Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

Facebook has released “engagement ads” which will leverage the constant dialogue and interaction between its users.  This new ad format will prompt users to a call-to-action, whether it may be a comment, RSVP or becoming a fan of the sponsored product.  Then, the action and marketing message within the ad will be broadcasted to those connected to that particular user.  Incentives, such as “free” virtual gifts, are offered to encourage the distribution of these ad messages.  Facebook believes they will operate successfully with this ad model based on the simple idea that “marketing messages are more effective when they come from friends.”

Since word-of-mouth marketing tends to be extremely profitable for advertisers, Facebook will charge more for these new engagement ads.  Due to the site redesign last August, sponsored video broadcasting has become available.  These video ads are also expected to provide great return, as these formats allow users to interact using the same call-to-actions as engagement ads.  At this pace, Facebook expects revenues to double to between $300 million and $350 million this year.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

Last Friday November 7, EyeTraffic Media hosted the first of a series of free seminars intended to educate cause-driven organizations on how to successfully apply online marketing strategies.  With the current economy and shrinking marketing budgets, associations and cause-driven organizations are looking for ways to optimize their marketing efforts at lower costs.  Through these seminars, EyeTraffic Media will encourage the .ORG community to explore ways to efficiently manage their marketing dollars.

“With our headquarters in Washington DC, we are surrounded by associations coping with the struggling economy and limited marketing budgets,” said EyeTraffic Media’s Principal Manager George Assimakopoulos. “Having worked with several nonprofits, we have proven that we can help organizations achieve their online marketing goals in a cost efficient manner. It is important to us to share our knowledge of best practices with the rest of the community.” 

The seminar discussed how online marketing can produce more effective results at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. Online marketing allows non-profit organizations to attract awareness for their causes and events, and increase both sponsorship and membership.  This can be accomplished through the use of search engine marketing (SEM), viral marketing and email marketing; all of which were reviewed at the seminar.

The event was held at The Melrose Hotel in Washington, DC and had a marketing representative from over 30 different non-profit organizations in attendance. 

“EyeTraffic Media provided a great overview of the key aspects of a successful online marketing campaign,” commented Elizabeth Burrell from The Coalition for Government Procurement. “The seminar offered valuable information that I can now use to re-evaluate my organization's online marketing efforts to better target appropriate audiences. I look forward to attending future seminars.”

To learn more about the free online marketing educational seminars please contact Christine Pepin, Media Coordinator, cpepin@eyetraffic.com.

George Assimakopoulos
Principal Manager

Google announced today they will be changing certain components to its algorithm over the next several days. The first change will help better evaluate the precise quality of an ad - regardless of its position on the page. The second change will improve how Google promotes ads to positions at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). Let's take a look at both of these changes in more detail.

More precise Quality Score calculation
Google is now weighing Click-Though Rate (CTR) as the most significant component of Quality Score because it directly indicates which ads are most relevant to searchers. Typically, ads in high positions earn better CTR than those in low positions, because ads in higher positions are more visible to searchers. To calculate the most accurate Quality Scores, it's important that the influence of ad position on CTR be taken into account and removed from the Quality Score. In the coming days, Google will update the portion of the Quality Score algorithm that accounts for ad position. This will result in more accurate Quality Scores, ensuring that ads compete fairly for position based on their quality and bid, and enable Google to show the most relevant ads to searchers by rewarding high-quality advertisers with better ad positions.

Higher quality ads above the search results
Google is also changing the way they determine which ads show in the yellow region above the search results. These positions are particularly valuable to advertisers because they are prominently positioned on a SERP page. Given their prominence, it's especially important that these ads be high quality; therefore Google will place extra emphasis on quality when determining which ads to show in this location. To appear above the search results, ads must meet a certain quality threshold. In the past, if the ad with the highest Ad Rank did not meet the quality threshold, Google may not have shown any ads above the search results. With the coming update, Google will allow an ad that meets the quality threshold to appear above the search results even if it has to jump over other ads to do so. For instance, suppose the ad in position 1 on the right side of the page doesn't have a high enough Quality Score to appear above the search results, but the ad in position 2 does. It's now possible for the number 2 ad to jump over the number 1 ad and appear above the search results. This change ensures that quality plays an even more important role in determining the ads that show in those prominent positions.

Keep in mind that these enhancements may cause changes to any campaign's ad position, spend, and performance. The good news is that this will level the playing field even more across competitive industry segments - especially for non-branded keyword terms.  Google is essentially announcing that they are weighing in favor of "more clicks with lower bids". Our assumption is that challenging economic times have forced businesses and organization to bid down of keyword terms and thus search volume is likely down.  As a result, Google is changing their algorithm in an attemp to maximize clicks - even if they come at a lower cost-per-click.

George Assimakopoulos
Principal Manager

Recessions are periods of opportunity that can be taken advantage of or which can take advantage of you. By cutting your marketing activities, not only will you sell less than if you had kept your marketing steady but you may lose core customers to competition. That means you'll have to spend more time, money and energy in the future to win them back. We have noticed that across our vertical clients online marketing budget are not getting cut - but we are getting scrutinized like never before.  We have to choose promotional indulgences carefully and we must prove the value of emerging Web 2.0 media expenditures.

