Google Yourself!

Have you ever Googled yourself? A friend or family member? A job applicant or new potential boss? Try it!

As more and more of the worlds information is being indexed by the search engines, it is becoming increasingly important to monitor your “online profile.” As I am sure everyone went and searched their name after reading the first line; what did you come up with? Was there anything that you would prefer was not showing up or some content you wished appeared higher in the results?

This concept of “online reputation management” is becoming a must for every business whether they have a web presence or not. Reviews, ratings, testimonials, videos, and more, are becoming common place within the search engine results. There are numerous tips and tricks that can be implemented to help improve your online reputation, but the first step is to take a look. A large amount of companies and individuals seem to forget about it and are losing money, potential clients, and brand reputation because of it.

Does your business effectively monitor your reputation online???

Is Google’s Stock Too High?

Google’s stock hit $610, yesterday! Are investors getting a little crazy again?!? Now I am one of Google’s biggest fans (even though I do not own any stock), but this price certainly made me question investors’ sensibilities regarding this tech stock (seems like I have heard that comment in the past…). Yes, Google has created one of the greatest cash generating machines of our century with Adwords and Adsense, but can they sustain this growth?

For the past several years, Google has made forays into many new areas outside of search, including Print Ads, Audio Ads, Video, TV Ads, Checkout and YouTube. Not one of these efforts has added significant revenue to their bottom line. How can their stock price possibly be sustainable if all of their efforts to grow beyond search have failed? The acquisition of DoubleClick may help sustain the growth if it happens, but that acquisition looks tenuous at best with all of the reviews from the FCC to Congress.

If the Google stock bubble pops, it will certainly be felt throughout the industry. While there are certainly more online businesses with viable business models than in 2000/01, any Google price crash will be tough on the industry. So, we will all be watching to see if Google’s stock is really too high.

You Tube’s New Video Ad Platform

The rapid growth of online video has created a lot of interest with marketing professionals on how to best utilize video content websites as a marketing platform. While many video websites are looking for an effective means to index and tag videos, You Tube has also been busy revolutionizing the method of distributing advertisements to online video viewers.

Recently, You Tube introduced a new “semi-transparent” advertising overlay that covers the bottom 20 percent of the screen for up to the first 10 seconds of the video being played. According to You Tube, these advertisements are less annoying than the “pre-roll” video ads that are currently being used on other video sites.

The distribution method is based on the same principles of targeting traditional broadcast TV, (age, sex, geography and genre) combined with the measurability of online marketing mediums such as banner ads. Currently, there are about 20 advertisers using the “semi-transparent” advertising including New Line Cinema and BMW.

Google Mobile to Show AdWords Ads

Google has announced that it will soon begin showing AdWords ads on its Google Mobile Search page results. Formatted for mobile devices, however, only ads with landing pages that can be seen on the tiny screen will be shown.

Google has implemented an “opt-out” feature, binding existing advertisers to be included in the mobile search unless they specifically configure their AdWords account to prevent it.

While many marketers and technology gurus are anticipating to this avenue of advertising, other users are finding that there is no place to hide from the burden of advertisements. What do you think?

The iPhone Price Cut: Is it Fair?

Wednesday, at the recent Apple’s “The Beat Goes On” event in San Francisco, Apple announced several things that were news worthy. The most controversial has to be the price drop of the 8GB Apple iPhone by $200 to $399 and the 4GB drop of $200 to $299. Now several of the “Early Adopters” to this technology are at a loss.

The price drop is also said to be a driving force to increase sales over the next 3 weeks to hit the previously stated goal of over 1 million phones by the end of September. Price cuts will also increase sales over the holiday season at which time several other devises will inevitably hit the market and increase competition for Apple.

With many people in an uproar regarding the drastic price adjustment, Apple CEO Steve Jobs apologized on the Apple website and is offering a $100 credit to those who spent $599. So that’s great, right? There’s a catch…the credit is good only for those who aren’t eligible for a rebate.

So, what do you think? Does being an early adopter come with a price?

Internet Killing the Radio Star

As the online channel becomes more and more prevalent among users of all ages, we are starting to see the same trend across the board – people turning on their computers as opposed to dialing the radio knob, flicking on their TV, or flipping the page in the magazine.

According to eMarketer, online advertising spending is projected to outweigh radio advertising spending for the first time. This doesn’t mean that people are going to completely shut out radio as their form of entertainment or resource for information, but the Internet is quickly providing more and more alternatives to the traditional channel.

One example of traditional radio crossing over into the online world is online streaming, which many radio stations now provide. Some local San Diego favorites are Smooth Jazz 98.1 and Channel 933 FM.

Acuity Mobile Utilizes Spot Relevance

Acuity Mobile has created an EMAP (Embedded Mobile Advertising Platform) that can deliver relevant content to mobile users. The EMAP allows users to opt-in and control the content (advertising) they’ll see based on preferences, location and time. They have patented this EMAP; Spot Relevance.

