DIGITAL SOUP

A blog by Barry Flanigan

How to advertise effectively on Facebook – Ten Tips (from The Wall Blog)

 

With Facebook set to hit 600-million users worldwide and now accounting for almost a quarter of the world’s display ad impressions, 2011 could be the tipping point where most brands start to invest heavily in Facebook advertising.

I’ve come up with what I hope are some helpful insights into the essential dos and don’ts of Facebook advertising. Let me know if you find this useful. 

1. Combine micro and macro

Not only does Facebook offer huge reach for advertisers it also offers unique targeting features. Ads can be targeted by age, gender, location and even by ‘Likes’ and interest information that users have entered into their profiles. What’s more, since most people are connected to their close friends, and often their parents, the profile information tends to be highly accurate.

2. Keep it simple

In some ways Facebook advertising uses similar best practices to paid search. Using simple language in ad text, calls to action, special offers and sending traffic through to relevant landing pages are paid search techniques that work well on Facebook.

3. An opportunity to engage the brand

However, that’s about where the comparison between search and Facebook ends. If you’re expecting Facebook advertising to perform like search then it’s probably time for a re-think. Search is intent focused; people are actively searching for your website, brand, or keywords related to what you sell so they are much further down the purchase path and much more likely to convert. On the other hand, Facebook advertising hits people earlier in the purchase cycle, giving you an effective way to raise awareness and start engaging with your target audience. So it’s more like display advertising in that it won’t deliver the immediate revenues that search drives so effectively. But it will bring you new customers.

4. Don’t aim to get them immediately parting with cash

There are two ways you can use Facebook ads: promote something on Facebook or promote something off Facebook Campaigns that drive users to an external website can work extremely well if execution is good. Thinking about the best time of day to show ads, having good landing pages and measuring softer metrics like the percentage of new visitors and newsletter sign ups can yield better results than just trying to get people to part with cash straight away.

5. Maximise social recommendations

A recent UK Toluna/Econsultancy survey showed that 25% of people have made a purchase via a brand’s Facebook page. This highlights the value of a Facebook page for a brand and where promoting something on Facebook can be very interesting and ultimately beneficial to ecommerce revenue. When you see adverts for a fan page Facebook displays who of your friends also ‘Like’ the page. This ‘social recommendation’ can dramatically improve the ad’s performance.

6. Keep your creative fresh and interactive

When choosing ad creative and images it’s important to test several variations. Asking questions in ad copy has been shown to work better so test different variations of this. Also logo images tend not to work as well as interesting product or generic pictures. Test different combinations and optimise those with the best click through rates. Be aware that your ads are going to potentially get displayed to the same people over and over again. This is why we see click through rates drop off over the course of 5-7 days. So it’s important to refresh the messaging and images regularly.

7. Audience targeting like no other

This is where there’s potentially the most scope for testing and refining. Create different demographic groups based on ‘Likes’ and Interests. You can target competitors’ fans but also try to think laterally. For example, for a recent luxury brand campaign, we achieved strong results from targeting sports fans closely related to the brand such as rowing, rugby, polo and so on.

8. But don’t get too hung up on targeting

However interest/’Like’ targeting can often be too restrictive and it’s easy to get carried away with it. For example 260,000 people in the UK have “travel” as one of their interests. This is a good number and definitely worth testing against if you’re a travel advertiser. But what about the people who don’t have “travel” as one of their interests? Does this mean they don’t like travelling? We often find that widening the targeting by not using interests and focusing on age ranges, locations and genders can be a better way to advertise because you can get a more complete audience. The responder demographic and profile reports in Facebook give you excellent data to help you refine this approach.

9. Tracking identifies the sweet spot

Like any online marketing channel, tracking is crucial. Not just the overall campaign but also down to ad level and demographic group so you can find the sweet spot for your Facebook campaign. Unlike Google Adwords, for example, Facebook doesn’t come with a built-in tracking system so it’s important to use your analytics or, even better, one of the Facebook Ad API tools on the market, such as Upcast, to effectively track your conversions against spend. If you’re promoting something on Facebook then comparing new ‘Likes’ and some of those softer metrics such as active users, comments and post views against ad spend will reveal much about the value of the ad campaign and its ROI.

10. Things move fast in Facebook Land

Facebook has recently launched a new ad format called Sponsored Stories which allows advertisers to turn people’s ‘Likes’, check-ins, status updates and so on into advertisements to their friends. It’s critical to constantly experiment with new formats and ad tactics on Facebook to get the most out of your social ad campaigns and find ever more innovative ways to stay ahead of the competition. Facebook definitely keeps us on our toes.

