What’s on at ad: tech New York?

Our ad: tech tour continues in New York, where we will be exhibiting at the largest gathering of digital marketers at Booth #1830, November 8-10.

The three day conference features an exciting lineup of keynote speeches, seminars and Marketing Masters sessions all designed to give you an insight into the current digital marketing trends and industry challenges.
http://www.ad-tech.com/ny/adtech_new_york_schedule.aspx?sesstype=1,6,8,11,12

In addition to networking with the many visitors and 270 exhibiting companies, you might also want to make time in your schedule for a number of special events that ad: tech NY will be hosting throughout the event.

The ad: tech Conference Mixer is exclusive to ad: tech attendees and takes place on November 8.  On November 9 ad: tech hosts its first Networking Pub Crawl where all conference exhibition attendees are welcome to mix business with a few beverages. http://www.ad-tech.com/ny/adtech_new_york_events.aspx

What’s On in New York?

In the city that never sleeps there is always somewhere to go. The must see sights of New York should be first on your list of things to do if you find yourself with some free time. Times Square, Central Park, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty are but a few of the famous locations of the city, accessible day and night. http://www.nycgo.com/must-see-nyc

If you are interested in experiencing some of the many excellent dining options in the city try Eleven Madison Park, a restaurant that comes highly recommended for business dining. For something a little more informal, The Meatball Shop is a famous restaurant and bar serving the best meatballs in NYC!  http://www.themeatballshop.com/

Must have information:

Matomy Media Group will be exhibiting at ad: tech New York, November 8-10.

Meet us at Booth #1830.

Contact events@matomy.com for more information or to schedule a meeting with us at the show.

Question 1: Can you elaborate why the topic of your session is so important as our industry looks forward?

In the past two years a lot of people felt that the ad network model is dying and with it all the companies in that field. Reality shows that these companies evolved to be best adapters to industry needs and challenges, and continue to lead and drive innovation and market activity. Providing an end to end campaign execution to advertisers, and a complete monetization solution for publishers, the new breed of ad networks are a force to be recognized.

Question 2: What trend or trends in display advertising do you see having the biggest impact to the overall marketplace in the future?

On the advertiser side I see RTB, audience buying and mobile as leading trends to impact the market. We will see a greater focus on performance, until the market comes with brand metrics that matter to advertisers and agencies. Advertisers are still trying to figure out how to get stronger impact from their digital campaigns. Another strong trend would be cross platform campaigns, from TV to Video, display, mobile and social. On the Publisher side, supply will continue to grow faster than agency and brand demand, increasing the opportunity in non-guaranteed inventory monetization. Publishers that will integrate efficient indirect channels that deliver yield, control and transparency, will maximize on their monetization efforts.

To view the full interview with Adi Orzel at Admonsters click here

What’s on at ad: tech London?

Matomy Media Group is a Silver Sponsor at this year’s ad: tech London show, September 21-22 and will be exhibiting at stand #268.

To celebrate the opening of our UK office and our newest offering, Affiliate Program Management Solutions, we will be hosting a drinks reception on the first day of the show from 3pm at our stand.

ad:tech have organized wall-to-wall seminars and high level conference sessions over the two –day event designed to reveal the latest trends and provide you with tips on best practices and industry challenges.  http://www.ad-techlondon.co.uk/conference.aspx

Whether you are an advertiser, publisher, marketer or business owner – exhibiting or visiting, you will be spoilt for choice networking with the hundreds of company’s exhibiting at the show. http://www.ad-techlondon.co.uk/exhibitorlist.aspx

What’s on in London?

There are thousands of things to do in the city’s capital! Among them are a number of top tourist attractions; the London Eye, Tower of London and Big Ben.  You will also find an array of exciting and interesting museums such as the Tate Modern on the prestigious Southbank and the National Gallery located in London’s famous Trafalgar Square. http://www.visitlondon.com/attractions/culture/top-ten-attractions

If you have some free time after the show you might be interested to take a trip down London’s bustling Oxford Street, where your shopping needs can be fulfilled day or night. When your legs begin to tire you won’t be caught short for a place to relax in one of the many cafes, bars and restaurants that surround you. http://www.streetsensation.co.uk/

Must have information:

Matomy Media Group will be exhibiting at ad: tech London September 21-22, stand #268.

