AdWords Trademark Policy Update

Overview

Google recently announced that starting June 15^th, advertisers will be allowed to use trademark terms in their ads even if they do not own that trademark nor are an approved reseller/partner.  Currently, advertisers have complete control over who can place their brand name in the headline and/or description line in order to ensure competitors are not using such brand name as leverage.  Advertisers who own their brand name manually grant companies permission to use these terms in the ad copy on a case by case basis.  Google will be rolling out an automated tool to properly scan landing pages and allow use of brand terms in ad copy based off of the following advertiser criteria:

1.       Resellers or partners:  Tool will scan the landing pages to ensure branded product is sold.  An example is Best Buy selling Belkin routers on the landing page.  The tool would allow ‘Belkin’ to be displayed in the ad copy

2.       Informational sites: Sites that compare and or review products, but do not sell such products.  For example, CNET as an advertiser may have a page dedicated to comparing routers.  They will be able to run ads saying “Looking for a new router? Compare Belkin to D-Link and….”

This change has no affect on keywords: anyone can currently bid on any term in AdWords.  Google’s Quality Score will bring the most relevant ads and landing pages to the top rank.

Why?

It appears that Google is making the marketplace more accessible to all advertisers by automating this feature.  However, the technology rolled out will ensure that competitors will not be allowed to fall under the 2 categories above.  Google’s goal (and that of the search landscape) is to connect the audience with qualified ads and, in effect, connect the user to the right page as quickly as possible.

Impact

The trademark update will obviously give companies less control over who can use their brand terms in ad copy.  However, the direct effect of this change will depend on the brand.

Clients with Resellers/Partners

Companies with a large manufacturing base (i.e. several resellers) may see an increase in cost per clicks as the paid search marketplace increases on both brand and general terms.

Clients’ Products on Informational Sites

On the other hand, informational sites, in time, could be quite beneficial to all advertisers.  Although ad dollars are moving towards the lead gen aspect of search, there are still a large percentage of users researching before they buy.  These sites may take away clicks initially, but these users are becoming more educated about your product and, if it is a good fit, will be more likely to convert - and convert faster.  This means a potential increase in conversion rates and return on investment.

What to do?

Clients with Resellers/Partners

Keep track of your clients’ resellers–which keywords they are bidding on with your brand in copy.  There won’t be much you can do to change their copy, but it is best to avoid click cannibalization and increasing CPCs.  In some situations, you may be able to work with your resellers or partners to keep this from happening.

Clients’ Products on Informational Sites

See which informational sites are displaying your client’s brand in their ad copy.  This could be an upsell opportunity for some premiere display placement, especially if the information is positive for your client.

So mark June 15^th in your calendar as Duplicity Day.  You may start to see your brand more than expected!

~Daniel Romotsky

Sports + Analytics = Higher Returns

Organized sports have moved from being a form of entertainment to becoming a useful marketing tool.  If used well, a sporting event or team can boost the popularity of a product, as well as a company’s revenue.  But you might be asking,”How can analytics mix in this equation?”  Simple, by using the team’s health, analytics will show you the areas where you need to improve your marketing strategies to drive traffic to your site and ultimately convert your visitors into clients.

Take the Tampa Bay Rays or the San Diego Chargers for example.  Both teams have either disappointed or were believed to make it far because of their past or current experiences, but the Rays made it as far as the World Series and the Chargers are putting every sport analyst to shame by making it to the Divisional Series.  What this means to your business is that behind these successes are fans that support the team, and you can use those emotions to drive more traffic to your site. 

One strategy is to promote your product/service on sites that cater to a team’s fan base.  As the season progress, not only monitor the team’s health but also your traffic.  My experience with clients that use this strategy is that their products trend in conjunction with the team’s health.  Look at your referring traffic to see what domains bring the most visitors to your site and focus your marketing strategies on those domains that are popular, while improving your ad placement or using other tactics to drive visitor traffic from those referring sites that bring the least traffic.

Something else to keep in mind is that the use of a team to promote a product /service needs to be done regardless of the team’s health to maintain support from the fans, while avoiding the “bandwagon effect.”  The bandwagon effect is a behavior where people adopt something that others do without consideration, which is closely related to opportunism.  This is clearly seen in sports.  As a team succeeds, it creates a greater fan base.  In order to find success in a team’s downfall is to use the hope of a better season, to drive the core fan base to your product/service.  This not only evokes loyalty from that group of fans, but the word of mouth will spread the popularity of the product/service as the team’s popularity increase.