Grant Muckle is managing director of I Spy Labs

 

Posted March 2, 2011

DSPs and real-time bidding: six trends to keep an eye on (Econsultancy)

Six key trends from Econsultancy's recent report on Demand Side Platforms

Static algorithms and transactions, bundle-purchasing of impressions and pre-negotiated prices will soon become a thing of the past. 

Much of the display advertising market growth is driven by the recent developments in auction-based media and the increasing number of platforms facilitating real-time bidding transactions.

Impression-level bidding, predictive targeting and dynamic inventory allocation are just some of the hottest buzz phrases in the display advertising ecosystem as interest in demand-side platforms has intensified.

DSPs have created a dramatic shift in how media is bought and managed by enabling advertisers to reach a specific audience at the impression level, in real time. Before diving into this rapidly evolving marketplace, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how these platforms can help you. The guide includes several key questions and considerations that you should keep in mind when looking for the right DSP to suit your needs.

Advertising dollars are moving from ad networks to DSPs and other automated channels.

As Econsultancy's Online Media Report shows, the “black box” approach of traditional ad networks has been heavily criticised by advertisers and publishers alike. The potential of damaging their brands through inappropriate ad placements and pricing inefficiencies are some of the reasons behind the recent shifts of advertising budgets from ad networks to ad exchanges and DSPs.

Although emerging players such as DSPs, private exchanges and trading desks have already started to capitalise on these budget shifts, ad networks are not dead. They will continue to play an important role in the new auction-based ecosystem – either through mergers and acquisitions or vertical media partnerships.

Data capability is one of the most valuable commodities in the new RTB ecosystem.

While using data to optimise campaigns and reach the right audience is not new, data are increasingly seen as the Holy Grail of the RTB ecosystem. Spending on audience targeting is expected to significantly grow in 2011 and more data-driven campaigns will tie in with other channels, such as mobile, video and social. Providers of advanced data and analytics are in a great position to benefit from this trend.

Despite the growing number of RTB-enabled impressions, some publishers remain sceptical of the returns that DSPs provide and are reluctant to make their proprietary data available. One of the major issues in 2011 will be the availability and quality of data, rather than the technology necessary to access it.

Mobile and video advertising continues to mature.

The last few months have finally confirmed the tremendous potential of mobile and video to provide new ways of reaching and engaging with users. Despite issues around standardisation of video and mobile ad delivery and reporting, they are gradually becoming an essential component of any digital advertising strategy. After a flurry of acquisitions in 2010, consolidation is expected to continue and future innovations on top of RTB capabilities will focus on the integration of display with mobile and video.

Digital media convergence is closer than you think.

The days of managing digital media campaigns in silos are numbered. As the lines between display, search, social and other digital channels continue to blur, advertisers are increasingly adopting a more holistic approach to how media are purchased and managed. They are gradually moving from the last click attribution model to a centralised technology that allows them to evaluate and attribute the impact that each channel has on overall performance.

Those that will be able to bring together RTB, dynamic creative optimisation and advanced insights to reach granular audiences will seize a significant share of advertising budgets.

Technology is not enough.

Traditionally, the display advertising market has been technology-driven and it was considered that best-of-breed technology can guarantee success. Therefore, vendors have invested vast amounts of resources to build proprietary technology platforms.

However, it has been increasingly argued that placing a service layer on top of the technical infrastructure can truly differentiate a DSP in this crowded space. Technology can go so far; having a dedicated campaign manager who understands this dynamic decisioning model and takes into account all variables is essential. Therefore, players in the RTB ecosystem will start to create new business models and define strategies that facilitate the integration of “human interfaces”.

In a recent blog post for Econsultancy, Andy Betts provided a very useful overview of the display advertising market and impact of demand-side platforms, including some interesting predictions for 2011.

Learn more...

Econsultancy's DSPs Buyer’s Guide contains extensive insight from individuals on the front-line of the display advertising industry, as well as a diagram which explains the real-timing bidding ecosystem.    

The report contains profiles of the following DSPs: AdBuyer.com, Adnetik, DataXu, Efficient Frontier, Infectious Media, Invite Media, The Media Innovation Group (MIG), MediaMath, mexad, Rocket Fuel, SearchIgnite, StrikeAd, The Trade Desk, Triggit, Turn, XA.net.