Created in 2000, the software is exactly how we should be thinking about and delivering mobile content. As well, it is supported by any carrier or cell phone device. We have seen how other mobile content delivery networks, such as Amp’d, failed to cut it. Acuity, however, seems to have the right idea…It’s relevant to how a user will be searching and using for mobile content. Now, I would just like to see it?

Commercials Go Online, Get Interactive

Watching commercials on TV is quickly becoming the trend of the past. With the broader reach of online Web 2.0 tactics, commercials are turning up online more and more. The latest company to try this innovation is Carnival Cruiseline, making a “Funship Island” virtual experience for users to try out everything from the ship’s piano bar, sundeck and karaoke lounge to onshore activities.

Using interactive websites for businesses, products and services is becoming the new way that companies are reaching out to consumers and appealing to them on a deeper level. As web sophistication increases and more and more marketers take advantage of the medium, we can expect to see a lot more sales activity online.

Google’s Adword Placement Change – Just a Tweak

There has been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about the latest change Google announced for the top placement of paid search ads. Some SEMs are claiming it is selling out to the highest bidder or that this will be the end of SEO. Hold on a minute! Did you actually read the Google announcement on this? This is a tweak, not a major change.

Let’s take a quick look at what this change really means. A good place to start is exactly what Google announced. Here is my summary of the announcement:

Top placement (i.e, moving from the right-hand side to above the organic results) will no longer be reliant on the actual CPC you are paying. Your maximum bid will be taken into account instead. The Quality Score will still be the primary factor of whether your ad is eligible for the top spot.

Who will this affect?

Let’s start with who it will not affect. For competitive markets, this is unlikely to have any change. Bids are high enough that even under the old model, the three spots above the organic rankings were already filled if the Quality Score is high enough.

For keywords where there is less competition, such as long-tail terms, advertisers can more readily get into the top spot regardless of what the competition is bidding, if your Quality Score is high enough. Being able to garner the position above the organic results could dramatically improve your click through rate, and could dramatically increase your monthly spend for that keyword (now we see what Google’s motivation is…).

From an SEO perspective, this could have an affect for keywords where there was rarely a paid search ad above the organic results. The likely result would be lower traffic to the organic positions. This affect is likely to be limited, because the vast majority of clicks are on organic results, even when there is a paid ad in the spot or spots above the organic results.

How does this affect ad relevance for searchers?

The top spot is still not open to the highest bidder. Google is too concerned with relevance to make that type of change. If anything, this should help relevance for searchers, because relevant advertisers can more readily get into the top spot regardless of what your competition is bidding (as long as their Quality Score is high enough).

Watch Adword Spends Carefully

While this tweak is unlikely to have a big effect across a whole campaign, it will remain important to keep an eye on spends. If a campaign sees a lot of its long-tail keyword ads moved from the right-hand side to the top stop, the cumulative effect could be a big jump in spending for the month. So, keep an eye on spends and overall, I expect that this will be a positive change for advertisers and searchers.

Online Advertising, Offline Purchases

Here at Geary, we like to explore the synergy that can occur when your various marketing methods are tightly aligned, and how several parts of your marketing mix can interact in curious and unexpected ways. Two recent studies reveal just how online marketing efforts can affect offline buying habits.

As reported by SearchEngineWatch, the studies came from comScore and were commissioned by Yahoo! and local search agency TMP Directional Marketing. The first study examined the shopping behavior of 175,000 consumers, comparing the purchasing behavior of people exposed to online exposure to those who had not been exposure but were behaviorally and demographically identical.

The researchers found that those exposed to online search and display advertising tended to ‘pre-shop’ online prior to making a purchase, and this behavior boosted in-store sales. In the study, those who pre-shopped online spent 41 percent more money in-store compared to those who were not exposed to online ads.

In the study commissioned by TMPDM, 3,000 consumers were surveyed about their local searching behavior. A full 83 percent of local searchers followed up offline with a phone call, purchase, or in-store visit. Of those who followed up, 61 percent made purchases.

In addition, the study’s findings underscore the importance of optimizing local search results. Of searchers surveyed, 60 percent said that when looking for local businesses, they viewed the top results as the most relevant. A quarter of respondents didn’t want to scroll down to view more results.

These studies’ results corroborate the findings of earlier studies, such as an Accenture report that found, for example, that 67 percent of searchers prefer to buy in physical store, 69 percent research product features online, and 68 percent comparison-shop online. Lastly, comScore reported last year that 63 percent of purchases related to search occur offline!

These studies are a good reminder that the success of online marketing extends way beyond online sales. Especially when it comes to large purchases, the Internet is a common starting point, but the purchases tend to be made offline. Thus, when measuring the success of an online campaign, marketers need to track the effect online advertising has on in-store purchases.