We will be hosting a drinks reception at 3pm on Wednesday, September 21^st at out booth to celebrate the opening of our UK office and our newest offering: Affiliate Program Management Solutions.

For more information or to schedule a meeting with us at the show contact events@matomy.com

What’s on at dmexco?

Matomy Media will be exhibiting at dmexco, the leading international event for everyone working in the global digital marketing and media industry, September 21-22, 2011.

The must-not-miss occasion at the show is a drinks reception hosted by us on the first day of the show at our stand, #B013.

Attendance at dmexco is essential for those wanting to focus on getting the most from current trends and innovations in the digital marketplace, with focus on advertising, creativity, branding, relevance and efficiency.

With 350 exhibitors and 16,000 visitors, dmexco markets itself as ‘the cross-media and transnational central hub for the digital industry’.  Matomy won’t be missing THE event for the global digital marketing industry, will you? http://www.dmexco.de/en/1008/~/Exposition.html

What’s on in Cologne?

The attractive Cathedral city of Cologne is steeped in culture and atmosphere with numerous museums and theatres including the Philharmonic and Opera House.

Should you find yourself with some time on your hands before or after the dmexco show, you might be interested to know of the many guided tours and excursions that the city has to offer. These include; boat trips, walking tours and bus excursions.  http://www.cologne-tourism.com/guided-tours.html

Cologne also boasts some outstanding restaurants, cafes and local wine bars and taverns if you are interested in winding down at the end of the day with a drink in traditional surroundings! http://www.cologne-tourism.com/city-experience/eating-out.html

Must have information:

Matomy Media Group will be at exhibiting at dmexco, September 21-22 in Hall 8, booth #B013.

We will be hosting a drinks reception on Wednesday, September 21^st at 4.30pm. We look forward to seeing you!

For more information or to arrange a meeting contact events@matomy.com

This time we have Google updates only:

1. Topic targeting has launched! You can access this new feature by selecting the “topics” checkbox in the tabs dropdown.

Topic targeting is similar to interest category marketing, but here is the difference:  in topic targeting, you place your ads on sites that are related to a topic (such as finance), while interest category marketing allows you to reach a user that’s interested in a specific category on other websites on the GDN (similar to remarketing).

It’s possible to combine this targeting with keywords – for example, we can target pages in the education category with the MBA keyword and reach the right audience for an online MBA program campaign.

More best practices here: http://www.ppchero.com/hello-adwords-topic-targeting/

2. Now that we have so many targeting options on the Display network, how will they interact with each other?

Google provides a handy chart here: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1209882
3. Google Analytic 5 is now rolled out to all Analytics users. New tracking options have been added such as event-based goals (in addition to the old URL-based ones). Now you can define a download as a goal in analytics, which can help us a lot with optimization.

More info here: http://searchengineland.com/all-google-analytics-users-now-get-new-version-74173

4. Quality Score averages: This research was done by Steve Baker from EpiphanySolutions ( a large agency). He ran an average on all his campaigns data and arrived at the following averages:
Don’t take it too seriously as it is average data across many verticals, but we can use it as a benchmark. You can read more on how he arrived at the numbers at  http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/blog/decoding-the-quality-score-2/

5. Google Instant Preview is now launched for AdWords as well as for regular links. Clicks on the instant preview button do not count as clicks on an ad and we will not be charged for them. However, this might impact CTRs as people will be able to see the landing page before they go there, and they won’t click it if they don’t like it.

More info here: http://www.ppchero.com/news-update-google%E2%80%99s-instant-preview-comes-to-the-ad-world/

6. Mobile: a survey done by Google reveals some interesting data on Mobile users – for example, 82% of smartphone users notice mobile ads, and the most visited websites are search engines and social networks, which gives us a lot of opportunities. Read more here:

http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2011/04/smartphone-user-study-shows-mobile.html

7. Google are testing a new ad format which displays the domain URL in the title. The ads look like this:

This will automatically be shown for selected ads, we don’t need to change the ads.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/05/showing-display-url-domain-in-headline.html

