Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Are SEOs & SMMs the Same? SEMPO Says Yes” plus 5 more

Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Are SEOs & SMMs the Same? SEMPO Says Yes” plus 5 more

Link to Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Are SEOs & SMMs the Same? SEMPO Says Yes

Posted: 26 Mar 2010 07:40 AM PDT

Spring is the time of year where everything changes. New life begins. It used to be the time of year when new homes were sold. It apparently is also the time of year for market research to blossom in the online marketing space. Everyone and their brother is coming out with something that proves something else to someone. If you are a regular reader here you know that I am a high skeptic on these things.

So not to be outdone, SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) has released findings from research conducted with Econsultancy in its "SEMPO's State of Search Engine Marketing Report 2010". The report ((this link is for a purchase of the report. Please note: MP gets no compensation related to its sale and SEMPO members and report participants get the report for free) looks at last year's 'real' numbers as compared to 2010's predictions for search and social media spends and trends etc. Respondents represent agencies and client side Internet marketers alike. Here is the methodology used for the findings

The State of Search Report is based on an online survey of nearly 1,500 client-side marketers (advertisers) and agency respondents, which took place in January and February 2010. SEMPO and Econsultancy promoted the survey to their respective members, offering a complimentary copy of this report as the incentive for taking part.

It should be pointed out that this year's survey was carried out slightly later than in previous years, with previous surveys going live before the end of the year.

Some highlights given in the pre-report press release:

The rise of social media marketing budgets, although still modest compared to search engine optimization and paid search, represents the biggest opportunity for search marketers this year.

OK, I'm going to stop there for a moment and ask my own informal polling question here. Should it automatically be assumed that search marketers have a right to social media budgets? Do they even have the same skill sets?

I asked Andy Beal the same question. His response:

An SEO has no more SMM skills than he does PPC. He can learn both, but knowing one well, does not mean he can just jump straight into the other.

It looks to me that the search marketing world is making the assumption that the social media budget of their clients is there for the taking as well. It appears that the client side is already thinking this way and is responding accordingly since search marketers are not exactly “top of mind” for handling social media campaigns for now.

There are plenty of other statistics in the report including:

-The research highlights Google's dominance as a search engine, with 97% of companies paying to advertise on Google AdWords. Nearly three quarters of companies (71%) pay to advertise on the Google search network while 56% use the Google content network (keyword targeted).

-More than half of advertisers (56%) and agencies (62%) say that Google keywords have become more expensive over the last year. Meanwhile, only around a third of advertisers noted an increase in Yahoo (32%) and Bing (29%) keyword costs.

-From a range of trends and marketplace developments, company respondents are most likely to say the personalization of search results is having an impact. Just under a third of companies (31%) say this is "highly significant," and a further 44% say it is "significant." Agency respondents felt the "rise of local search" was the most significant emerging trend with 38% saying this was "highly significant" with 47% labeling it as "significant."

There are no real surprises in the report. There is a ton of data to mullover but the takeaway I am seeing is this perception from the search industry that search marketers are also social media marketers by default. Do you see it that way?

If you are a consultant or an agency are you looking to secure both social media and search marketing dollars? It can be done, don't get me wrong, but it takes the right kind of approach and people to make this happen.

Search and social media practitioners: One in the same or two different animals? What's your take?

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Forget Click Fraud, “Ad Impression Fraud” is the Next Big Thing!

Posted: 26 Mar 2010 06:53 AM PDT

We all know that mainstream media is trying to figure out how to exist in a world of web impressions and not “in your hand” subscribers, but are they getting greedy?

That’s what Compete is suggesting, after discovering a disturbing practice that appears to inflate impression counts–which obviously leads to greater revenues for the media site in question. How does it work?

Take the often used “slideshow” that mainstream news sites are using these days. When you click on the “next” image, the page loads a new image, but also loads a new ad impression–even if that ad happens to be exactly the same.

Here’s how it looks:

OK, so far not to shady, right? Except Compete warns that some sites are automatically triggering the next image, even if the page is not the active browser tab!

While this is not quite on the same realm of “click fraud”–and no one’s (yet) suggesting that this practice is a deliberate attempt to inflate impressions–advertisers need to be on the lookout for this kind of stuff. When you pay for an “impression” you’re really saying that you are paying for each “view.” In these cases, you may not be getting a reader’s full attention!


Twitter’s New “Monetization Platform” Coming “Later this Month”

Posted: 26 Mar 2010 06:35 AM PDT

Remember when Twitter caused a stir among the development community, when it suggested you may never want to use a third-party app again?