So, what do think and who do you think will make it big in 2009 (besides the Chargers of course)?  Happy analytics!     

Marketing a Presidential Candidate Online

Here at Geary, we like to cap off each week with an Innovation Session – an informal meeting with food, drinks and a presentation from the front lines of interactive marketing.

Last Friday, we chose to explore the various ways that Barack Obama and John McCain are marketing themselves online — with a particular focus on Web 2.0 strategies.

We tried to keep the presentation non-partisan, but it was difficult because Obama has made aggressive social media efforts his trademark. He has an active presence on MySpace, Facebook, and niche social networks such as Faithbase and BlackPlanet; active accounts on Twitter and YouTube; text message updates; an active social network at my.barackobama.com; and much more. McCain also has a social network on his main domain and presences on the big social networking sites, but his presence on Twitter and niche social networks is bare-bones compared to Obama’s, and he does not have a text messaging program.

We hypothesized that Obama’s aggressive efforts are primarily a function of the citizens he’s trying to reach — young people and first-time voters, as well as independent voters who spend time on niche online communities. We’re guessing that Obama has found that online efforts are a cost-effective way to reach new, disaffected and undecided voters — and he has the deep pockets to back up these efforts.

Here are some fun facts about each candidates’ online efforts:

• My.barackobama.com, Obama’s in-house social networking platform, is run by Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook.
• Obama’s various websites get about 20 million visitors a month, compared to 4 million a month for McCain-affiliated sites.McCain is much more active in paid search advertising than Obama. At one point, McCain was bidding on 226 keywords, compared to only 174 by Obama.
• Obama ran 17 negative paid search ads, while McCain ran only three – the opposite of their general strategies, where McCain’s advertising ran much more negative than Obama’s.
• At present, Obama’s infomercial has 1.6 million views on YouTube. This is significant reach, but it’s dwarfed by the 33.55 million people who watched the infomercial on TV.

To learn more about this topic, you can view the full PowerPoint presentation.

I also recommend “Obama’s Wide Web” from the Washington Post and this article from MediaPost, which gives details about the candidates’ paid search strategies.

Geary Interactive wins iMedia Financial Summit Shootout

As we recently mentioned two of Geary Interactive’s very own were sent to New York to compete against Crayon in a hotly contested agency shoot out at the iMedia Financial Summit.

Hot off the presses - Geary Interactive pulls off the win for their fantastic use of strategy and understanding of banking clients.

Check back for a video and write-up from iMedia about the event and congrats to the whole iMedia team for their hardwork.

The Marketing Power of Offline and Online Integration….Or Me Just Being a Sucker

On the drive to work this morning I heard a radio spot for the new Starbucks Vivanno smoothies.  The radio spot offered a very simple message that stated that the smoothies were now available.  The spot peaked my interest, however I had more questions that I wanted answered.  I was curious about different flavors and the nutrition information.  Once I got to work, I searched Starbucks to try and find the additional details I desired.  Sure enough, when i click on the Starbucks link all of the information I was looking for was conveniently located on the homepage which was wearing a Vivanno skin.  I didn’t even have to sift through the site to find out that the smoothie came in two flavors and was a healthy option.

The radio spot could have simply offered the information and taken out the interactive piece, but if it was a billboard or a poster in a bus stop the creative would be compromised to add all of the details that someone may require.  Not to mention that driving a consumer to the Starbucks site helped to engage the customer and possible cross-sell them on something else the company had to offer.  This piece showed a great example of how a company was leveraging all of their marketing assets to reach a goal.  Utilizing offline efforts to drive people online and vise versa is an important piece to any successful marketing campaign.  And yes, the smoothie was very tasty                                                                     

San Diego’s own, Veoh, brings behavioral targeting to online videos

Veoh is known for breaking new ground in the online space, but their new advertising program could revolutionize the way advertisers purchase advertisements online and how consumers are exposed to them.  The program (being release out of beta today) will group viewers into buckets based upon their past searching, tagging, commenting, and viewing activities.