8. Simplified account creation – as you must know already, there’s no need to use an e-mail and password when opening new AdWord accounts from the MCC. One thing to keep in mind – the notification from those accounts won’t be sent to you, you will be able to see them only in your MCC, so make sure to check it often.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/05/simplified-account-creation-with-new-my.html

9. It’s now possible to target tablet users separately from other mobile devices through the “Networks and Devices” settings. Note that the system will automatically detect landing pages that are not appropriate for tablets (such as websites that have a lot of flash elements), in this cases the ads will be disapproved.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/05/introducing-new-ways-to-reach-your.html

10. AdSense for mobile is now available in 15 more countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Slovenia, Thailand, and Turkey. This means we can get WAP traffic from those countries as well. Note that AdSense doesn’t allow advertisers to place ads in mobile applications, only on mobile websites. (Ads inside mobile applications are powered by AdMob

http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2011/05/adsense-for-mobile-content-in-15-new.html

11. Google announced Google Wallet, an android app that allows you to use your phone as a credit card. It will also be possible to load coupons and discount codes on it. It’s still very new and limited, but it might have a lot of implications on ecommerce and PPC advertising, so let’s keep our eyes open for news.

http://www.ppchero.com/google-announces-google-wallet/

And lastly – some interesting things here:

Data Beats Opinion – Think Insights!
Over the last few years, Google has invested heavily in studies that have helped demonstrate measurable value. Think Insights is a website experience tailored to large/medium advertisers and designed to equip budget spend influencers with more data to make smarter business decisions. The site offers Industry and Demography oriented data and will be updated with useful insights on the go .

Thanks,
Orit Heifets
SEO Team Leader

• SEMPO’s (search engine marketing professional organization) state of search marketing report ’11 is out, and things are looking good – the US SEM industry is projected to grow 16% this year, from $16.6 billion to $19.3 billion. The study projects 2011 spending to go up in the following areas:

o   Paid Search o   SEO o   Facebook PPC o   Search-Related Technology o   Mobile http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/110415-150000

• Affiliate marketing in 2011 – the industry is maturing, as shown by the predicted US market spending of $4 billion by 2014. An interesting overview and predictions can be found here: http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/state-of-the-industry-affiliate-marketing-in-2011

ComScore March data is out, and as usual the big news is that Yahoo and Bing now hold 30% of the US search market. Google has remained unchanged since last month.

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/110412-132251

Google:

• You can now know if you are affected by a problem with your landing page – you get an indication from within the Keywords tab in case your landing page is affected by a policy issue:http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/04/more-clarity-in-adwords-for-advertisers.html
• The Position Preference feature that was around since 2006 is being removed from AdWords starting May 1^st – from now on, if you would like to have a keyword to be in a specific position, it will need to be done with an automated rule that will change the bid of the keyword if it deviates from the target position. Remember – you can still be profitable in low positions on certain keywords, and a high position by itself is not a good indication of performance.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/04/adwords-position-preference-feature-is.html

• Google recently introduced the +1 button to their organic and paid search results (right now only in English searches on Google.com). It’s similar to a Facebook ‘like’ and works almost exactly in the same way. Officially, ‘likes’ do not affect AdWords quality score (but they are relevant for organic rankings), but I believe they will have a weight on search ads as they will affect CTR rates. This is the biggest news we had from Google in a while, let’s hope this won’t go the way of Wave and Buzz

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/1-button-adwords.html More here: http://searchengineland.com/meet-1-googles-answer-to-the-facebook-like-button-70569?

• The topic targeting is out of Beta and it’s is now possible to target Topics instead of keywords on the Display network. When using topic targeting, the ads will be shown on a wider set of websites than with specific keywords.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-way-to-contextually-target-your-ads.html

• A small improvement to language targeting options: If your campaign contains keywords in Hebrew, Greek, Thai, Korean or Japanese, a user that will search for one of those keywords (in those languages) will see your ads no matter what his interface language is. For example, if you’re targeting (in the campaign language settinss) Hebrew speakers with a Hebrew keyword, a user that searches for it will see your ad even if his interface language is English.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/language-targeting-refresher-and-update.html Bing:

• AdCenter is changing the way it’s daily budget limitation works – from now on, you only need to set your budget on a daily level, no need for monthly budgets.

http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/blogs/advertiser/archive/2011/04/14/budget-option-improvements-coming-soon-to-microsoft-advertising-adcenter.aspx

