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

Performance Never Rests: Our People’s Top Picks

Performance Never Rests: Our People’s Top Picks  

Curious about the latest and greatest tools, technology and toys? Fear not, we turn to our teams and present their take on what’s hot, what’s not, and the issues making waves around the industry.

Gadget Geeks:

Erik P – “One of the coolest digital creative agencies (12 staff) I saw at MIMA which is pushing the envelope of innovative brand-building initiatives. Check out: chalkbot, Toyota's ideas for good (solar powered ventilation system and hybrid roller coaster, GAP Project Reindeer, Kobe Bryant lights up Johannesburg.”

• Deep Local (Deep Local)

Vince V. – “Remember the Razr Phone? Well, it is back as the new Droid Razr. "The thinnest 4G phone on the market" | Although I don't think Pink will be an option.”

• Motorola Droid Razr: First Impressions [PICS & VIDEO] (Mashable)

Statistical News:

Tet S. – “Check out this new global insights website providing customized data & charts to help you explore consumer mobile usage around search, video, social and email, as well as mobile research..”

• Our Mobile Planet (Google)

Christina M. – “Stat of the Day: Tablet Owners Spend More Time Online Overall”

• Tablet Owners Spend More Time Online Overall (Adage)

Craig G – “In-Depth Flow Visualizations reinforce Stephen Few's point that quantitative data can be displayed in ways that are both beautiful (to produce “awe”) and functional (to produce “ah-ha”), without compromising either... live demo was spectacular.”

• Google Analytics Launches In-Depth Flow Visualizations (Mashable)

Digital News:

Ben F. – “Google wins ruling in AdWords lawsuit”

• Google Wins Key Ruling In AdWords Lawsuit (Media Post)

Eric H. – “Yahoo revenue down 24%. Apple misses profit targets for first time since 2002.”

• Yahoo Reports Dismal Earnings, Revenue Down 24% (Mashable)

How Should Search Marketers Respond to Google Encrypted Search?

Performics Research Finds that a Very Small Percentage of Search Queries are Affected

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Natural Search Specialist & Todd Friesen, Director, SEO

On October 18, 2011, Google announced that it would be encrypting all search queries made by users who were logged-in on Google.  All logged-in Google users are now redirected to https://www.google.com/, and search queries are encrypted with secure socket layer technology.  According to Google, this move enhances data security and privacy for users.  This change means that—for a small segment of searches—Google will no longer provide keyword query data in the website referral string.

This Article (1) identifies the effects of encrypted search queries, (2) discusses how this changes the existing search market and (3) provides strategies on tracking this change.  Performics has found that the current number of encrypted searches is not likely to have a significant impact on content publishers or SEO in general, though we encourage search marketers to track the new results and keep an eye on the revised keyword data.

How Does Encrypted Search Affect Your Traffic?

Google is blocking keyword query data from showing up in the referral string that gets logged when a searcher goes from Google to a destination website.  This keyword data enables search marketers to determine things like conversion rate and revenue contribution on a keyword-by-keyword basis.  With this change, Google has taken away some of that data.  Now—when a user is logged-in on Google and comes from a secure search results page—this keyword data is stripped out of the referral string and replaced with the words “Not Provided.”

Surprising Shopping Study Results: Men Engage More Frequently Than Women in Five of Six Online Social Shopping Activities

Many social networkers occasionally or frequently conduct in-store search & social activities; Shopping sites trump social and deal sites before the purchase

CHICAGO – October 27, 2011 – Performics, the performance marketing agency owned by Publicis Groupe, today unveiled its 2011 Social Shopping Study which found men are more likely than women to conduct five of six social shopping activities. Contradicting commonly held beliefs about gender and social behaviors, the study showed men more frequently research product information, read reviews, compare products, find product availability and get store information via social networks, shopping and deal sites; while women reign supreme when searching for deals, coupons and specials on similar sites.

