The Sky is Not Falling on Online Advertising

Del.icio.us

During economic slowdowns, business spend more carefully, yet need to increase revenue to offset a loss of business from it's existing customer base. So it's always a contradiction to see companies cut back on marketing, when they likely need it the most.

No so for online advertising according to the Rubicon Project. They indicate that more global advertising dollars will actually increase the online advertising market, helping to increase the total amount spent online.

According to their report, millions of dollars are being taken from traditional mediums such as newspapers and television. Why? It's not the usual easier to track and ROI arguement. It's because their researchers have found that online advertising has better reach globally than TV or newspapers.

Their researchers have found that out-of-country visitors make up about 40% of traffic to U.S. based websites, and more than 50% of traffic to international websites come from the U.S. So much for thinking that the traditonal broadcast mediums have more reach.

So with online advertising being lower cost, more effective, easier to buy, and now with better reach, it's easy to see how online advertising will continue to grow, even in the slower growth economy. And guess what? Afterwards, the advertisers will stick with it having tried it.

In other developements, comScore reports that there has been large jumps in traffic to financial websites, due in part to the financial markets. Put that together with what I mentioned above and you know one of the best places to advertise right now during tougher times is online, and on financial websites.

The sky is definitely not falling on online advertising.

Labels: advertising growth, online advertising, Rubicon project

posted by Fred @ 3:50 PM

Need A Little Chrome on Your Browser?

Del.icio.us

Google is a little like most politicians. They keep denying this and that, when it's obvious that they are going to something. In this case, it was create their own browser. Called Chrome, they had to finally let the cat out of the bag, when this clever comic book was discovered by the public before they were ready.

Although there are a lot of reviews and explanations for Chrome out there already, I'm gonna give my simple-minded spin. The comic explains the reasons, but it's somewhat technical, and definitely biased.

Chrome is Google's ultimate weapon. They know if you control the browser, you get to direct user behavior. Sure, the reasons are better speed, easier to run web apps, security, less crashing etc, but the REAL reason in my opinion was ensure they had a platform that they could control to make all the things they want work - work. And to ensure that Microsoft didn't stop them by not allowing it, or SLOWLY cooperating.

Firefox is already open source and does most of the things that Google needs. But they don't control Firefox, and besides Firefox is only about 18-20% of the market. And because Firefox can't be bought because of their company structure, Google put their tremendous resources to work and built their own.

So what that mean to you dear reader? You will have another choice to make. With all the free applications and tools from Google, you can be sure they will run better in Chrome. On the other hand, some things, especially Microsoft products (both paid and free) will likely not be as compatible. Think of it as what a browser was supposed to do, but without the wrinkles that Microsoft plugged in to make their browsers 'better'.

What I'm going to do is keep using Firefox, until I see a clear need to switch to Chrome. I might have Chrome on my desktop, in case something I'm using really needs to run in Chrome (just like I have IE on my desktop for IE 'enhanced' web pages), but otherwise, the last thing I need is another browser.

Where it does make sense is when they make Chrome usable on a PC without an operating system. Which is what I think is the ultimate goal. No Windows, just boot up your Netbook and use your browser for everything. Then your phone is next with Google's Android project. No wonder Microsoft doesn't like Google.

BTW, the comic book a lot better in my opinion than the Seinfeld/Microsoft commercials, because frankly most people don't get the commercial...the commercial has a pile of inside jokes while at least with the comic, you can ask somebody what all the geek means.

Labels: Android, Chrome, comic book, Google, Microsoft

posted by Fred @ 4:41 PM

Yellow Pages Advertising to Decline by 40%?

Del.icio.us

According to a new report from Borrell Associates, printed classified ads will be virtually dead within the next 5 years. And in fact Yellow Pages advertising will begin turning to online versions at a rate of 38%. So although it will lose dramatically on the traditional end, Yellow Pages sales representatives will sell online ads at about the same rate to offset the revenue loss.

This apparently amounts to a loss of $5 billion over the next 5 years, and accounts for 39% of its annual revenue size.

The change is due the fact that online mediums are becoming the most popular with marketers and business owners. Online ads, video and paid search offer more bang for the buck, and allow changes even after the ad is bought. Add in campaign tracking and interactive capabilities, and you can see how online has a tremendous advantage.

Although traditional advertising is learning to switch to online, like the above example with the Yellow Pages, the question is: has the buyer? Yellow Pages online is not used nearly as extensively as Google or Yahoo, even with local search. Most people use online directories ONLY after not being able to find it using a major search engine. And with more and more advertisers understanding the value of being found in a search engine, they tend to ensure they are in Google so where does that leave the directories like Yellow Pages?

Get a download summary copy of 'Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages' by clicking here. It's a massive change that marketers and business owners should stay on top of, to get the most out of their limited advertising budgets.

Keep all this in mind when your Yellow Pages rep calls you next time. The directory industry has over 34,000 local sales reps, so you can bet you will getting a call.

Labels: online advertising, online directories, yellow pages

posted by Fred @ 4:53 PM

SEM Canada Off, Vancouver Internet Marketing Conf Still On

Del.icio.us

In case you were eagerly waiting for the SEM Conference in Calgary, you're going to have to wait a little longer. It has been postponed until October 2009. Apparently a major corporate sponsor is in the offing, but as you can guess, the big companies can't move fast enough to accommodate the short fuse that the conference has with it being originally scheduled for this September.