• Another budget-related feature in AdCenter – you can now view the recommended budget for your campaigns. To view, click on the opportunities tab, or on the campaign budget status tool, located in the lower right corner.

http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/blogs/advertiser/archive/2011/04/07/budget-suggestions-coming-to-adcenter-this-spring.aspx

• One of the most interesting upcoming features in AdCenter is the quality score. It will work in a very similar way to the AdWords quality score – here is an overview:

http://searchenginewatch.com/3642189 More updates coming soon! Thanks for reading, Orit

According to the latest ComScore data, Bing experienced a 13% rise in search queries in January 2011:

In overall market share, Bing also jumped up from 12% to 13.1% market share in the US during January.

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/2/comScore Releases_January_2011_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings

ComScore released a summary overview of the search market in 2010. Here are the overall changes in the US search market during 2010, according to their data:

More info here:
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/comScore_Releases The_2010_U.S._Digital_Year_in_Review

Experian Hitwise reports similar data in their report for January. One interesting addition – according to the data in the Hitwise report, Bing is a more successful search engine than Google: over 81% of searches in Bing result in a visit to a website, while in Google only 65% of searches conclude in the same way. Google’s Matt Cutts criticized this metric, as according to what he says here, HitWise have no way of knowing whether a user visited a search result or a completely unrelated website.

http://www.hitwise.com/us/press-center/press-releases/bing-searches-increase-twenty-one-percent/

http://www.seroundtable.com/bing-success-google-failure-12956.html

ComScore included Facebook data in their 2010 review, and the results are very interesting:

It looks like all the performance metrics of Facebook have all gone up in double digits during the past year.

More data here: http://searchengineland.com/facebooks-2010-metrics-dominant-still-growing-comscore-says-64110

Let’s take a step away from US data and take a look at the global search statistics, some of which can be surprising:

• Today, the US market represents only about 12% of the global users.
• Nigeria has the 10^th highest number of Internet users globally
• The fastest growing language on the internet is Arabic

More data here: http://searchenginewatch.com/3641863

And here: http://searchenginewatch.com/3641913

Google news:

Longer Headlines: Google is experimenting with displaying some ads in a new way: For some ads, the first description line will be moved to the headline and displayed right after the title, separated by a hyphen. The ads for this change will be selected by Google, in order to be selected, the ad needs to have proper punctuation, with each line of the description appearing to be a complete sentence.

This means that the title of your can be longer and contain an exclamation mark!

This is in addition to the recent change in capitalization of display URLs – from now on, the domain names in the display URLs will not be capitalized, meaning now there will be more accent on the capitalization of subdirectories.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/02/longer-headlines-for-select-ads-on.html

http://www.ppchero.com/why-and-how-you-should-rethink-ad-writing-and-bidding-strategies/

No  more managed placements bid: The managed placements default bid will be removed in March, instead managed placements will be using the display network default bid. You will still be able to set managed placements bid individually per placement.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/02/simplifying-bidding-on-google-display.html

Facebook

Is there an account quality score on Facebook? If so, it’s based on trust and reputation (unlike Google’s relevance-driven quality score). Here are some tips on maintaining high quality scores on Facebook:

Facebook will actively penalize advertisers for having high CTRs over large demographics (over 0.4% ctr for 500,000 users), for ads that go over that Facebook are going to be much stricter about anything that might be misleading or offencive.

http://ppcblog.com/facebook-quality-score/

According to a WebTrends report, CTRs on Facebook ads averaged 0.05%, and the average price of clicks is increasing, rising from $0.27 in 2009 to $0.49 in 2010.

http://searchengineland.com/study-facebook-ad-click-throughs-declining-63324

MSN

Here is a nice Q&A article with some interesting points about Bing advertising. Some highlights:

You can set negatives in Bing not only on the campaign and ad group level  but only at the keyword level. You can’t set negatives at the account level.

More here: http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/blogs/advertiser/archive/2011/02/15/small-business-your-questions-answered-kws-bids-cpcs.aspx

Dynamic text in Bing ads:

In Bing, dynamic text can be used both in Search and Content ads: in search the dynamic test is related to the keyword, while in content, the ad is related to the content of the website your ad appears on.