Performics Social Shopping Study Infographic October 2011

View more presentations from Performics

Aside from Facebook, men frequent social networks (at least once a month) substantially more than women:

• YouTube (54 vs. 34 percent)
• Twitter (37 vs. 24 percent)
• Google+ (36 vs. 24 percent)
• Myspace (31 vs. 20 percent)
• LinkedIn (20 vs. 16 percent)
• Facebook (96 vs. 97 percent)

Performics Forecasts Biggest Holiday Ever for Mobile Paid Search; December Mobile Clickshare to Jump from 9.5% to 17.3% YoY

Low CPCs Present Huge Holiday Buying Opportunity for Advertisers

Posted by James Beveridge, Senior Analyst & Cristina Lucero, Research Associate

Mobile paid search was big last holiday, but it will be small in comparison to what Performics expects to see this holiday.  In December 2010, mobile paid search was 9.5% of all Google paid search clicks (desktop + mobile).  Mobile clicks then tapered off in January and February 2011 but have steadily risen ever since.  For Performics’ aggregate client base, Google search clicks from mobile devices are now 14.2% of all search clicks (September 2011). 

Holiday’s historically strong mobile performance—coupled with the continual acceleration of mobile paid search in 2011—indicates that this holiday will be the biggest ever for mobile search.  Without fail, December will be mobile’s biggest month in terms of mobile activity and mobile share vs. desktop.   At Performics, we’re forecasting that mobile paid search clicks will be 17.3% of all search clicks in December 2011:

Interestingly, November mobile click share will fall from October due to historically huge desktop search volume in November.  The primary events in November are Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the following week, and while mobile activity did lift over this period last year, it was outpaced slightly by standard desktop searches.  The wild card this year will be increased tablet usage.  We think that tablets could show incredibly strong search share over the Cyber Stretch and at least mirror desktop’s day-level seasonality, very possibly outpacing it.  Tablets continued to grow—up from 34.3% of all mobile search clicks in August to 35.8% in September.

Performics Weekly Research Recap

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

Hello Everyone!

Highlighted below are some emerging trends and insights that maybe of interest to you from October 21st. 

United States

Channel Insights

Search

 - Google To Begin Encrypting Searches & Outbound Clicks By Default With SSL Search. (Google)

• The change to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) search also means that sites people visit after clicking on results at Google will no longer receive “referrer” data that reveals what those people searched for, except in the case of ads.
• Google analytics will only track SEO generally, not specifically. This means the search terms won’t be associated with a particular visit, because they aren’t being passed along.
• Referrer blocking won’t be happening with ads. If someone clicks on an ad, the advertiser’s site will continue to receive all the same information it currently gets with unencrypted search.

- Microsoft To Turn Bing Into Improved Search Service Via Apps. (MediaPost)

• Search today provides a more programmed experience, but in the future on Bing, it will happen naturally.
• The app would recommend things you likely want to see to provide a much more implicit search, rather than typing into a Web browser and typing 'restaurants near Belleview' and then going back to the map.
• The Bing team will focus on connecting queries, a proxy for intent, with actions, not just information.

- Paid search spending increases 7% in Q3. (Internet Retailer)

• In the United States, 81.6% of paid search spending went to Google Inc., up slightly from the same period last year.
• In Europe, spending on paid search ads increased 20% in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2010.
• As the Yahoo/Bing alliance approaches its one-year anniversary, it shows little impact on the search engine landscape.

Mobile

- Marketers: Mobile Social Networking Scores With Users. (Experian Simmons)

• The study found voice calling applications (usually a native app on the phone) had the highest daily reach, at 62%, followed by messaging (51%), browser (47%), email (45%) and social networking apps (38%).
• Social networking highest the frequency, with people checking social apps on average 17.7 times a day.
• “…It can be appreciated how significant the role of social networking plays in mobile behavior, and marketers may be well advised to focus their attention in this area.”

Social

- The State Of Social Media 2011: Social Is The New Normal. (FastCompany)

• The state of social media is about how people are spending their time, interacting and connecting with one another, and what happens as a result.
• Facebook is now the size of the entire Internet in 2004. And, as Nielsen shows us, at 53.5%, Facebook accounts for the majority of total time spent online.
• Marketers must create an online experience for the social participant through multiple channels in order to engage and connect with them.

International Insights

Demographics

- In Asia, Marketers Pay Heed to a Growing Older Population. (AdAge)

• Companies are so caught up in wanting to be young and hip and they're ignoring this issue that the seniors are going to be a force to be reckoned with.
• In Asia, home to large populations of older participants -- in places such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong -- marketers have found unique ways of tweaking their products or marketing to appeal to golden lifestyles.
• Marketers: don't underestimate the 50-plus set, a group that will have increasing importance as developed economies age.

