Performics Performance Marketing Blog: SEM, SEO, Social & Display

How to Engage Tweens Online

BACKGROUND

For some brands, tweens are an extremely valuable demographic. Tweens are defined as being 8 to 12 years olds, in essence, the “in-between” years between being a child and a teenager.  According to the U.S. Census, the tween population is projected to hit 23 million by 2020; and the tween segment is growing. 

But engaging tweens online is often challenging for advertisers.  For instance, many parents limit tweens’ access to the Web.  Sites like Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube require users to be at least 13 years old.  And, under the law, websites aren’t allowed to collect personal information on tweens (i.e. for ad targeting) without parental consent.  However, brands have many opportunities to engage online tweens to start building brand loyalty prior to tweens’ adult years.  The key for brands is to understand exactly how tweens want to participate across platforms and how they engage with their ecosystem of peers and branded content.

Tweens’ Online Behavior

Social & Video

Tweens are constantly seeking new places to connect with friends.  These places include parent-approved social networking sites like Everloop, content creation sites like FashionPlaytes.com (where girls can design clothes with their friends) and video-sharing sites like KidzVuz.  Haul videos—where people show off what they’ve recently purchased—are also popular among young people.  However, keep in mind that users must be 13 or older to join and upload videos to YouTube.

Gaming

In addition to social networking, tweens are big online gamers.  According to Mashable, half of girls aged 8 to 12 use the Web for entertainment and social gaming.  Tweens spent 38 minutes/month gaming in 2011 vs. 78 minutes/month in Q1 2012.

Mobile

Many tweens are social networking, gaming and otherwise entertaining themselves on their own smartphones and tablets.  In fact, Mashable reported that 35% of girls aged 3 to 12 own a smartphone.  Of these users, tweens prefer iOS devices over Android devices:

• 24% use iPads
• 19% use iPod touches 
• 11% use iPhones

Yahoo! Axis’s Potential Impact on Paid Search, Organic Search & Display

BACKGROUND

On May 24th, Yahoo! announced its new light-weight browser, Axis.  Axis is a plug-in to desktop browsers and a stand-alone app on mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad.  It’s only available in the U.S. and is still in development for Android devices.  Axis combines searching and browsing.  It populates instant answers and highly-visual previews as searchers type.  On mobile devices, Axis’s visual experience has received rave reviews; CNET wrote, “On the iPad, Axis is simply a great browser.  The integrated search feature is intuitive, and being able to move through search results without having to go back to search makes sense”:

 
Axis works slightly differently on desktops.  People use their preferred browser, and the Axis search box sits on the bottom-left corner of the user’s window, expanding as the user searches:

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

United States

Channel Insights

Social

-Google+ a Ghost Town as Brands Decamp for Pinterest (AdAge)

• Rather than challenge Facebook and Twitter for mindshare, Google is a distant fourth to Pinterest, with its "pin it" button now appearing alongside Facebook and Twitter
• According to comScore, the average Google+ user spends three minutes on the platform every month, compared to 405 minutes for Facebook users. The average time spent by each Pinterest user per month is 50 minutes, per comScore
• Nevertheless, Google+ still has potential to have an impact on paid search
• Read the full article here

-Proof That Pinterest Drives Sales, And Its Fans Spend Big (Pinterest)

• Visits from Pinterest have jumped 145% since January this year, and, as a source of revenue for stores, Pinterest now contributes 17% of social media traffic--up from 1% in Q2 last year
• Pinterest shoppers are 10% more likely to make a purchase compared to those who arrive from other social sites
• Pinterest pins with prices get 36% more likes than those without
• Read the full article here

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

United States

Channel Insights

Mobile

-Pew Internet Study: Three-quarters of smartphone owners use location-based services

• This coincides with a rise in smartphone ownership to 46% this year, from 35% in 2011.  That means that the overall proportion of U.S. adults who get location-based information has almost doubled over that time period--to 41% in February 2012 from 23% last May.
• 18% of teen smartphone owners use geosocial services, compared w/ 18% of adult smartphone owners
• Men and women used these services about equally (74% versus 76%), while segmenting by race showed that whites were more likely to do so (77%) than blacks (67%) and Hispanics (71%)
• Read the full study here

Google Knowledge Graph’s Influence on the Search Engine Results Page

BACKGROUND

Back in March, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google would soon give its organic listings a semantic “makeover.”  On May 16th, Google announced some enhancements to the search engine results page (SERP)—particularly the “direct answers” box—that are powered by the Google Knowledge Graph.  The Knowledge Graph helps Google leverage collective search wisdom (i.e. how people search) to transform Google from an “information engine” to a “knowledge engine.”  

