiday season. People have had a few weeks to relax and breathe, but they also recognize that now is the time to launch new initiatives in order to maximize the next year-end holiday. Attendees are definitely looking and researching at this conference.
A common criticism of the eTail shows is that it seems partial to vendors rather than retailers, and this manifests itself in sessions that occasionally sound like paid commercials. Many of the session panels include vendors, and there are some big keynote slots given to vendors (and as a vendor, we are aware that there is a cost to speak at this show as well as some of the other events). I once left a multivariate testing session and found one of the companies represented on the panel was also the manning the exits with one-sheeters. I haven’t seen anything that blatant happen in a while but it’s a good example of how eTail developed its vendor-first reputation. The August eTail conference is very convenient if you are on the East Coast, and I’ve found it attracts a high-level retail attendee. It is much smaller than the West Coast show.
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“Old media” like newspapers, broadcast television advertising and nonprofit appeals are moving in the right direction by forming alliances with social media, mobile and other emerging platforms.
Our latest “Game Changers” review of important news developments looks at recent changes that are impacting both old and new media in a positive way. Here are four transformations worth keeping an eye on.
The New York Times and Paid Content
The New York Times announced last week that it will begin charging for online content starting in January 2011. The Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports and a handful of other publications already charge for some or all of their content. PM Digital’s Chris Paradysz predicted in a prior blog post that this would become a trend in 2010 – the NY Times move announced this week supports that. As a long-time reader of the NY Times, I have watched the steady shrinkage of the paper. Some of this has been due to cost-cutting and, more recently, fewer advertisements. Circulation is down, too. Surely the NY Times needs a new business model to withstand these circumstances. Should the paper ever wither away and shut down, it would be a real loss of quality content. I support the Times’ new fee structure and definitely plan on paying for it.
Text Donations and the Evolution of Payment
Texted donations brought millions of dollars in aid for Haiti. American Red Cross’ 90999 and UNICEF’s 20222 raised considerable sums though this method. Based on the amount of individual donations received through texting, it appears that the simplicity and speed millions experienced in making their donations this way is appealing. Another success driver is ease of advertising, which was done widely on TV. Also notable is that the 90%+ abandon rates typically seen with website donations were not a factor with the texting method.
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The launch of Marketplace at Sears.com underscores the limits of blind CSE syndication and the need for transparency, disclosure and control in strategic marketing partnerships.
Sears Marketplace launched last week with an impressive roster of retail clients for its new shopping portal. On the surface, Sears appeared to have been quite successful at lining up an array of A-List partners. Since PM Digital typically arranges and manages the feeds for these types of product listings, we were curious why many of our clients were there without our direct involvement.
It soon became clear that a few of our comparison shopping engine partners (CSEs) and their blind syndication networks were at play. Our tracking revealed that Sears Marketplace was getting their content from Shopping.com. Further research told us that Shopping.com was syndicating to Shop.com, which in turn was feeding to Sears Marketplace.
Unfortunately our own clients had never given permission to provide content to Sears Marketplace, and based on what many have told us over the past few days, they definitely would not have agreed to such a thing. It is no surprise that marketers — especially those with upscale brands — would have preferred to decide for themselves whether partnering with Sears was brand appropriate.
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The major snowstorm on the East Coast on Saturday and Sunday lifted online sales for 67% of PM Digital’s retail clients an estimated 10% vs. what they would have seen for the weekend without the storm. For the apparel category, specifically, this lift affected 71% of PM Digital clients.
The strong weekend results for online sales is icing on the cake to a strong overall holiday season for ecommerce. As has been reported by comScore and others, online sales are up year over year in 2009 vs. 2008, so there is a lot to celebrate.
Some of the key drivers in lifting sales this year in particular were 1) promotions; 2) gift cards; 3) egift cards) 4) accurate forecasting (running budgets high on the best days and scaling back on lower-converting days), and 5) taking advantage of best practices in search strategies.
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Based on PM Digital’s beta work, Google’s Ad Sitelinks test well and offer a great new tactic for retailers this holiday season.
Google’s Ad Sitelinks are moving from beta to phased roll out next week. Whereas betas are seen by only a tiny portion of users (about 1%), in a phased rollout, approximately 10% of Google users will now see these ads.
Ad Sitelinks were developed specifically as a way for retailers to get better click through rates from their trademark terms. Rather than sending all searchers to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks enable a marketer to direct consumers to specific pages. PM Digital had several clients take part in the beta and has since rolled out many more. We definitely saw significantly higher click through rates for Ad Sitelinks compared to regular sponsored ads.
Here is an example of how Ad Sitelinks look:
When Ad Sitelinks were first tested around the beginning of summer, it was done as an A/B/C split: 1) the normal sponsored ad containing a logo; 2) a logo plus Ad Sitelinks; and 3) Ad Sitelinks with no logo. The winning beta was Ad Sitelinks with no logo, which is what will be rolled out next week.
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Ever wonder how competitors are able to achieve top rankings on otherwise unprofitable keywords? It’s all in the metrics.
Consistent with Google’s 3rd Quarter Earnings and their outlook for 2010, paid search will receive ample 2010 budget dollars within the retail media mix. Because of the efficiency and control paid search gives retailers in yielding sales at an acceptable ROI, most marketers will try to shift as many dollars as possible to paid search and away from less efficient sources. In fact, if asked, most will say they would like paid search to be an even larger part of the mix, if only they could get more scale from the program.
The inability to get more scale out of paid search is sometimes confounding. Within merchandise categories, we frequently see certain retailers owning top spots for a wide swath of keywords which competitors can’t make work. For example, the scale that Merchandiser B wants so badly is going to Merchandiser A, despite the fact that Merchandiser B is a category leader. How does this happen?
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The end of Yahoo’s Paid Inclusion is not surprising, but the timing presents challenges for retailers who relied on the program. Below is PM Digital’s quick take and initial recommendations.
Last week Yahoo announced that they are discontinuing their Paid Inclusion program (Search Submit Pro) at the end of this year. The last date Paid Inclusion will be live is December 31, 2009. The discontinuation of the program will include the top level, category level and product level feeds — basically everything.
Yahoo is leaving the program live through the end of the year so that they don’t leave any retailers in the lurch for the holiday season. That said, most Yahoo SSP customers are retailers whose fiscal year ends in January – not December. So Yahoo will in fact be impacting retailers’ full year demand given the loss of revenue for an entire month.
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March 11, 2010 11:14 am
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