Archive for the ‘General SEM’ Category

The economic crisis is prompting most companies to keep investing in web analytics in order to attain the best returns from their marketing campaigns, according to a new poll.

Almost nine in ten of those surveyed by the eMetrics Marketing Optimisation Summit said they have either maintained or upped analytics expenditure in spite of the credit crunch.

Over 80 per cent also indicated that senior management at their companies were taking a greater interest in the benefits of web analytics in marketing campaigns.

"This may directly correlate to the increase in budgets for web analytics tools and services and certainly points to an increased need for more analysts and consultants," commented Jim Sterne, author of the report.

The survey also found that many marketers intend to keep investing in advertising channels such as email and search during the financial downturn.

According to a recent MarketingProfs poll, the shift towards the online medium is prompting some companies to cut back on traditional media investment.

Tying in direct mail with search campaigns could help significantly increase brand awareness and conversions, new research has claimed.

According to Royal Mail, its study found that physical mail can do much to raise awareness of a brand and prompt consumers to search online for that same company.

Almost six in ten of those consumers polled by the organisation said they would be more likely to visit a certain company’s website if they were already familiar with that brand via direct mail.

About seven in ten said they visit a website after seeing the address in a direct mailing, while nearly 50 per cent said they thought receiving a catalogue or brochure in the post made a firm seem "more real".

"Consumers clearly believe that mail plays a crucial role in their purchasing decisions," remarked Antony Miller, head of media development at Royal Mail.

"This is a key insight in the current financial climate, when every pound spent on marketing has to work harder for return on investment."

In August, the Direct Marketing Association published figures showing that advertising inserts in newspapers and magazines are becoming more integrated with other marketing channels, particularly the internet.

Mobile marketing is enabling businesses to interact with customers better than they have ever been able to in the past.

At least this is the opinion of Laura Marriott, the Mobile Marketing Association’s president, who claimed that because it enables advertisers to target people in any place at any time, companies can develop a closer relationship with consumers.

"Always on, always available and anywhere - mobile allows the brand to connect and engage with their consumer like never before," she remarked.

Ms Marriott warned companies that they need to put quality ahead of quantity if they are to get the most from their campaigns, but suggested that if they get it right, they should be able to reap the rewards.

According to the latest survey from Mobile Ad Degree, car manufacturers and entertainment firms are at the head of the pack when it comes to adopting mobile marketing strategies.

Google has developed a new application to enable businesses to create their own display ads without hiring a designer.

Accessible through AdWords, the tool gives marketers control over the images, text and logos that appear in the ads, as well as their colour scheme and background.

The service is currently only available for marketers in the US and Canada.

It can create ads in sizes that fit all placements across the Google content network, which includes those in games and videos.

Trevor Claiborne of the Inside AdWords team said in a post on the Inside AdWords blog: "If you’ve wanted to expand beyond your text ad campaigns, or if you’ve been looking for an easier way to build display ads, this tool can help."

UK marketers spent £333.8 million on display ads during the first six months of the year, up 16.3 per cent on the same period in 2007, the Internet Advertising Bureau recently revealed.

Spending on internet advertising rose during the third quarter while all other channels suffered significant cutbacks, new figures have shown.

According to the Bellwether report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the online medium was the only channel to see budgets rise rather than fall in the last three months.

Afflicted by the slowing economy, the overall ad sector posted its fourth successive quarter of budget cuts during the period, while cutbacks were at their highest level in the nine-year history of the survey.

This follows a recent Zenith Optimedia forecast suggesting that worldwide spending on internet advertising is currently growing at a rate of 23 per cent per year and will account for almost 14 per cent of total ad expenditure by 2010.

"The industry will be watching the next set of results with great interest hoping that, following four quarters of decline, the downward curve levels off, despite the impending recession," said IPA president Moray MacLennan.

The ease with which marketers can measure and track online campaigns is the main reason why the internet has become an integral channel for companies’ promotional efforts, according to one expert.