For fact-oriented searches, the Knowledge Graph uses semantic analysis to adjust search results and provide direct answers on the SERP.  For instance, the direct answers box for the below “Marie Curie” query shows a short bio, birth and death date, spouse, children, discoveries, education and related searches.  Google stated, “We can now sometimes help answer your next question before you’ve asked it, because the facts we show are informed by what other people have searched for.”

 

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

United States

Channel Insights

Mobile

-Pew Internet Report: Just-in-time Information through Mobile Connections

• Some 70% of all cell phone owners and 86% of smartphone owners have used their phones in the previous 30 days to perform at least one of the following activities:
• Decide whether to visit a business, such as a restaurant--30% have used their phone to do this in the past 30 days
• Find information to help settle an argument they were having--27% have used their phone to get information for that reason in the past 30 days
• Get up-to-the-minute traffic or public transit information to find the fastest way to get somewhere--20% have used their phone to get that kind of information in the past 30 days
• Read the full report here

-comScore: Google Sites Top Facebook On Mobile, But 4 Out of 5 Mobile Media Minutes Spent In Apps

• Google sites led as the top property on iOS, Android and RIM devices, reaching 96.9% of the U.S. mobile audience, followed by Facebook, Yahoo sites and Amazon sites
• On the iPhone, iTunes was the top app, with 99.9% reach (what, did someone figure out how to delete iTunes off of their iPhone?), and was followed by Google Maps, at 91.2% reach
• On Android, Google Android Market App was #1 (93.2% reach), followed by the Google Search app (84.1%), Maps (74.5%), Gmail (71.4%), and then Facebook (68.9%)
• The newly hot image pinboarding site Pinterest reached 7.5 million smartphone visitors who engaged with the brand for nearly an hour
• Read the full article here

Social

-New Study Finds 95 Million Americans Use Social Media To Shop (Leo Burnett)

• 42% of Americans are using social media to shop--this equates to nearly 95 million social shoppers in the U.S.
• 42% of social shoppers are using Facebook more than they were a year ago, while 55% of shoppers are utilizing daily deals more and 46% of shoppers have increased engagement on review sites and forums
• Six shopper archetypes reflecting the needs and habits of today's social shoppers:
• "Savvy Passionista": The Social Trendsetter; "Opportunistic Adventurer": The Daily Dealaholic; "Quality Devotee": The High Maintenance, High Standards Shopper; "Strategic Saver": The Black Belted Negotiator; "Efficient Sprinter": The Few Dollars Shorter, Several Minutes Richer Shopper; "Dollar Defaulter": The Dollar Sign Connoisseur
• Read about the study here

-Tumblr Boasts Rapid Growth and New Advertising Opportunities (eMarketer)

• In March, the number of blogs Tumblr hosted passed the 50-million mark
• Last month, Google released search results forecasting that the search term “Tumblr” would overtake “blog” by the end of the year, meaning the platform could become the brand name stand-in for the generic web term
• According to a February report from comScore, web users worldwide who visited Tumblr spent, on average, 89 minutes on the site during January 2012
• This, of course, pales in comparison to Facebook’s 405 minutes
• Although Awareness surveyed marketers before Tumblr announced its new advertising opportunities, the results still demonstrate that marketers may be less familiar with Tumblr than other social media platforms

The “New” Bing: Implications for Paid & Organic Search

BACKGROUND

On May 10th, Microsoft unveiled a significant update to Bing.  The “new” Bing is rolling out over the next few weeks and will be broadly available in June (users can sign-up here).  It features a three-column interface meant to help searchers act quickly.  Results are organized into columns, and friend/expert input is given high visibility.  According to Bing, “[T]he 10 blue links that search has been predicated on for the last decade no longer makes sense.  Simply put, that’s not how you get things done.”

