FTC Cracks Down on Sponsored Bloggers

Many blog posts and "tweets" went out yesterday regarding the Federal Trade Commission's rule updates governing endorsements, and the new guidelines requiring bloggers to clearly disclose any "material connection" to an advertiser, including payments for endorsements or free product.

The new rules go into effect Dec.1 and penalties include $11,000 in fines per violation (blog post).

These rules include posts on review sites such as Yelp or online stores such as Amazon, where the writer is being compensated in some way.

Our take on this whole issue is that social media (whether it be product reviews, news, information, etc) is really about genuine conversations, with open transparency. Good for the FTC to mandate but people who do not come out and say they received a product for free to review or are paid to write a review are not people that web users are going to believe. The web is already pretty self policing. If you really want bloggers and key web influencer's to write something believable, give them the product, and let them be honest and open about it.

Display Advertising: It's Really All About Relevance

Ad Age posted a story today titled "What to Measure? Only 16% of the Web is Clicking on Display Ads" which just screamed to have a blog written from Zig. ComScore and media agency Starcom reported in the recent "Natural Born Clickers" Study that only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks, AND clickers only represent 16% of U.S. internet users.

What's the big Ah Ha?....Targeting Relevance in Display Advertising!

At Zig we don't buy mass reach sites, we buy relevance, and actually we buy contextually relevant pages on contextually relevant sites. Selling paint?... why not be in the painting and decorating section of a DIY/Home Improvement site. Get in front of people who are the closest to making a purchase decision about your product(s) as possible! This type of targeting has helped us increase purchase intent for many of our clients at the conclusion of their digital campaigns.

It is also important to note that display ads may often lead to increases in search engine traffic on sites like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing (Microsoft). All the more reason to have a truly integrated digital campaign, using multiple strategies such as display ads, emails, search, social media and more.

SEO vs. PPC: The Never Ending Battle

Took special interest in the MediaPost email this morning, titled "SEO Or PPC" because our agency engages with this on almost a daily basis, whether with current clients, or new business. Do more people click on the top listings regardless of a sponsored link (PPC) or organic listing? According to a new study by Engine Ready, PPC performed 50% better (2.03%) when leading users to a retailer's site for a purchase versus users coming from an organic listing (1.26%).

The study measured the 4 major traffic source categories:

• Direct access and bookmarks
• Paid listings
• Organic listings
• Other referrer

Most likely to buy are consumers who navigate directly to a retailer's site by typing in a URL or clicking on a bookmark (7.38% conversion rate). Consumers who came to an e-commerce site from another site or an e-mail converted at 6.58%.

Although a lot can be said about SEO, PPC according to this study can target more people in the purchase funnel, searching out products/services. PPC allows advertisers to test and optimize their campaigns based on keywords, descriptions, offerings (free shipping, promo codes,etc) all on a budget. PPC is one of the first things we reccomend to any client, current or new. SEO is definitely part of an overall strategy, when PPC is typically campaign focused. The best fit is when you can have your SEO and PPC working in tandem, being listed high in both.

To read more from the MediaPost "SEO or PPC", click here

or to read about it on Internet Retailer click here

Marketers Continuing the Shift from Traditional to Digital

Forrester just released a survey about the continuing growth of digital media at the expense of traditional marketing channels, with 6 out of ten marketers surveyed planning an increase in there digital marketing budgets, taking money out of traditional.

In the survey, the increase in digital over the next 5 years, by media:

• Social media (34%)
• Mobile Marketing (27%)
• Online Display Ads (17%)
• Search Marketing (15%)
• email (11%)

This research fits with another recent Nielsen monthly report from June, showing that Facebook, probably the biggest site in social media, had the highest time spent of all web brands, including AOL, MSN, Google, Yahoo!, etc. Twitter is also having an incredible rise, with millions of 140-character updates being posted daily. Marketers are scrambling to develop campaigns to implement the two into current media plans.

Social Media: #1 Trusted Form of Advertising Worldwide

Nielsen recently released a global study of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries, recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising worldwide. 90% of consumers surveyed said that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trusted consumer opinions posted online. Social media is not just a fad, but here to stay, and more and more companies are beginning to add social media strategies to their advertising budgets.

“The explosion in Consumer Generated Media over the last couple of years means consumers’ reliance on word of mouth in the decision-making process, either from people they know or online consumers they don’t, has increased significantly,” says Jonathan Carson, President of Online, International, for the Nielsen Company.”