One could ask if a user watches videos online that fit into their true interests or if they primarily watch pieces that are considered viral (have you seen the water skiing chipmunk?!)?  For YouTube this may be true, but Veoh offers the largest library of online TV resulting in more interest based viewership.  Veoh is even claiming that during beta the program’s ads preformed twice as well as the non-targeted versions.

It will be very interesting to see how this technology develops and what it does to Veoh’s position in the industry.

To target or not to target? Is that even a question?

Online advertising is all about targeting…behaviorally, demographically, geographically (you get the picture). The more ways that marketers can segment their audience, the better; so is there still a need to craft advertisements that appeal to the population at large? Does anyone still broadcast their marketing messages anymore?

Looking to TV outlets for a comparison, there seems to be a struggle between two camps about whether catering to segmented audiences is a wise marketing choice. Take CBS for example. This network has CSI in its arsenal–touted as the most watched TV show across all segments–and is starting to experiment with highly specialized/targeting programming with shows like Swingtown.  The network has a broad reach and is arguably a great route for a marketer to reach a wide consumer base, but today’s Advertising Age article reports that advertisers are shying away from placing ads within Swingtown for fear of being equated with the shows promotion of “unconventional” lifestyles.

From a targeting standpoint, this should be a good thing because the viewing audience is more clearly defined. What if research shows that the consumers of your product are watching this show? Does the general perception matter if you are reaching your target market? I would say that the old adage is false; what is good for the gander is not always good for the goose. Target away advertisers for two reasons: you’ll be more effective and your consumers will appreciate your relevancy.

Why cold call when you can reach someone who is predisposed to receive your message?

Do you need search marketing in a recession?

Bankrate is a great illustration of the good that can come of maintaining budgets for organic and paid search marketing — even in a recession.

As the subprime crisis hit in the third quarter of 2007, Bankrate’s advertisers faced hard times.

Even during that difficult quarter, organic traffic accounted for 75% of Bankrate’s traffic. Meanwhile, paid search brought in 14% of traffic, and partner traffic brought in the remaining 11%.

In the face of the recession, Tom Evans, Bankrate’s CEO, didn’t just maintain his company’s search engine budget — he increased it. And he’s laughing all the way to the bank.

“We believe that organic traffic is less susceptible to competitive market dynamics, and is reflected in driving higher margins to our bottom line,” Evans explained. “Organic traffic continues to grow at double digits …[unique visits] for every single month this year have been higher than the same month last year.”

Furthermore, Evans remarked, “I think the reason we do so well in SEO is we have an enormous amount of content. We have an enormous amount of tools and calculators, and I think we have done a good job from SEO with, we have got literally millions of links into the site and out of the site, and I think that it really helps.”

In other words, rather than gaming the system, Evans recognizes the value of giving searchers — and search engines — lots of great content that naturally attracts incoming links. With its wealth of interactive content, Bankrate is in a great position to continue capturing a superior share of search traffic and qualified leads.

Even in a recession, sites like Bankrate can capture search engine marketing leads at a relatively low cost per acquisition. Realizing this fact is helping Bankrate survive and even thrive during the subprime crisis.

For more about Tom Evans’ take on the value of search engine marketing, visit SearchEngineWatch.

Geary Interactive Named a Top B2B Advertising Agency

Geary Interactive continues to prove it’s ability to provide digital marketing solutions for a wide variety of clients. Geary Interactive was named one of the top b2b agencies by B2B Magazine, and our newly acquired search marketing firm Fathom Online was also named a top search engine marketing vendor.

Why Geary Interactive is Excited About Merging with Fathom Online

With our announcement yesterday about our acquisition of Fathom Online, we at Geary Interactive thought we would share the top five reasons why excited about joining forces.

1. Search engine marketing is growing part of the online marketing mix, and Fathom has industry-leading expertise in this field.

2. Fathom has well-established relationships with all the biggies:  Google, Yahoo! and MSN.  Additionally, they have developed proprietary tools to help track and forecast market trends (Fathom Analytics and Keyword Price Index).

3. With this merger we are undeniably one of the few indepedent, integrated digital advertising agencies.

4.  We now have an full-service office in San Francisco which expands our national reach.

5. Fathom Online is as equally excited as Geary Interactive to capitalize on the projected growth of the interactive industry.

To put it lightly, we are ecstatic about this new partnership, and we cannot wait to move forward and utilize our combined industry know-how to maximize our clients’ campaigns.