Well, co-founder went CNBC and appeared to reveal just a little information about Twitter’s monetization model. When asked if Twitter was receiving a cut of the ads shown by third-party Twitter apps, Biz said “no” then went on to say:

We’re going to roll out something we think appropriate not just for Twitter users but also for the ecosystem when we develop this monetization platform, it’s not going to be just for us, it’s going to extend to all these apps that are out there that everyone is using.

Now, Silicon Alley Insider took this to mean that Twitter would create a model devoid of those annoying ads that are inserted into your tweet stream, but I’m not so sure.

First, I don’t see anything in that statement that suggests these ads are going to go away anytime soon. In fact, I can’t think of anything Twitter can do except insert ads into the stream. OK, so maybe not in the same format we currently see on desktop and mobile apps, but similar. Twitter needs a way to make money and web users have shown time-and-time again that they simply don’t like to pay for stuff. That really only leaves ads as an option.

They may be more creative ads than we see now, but I suspect we’ll still see advertising as part of Twitter’s new business model. I guess we will have to wait until the end of the month–which is when Biz says all will be revealed!

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Is Facebook Causing Syphilis?

Posted: 25 Mar 2010 12:12 PM PDT

The Telegraph reports on the rise in syphilis in several English communities—cities in Britain where Facebook is the most popular. Professor Peter Kelly, director of public health in Teesside, publicly announced that they had, in fact, found a “link” between the two.

And by “link,” he means “cum hoc, ergo propter hoc.” That’s Latin for “correlation doesn’t imply causation”—Facebook’s response to the allegations. (Okay, really, the Latin translation is “with this, therefore because of this,” and is a logical fallacy.)

I think it should be fairly obvious that Facebook use can’t directly cause syphilis. (As I understand it, there still needs to be physical contact for the transmission of everything but computer viruses—and yes, Facebook can enable those hook ups, but really, the people still make those decisions. Come on.) There may actually be some relationship here—but most likely there are other variables affecting the findings, too. (Perhaps sexually promiscuous individuals are more “socially promiscuous” online, on any social network.)

Kelly says that Facebook use, especially among young women in Teesside, is contributing to the spread of syphilis. Apparently he does still understand how the disease is spread, since he warns that “Anyone who has unprotected sex with casual partners is at high risk.” He claims that Facebook makes it easier for people to get together for such encounters, and in the cities where there have been a fourfold increase in syphilis cases, young people were 25% more likely to use Facebook.

Have they looked at any other factors? Is cell phone use on the rise there? (Heck, landlines? Text messaging? Paging, Tweeting?) Have they even tried to establish that the same young people using Facebook are the ones spreading the disease?

In the absence of a scientific study—or at the very least, a survey for the people actually testing positive for syphilis—it’s impossible, irresponsible and illogical to blame Facebook. Facebook points out that, if this logic held true, you could blame them for anything else on an upward trend in the UK. They respond:

The assertion that Facebook is responsible for the transmission of syphilis is ridiculous. Facebook is no more responsible for STD transmission than newspapers responsible for bad vision. Today's reports exaggerate the comments made by the professor, and ignore the difference between correlation and causation.

As Facebook's more than 400 million users know, our website is not a place to meet people for casual sex – it’s a place for friends, family and co-workers to connect and share.

Obviously, there’s nothing inherent about Facebook that makes it the most likely source of STDs. In fact, the increase in Facebook use might only indicate that more of the young people in the area have abandoned Bebo, MySpace, Twitter and other social networks more quickly than in the rest of Britain—they don’t offer any data on social networking in general, which would seem just as likely to facilitate casual sex as Facebook. (Hello, Craigslist personals.)

What do you think? Is there enough here to make a conclusion? Or is someone angling for links (when they might want to worry more about advertising condoms on social networks)?


Google: It Wasn’t Just the Hacking (And GoDaddy Hops on the Bandwagon)

Posted: 25 Mar 2010 10:45 AM PDT

Ever since Google first began its threats to leave China (which they finally made good on this week), it’s seemed like a bit of a logical leap to see what a hack attack had to do with the country’s government-mandated censorship—something Google agreed to when it entered the market in 2006.

But the hackers—and their target—were just one piece of the puzzle, according to an Atlantic interview with Google’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond. Although Google has survived dozens of hacking attempts, the targets of this particular attempt were all political activists (emphasis added):


That was distasteful to us. It seemed to us that this was all part of an overall system bent on suppressing expression, whether it was by controlling internet search results or trying to surveil activists. It is all part of the same repressive program, from our point of view. We felt that we were being part of that.

That was the direct connection with the hacking incident. It wasn’t in isolation. Since the Beijing Olympics, our experience in China has gotten worse. Although we have gained market share, it has become more and more difficult for us to operate there. Particularly when it comes to censorship. We have had to censor more. More and more pressure has been put on us. It has gotten appreciably worse — and not just for us, for other internet companies too.