Recent statistics from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) show that spending on online marketing reached £1.7 billion in the first half of 2008, up 21 per cent on last year.

Chris Lake, editor-in-chief of E-consultancy, noted that the growing attractiveness of the internet can be attributed to its measurability, as businesses are able to track the journey of web users from the moment they click through to a website from an ad to the final purchase.

This is something that more traditional channels like print and TV are unable to offer, he said.

"In a recessionary climate we’ve got much more focus on proving return on investment," Mr Lake stated.

"That’s pretty much why the internet has taken off in terms of advertising, because of measurability."

Search engine marketing was one of the key drivers of spending growth earlier this year, according to the IAB report.

The worldwide internet advertising sector will see sustained growth this year, a new forecast has claimed.

Spending on the medium will rise by 23 per cent by the end of 2008, meaning that €31.7 billion (£25.4 billion) will be spent on online advertising in total, the European Information Technology Observatory (EITO) said.

In Europe, spending will rise by 31 per cent to reach €9.1 billion, with US expenditure predicted to grow 13 per cent to €13.6 billion, despite being the nation that has been most affected by the global financial crisis, the report showed.

Recent reports from the Internet Advertising Bureau in the UK and the Interactive Advertising Bureau in the US have also confirmed double-digit spending rises in both regions for the first half of this year.

"The internet economy in Europe is developing very dynamically and making great strides towards catching the leader, the USA," remarked Bruno Lamborghini, chairman of EITO.

The online advertising sector needs to take a more measured approach to the issue of behaviourally targeted advertising, it has been claimed.

Speaking at the Westminster eForum on online advertising, Simon Waldman of the Guardian Media Group (GMG) called for regulators and publishers to refrain from overreacting to the privacy issues linked to the format, Journalism.co.uk reports.

Targeted ad firm Phorm is currently trialling its technology with BT broadband customers, with the system tracking users’ web browsing habits to serve ads based on this data.

Mr Waldman said that regulation of this medium will become one of the most important issues for the overall ad market in the near future.

"The issue of privacy is going to rear its head and I hope there’s an intelligent approach to it and not scaremongering," he commented.

GMG pulled out of talks to sign up to Phorm’s ad network earlier this year as a result of a mismatch of values, it said.

Yahoo! has unveiled a new beta version of its web analytics application.

Based on a product offered by recent acquisition IndexTools, Yahoo! Web Analytics provides webmasters and online marketers with a range of figures and reports that show how well their sites and campaigns are performing.

Users can access metrics like sources of traffic, pages views and sales, as well as generate customised graphics and reports in real-time.

The tool will be released in phases during the rest of this year and next, Yahoo! said on the Yodel Anecdotal blog, although Yahoo! Small Business customers can already use the application.

"We have already started to roll Yahoo! Web Analytics out to advertisers who seek Yahoo!’s help to build custom microsites, as well as to third-party application developers who build widgets and other mini-apps for Yahoo! users via our developer network or our new Yahoo! Open Strategy tools," explained vice-president of Yahoo! Web Analytics Jitendra Kavathekar.

According to CNET News.com, one of the main advantages of using Yahoo! Web Analytics over Google Analytics is that data tends to be updated within minutes of an instance of user activity, whereas Google takes about 24 hours to do so.

Search giant Google has unveiled the beta version of a new AdSense product designed specifically for online games.

Those developing or publishing web-based games can now place video, text and image ads in their creations through AdSense for Games.

Video ads are placed wherever desired, while image and text ads will see their placement determined contextually depending on the tags and keywords provided by developers and publishers.

"You’ll be able to show these ads in placements you define, such as interstitial frames before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over," commented Ryan Hayward of Google on the Inside AdSense blog.

The product is at present only available in the US to selected organisations. Partner companies for the service include Konami, Playfish, Zynga and Demand Media, among others.

Google said it is launching AdSense for Games to take advantage of the growing proportion of the internet population that now plays games on the web.