We have currently implemented social media campaigns for multiple clients of ours; engaging people talking not only about promotional campaigns, but also about the client's #1 concern, the product/service they sell. Tracking Pre and Post campaign “buzz" for our campaigns has only brought the need of social media for clients to fruition for us.

Big Sites, Big Ads, Big Mistake

A recent post on TechCrunch and Mediapost announced that 37 top online publishers including ESPN, Forbes, CNN, and NY Times are going to begin running new, BIGGER ad units on their sites. Bigger doesn't mean better, it just means more of an annoyance for more people.

The three new ad units are named and sized as follows:

- The Fixed Panel (336×700) - remains in view as a user scrolls up or down the page
- The XXL Box (468×648), the extra wide side-of-page ad that expands to 936 x 648 and includes page-turn and video capability

- The Pushdown (970×418), which opens big to display the ad and then after seven seconds rolls up to the top of the page (collapsing to 970 x 66).

I agree completely with Robin Wauters, who wrote on her TechCrunch post "Is it just me or does anyone else think that display advertising units on websites should become more relevant to them instead of just bigger? What are next, 1200×600 ads?" Research upon research is showing that it’s the contextual relevance, and not the size that matters.

Women Put Trust in Social Media

According to The 2009 Women in Social Media Study of the 79 Million women online, over half are taking part in social media on a weekly basis. This study by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners also showed that 64% of women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information. 43% Use social media for advice and recommendations and 55% for opinion-sharing.

Social Media Activities include:

• Social networks (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn)
• Blogging
• Reading blogs
• Posting to blogs
• Message boards & forums
• Status Updating (e.g.Twitter)

Companies looking to tap into women for product advertising shouldn't question whether or not to enter social media. The real questions should involve "How to connect with my target audience?" and "What can I offer them via social media".

Marketing Ah-Ha...Web Placement Matters!

Great research was just released on MarketingVox done by Conde Nast stating that Ads that run on websites with related content are 61% more likely to be recalled than ads running on sites with unrelated content. Can't say that is much of a shock, but good to know that the way we have been planning media at the agency follows the research. We have seen success in our analytics (2-3x's better) for the ads we have placed that were either contextually or behaviorally.

Many publishers and ad networks try to sell on reach and low CPM's, and believe that media planners only want low CPM's, with less emphasis on placement, trying to make it a numbers game (i.e. if the average CTR is .1%, I would need to buy 4 million impressions to get the 4000 clicks to make the campaign successful). We believe that the placement is most important, reaching that potential customer as close to a decision making process as possible. We do not believe in playing a numbers game because we believe that "Content is King" and it has played out well for us in our digital campaigns for our clients, as well as in the Conde Nast research.

Twitter Alone is Not Enough

A recently published study by Nielsen stated that more than 60% of US Twitter users fail to return back the following month. With only 40% of Twitter users being "loyal", marketers should be cautioned that Twitter, although growing at an incredible rate, is still only one piece of the total social media puzzle.

Marketing executives are looking to Twitter, the 140-Character micro-blogging site, as the answer to all their company's social media needs. The true of the matter is that social media involves a lot of work and hours, with more and more companies employing "community managers" to handle all of the companies social media tasks at a full time level. These managers Tweet on behalf of companies and manage brands in all social media by monitoring and responding to what customers and others are saying about their company, product, or service.

When companies and people are beginning their involvement in social media, it is important for them to be monitoring and reviewing the following:

-Facebook/Myspace/LinkedIn, etc
-Blogs, Micro-Blogs (Twitter)
-Message Boards /Wiki's
-Social Bookmarking & Sharing sites
-YouTube/Video Sharing sites

Social Networking Generating leads and closing sales for Marketers...from MediaPost "Research Brief"

88% of marketers polled at the social media summit 2009 are using some form of social media to market their business, though 72% of those using it say they have only been at it a few months or less. 

Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=104386

At Zig we are testing and using all both for clients as well as to generate leads for our own company.  We have been having great success implementing Twitter for both clients as well as internally.

Who says viral marketing doesnt work?

Zig is using viral marketing, an online form of word-of-mouth marketing through, for three different brands of Sherwin-Williams. And it's working.