Says Drummond, “We thought when we went in that we could help to open the country and things could get better by our being there.” However, Drummond says they don’t understand why people seem to think this is an all-or-nothing proposition.

Google Blogoscoped, however, has a good answer:


Google shouldn't wonder too much that people saw it as all or nothing – that's how they themselves suggested the situation in was China when they announced why they would start to self-censor Chinese web search in 2006: "Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population, however, does so far more severely. Whether our critics agree with our decision or not, due to the severe quality problems faced by users trying to access Google.com from within China, this is precisely the choice we believe we faced." In other words, Google said they were facing a choice between no Google search at all for Chinese users, or a filtered search.

Meanwhile, China hasn’t yet reacted to Google’s decision to redirect google.cn to google.com.hk (the Hong Kong version). Still, Google’s efforts are being lauded in the US Congress (and Microsoft is getting slammed), even though their efforts may really only be half-measures, as Danny Sullivan says.

But that’s good enough for some other Internet companies. The domain registrar GoDaddy has announced that they’ll no longer sell .cn domains. Says the WSJ, “The reason: New regulations from China that require domain registration companies like hers to turn over to the government a color image of ID documents, a business license and a signed physical contract for each registered domain.”

The WSJ reports that China accounts for 1% of GoDaddy’s market. But still—if Google’s getting praise from Congress (um, have you seen their approval rating lately? Is that actually a good thing?), maybe now is as good a time as any to drop 1% of your market and get ahead in the US.

What do you think? What will happen with Google, GoDaddy and China? Who will be the next to jump on the bandwagon out of China?

Watch Your Behavior Online, You’re Being Targeted!

Posted: 25 Mar 2010 08:39 AM PDT

Sounds scary doesn't it? Well, apparently behavioral targeting is music to advertisers ears because the technique works. Of course, this very same practice is what makes the hairs on the back of the neck of government regulators stand on end. The controversial and growing practice is going to be around though until it is asked to leave the building. Why? It converts.

cnet tells us some more

Want to get digital-policy regulator types fired up? Start talking about behavioral ad targeting, the business of serving up digital ads that are fine-tuned to a user’s Web surfing habits, and you’re sure to get all kinds of wildly varied opinions about privacy and sensitive data.

But a new study from a group called the Network Advertising Initiative, or NAI, claims that behavioral targeting is more than twice as effective as non-targeted ads, and the inventory from behavioral ads is worth double that of their non-targeted brethren. The study found that 6.8 percent of people who click on behaviorally targeted ads turn into buyers, versus 2.8 percent of those who click on non-targeted ads.

Ok, so let's review. Companies will pay top dollar for this kind of advertising and it converts at a much higher rate to boot? Many advertisers are starting to say "Sign me up!".

Let's also look at the source of these numbers as we try to always do here at Marketing Pilgrim. The National Advertising Initiative's About Us page tells us that

The NAI (Network Advertising Initiative) is a cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies committed to building consumer awareness and establishing responsible business and data management practices and standards. As increasingly sophisticated online advertising technologies evolve, consumer concerns about their impact on online privacy mount. The NAI is prepared to meet these concerns with both effective industry self-regulation and sensible protections for online consumers.

Gee, a rosy picture of an online advertising technique from a group that is made up of online marketing and analytics companies. Hmmmm. The group has also been around since 1999. That’s ten years and more questions than answers thus far.

Since 1999, the NAI has been working with the online advertising industry to provide consumers with clear explanations about data collection, data usage, and choice. Central to our standards are the privacy concepts of notice, consent, control, and dispute resolution.

Looks like industry folks must be missing some of these meetings considering the high degree of government and consumer concern about just how vague most online privacy policies are and the trouble that is created by these less than clear policies.

Once again we are faced with the interesting dilemma of an industry where everything is supposedly tracked to the nth degree. This tracking and gathering of boat-loads (hat tip to Carol Bartz!) of data creates the classic double edged sword that cuts in both directions. In addition, statistics were made to be manipulated just as much as records were made to be broken. this has resulted in many more questions than answers over the years and that is not likely to change anytime soon.

So if you are using behavioral targeting in your marketing efforts the NAI is just the organization for you. As for the future of this practice? That's anyone's guess because it's effectiveness is based on knowing so much about a person that you can predict with greater accuracy their propensity to buy a particular product or service. While this may sound incredible to a marketer it may sound scary to others. It's the others that marketers should pay very close attention to.

Any thoughts on behavioral targeting and the 'too much information' possibilities?