This is probably good, as being the first annual, there is a lot of ground work that still has to happen, that the relatively short timeframe didn't allow for. Better to wait and get everything ready and lined up, rather than rush it and risk a poor result. Also, the original date was VERY close to the Internet Marketing Conference in Vancouver, which attracts a VERY similar audience. IMC has not had a conference in Canada since Vancouver in 2002, and as a result, has a strong following.

We'll now have more time to prepare for IMC Vancouver, where we have both a speaking engagement on B2B search engine marketing, and a demo of ActiveConversion lined up. It's scheduled for September 11-12, 2008 at the Coast Plaza Hotel. Hope to see you there!

Labels: IMC Vancouver, Internet Marketing Conference, SEM Canada

posted by Fred @ 3:14 PM

Interview by Brian Carter

Del.icio.us

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Brian Carter of Fuel Interactive, for the upcoming SEM Canada conference. I haven't had a chance to listen to it much, but it's a great way to cover alot of ground in SEM and online marketing.

Brian is the Director of Search Marketing for Fuel, based in South Carolina. Brian is an SEOmoz Pro Member and Google AdWords Qualified search marketing trainer, consultant, and speaker. Brian has more than eight years experience in the internet industry and is well known in the search engine marketing industry.

Being that one of our specialties in B2B and using SEO/SEM with longer sales cycles, we decided to cover those topics in detail. Brian was gracious to also ask me about www.ActiveConversion.com, which helps companies capitalize on search and online marketing.

The MP3 is around 45 minutes long, and I think you may find it interesting.

The interview is in his blog article which is here: http://adwordsconsultant.blogspot.com/2008/07/interview-mp3-with-fred-yee-of.html

Here is a condensed list of things we cover:

• Search marketing in the B2B space
• 2.5m businesses that could benefit from SEM
  
• Advantages of online marketing over offline marketing
• Why Microsoft would spend so much to buy Yahoo
• Branding vs. Niche direct marketing
• Case study: Evans Console who sells $250k consoles to NASA and FedEx
• Effect of interactive marketing on Yellow Pages
• The Calgary business scene, and search marketing scene
• Shifting from the part-time in-house to search marketing agency experts
• Conversion tracking for lead generation campaigns
• A more sophisticated way to track and stay in touch with long buying cycle sales prospects

Lightning round topics! Fred's quick opinions on...

• Twitter
• Yellow pages
• LinkedIn
• Local search
• Canadians
• Americans
• Calgary

Labels: activeconversion, b2b search engine marketing, Calgary SEM, fred yee interview, SEM Canada

posted by Fred @ 5:46 PM

Google Ad Planner and Google Trends

Del.icio.us

Online advertising just got even easier with Google's new tools for planning your online media buys. Google Ad Planner help advertisers match what they sell, with the demographic that is most suited for what they sell, on the websites that most likely has that demographic. So what that all means is you/we can easily find and advertise on the websites most likely to be interested in what you're selling

You may think you already know what they are, but with millions of websites out there, it is a lot of work going thru them, and figuring out if this is an appropriate website (and adding more). The info includes gender, income range, and education, that can make your ad planning much easier by being able to target exactly who you want to see your ad. It will also make finding those kind of websites very easy.

This had been a problem with Google's contextual ads before, which were keyword based, but could show on almost any website, unless you spent a lot of time specifying which websites you wanted to show the ad on. Most people didn't, and as a result, the click thru rates for contextual ads were usually very poor, especially compared to search ads. Google Ad Planner fixes that, and you will see contextual ads really start to take off as a result, if you know how to take advantage of it.

Google Trends is related, and pertains more to being able to 'loosely measure' the website traffic of a particular URL. Similar to Alexa and Compete, it uses a 'trend' to give an idea of how much traffic a website gets, relative to another similar website. You may seen Google Trends in another format, as a way to find the most searched keywords for the week, like 'Angelina Jolie'.

With tools like this, you can see why Google is going to continue to dominate online advertising and search engine marketing for the foreseeable future. The others have alot of catching up to do to keep up!

Labels: ad buying, Google ad planner, Google Trends, media buying, online advertising

posted by Fred @ 2:44 PM

Future of Print Still Being Threatened

Del.icio.us

According to a report by Eloqua, entitled 'State of the Marketer', which has been widely reported, print spending will continue to decrease. 55% of 200 U.S. marketers surveyed expect to decrease their print ad spending.

In addition, a large number of these same marketers (90%) intend to continue increasing their direct online ad budgets, with 15% 'radically' increasing their online spending.

Print isn't taking it on the chin only from online spending. Direct mail spend, social media spend and mobile ad spend will be increased.

The report also goes on to say that 64% of marketers believe their marketing programs are more effective now than three years ago. This is so much the case, that marketing budgets are actually increasing, and even in the down market in the U.S., that they will maintain or increase their marketing staff.

This leads me to believe that a) online marketing and advertising is continuing to grow b) because it is more effective c) leading to higher marketing spending d) and more satisfaction with the marketing department.

It's not a foolproof hypothesis, but I bet any of you out there using online marketing (like our clients) know this is likely closer to the truth than not!

Labels: marketing budgets, online advertising, print advertising

posted by Fred @ 4:34 PM