More here: http://www.ppchero.com/creating-killer-ads-using-bing-dynamic-text-2/

Thanks for reading,

Orit

Here’s an update to open 2011 with:

• AdWords:
o It is now possible for some advertisers to place banners in the image search results page. In order to do it, create a simple display campaign (exclude search) and use the placement images.google.com. This can be combined with relevant keywords, or, if you search for this placement in the placements tool, by relevant sub-categories. The only banner size available for this placement is 728×90

https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1066477

• Youtube:
o Some Keyword choices to use when targeting YouTube videos: Remember what users search for on Youtube vs. what they search for in Google are very different!
Use the following:
• Names (Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber)
• Titles (iCarly, High School Musical, Glee)
• Quotes (“don’t stop believin’)
• Actions/verbs (Dancing, Skating)
• Objects in the video (Car, Bike, Dog, Cat)
• Emotions (funny, cute, hilarious, best)
More on Youtube techniques here: http://searchenginewatch.com/3641672

• 2011 will be the year of Facebook: In 2010, a lot of advertisers have started exploring the opportunities Facebook had to offer, and many were disappointed by the low CTRs and conversion rates. However, the global, growing audience available through Facebook advertising continues to grow, and the huge volumes are starting to compensate for low CTRs.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3641660

According to HitWise, Facebook is both the most searched-for keywords and the most visited website for 2010, pushing Google out of the first place.

http://searchengineland.com/facebook-most-popular-search-term-website-in-2010-59875

• 2011 will be the year of Mobile:
We have been waiting for Mobile to become big since 2005, but this year the conditions finally look right for mobile to take off for real. Mobile accounts for 10% of search volumes in Google, and we must start giving the opportunities of mobile marketing more attention. Some overviews and tips are here:

http://searchengineland.com/two-new-mobile-seo-tips-for-2011-59983

http://searchengineland.com/how-to-get-started-with-mobile-marketing-41032

Google’s Keyword Tool now offers a new feature that enables you to search for keywords that are popular as mobile searches and allows you to build a keyword list that better targets mobile users. You can also view statistics on keywords specific to mobile searches.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/keyword-tool-helps-you-go-mobile.html

PCC Hero’s case study on mobile campaigns in Google:

http://www.ppchero.com/case-study-refining-mobile-campaigns/

• 2011 will be the year of Bing: Now that the Microsoft transition is complete advertisers are going to devote more time and attention to their AdCenter accounts, we will see changes in traffic levels, competition trends and CPCs, which means lots of work for us but also many new opportunities. Here are some tools to make it easier to work with AdCenter in 2011:
o Desktop AdCenter Toos – make sure you are using them :

http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/blogs/advertiser/archive/2011/01/11/3-free-time-saving-campaign-management-tools-for-use-with-microsoft-advertising-adcenter.aspx

o A handy index that will help you to find what you’re looking for in AdCenter’s help section: http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/blogs/advertiser/archive/2011/01/03/where-to-find-information-campaign-management-tools-and-more-for-microsoft-advertising-adcenter.aspx
o Overview of AdCenter’s billing section in case you encounter any difficulties:

http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/blogs/advertiser/archive/2011/01/05/an-introduction-to-adcenter-billing.aspx

• Some more opinions on trends and predictions for 2011:

http://searchengineland.com/digital-marketing-trends-predictions-for-2011-58729

http://searchengineland.com/sem-trends-for-2011-what-to-expect-what-to-do-57439

http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/what-is-ahead-for-online-marketers-in-2011-pay-per-click-marketing

http://searchenginewatch.com/3641708

http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/what-is-ahead-for-online-marketers-in-2011-website-conversion

And lots and lots more here: http://searchengineland.com/big-list-168-marketing-trends-predictions-resolutions-2011-60671

• Some leftovers from last year:

o See how the World Searched in 2010 in Google’s 2010 Zeitgeist:

o For more data about what we have searched in 2010, check out Hitwise’s search terms summary for 2010.
The most searched for music artist is Lady Gaga, is anyone surprised? 

http://www.hitwise.com/us/press-center/press-releases/facebook-was-the-top-search-term-in-2010-for-sec/

Thanks for reading,
Orit

Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year!

XTEND Team