In addition to the core listings (in the left-hand column), Bing now features two new columns:

• Snapshot: This middle column highlights information on specific places or topics.  In the below example, the snapshot shows—for a hotel query—reviews (Yelp, Citysearch, etc.), a map, photos, rates and check-in/check-out dates.  For a restaurant, snapshot may show additional content like phone, directions, hours and the menu.
• Sidebar: This right-hand column displays recommendations/advice related to your query from friends, experts and enthusiasts—with emphasis on Facebook and Twitter.  Sidebar also features a box for searchers to pose questions to their Facebook friends, who can respond on Facebook or Bing.  Over time, Foursquare, Quora and LinkedIn content will also appear in sidebar.  These social results are now completely separated from the core results.

IMPLICATIONS for PAID & ORGANIC SEARCH

As the new Bing rolls out to more searchers, we’ll pay close attention to the potential impacts on paid and organic search.  Snapshot and sidebar are very eye-catching and may—at least initially—draw attention away from the core paid and organic results.  Furthermore, snapshot pushes down right-side paid listings, thus increasing the importance of appearing in the top-sponsored listings.  We’ve noticed that Bing is testing the number of top-sponsored listings for some queries; traditionally there’s been a maximum of three listings, but—in some instances—we’ve seen four.

SEO Strategies to Manage Negative Wikipedia Listings

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Natural Search Specialist

For years, Wikipedia has consistently been a top-ranked site for high-volume keywords. The site was designed with SEO in mind, and its contributors have produced hundreds of millions of quality pages that are exhaustively cross-referenced and updated to contain the newest information. Search engines love this site because it satisfies so many informational needs for visitors; thus, search engines tend to give it high visibility for relevant queries. In the best case, a Wikipedia page for your company can be a source of good information and a potential ambassador for your site, as well as a concise definition of your business’s primary focus that can indirectly assist visibility for your brand.

On the other paw, your company’s Wikipedia page can seem like a nightmare if it shows negative information about your brand. The high visibility and reputation of Wikipedia can give pages on this site a good chance of ranking above the fold for searches on your brand name. You can’t blame people for looking, though; the variety of information on the Web helps users make informed buying decisions, and neutral sites like Wikipedia are indispensable to the modern participant.

So what can you do when your Wikipedia page paints a mean picture of your brand? This POV will help you review your options and make a decision on what to do next.

Search Engines Want Reliability

In some cases, you may be able to “push down” a Wikipedia page in the results by improving the link portfolio of information sources that show your brand in a more positive light. If search engines think that other pages are more reliable, authoritative, and useful to visitors than the Wikipedia entry, they will rank these pages above Wikipedia. For example, though AT&T has a Wikipedia page, the search query “AT&T” returns a full set of site links, entries for the “Map Pack” for AT&T stores in the local area, and a variety of different att.com subdomains like “Fan Zone”. This pushes the “Wikipedia” page down to the 10th result or lower, so search engine users will generally see the Wikipedia page only if they are looking for it.

What to Do If You've Been "Penguin-ed": Discussing the New Google Algorithm Change

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Natural Search Specialist

Google made its official announcement of its latest algorithm change on April 24, 2012. This one is called “Penguin,” and like “Panda” (first released February 2011) it’s targeting low quality sites. In this POV you’ll learn more about this algorithm change, what it was designed to do, and what your next steps are.

What is Penguin?

The main target of this update, as always, is to remove sites from Google’s top ranks that don't contribute meaningful information about a particular keyword. Google’s value proposition is delivering good results to its users, and the less spam there is, the longer Google will continue to dominate the search market.

Note: a few days before the Penguin update was released, Google revised its “Panda” update, further affecting search ranks. The Penguin roll-out was complete on April 24, 2012 and the Panda update was released on April 19th. At the current time, it’s difficult to fully parse out the effects of Panda and Penguin. This POV will focus specifically on Penguin.

If there were no search engines, there would be no spam, right? Search spam is the result of deliberate actions on the part of unscrupulous webmasters to artificially raise the visibility of their sites for specific keywords. As the search market continues to grow, spammers are following Google algorithms more closely and designing pages for visibility on keyword searches based on the specific algorithms. This directly affects Google’s value proposition.  So, to keep its results pages useful and customer-friendly, Google released the Penguin update to identify and penalize those deliberate actions taken to raise visibility.

