AdCenter Officially Now Serving Yahoo (US & Canada)

This week the US & Canada witnessed the latest integration to the merger of Bing & Yahoo!. Their entire advertising search will now be powered by adCenter, meaning advertisers now have access to both of their services, which accumulates to 27.9% of all searches according to the last stats published by comScore.

Although both companies merged and now hold an integrated search advertising program, Bing and Yahoo! still continue to develop their own individual features to deliver better results and performances catering to their users. 

For instance, Pipon recently posted news on Bing & Facebook Social affairs, consisting of socialising Bing search and excluding un-affecting Yahoo!.

In turn Yahoo! earlier this month made some significant changes to its interface, explaining its purpose as part of their continuous strategy to deliver unique user experience and to increase user interaction to help drive high quality traffic into the combined marketplace.

Although there are some negative speculations surrounding Yahoo! and Bing and also Google leading the market, Pipon can’t wait for the integration to be Global. The potential of using the combined marketplace would benefits advertisers and small businesses to reach wider audiences.

In addition, although still too early to tell as there are no indications of this, Yahoo! implementing Bing social search could benefits their overall goals to provide their clients with higher exposure and conversions. This could potentially raise their status and presences in the internet marketing industry.

PPC - AOL's Project Devil, Could It Be Apocalyptic To the Existing Display Advertising?

Presentable, extremely interactive, more relevant but most of all bigger and better is what AOL had in mind when they created 'Project Devil'. So what is it and why could it end the contemporary form of display advertising?

It is a new method of advertising products using online-magazine style content on the display advertising network. A user’s advert appears on the whole right side bar of a webpage and their ad solely occupies the ad space without any competition. The ad formats and features available range from Interactivity, video and social media integration and all in one package.

AOL launched this project last month; starting with a couple of their websites; ‘moviefone.com’ and ‘StyleList.com’. Plans are undergoing to include eight additional websites in their network by November 2010; potential brand currently campaigning on the network includes Cheerios, Macy’s, Sprint, Suave Professionals and Pillsbury Crescents. Websites not owned by AOL will also be part of the network to expand their segment.

This form of display advertising is AOL’s solutions to minimise noise within the communicative process of internet advertising. Devil reduces page clutter, keeping the acutely targeted audience focused on the client’s advert. The additional benefits, which Pipon believes is Devil’s unique selling point, is its ability to blend the adverts on a webpage they’re placed on, & interact with the visitors without their knowledge of its commercial purposes.

Granting it is too early to advise and forecast its performance and expectation, Pipon believes this could be a new web innovation, inspired from magazine advertising to give great exposure to clients, however it raises a couple of issues which if not tackled can halt its potential accomplishments.

For instance, currently cost of running a campaign on Devil is high, which in return limits their clientele to big brands. In addition to that, their display advertising structure restricts the ad placement to one advert per page, which unfortunately affects their click rates to decrease.

Dirk Freytag, SVP at AOL and CEO of AdTech claims not to be concerned in a statement by ClickZ News, where he explains that “although the inventory volume (AOL’s) has decreased, ad revenue has remained the same. The company expects its ad revenue to grow as the Devil promos are disseminated across its sites”

PPC: Google Resurrected 'Simple Ad' To Lead Businesses

Simple Ads, a notion created to help small businesses to advertise easier on Google’s AdWords. The approach, which was conceived quite a few years ago, was never officially launched because Google was supposedly never satisfied with the end results of the product. The product was intended to help small businesses use AdWords faster and more efficient by automatically creating and managing their campaign for them without the need of a third party agency.

Although the project was put on hold, Google didn’t stop their attempts to support and assist small businesses. They created various ad products which focus heavily in supporting small businesses; such as Local Listing Ads and Tags.  

Those SMBs ad product won’t the only one targeted at small businesses anymore, as early this week Google resurrected their Simple Ads project and manage to complete, and launching under the enthusiastic name ‘Boost’.

It is presumably at a testing stage within certain markets, however its functions has been posted as automatically creating campaign for business focusing on a business’s sector and information in the listing. No bidding, No keyword research, all a business need to do is set a monthly budget and Google will take care of the rest, like decide on the keyword triggers.

The only requirement SMBs are expected to ensure is a Places page set up, which is essential for setting up ‘Boost’. Working to Google’s advantage this will forces businesses create a Places page.

