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

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.

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:

Dan P. - Is Sprint betting their company on the iPhone5?

• Sprint committed to $20B worth of iPhone5's, possibly securing exclusive rights in the process... (CNET)

Tet S. - Creative and visionary genius Steve Jobs passes on :(

• Apple’s Visionary Redefined Digital Age (NY Times)

Kristina N. – “I love Amazon more and more! #sold”

• Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire Costs $209.63 to Make [STUDY] (Mashable)

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 7th: United States

Channel Insights

Social

-Facebook unveils a new type of advertising unit and measurement tool to help brands communicate better with users. (Facebook)

• The new Insights is designed to let administrators of Facebook fan pages see the total audience their content and ads are reaching, going beyond impressions and "Likes."
• Four metrics will be presented at the top of the page: Total Likes, Friends of Fans, People Talking About This, and Weekly Total Reach.
• "There's a shift taking place inside Facebook where marketers will not only look to connect with their fans, but look to influence the friends of their fans. Enabling word-of-mouth marketing at scale is a huge opportunity for marketers and for Facebook."

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 September 30th:United States

Channel Insights

Social

- Google+ Lays the Groundwork for Business Profiles (Google)

• Google+ will soon be unveiling business profiles that will permit companies to create pages and circles like those of an individual user of the social network.
• Currently, GM and Ford are in Beta testing even as the unofficial profiles and squatters spread across platforms.
• "Given Google's strong track record, both +1 and Google+ are platforms that [retailers] are closely watching. [Retailers] are most interested in +1 because of its potential impact on search."

Performics Weekly Research Recap

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

Hello Everyone!

Highlighted below are some emerging trends and insights from September 23, 2011:

Performance Marketing Happenings: Weekly Headlines

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Senior Marketing Strategist

From the Engines:

• New Google match type, broad match modifier, provides greater reach than phrase match and more control than broad match.
• Yahoo! to begin incorporating Bing-powered results.
• Google location extensions now allow advertisers to show multiple business addresses.
• Google Q2 2010 paid clicks up 15% vs. Q2 2009.  Search on Android mobile devices up 300% in first half of 2010.  Android downloads now over 1 billion.

Other Topics of Interest:

• Businesses reward customers who post positive reviews on sites like Amazon and Yelp.
• Domino’s attributes 29% UK profit growth to Foursquare and other social networks.
• Starbucks becomes the first brand with 10 million Facebook fans.
• Twitter search results now include handles.
• Understanding demand-side-platforms (DSPs).

Some Fun Stuff:

• Become an app inventor for Android.
• Dress like a Mad Men character in Banana Republic clothes to win a walk-on role on the show.

ICANN’s Non-Latin Characters – Making the Worldwide Web Worldwide

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Search Strategist

New domain names will soon be able to contain non-latin characters.  What does this mean for your brand in the world market?

The Internet is at once very simple and very complex.  It’s simple for users; just start your Web browser and get going! On the other hand, it’s complex for the people in charge of how the Internet works and who work to improve your online experience.  One such behind-the-scenes organization doing complex things for the Internet is ICANN, an acronym that stands for "Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers."  ICANN is about to do something very important that will hit the Web in 2010.

ICANN is the organization that decides what characters go into a domain name.  For example, suppose back in the misty past (in 1995) you wanted to set up a Web domain and call it "Yahoo."  ICANN was the organization who said that it was okay to use a string of five alphanumeric Latin characters in your Web address, beginning with the letter "y" and ending with the letter "o."  If you wanted to set up a Web address named "www.#@#@#I’mgreat!!.com," ICANN was the organization who would say “No, you can’t have that domain name; Web addresses can’t have pound signs, tildes, apostrophes, spaces, or exclamation points.”

Paid Search Best Practices for Leveraging Your Product Resellers

Posted by Stacy Gross, Account Manager

Many large retailers struggle to efficiently and effectively collaborate with their resellers to sell their products via paid search.  This can lead to missed opportunities to engage consumers, and even resellers cannibalizing your traffic and sales.  The keys to working with the resellers of your products are communication and collaboration.  Once the communication lines are open, here are a few best practices to leverage your resellers to maximize paid search sales and ROI:

Reseller Support/Collaboration

Retailers should reach out to collaborate and support their preferred partners.  This is the online equivalent of an end-cap in a physical retail store.  It includes providing your preferred partners with co-op dollars that they can use to increase visibility for your brand in a way dictated by you.  Uniting your resellers in terms of strategy and messaging can help you dominate the search engine results page (SERP) for your product/brand.  You can also work together with your resellers to push promotions. 

Search Happenings: Weekly Search Headlines

Posted by Dan Malachowski, Product Marketing Manager

From the Engines:

• Google now allows paid content in Google News.
• AOL rolling out paid inclusion as Yahoo! SSP ends.
• YouTube captions–an SEO game-changer?
• Yahoo! search year in review.  Google year-end Zeitgeist.

Other Topics of Interest:

• FDA yet to create regulations on how drug makers can use social media.
• Twitter most popular word of 2009.

Some Fun Stuff:

• Dog saves guy from heart attack.

Finding and Removing Bad SEO, Part 1

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Search Strategist

Did you have someone do “SEO” on your site in the past couple of years?  Did they clearly explain what they did, or did they just take your money and do “something” you didn’t understand?

If so, you might want to take another look at your site, if only to make sure the “SEO” people you hired haven’t actually made your site less visible to search engines.  Legitimate search engine optimization is not an attempt to fool search engines; it’s making sure that the information on your site is fully exposed to search engines.  There’s a big difference.