 

Monica Savut is a Research Analyst at Econsultancy. Follow her on Twitter or connect via LinkedIn.

Filed under  //   Advertising  

Five lip biting SEO myths from Econsultancy

Original article from Mark Cook on Econsultancy:

The SEO field has some great thought leaders who work hard to share their knowledge and data with the community. Despite this, after nine years working in the field, I still see some horrible misinformation published on an alarmingly regular basis.

So, with the help of Twitter, these are the five SEO myths I would love to see buried in 2011...

1 "You need to improve your keyword density"

This one always blows my mind. It can be disproved with about 30 seconds research; simply do a search for some of the most competitive terms you can think of and what do you find? Strangely, it's not endless reams of keyword-stuffed landing pages.

Apart from the fundamental shift that happened years ago when search engines started placing more weight on link graphs rather than on-page text and meta-data, language processing is a well documented science.

In short: Never start sacrificing the quality of your content for SEO purposes.

2 "Google penalises for duplicate content"

Although we recently heard from Google about new changes that will target sites that copy others content (think scraping content farms), it is important to note that generally speaking there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty.

If you've got some duplicate pages, or you're hosting some content from another site, it makes no sense for Google to display the exact same content twice in one search query result: If the first one wasn't helpful to the searcher, the second one won't be, so why waste valuable SERPs real estate on it?

The result is one of these pages is filtered from the index. It does not mean your site is suddenly going to be hit with mythical ranking penalties.

In short: A little duplicate content won't kill you, but maybe look at why it's there.

3 "Update your content regularly to keep it fresh and rank better"

Well, it sounds like it could be true, right? Unfortunately, all too often I see companies with staff updating their website for the sake of it, under the instruction of their "SEO expert".

While it's true that the "age" of content will affect some verticals (think about news results, which are basically chronological), for the most part, your average chartered accountant website isn't going to see a return on having someone spending 20 hours a week writing in their "latest news" section.

Sure, you could argue that by creating all this content you're doing something for the "longtail", but I can guarantee you there's better ways to spend your time.

In short: If you've got something to say, write about it. If you don't, please don't have someone doing it just for "SEO".

4 "W3C/Standards compliant code will help search engines love your site"

I like good code. There's a whole bunch of great reasons to write compliant code and make your website as accessible as possible. SEO though, is not one of them. As long as you're covering off the SEO basics so your site loads quickly and can be indexed (you're not giving technical barriers to search bots), you'll be fine.

While it may make sense at first thought, only a small percentage of websites conform to web-standards it would make it a very difficult metric to use for search engines to judge how useful the page is for the searcher.

In short: Please produce good, accessible code as standard practise. Don't recode your entire website for just for SEO purposes.

5 "PPC Spend / Adwords / Adsense affects your SEO"

Sure, big brands and big spenders might get back in the index a little quicker if they get banned than you, but it's nothing to do with PPC spend. If a big brand does get penalised, Google has no choice long-term than to reinstate them.

If you do a search for "cheap flights" you expect to see RyanAir, you expect to see EasyJet (not that I'm suggesting they've done anything wrong). Not having these brands present would reduce the quality of Google SERPs, which is its core mission to maintain.

If you get banned from Google and it takes you nine months to get back in, it's not because Google doesn't care, it's because most people don't care.

Even Matt Cutts had to answer these allegations on Google preferring Adwords/Adsense clients in organic SERPs:

"One misconception that we’ve seen in the last few weeks is the idea that Google doesn’t take as strong action on spammy content in our index if those sites are serving Google ads. To be crystal clear:

• Google absolutely takes action on sites that violate our quality guidelines regardless of whether they have ads powered by Google;
• Displaying Google ads does not help a site’s rankings in Google; and
• Buying Google ads does not increase a site’s rankings in Google’s search results.

These principles have always applied, but it’s important to affirm they still hold true.”

In short: Don't confuse an Adwords spend with the importance brand equity plays on Google's SERPs

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7175-5-lip-biting-seo-myths-i-still-hear-in-2011

Pitchify - a great Spotify music discovery service

Love this site..Pitchify collects reviews from two excellent webzines Pitchfork and Drowned In Sound on a daily basis, then checks if the reviewed albums are available on Spotify. Only albums that have received a rating of 8 or more (out of 10) will be included on Pitchify. Lots of albums are reviewed every day, and thousands of tracks added to Spotify every week. Pitchify tries to sort through the pile, throw away the Gagas and the Nickelbacks and present you with the very best that Spotify has to offer.

Filed under  //   Music