Pipon believes 'Boost' could be a significant breakthrough for small businesses that cannot afford services provided by internet advertising agencies. However, Pipon also believe, in comparison to'Boost', internet marketing services take a more personalized approach to help establish a successful campaign. In addition, using an internet marketing agency like Pipon provides small businesses with the flexibility of targeting a wider audience using other internet advertising programs such as AdCentre, Twitter and Facebook.

It would also be interesting to observe Boost's performance in comparison to using AdWords manually and  how Google would market this ad product to SMBs. It is too early to determine if ‘Boost’ would affect the internet marketing industry, however by simplifying AdWords, renders the program more attractive to a wider audience.

SMM: Bing’s Treasure Map creates Hunters on Facebook

Bing latest endeavours, is the lucrative and unquestionably expensive internet marketing strategy for the rapper, Jay Z, upcoming book called ‘Decoded’ published by Random House. Utilising their alliance with Facebook, they are attracting fans on Facebook to a treasure hunt to find pieces of the book in the virtual world and the real world, mainly in London and New York.

The concept of the campaign derived from the memoir’s title, ‘Decoded’, which aspires to get fans from around the worlds to unearth and decode all the pages of the book before its release next month. The processes of the treasure hunt consist of a multi-platform search experience and interactive game. For instance a user will need to go on bing.decodejay-z.com and enter the contest, which also uses the search engine map to find locations of the pages. 

The indications on Bing to the pages are all relevant to the artist’s career and music. However, if you find that you do not know some of the answers, Bing has placed a search box under the response box to help those unbeknownst to the answers.

Facebook users can access 'join the hunt' by just accessing the “Decode Jay-Z with Bing” page, and additionally the Jay-Z and Bing Facebook pages give out clues to participants.

Bing’s communication director explicates the marketing strategy as a method to create a connection with the artist’s fans base and the search engine because findings from their research defined plenty of them as being ‘heavy searches’, "So we can reach this audience with a really engaging experience that hits a topic they're passionate about and it's a great way to build affinity for Bing."(Lisa Gurry)

She also mentions that this being Bing’s first interactive game, it is somehow a test runner, and based on the amount of users interacting on the platform (decoded Jay-Z site) with outline Bing future attempt in similar projects.

This venture is indisputably grand in various scales and very well coordinated with potentially lucrative results. Both the artist and Bing are getting plenty of publicity from the campaign, however separately Bing is getting more traffic from it and the artist is also getting his royalties.

This type of social media marketing is exceptional for a business, the exposure is massively great and the interactions with the users are highly beneficial. Pipon could advise and guide a company in this type of endeavour by developing a marketing analysis of the business’s image on a social media spectrum.

SEM: Google Taking Over, Holding the Top Places

Chitika Research, the advertising network, reported in their recent study that Google holds the No.1 & No.2 spot in mobile devices as the most used search engine. This got to be a blow to Steve Jobs, who has been reported scrutinising Google’s products during Apple’s conferences.

The study declares Google as being the source of 97% of all iPhone search traffic, which was based on all searches made via the safari toolbar and the Google home page inclusive of the Google app.
Chitika’s conclusive analysis showing that Google holds the two top spots is based on their findings that users are utilising the Google home page on safari instead of the Apple application’s toolbar.

The second spot is reserved for Google App on the iPhone as the largest search engine. Yahoo is reported as falling behind at 2.25% behind Google. Bing, however, has been hard to distinguish because the app’s traffic cannot yet be identified.

Regardless, comparing the data gain from the ratings for Bing and Google apps in iTunes, it has been reported that Bing app’s traffic can fall between 1% and 4% and all of its traffic is estimated to only amount to half of Google’s.

With this type of stats, Pipon believes the importance of tackling mobile devices for internet marketing is higher than ever. The introduction of the latest devices further expands this communication tunnel.

SMM: Don't Be Put off by the woe of Social Media

A study reported that only 16% of internet users trust social networking, which is caused by the recent news surrounding social media and its breech of privacy. The study by Vision Critical also reported that the users' faith in forums and blogs are even lower.