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

United States

Channel Insights

Mobile

-The "Smartphone Class": Always On, Always Consuming Content (eMarketer)

• The smartphone class is not defined by age, gender, income or race. Instead it is defined by its members’ shared behaviors: (1) Consuming content in frequent, small portions (2) Members turn to their phones for instant gratification. Depending on their mood in the moment, gratification might mean completing a quick task or finding a fun distraction. 
• For marketers, this rising content consumption means an increasing number of touchpoints where they can reach participants. 
• eMarketer forecasts double-digit growth in mobile gaming as well as music and video consumption among the smartphone class through 2015.
• Performics recognizes similar smartphone behaviors and trends in the Performics Mobile Search Benchmarks & Trends (Q1 2012) report.

-Nielsen: How U.S. Smartphone and Tablet Owners Use Their Devices for Shopping

• More than three quarters (79%) of U.S. smartphone and tablet owners have used their devices for shopping-related activities
• Smartphones are used more often than tablets for activities on-the-go: “Locating a store” (73% vs. 42% for tablets)
• Tablet owners are much more likely to use their device for online shopping: 42% of tablet owners have “used their device to purchase an item,” compared to just 29% of smartphone owners
• Read about the survey on Nielsen’s blog

Performics’ April Mobile Search Benchmarks: Click & Impression Share Reach New Heights

Posted by Ryan Hornacek, Analyst, Strategy & Analytics

For Performics’ aggregate client base, we saw new heights for mobile paid search in April.  Despite a slight decrease in mobile device search spend (as a percentage of overall search spend), mobile click and impression share achieved record levels.  Furthermore, mobile CPCs dropped and mobile CTRs continued to trend above desktop.  See below for our April benchmarks, broken out by mobile (smartphones) and tablets.

Spend

For the first time since January, the percent of paid search dollars that advertisers spent on mobile devices decreased.  In April, our aggregate client base spent 15.8% of budget on mobile devices vs. 16.5% in March.  Spend on mobile (smartphones) vs. tablets was about 50/50.

 
*Google only; Content & Search partners excluded

Impressions

Despite spending slightly less on mobile search in April, overall efficiencies remained as our clients saw mobile device impression and click share increase.  Paid search mobile device impression share (i.e. mobile impressions as a percent of overall desktop + mobile impressions) rose to 17.8%.  This is the highest level ever, even outpacing holiday 2011.  After a slight post-holiday drop, impression share continued its upward momentum in 2012. Tablets make up just over a third (36.3%) of mobile impressions.

 
*Google only; Content & Search partners excluded

Clicks

April mobile device click share was also the highest on record—at 24.9%—for our clients.  Almost a full quarter of paid search clicks are now coming from smartphones and tablets.  Mobile device click share has risen every month in 2012 (and 250% year-over-year).  Actual mobile device click volume is up over 3X from April 2011.  Tablet click share decreased month over month, but tablet clicks still make up 38.7% of mobile clicks.

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

United States

Channel Insights

Social

-Has Timeline Increased Engagement on Facebook? (eMarketer)

• All brand pages were required to switch to Facebook’s new Timeline format, as of March 30, 2012, and have been seeing increased engagement as a result
• For brands with less than 1 million “Likes,” comments per brand post grew 40% and “Likes” per post rose 60.3%.  The “People Talking About This” metric also increased, up 67.4%.
• For brands with between 1 million and 10 million fans, comments per brand post dipped 17.43%, while “Likes” per post and “People Talking About This” both increased, by 13.56% and 28.58%, respectively.
• However, a vast majority of all engagement takes place within the News Feed and Timeline has no direct impact on content within the News Feed. Therefore, it is a bit too early to determine exactly how Timeline will affect brand outreach on Facebook going forward.

-Google Adds a "Share" Button for Google+ (Google)

• The new button enables website operators to more easily encourage visitors to spread content among connections on Google’s social network
• The Share button joins the already existing +1 button, which enables Google+ members to indicate that they — for lack of a better term — like a page or an article
• When visitors click the button, they have the option of sharing a page with specific people or Circles in their network
• Read the full article here

Search

-Study: Click-through rate doesn't correlate with conversion; focus on hover and view (Pretarget and comScore)

• A study from Pretarget and comScore revealed that even when a user clicks on an ad, the correlation between that click and a conversion is virtually nonexistent
• Pretarget found that the Pearson correlation (a common correlation methodology) between clicks and a conversion was 0.01, the lowest correlation rate tracked (0=absolutely no correlation, 1.0=strong possible correlation)
• At the high end of the correlation spectrum was what the companies referred to as "ad hover/interaction," or when a web user moves his or her cursor over an ad, thus "engaging" with it. That interaction registered a correlation of 0.49.
• The findings lend credence to those who have long said it's time that the industry makes a serious move away from measuring campaign success based on click-throughs
• Optimizing to viewable impressions or hover time may be a better proxy for a brand advertiser than a click-through rate
• Read the full article here