 

Thanks for your time!

Research Team

Additional articles:

CHANNEL INSIGHTS

“YouTube’s e-commerce push”

“Mobile Commerce Forum Report: Mobile drives big results for a small retailer”

DEMOGRAPHICS

“Targeting Millennials? You Have to Think Outside the Traditional Color Lines”

Expanding Keyword Coverage & Increasing Conversions Using Google’s Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)

Posted by David Langert, Account Manager

At Performics, we’ve been testing Google’s new Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) beta, also known as “Keywordless Ads.”  The beta dynamically matches searches to the most relevant landing page on your site and dynamically creates a relevant ad for each search.  Like organic search, Dynamic Search Ads are powered by frequent crawls and indexation of your landing pages.  This puts AdWords automatically in sync with the content and inventory on your landing pages as it continually changes.

Best Practices

Dynamic Search Ads are particularly suited for retailer sites where inventory is continually changing.  DSA can expand your reach by automatically adding keywords to your campaigns based on the changing content of your landing pages.  DSA allows the keywords and ads associated with each landing page to be managed automatically in instances where real-time manual management is difficult.  DSA can also provide coverage on keywords that may have fallen below the first-page bid. 

Performics Weekly Research Recap

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

Hello Everyone!

Highlighted below are some emerging trends and insights that maybe of interest to you:

United States

Channel Insights

Social

- Facebook wants to de-emphasize click-throughs and put more focus on engagement. (Facebook)

• The key point is that social “signals” — Likes, retweets, etc. — are becoming a much more powerful force in determining user behavior online and therefore engagement plays a more critical role.
• This move toward social networks and socially driven engagement as a form of advertising is changing the search landscape as internet users are being influenced more by the recommendations and social signals of their friends.
• However, to prove that advertising on Facebook makes sense for brands, Facebook has to show there’s something else to be gained than just prompting users to click on a banner ad.
• The problem is that many advertisers haven’t yet made the leap to seeing “likes” and mentions of a brand as being worth as much or more than a click-through.

- Understanding the New Facebook 'Page Insights'. (Facebook)

• With Facebook's new page insights, brands can see how the messages they put on their page reach people throughout the Facebook network, and they can also optimize for the messages -- whether they are photos, videos, questions, etc.
• Marketers should use Page Insights to improve how much people share content on a brand's Page with others – which in turn increases virality and reach.
• Marketers should analyze the new post analytics data to see what content creates the most engagement and do more of that to increase virality and brand awareness which will drive growth and adoption amongst friends of fans.

Performics Increases Clicks 14%, Reduces Cost per Clicks 10% on Flat Budgets Resulting in More Leads for Southeast Toyota Dealerships

Objective

Southeast Toyota wanted to increase leads from paid search without raising click charges for local dealerships.  Performics sought to achieve this goal by lowering cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and then boosting clicks for the client.

Solutions

Performics used a variety of tactics to create efficiencies for Southeast Toyota dealership paid search campaigns including:

Price-Conscious Holiday Shoppers Turn to the Internet

Posted by Cristina Lucero, Research Associate

Early data shows that holiday shoppers will be extremely price conscious this year.  And this could benefit Web sales.  According to eMarketer, “Price-conscious [participants] will shift more of their gift spending from stores to the internet in order to take advantage of web features that make it easy to compare prices and find good deals.” 

• The biggest incentive to shopping online is free shipping (cited by 74%) followed by finding better discounts (60%) (Accenture)
• 53% plan to start holiday shopping earlier this year than last.  70% of shoppers believe that—because retailers recognize shoppers are struggling financially—retailers will offer better prices and discounts than last year (PriceGrabber.com)

Industry Expects Holiday Sales to Grow Despite Economic Uncertainty

Posted by Cristina Lucero, Research Associate

Despite varying consumer confidence mainly attributed to falling stock prices and relentless unemployment, many online retailers are still gearing up for positive sales this holiday season:

• Holiday retail sales for 2011 are expected to increase 2.8% to $465.6 billion (National Retail Federation)
• Internet sales will grow by 12% (matching last year) (eMarketer)