Pipon believe that such stats could potentially shatter businesses with hope or plans to dabble in internet marketing but don't be put off, I'll give a few tips to better interact with social media users and create trusting relationship.
The main points to focus on to establish a trusting relationship with social media users are:
- Riposte
- Visibility
- Appreciation
Riposte

Have you ever enquired about an issue or seeking information from an organisation and ended up getting frustrated over the endurance of the response? Well if you haven’t then, you’re either holding an important role or you’re very lucky.
However, Riposte is about responding to your customer in timely manner because that it is the only way a user can judge an organisation’s dependability. Pipon advises its client to always respond to a customer as quickly as possible, even if it is just to advised on a more detailed follow up.

Visibility

The reason behind the Riposte is because, offline customers usually define an organisation by its employees’ professional mannerisms and idioms and because internet users cannot see who they addressing themselves to, they rely on a business’s accuracy and pace when responding. Employing this method of giving an organisation a representative is one of the advice, Pipon give to its clients.

Small businesses can upload pictures of their directors in their social media profiles, or blogs to allow customers to get a better picture of whom they are trading with. Medium or Large businesses can apply the same methods of uploading pictures of their teams working or in their past times.
This method allows internet users to know that they are various ways of contacting an organisation and make them feel comfortable to express their sentiments about your products or services.

Appreciation

Last but not least showing a sign of appreciation goes a long way. Simply sending a last message thanking internet users for their enquiry or complaint can establish a strong relationship thus creating loyal consumers.

Here at Pipon we understand, practice and encourage the use of these methods because we believe that social media is an essential tool in creating a strong and positive relationship with consumers.

SMM: Scan Me & Find Out

There's been a growth in barcode scanning, a component available in most mobile devices, in the US this year. The growth, up 700%, has been reported by a new consumer adoption survey sponsored by ScanBuy.
The reason behind this huge growth is presumably caused by the large amount of apps created, such as ShopSavvy, CheckPoints, RedLaser, ShopKick and many others.
The process of scanning a barcode, which consist of placing a compatible mobile devices over a barcode usually placed on a product in a retail environment or on an interactive advert, has grew effectively as a popular and accepted practice amongst a lot of consumers.  
Apart from the irrefutable exceptional growth of barcode usage, the report also produced some intriguing stats. For instance, the practice of barcode scanning was higher solely in July this year in comparison to the whole of 2009. 
Barcode Scanning is predicted to soon enter the mainstream of faster communicative practice amongst B2C. Once it evolves to more than just a concept to those advanced in the tech world.

Amazon just recently launched their latest version of their iPhone app, which established a bridge between the offline and online sales world imminently. The app allows its user to scan compatible products in a retail environment with an iPhone using the barcode scanning system, and users can either purchase the items on Amazon using the app or add the items to their wish lists. This barcode scanning app benefits Amazon buy allowing them to engage with their consumers and potential customers, in both the real and virtual world.

Here, Pipon, we believe the practice of barcode scanning could be an essential method of engaging with in social media marketing. With the large demands of mobiles devices and the large increase of mobile users, businesses could potential benefits by using barcode to interact or attract consumers to their causes. For Instance, the survey reported that in Japan, businesses use barcode to engage with customer by promoting coupon.

SEM: Bing Met Tweet, but Got in Bed with Facebook

The latest storm in the SEO world is the partnership of Bing and Facebook creating a new term 'Social Search' which they announced last week during a press event. The whole internet world witnessed the alliance between two internet marketing practices.

I wrote a similar but diminutive post a while back regarding Bing and Twitter's affair on a social tab on Bing (Query Meets Tweet While Searching) and in comparison to Bing's latest partnership, it can easily be perceived as a mere fling in contrast. Bing and Facebook's alliance could restructure the whole SEO spectrum and generating more room for Social media.

We will start witnessing some of changes caused by the partnership almost straight away, and others in the subsequent weeks and months. Altering the way individuals view search and social networking, was the notion behind this affiliation. Both companies believe conducting a query should be lifted to a more social and personal level.
The mention of two new features 'Facebook Likes' and 'Facebook Profile Search' on the Bing's search engine is the starting effect of this association, which is predicted to be launched imminently. 
The feature 'Facebook Likes' will work by providing results to a user's queries inclusive of their friends 'Likes' using Facebook. Placed at the top of the results page will be sites or link relevant to the query that a user's Facebook friends may have liked.
This concept originate from the belief by Bing that people will trust their affiliates' (friends, family, colleagues) opinions better than a stranger's reviews or a computerised system's results. Additionally, Bing hopes such personal results will attract more or create loyal surfers.
The other feature is to enable user to find people they are searching for easier. A research by Bing on search queries reported that 4% of queries are on seeking individuals; there erupted the notion to design the feature. This feature will work by utilising share network and friends to help users find the correct person's Facebook. In addition, users will be able to see from the search results; the person’s mutual friends, add the person as a friend or message them without leaving the result page.