Performics Mobile Search Benchmarks and Trends (Q1 2012)

Today, we released our Q1 2012 mobile paid search benchmarks, which includes spend, clicks, impressions, CPCs and CTRs for our aggregate client base.  Mobile spend, clicks and impressions continue to soar while smartphone and tablet CPCs remain below desktop.  For our benchmarks, trends and insights, please see the below slides:

Performics Mobile Search Benchmarks & Trends (Q1 2012)

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Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

United States

Channel Insights

Social

-eMarketer Report: Google+: Influencing the Integration of Search and Social

• Report highlights:Google+ engagement and participation aren’t up to speed with other social networks, and that has become a major obstacle for turning Google+ into a relevant social network
• As of March, 50 million people who are signed in to Google+ access “enhanced products” connected to the service—such as search or YouTube—at least once a week.  With the rich data set from the activity of users across the entire Google network, marketers will reach more specific audiences and Google will improve its ads.  Brands have seen an increase in their participation as more users joined their Circles. 
• In February 2012, 15% of the Top 100 brands posted on Google+ more than three times a week. This was up from 11% in December 2011.  This brings to light the main challenge for Google+: it needs more users to not only join, but also use the site to interact with brands, which will increase participation from brands, benefiting Google overall.

Performics Uncovers New SEO Opportunities for Retailer Client; Boosts Rankings by Prioritizing Link Building Efforts

Challenge

A Performics retailer client with thousands of URLs for a variety of products sought to boost organic rankings for pages most likely to drive traffic and revenue. 

Solution

Performics recommended link building to increase organic rank for the client’s most important pages.  Our link building solution started by prioritizing which pages to focus on.  After (1) prioritizing and optimizing mission critical sections of the site and (2) focusing on pages for new brand launches, new product launches and seasonal initiatives, it was time to prioritize the next group of pages.  Performics sought to determine which pages would generate the highest return on link building energy. 

Using a proprietary tool, Performics uncovered a group of high search volume, high profit keywords that the client was ranking for on Google’s second page (i.e. 11–20).  Matching keywords to URLs, we created a list of 24 pages to build links to.  We then built relevant links to these newly prioritized pages without making on-page/technical optimizations to the client’s site.

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

United States

Channel Insights

Social

-Pinterest is now the third most popular social network after Facebook & Twitter

• According to a new Experian report, Pinterest’s traffic surged 50 percent between February and January of this year, which is growth that’s stunning in itself.  That surge has allowed the site to overtake services like Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Google+ for what Experian says is the third-highest number of visits in February.
• Pinterest attracted 17.8 million unique visitors in February from the U.S. alone. In terms of engagement, Pinterest is winning as well, with users spending an average of 89 minutes per month on site. However, the social network still lags behind Facebook, which has users spending an average of 405 minutes per month on its site.
• Read the full 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report here

-Now pinning: Vimeo videos on Pinterest (VentureBeat)

• Pinterest has expanded the functionality of its popular “pin it” bookmarket to support “pinning” Vimeo videos
• Users can click the “pin it” button to fetch Vimeo videos embedded anywhere on the web and add them to their boards
• Vimeo pinning functionality will do more for the video service, which also appeals to connoisseurs of design, than for Pinterest. The inspiration focused social network has earned a reputation for driving tons of traffic (and purchases on e-commerce sites).
• Read the full article here

Social Media Moms Infographic

SNet Social Media Moms Infographic April 2012

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S-Net Social Media Study: Moms Significantly More Active than other Women on Social Networks

Moms 75% more likely than other women to trust information from companies on social sites & 45% more likely to base their purchasing decisions on peer recommendations

Performics released today findings from “S-Net: A Study on Social Media Usage & Behavior.” The study of nearly 3,000 active U.S. social networkers highlights mothers as more versatile, present, active and engaged users of social networking sites, compared to other women.

According to the study, mothers are approximately 61% more likely than other women to own a smartphone. They are also more likely to be active on social networking sites; for example, they are 16% more likely to visit Facebook daily and 46% more likely to visit Google + daily. Additionally, they are 75% more likely than other women to trust information they receive from companies through social networking sites.