In just three weeks, Krylon’s Save Our Saturdays Sweepstakes has had over 2,300 contest participants and more than 700 opt-ins. Hurry up and answer April’s sports question, May will be here before you know it! http://www.saveoursaturdays.com/

For Dutch Boy’s My House Stinks Contest, we’re on a mission to find the ugliest, stinkiest room in America. Some of the viral components being used are blogging, twitter and Facebook. In the three weeks since the site’s launch, http://www.myhousestinks.com/, we have 3,500+ unique visitors, over 55 rooms posted and hundreds of voters.

Check out Pamela W’s room from Marysville, WA. Her son’s hobby is conducting science experiments, and on occasion he forgets to clean then up. Not a very pleasant surprise for his mom to find while cleaning. http://www.myhousestinks.com/stories/view/69/0/0

Pratt & Lambert’s architectural sustainability sharing site, http://www.mygreenpalette.com/, is jumping with new portfolio entries. Leveraged by peer sharing, blogging, twitter and Facebook, so far there have been over 1,300 architect visitors, 73 projects posted and over 600 project views.

One of the most popular portfolios is Jonathan Feldman’s House Ocho in San Francisco CA. Check it out and many others to find your favorite. http://www.mygreenpalette.com/projects/detail/39

Check out how social media can really affect a campaign.

Zig.marketing has recently launched (3) new digital campaigns for different brands within The Sherwin-Williams Company. Check out how social media can really affect a campaign.

Krylon has launched the first ever spray wood stain, using only interactive means with a Save Our Saturday (SOS) campaign, http://www.saveoursaturdays.com/, that revolves around helping men perform their honey-do list jobs faster and entering them to win a trip to Baseball’s Fall Classic. On the site, people get time-saving project ideas and participate in a six-month long ultimate sports trivia contest. There is over $10,000 worth of prizes available, including the baseball trip big screen TV’s and $25 gift cards. The April question is which baseball team you think will have the most wins by May 1st, 2009? If you're feeling lucky, go to the site and play!

Within (13) days of launching Krylon’s SOS website, we have had (1,861) people sign up for the sports trivia contest, and (546) people opt-in to receive information from Krylon, or about 29% of the contest participants. There are static and flash banners running on sites like HGTV and ESPN to promote the site along with blogging. Email marketing and paid search will start within the next few weeks and we anticipate the numbers soaring.


For Dutch Boy, Zig created an interactive My House Stinks campaign around their newly launched Refresh™ odor-eliminating paint. The viral-based campaign, http://www.myhousestinks.com/, involves consumers sharing and posting their ugly, stinky room pictures that others will then vote on. Can you imagine what a room that has garbage piled up, animal feces and fermenting science experiments hidden in corners would look like? Now you can! These are just some of the current stinky room submissions people have posted. Good thing computers don’t have smell-o-vision, can you image the smell?

The site has been live for (13) days and we already have (45) stinky rooms posted and over (190) votes cast. You too can upload your own stinky room and cast your vote on. There is over $13,000 worth of prizes up for grabs, including the grand prize of a Refresh Paint room makeover that includes (50) gallons of Refresh paint and $5,000 and monthly prizes of (4) gallons of Refresh paint. Currently the only advertising running is static and flash banners on sites like BHG and HGTV along with blogging. Just think about how many new rooms we’ll get after we start email marketing and paid search!


The third site that Zig helped launch was Pratt & Lambert‘s Green Palette Architectural Information Center, http://www.mygreenpalette.com/, which focuses on the business-to-business segment of architects, giving them a forum to learn about green sustainability and a platform to post and comment on each others green designs. Once portfolios are posted, peers can comment on projects submitted, get ideas about what others in the architectural community are doing or they can read the latest news in sustainability.

Since the site launched at the end of March, we have (41) portfolios posted from all over the United States from Washington to New York and California to Florida. To upload your own green portfolios, or to see what others are working on, visit http://www.mygreenpalette.com/. You can see static and flash banners running on sites Arch Record and ED + C to drive traffic along with blogging. Just wait until we start our email marketing and paid search, we expect the number of portfolios and comments to sky rocket!

Twitter with Historic Year over Year Growth

According to Marketingcharts.com, Twitter, the online social media phenomenon, has had  1,382% year-over-year growth in February 2009. According to Nielsen online's research, the number of total unique visitors increasing from 475,000 in February 2008 to seven million last month.  Shockingly, adults ages 35-49 had the largest representation on Twitter, with nearly 3 million unique visitors from this age group. This comprises nearly 42% of the site’s audience in February.

Who's using Twitter?