Clearly these features do raise some issues, whilst reading about this some alarms rang in my head especially in reference to privacy issues. However, conscientious to this, Bing constructed an option to allow users on Facebook to opt out of this enhanced results by disabling it. Additionally those opt-in to the features, their Facebook information will be limited on the results pages, only the information made public by the Facebook user will visual.

Here, Pipon we believe this alliance was established to benefit both Bing and Facebook; by allowing Bing to target Facebook users to their search engine and for Facebook to drive their users to utilises their social media profiles to its full potential as a result empowering the social search, by personalising search results.
However, in more created scale, I feel that this alliance will give social media more power, once established and successfully engaging with its search users. For example, social search could soon influence the sales of products and services.

SEM News: A Shift in the Google’s Structure, What Are They Up To?

‘Marissa Mayer’, if you deal in SEO or Internet Marketing, then that is a name you should be familiar with now, because I’ve only come to acknowledge her since starting this Internship.

The latest buzz in the industry is her new job position, moving from overview the search department to handling the ‘location and local services’ department within Google.
Some may consider this un-news worthy but they would be wrong, because Mayer was not only recognised as the first female vice president engineer for web search, but she also played a significant role in designing, developing and evolving Google’s search interface.
She was involved in the launch of 100s of features and products on Google.com especially the latest innovation by Google, ‘Google Instant’.

In retrospect, Mayer could be regarded as an asset and Google has made it clear in their recent statements: “Marissa has made an amazing contribution on search over the last decade, and we’re excited about her input in this new area in the decade ahead”.

However, here at Pipon, we can’t help by feel like this is just a mere step to an overall development within the company, and the location and local services are part of the whole operation.
Mayer’s move from one sector could be interpreted as a significant shift by Google.

This surely raised my anticipation and some questions about their future novelties; From Google Instant, Now Google TV & Automatic cars...one can’t help but wonder what’s next and also how would they benefits SEO, if any or possibly kill it?

Search Engine Marketing: Google TV – Official Site unveiled

Google TV has been anticipated since sparks started flying about its undeclared launched early last month.

The official site has now been launched, consisting of an overview of the platform and pictures illustrating the potentials of Google's latest invention.

This latest Google innovative feature gives television viewers the ability to surf the web inclusive of search and record programs. It also enables the viewers to watch TV and surf the web simultaneously due to an app gallery available on the TV screen. An inclusive feature also allows the use of a Smartphone as a remote control.

The new Google TV website conveys a lot of information regarding their product, from a list of their partners content to the available channels inclusive on the platform.

The content partners and providers consist of The New York Times and USA Today, Netflix, VEVO, Napster, blip.tv, and many more including Twitter and YouTube.

The channels featured include TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim; NBC Universal including CNBC Real-Time; HBO with HBO GO; NBA has built NBA Game Time and many more.

Twitter pointed out that their application integrated on Google TV will be somehow similar to their current; easy navigable and holding most Twitter's features and functions.

Pipon Search believes this latest innovation creates a new medium platform allowing marketers to reach a larger audience for PPC campaign, however it holds a great deal of potential which has not been or cannot yet be established. Google has conveyed a related perception on the site; “The coolest thing about Google TV is that we don’t even know what the coolest thing about it will be.”

More details information can be found on Google TV sites.

Social Media Marketing: The Bid Is On, To Be The Top Account

Twitter has added a new feature to its Advertising application, called ‘Promoted Account’. This enables businesses to buy a placement within the "Suggestion for you" section located in the right hand panel on a user’s (Twitterer) home page.

Early last month during the AdTech convention, I attended one of the Twitter seminars that referred to their last advertising feature called 'Promoted Tweet'. It was launched early this year in April to allow businesses to broadcast their Tweet to a wider targeted audience. 