“Moms continue to take advantage of the little spare time they have by utilizing all the tools at their disposal.  This includes their mobile devices and social networks,” notes Daina Middleton, Global CEO of Performics. “Increasingly, as a segment of the social networking population, moms perception is their voice can be leveraged to influence, participate with, and promote brands.”

Pinterest SEO Capabilities and Organic Search Strategies

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Natural Search Specialist

Pinterest has received a great deal of attention in the past few weeks because of a very large increase in its user base; according to Hitwise, Pinterest traffic increased 36% (to 103 million visitors) from January 12, 2012 to February 12, 2012. In addition, Pinterest is driving more traffic to publishers than Twitter.

On the Performics Blog the other week, we discussed Pinterest opportunities and strategies for brands and provided details on what Pinterest is and best practices for brands to develop this new method of engagement with their customers. If you’re new to Pinterest, check out this article first, and then come back here for an analysis on Pinterest’s potential for improving organic search visibility.

Depending on how its content is shared, Pinterest has the potential to increase search visibility for a wider variety of search terms related to your brand. The architecture of Pinterest gives search engines more information about what your products are and the words with which they can be associated. Visibility will be more likely based on how well your products or services align with Pinterest demographics and their most active categories.

How does SEO work on Pinterest?

It seems like SEO would be a natural fit for Pinterest. This site allows its users to build pages of material around specific topics. Most often, the material is in the form of images (though there is video content as well). A typical page on Pinterest displays an image, and the image itself is a link back to the site where the image was originally located.

For example, here’s an example of a “Pin” you might see on Pinterest:

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

United States

Channel Insights

Social

-PriceGrabber survey: Pinterest Leads Participants From Pin to Purchase (MediaPost)

• 21% of respondents have purchased a product after seeing a picture on Pinterest.  Respondents who purchased a product were asked to select all items purchased: 33% said food and cooking; 32%, fashion and clothing; 30%, home decorating; and 26%, crafts.
• Searching for recipes remains the favorite interest, with about 70% of Pinterest account holders citing cooking and recipes as the top item pinned 
• Nevertheless, Facebook and Twitter remain more popular than Pinterest. Of the survey respondents with a Pinterest account, 98% said they also have a Facebook and/or Twitter account.
• Read the full article here

-Badoo launching in the US this month (Badoo)

• Badoo already has six million members registered in the states; the London based company has never tackled this overseas market until now
• Instead of hitting multiple cities with its launch, it has focused on New York as its first city to tackle. It is taking an integrated marketing approach with a campaign that kicked off last week in Soho with a 1000 person photo shoot to help people achieve their ultimate profile picture.
• The three-day photo shoot will result in 24 photos chosen to grace billboards and print ads and an online competition for two of those to be selected by other Badoo users
• Read the full article here

Mobile

-IgnitionOne Report: Mobile search ad budgets jump 221% in Q1 2012

• Mobile search accounted for 12.3% of total search advertising spend during the first quarter
• Tablet devices account for 67.4% of total mobile search advertising budgets for the quarter
• The report also found that mobile clicks were up 246.1% year-over-year during the first quarter, growing at a faster rate than in the previous quarter.  The increase points to the growing use of mobile to help people find what they are looking for.
• Read the full article here

Semantic Search: What it Is and What You Need to Know

Posted by Jonah A. Berger, SEO Manager

Google makes hundreds of ranking algorithm changes each year – many that fly under the radar or are headlines one day and back page residents the next. The search engine is in the news again, this time for potential changes to the look and definitely the feel of its search results that website owners and agency partners need to pay attention to. The changes, referred to separately (but housed under a similar content umbrella) as direct answers and semantic search in this white paper, could have a profound impact on how search results are displayed. The positive news is that while these changes may alter the search engine results page (SERP) as we know it, current SEO efforts don’t necessarily need to experience a dramatic shift. This white paper provides extensive background on the history of semantic search and concludes with five takeaways that can help emphasize what you as a site owner or agency partner need to know.

Download our full Semantic Search White Paper

Google Location Insertion: A Local Engagement Opportunity

Posted by Claire Doiron, Account Manager

Overview

Location Insertion is a beta that has been in and out of the oven over the last year but appears to be fully baked and here to stay.  This new Google product allows you to dynamically insert a user’s location into the ad copy, creating an instant local presence with a blanket approach. From businesses with 5 locations to 5,000 locations, Location Insertion capitalizes on local interest and purchase intent.