During such challenging economic times, we remind our clients that "the low-hanging fruit" opportunities should be where we concentrate marketing budgets to mazimize return on advertising spend (ROAS).  David Warschawski of B2B Magazine illustrates this point well in his most recent article.  He says "...even when a business is cash-strapped, there are ways to market that enable you to enjoy greater dividends. Two online marketing strategies that have great return on investment are:

1)  Reaching your core target audience through brand-centric public relationship campaigns that secure local, regional and trade media coverage.

2)  Updating your Web site so it uses the latest search engine optimization techniques. This will dramatically increase your chances for being found when members of your core target audience do an Internet search for your type of product or service."

Smart businesspeople know that when they continue to invest or buy even more when the stock market is down, they secure a stronger future for themselves. The exact same approach is true for marketing.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

The spotlight on Twitter.com has only become brighter in this past year. Viral in nature, Twitter allows for real-time group conversations and encourages link sharing.  According to Nielsen Online, Twitter is the fastest growing US online social networking site with a 343% in year-over-year audience growth.

Marketers are now capitalizing on the popularity of Twitter as a new online marketing strategy, a social marketing tactic, to promote their companies by driving traffic, brand awareness and healthy online discussion about the products and services. 

Marketing Sherpa offers tips to integrate Twitter in a company’s online marketing mix. First, a company must identify its target audience on Twitter. Members can be targeted based on location and on behavior and interests though community “hashtags” or groups.

When making “tweets” or updating content, keep the volume and timing appropriate. The content of your tweets will depend on the target audience’s interests and on the goals of the organization.  Technology allows for easy conversion of existing RSS feeds to tweets. Another option is to create customized accounts and/or fictional characters to represent a company.

In order to grow the audience base, it is important to interact with the members you follow, encouraging communication and interaction by replying to posts or “re-tweeting” updates to your own followers.

Finally and most importantly to any marketer, track metrics to determine the success of the Twitter marketing campaign.  Twitter allows members to monitor page views generated and track clickthroughs. Additionally members are able to track how its audience accesses Twitter updates either though mobile devices or directly online.

While Twitter has further evolved the presence of the web, make sure that a company has the time and resources to invest in “twittering” should it decide to incorporate Twitter into its online marketing strategy. 

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

A study conducted by JupiterResearch revealed that over 80% of marketers spending at least $50,000 per month on paid search advertising will maintain or increase this spending by next year.  With hard hits to the stock market and the country in economic crisis, budgeting for future marketing efforts is a challenge.  However, paid search advertising is a tactic marketers are unwilling to do without.  This year, marketers spent the majority of their budgets on search, followed by display ads, then classifieds.  Although significantly less was spent on lead generation this year, eMarketer predicts this ad format will see a 46% increase in spending, compared to search’s rise of 44% by 2013.

Between 2009 and 2013, eMarketer estimates that paid search advertising will double, approaching $23 billion.  Senior analyst at eMarketer, David Hallerman, states “Even if the economic crisis levels off this prediction, made in August 2008, the accountability of paid search makes it more valuable than most other forms of advertising, online or offline.”

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

A September 2008 survey by Epsilon shows that of 175 CMOs, 63% increased their digital marketing spend in 2008 and 53% have decreased their traditional marketing spend. This survey confirms the ongoing trend that digital ad and marketing spending is growing as traditional ad and marketing budgets are reduced. However 66% of those surveyed believed that total ad spending would fall as a result of the economy. Additionally, many companies have reduced their online ad spending estimates. Their forecasts still show growth, but at a slower rate.

How resilient is online marketing to the unpredictable economy? Despite the rollercoaster the stock market has been though in the past couple of weeks, the numbers for online ad spending in first half of 2008 seem generally strong, according to Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.  Their data shows double-digit growth in search, display (i.e. banners, rich media and video) and e-mail when compared to the first half of 2007. Compared to the first half of 2007 overall ad spending has increased by 15.2% in the first half of 2008.

One category that did have a 5% decrease in ad spend was online classifieds.  Classified ad buys tend to be short-term purchases with short-term objectives. Due to this nature of classifieds, these types of ads give a better snapshot of the strength of the economy. This negative growth closely reflects current economic weakness. The reason why most display-related ads have experienced positive growth is because they are contracted in advance. For that reason, they are not good indication the current state of the economy.

However, it is important to understand that the state of the economy is only one factor in what affects ad spend. Some believe that the ad industry was undergoing a major transformation, even before the crisis at the end of September occurred, moving from a media marketplace of high demand to one of high supply. But as both studies show, companies should continue to reallocate traditional marketing budgets to online.

Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator

According to Nielsen during Q2 of this year, more text messages were sent by the average U.S mobile user than phone calls.  Although there is a significant difference between these two modes of communication, they are not comparing apples to apples.  Far more information is expressed in one phone call than in one text, and therefore the ratio for what is conveyed is not 1:1.  Nonetheless, the research identifies a rise of mobile use, and specifically the medium that brings instantaneous connection to the user.  Marketers, who are constantly looking for ways to break through clutter and noise, see the value of this direct communication.

While text messaging is a great way to contact an audience, its success relies heavily on proper demographic targeting.  A common mistake made by marketers is relating texting to synchronized emails, which appears similar.  However, as Nielsen reveals, mobile users under the age of 25 are the ones relying primarily on text message.  The two mediums do not share the same primary users and this difference must be considered.  Senior Analyst at eMarketer, John du Pre Gauntt, reminds us of this distinction and encourages that “Marketers engaging with text still need to master the art of conversation.”