The amount of people paying keen attention to the subject of the seminar indicated that twitter’s advertising program held an interest to internet marketers and proved its possibilities to create new opportunities in social media marketing.

Relatively similar to some search engines advertising programs (Google AdWords), it works by placing the promoted tweets at the top of a search results in relevance to the users' search query. There is an additional feature available to all clients giving a choice to pay extra to highlight their promoted tweet as ‘Promoted’.

On the other hand, Twitter’s Promoted Account feature uses an algorithm to establish which ‘Promoted Account’ should appear to which users. For Instance, if a user follows a lot of Xbox-related accounts but not the official Xbox account then this one will appear within the ‘Suggestion for you’ section. 

Twitter further explains on one of their entry blogs, that only one ‘Promoted Account’ will appear per set of suggestions to avoid users being bombarded with other ‘Promoted Accounts’ they are not interested in.

Currently, there is a limited number of businesses featured which is Twitter’s method of testing out their new advertising features and in addition it has not yet been reported if the advertising features can be used by all users including personal accounts.

Twitter has also mentioned that they are testing two potential ad features called ‘Promoted Tweets’ and ‘Promoted Trends’ with a selected number of partners.

Pipon’s perception of Twitter's latest features is that it could prove to be another option for doing paid marketing but on a MicroMedia platform, which is different and more direct when compared to Facebook. It is an ideal method of trying to target a larger audience to engage with.

Social Media Marketing and Social Media Monitoring are services Pipon provide to their clients and they believe it is essential in the overall establishment of a successful internet marketing campaign.

Social Media Marketing: Is Google Planning A Grand Entrance?

Following the number of blog posting the rumour of the latest acquisition by Google of the new start up company, 'Plannr', I couldn't help but feel that something was in the making.

Plannr is a mobile social application, which allows user to share information of their plans. Its features allow users & their friends to instantly update each other with confirmation or changes to their plans. The company was founded by Jason Prado & Ben Eidelson, both former Microsoft employees and recognised social networking expert.

I previously posted a blog on Google's introduction to the social media industry with their latest social network component; 'Google Me'. Where Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, felt it necessary to declare that; "Everybody has convinced themselves that there’s some sort of a huge project about to be announced next week. I can assure you that’s not the case", at the Zeitgeist 2010 conference.

This potential acquisition in addition to their previous acquired companies (slide, Angstro) somehow contradicts his statement, by raising the assumption that there is an underline course of action to undertake the social media industry, because with the 'Plannr' acquisition Google do not only gain a new product but also the benefit of two recognised experts in social media as part of their team

As mention in my last post, Google's previous attempt to take on the social media industry (Orkut & Wave) was somehow underprivileged. Wave was terminated due to lack of interest and Orkut only managed to succeed in certain parts of the world.
A poor marketing strategy could be established as the reason behind the failure, however it could also explained Google's new strategy to undertake its competitors.
In keeping a close lead on all information about their products but yet deploying news of their latest acquisition and presumably rumours too creates curiosity and raises anticipation, a good strategy to get mass attention within a very competitive industry.

PPC Marketing: There Is A New Keyword Tool In Town

The latest update in Google's advertising application, 'AdWords', is the launched of a new keyword tool, which is a combination of their previous tools; 'Keyword Tool' and 'Search-based Keyword Tool'.
After proven successful, the two former versions can no longer be accessed by the user as Google has now taken the updated keyword tool out of its beta phase and launched it fully on AdWords and branded it 'The Keyword Tool'.

One of the latest benefits from this new update is that users can access the tool without signing in to their account, although Google recommends user to signing in. Additionally, the improvements also consist of the methods used by Google to calculate their Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches.
The changes was influenced by advertiser feedback; formerly they collected the traffic data from search partners' but now all statistics in the mentions columns will only be based on one search traffic, Google.com

The other Keyword Tool's benefits include:

* Flexible search options: Search by any combination of keywords, website/URL, and category (where available) and receive a single set of results.
* Easy Keyword Refinement: Filter results by word or keyword match type.
* Negative keywords: Easily add keyword ideas as negatives right from your keyword list. Just click on a keyword and use the drop-down menu to select and save your negative keyword.
* Advanced options: View statistics for mobile search and use data filters based on local searches, search and ad share, and more.