If your client is currently running Location Extensions, which sync store locations to your account and serve relevant local information to searchers, you can easily set up Location Insertion parameters. Using these together greatly simplifies the lives of account managers everywhere by eliminating the need for hundreds of custom ads and geo-targeted campaigns. The parameters are supported in the AdWords API and can be used for desktop, tablet, and mobile campaigns.

After implementing the Location Insertion parameter on mobile/tablet targeted campaigns, Performics clients have seen a 17-25% lift in CTR over the same ads without the parameter. The use case for desktop is strong as well; clients boasted a 13% decrease in cost per conversion.

Facebook's Timeline for Brands: A Facebook Performance Opportunity

This blog originally appeared on eMarketing & Commerce

Posted by Craig Greenfield, EVP, Global Managing Director

Facebook recently announced the launch of Facebook Timeline for Brands, or new profile pages for brands on the social networking site. New features of brand pages include the following:

• pages are much more visual as brands have the opportunity to use large cover photos and videos to promote themselves;
• brands can now prominently feature their most important tabs at the top of their pages;
• brands can pin key posts to the top of their pages for up to seven days (i.e., they can highlight important posts for a longer time period); and
• similar to Twitter, brands can privately message fans (and vice versa), helping Facebook become a more powerful customer service tool

The new pages are the hub for your brand on Facebook. All of your brand's Facebook activities, ads and posts originate from your brand page. The brand page is also the key place for you and your fans to communicate, enabling you to foster stronger customer relationships.

Brands now have a platform on Facebook for complete experience optimization—i.e., engaging participants through sights, sounds, words, interactions, ads, games and apps, all in one easy-to-find place. Facebook noted that it wants Timeline for Brands to bring back the relationship between the customer and shopkeeper. The updated brand pages provide a platform for brands to engage with customers on a more personal and relevant level than probably any other platform, including the brand's own website.

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

United States

Channel Insights

Search

-Impact of Organic Ranking on Ad Click Incrementality (Google)

• Google reported last summer that nixing paid search ads (from a balanced paid and organic search marketing strategy) would result in an 89% drop in clicks
• In response, Google just released new research that sheds light on the original findings -- particularly that 89% figure, which makes more sense when you consider that paid search ads appear without an accompanying organic search result on pages 81% of the time, on average
• Based on the revised data, Google found that even when a brand is ranked No. 1 for search on an organic basis, they can get 50% more clicks on average by paying up for an accompanying ad
• Read the full report here

-Optimizing News for Searchers, Search Engines & News Publishers (Search Engine Watch)

• It appears that readers of news data are still more likely to go directly to a “news” specific search engine than they are to run news searches on search engines themselves
• Based on the intelligence available, there are opportunities for news publishers and marketers to better allocate their advertising resources that could drive better click-through rates and engagement
• News searchers type in a news destination first, and then search for specific news stories after arriving on those news sites. Being that the branded destinations are key to the way searchers navigate to news stories from search engines, marketers have to allocate marketing resources accordingly across search, display, and video.
• Read the full article here

-Find Everyone You Can’t Google Or Facebook With YC’s Ark People Search (TechCruch)

• With a variety of layerable filters, Ark (in beta) lets you search through public profiles and the private data of your friends across Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and other networks
• Ark gives you a selection of filters to whittle down the web’s population--geo, gender, relationship status, sexual preference, music, etc. 
• Search results each show a ton of info so you don’t have to dig into each to find the right person. With one more click, every interest and other piece of data Ark has on them from Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Myspace, Orkut, Meetup, Vkontakte, and Ren Ren is revealed.
• Read the full article here

Mobile

Performics Retailer Client Leverages Pinterest to Boost Participant Engagement, Traffic & Sales

Challenge

A Performics’ retailer client sought guidance on which of the many emerging social commerce and shopping platforms to invest time and money into.

Solutions

As agency partner, Performics indentified Pinterest as a key Q1 2012 opportunity to increase participation and ultimately drive traffic and sales.  During annual planning, we forecasted Pinterest’s impact on the retail vertical and provided the client with potential benefits:

• Pinterest as a key driver of participant engagement and site traffic referrals
• Potential that the retailer’s Pinterest page would appear prominently in the organic search results for searches on the retailer’s name
• Ability to be part of shoppers’ experiences in an environment where they wanted to be