Continually growing in popularity and importance in both the consumer and corporate worlds, where it has morphed into a tool with which brands can reach customers and other stakeholder constituents.The ability to access Twitter through the PC-based web, the mobile web, and through text messages is also a factor in the site’s growth, Nielsen said.

Social Media Monitoring

Learning about social media monitoring, we use SM2/Techrigy. A very good point that everyone should keep in mind.

• You can see which popular blogger's are frequently discussing your brand/product.
• You can see which sites are talking about you
• You can see what sites each blogger or site links out too.

In other words you can use some of this information to find areas of content that you should target your advertising dollars to. Also you could look to contact a blogger as a brand ambassador.

www.zigmarketing.com

Banner Advertising Ah-Ha..... People More Likely to Click Ads that are Relevant

Found a great article today on Marketingcharts.com today involving what makes people (Ages 18-24 & 45-54) more likely to pay more attention to an ad they see online.  The two times people pay the most attention to an ad they see online:

1). When the ads are relevant to me (50%)

2). When it is useful to me (43%)

Other influencing factors that make people pay attention are:

3). If it gives me money off 

• 40% - 18-24 yr. olds
• 32% - 45-54

4). If it is entertaining

• 26% - 18-24
• 14% - 45-54

5). If it gives me new and/or exclusive information

• 20% - 18-54
• 16% - 45-54

Not a surprise that consumers would prefer ads that had some relevance in their life.  Is your marketing team serving your ads in relevant areas, on contextually relevant sites or are they just buying impression numbers to make the ads entertaining?  There is probably a reason that only 14% of adults 45-54 click on entertaining ads, but more than double that (32%) click on ads when they are relevant.  Give them what they want, what they can use, what they are asking for.

Another search "fix"

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/22447.asp

Ugh...not sure i agree with this. So everyone is going to go out and add "cheap" what does that do to your brand??

Google Dominates U.S. Searches

Search engine power player Google accounted for 72% of all U.S. online searches conducted in February, an 8% increase compared to last year, according to Hitwise.

Google towers over its competitors:

• Yahoo! (17% of all U.S. online searches, down 17% from a year earlier)
• MSN (6% off all searches, down 20%)
• Ask.com (4%, down 10%)
  

Having such control in the search engine marketplace makes Google the best destination for companies new to online adverising especially Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  Google's Pay Per Click (PPC) model allows advertisers to only pay when their ads are click on, not just served.

Reaching 72% of all searches, and only paying when people select your product offering; Two compelling arguments to get in the SEM game.   

Source:

BtoB Daily News Alert: "Study: Google grabs 72% of U.S. Internet searches"

Five Tips to Help Improve Your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

5 Tips to Help Improve Your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

For most companies the #1 traffic driver to their company's website is a search engine (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, etc).  In order for your company's organic listing to be seen and clicked on, try these 5 optimizing tips:

1). Optimize Title Tags on Web Pages - Meta tags appear in the code of your web pages and search engines read these tags to help determine the relevancy of a web page.  writing a good title meta tag is the single most important thing you can do to improve your SEO.

2). Create Links Between Pages on Your Web Site - Search engines used programs called "Spiders" that search the web, following links, to find web sites and pages to index and store in their databases.  

Improve your internal links by:

• Creating a robust internal link structure among your web pages for search engines to follow
• Use keyword rich text for the links

3). Use a Site Map - A Site Map or Site Index, is a page on your site that lists and links to all other pages on your site.  It is full of text links that gives a search engine a way to find and index every page on your site.

4). Increase Links From External Web Sites into Deep Pages - Deep pages are pages below the home page in your Site Map.  Having external site links to these pages can help them rise in the search engines' results.  Partner sites, Associations, Blogs, Tweets, etc are a good place to seek out incoming links.  

5). Get Involved in Online Communities - Another way to add external links to your deep pages (Press Releases, Case Studies, etc) is to get involved in online communities important to your customers and industry.  

Some great places to start in are social bookmarking and blog sites such as:

• Delicious.com
• Reddit.com
• Digg.com
• eblogger.com
• wordpress.com
• technorati.com  

The best way to track your efforts in SEO is to chart the progress of your search engine listing by creating a baseline:  Where are you now as a starting point/how far down is your listing?, where is your listing  in 1 month? 6 months? 1 year later?  

Google Tackles Behavioral Marketing

It’s about time for Google to get in the behavioral targeting (BT) game. According to ComScore, Google has over 75% reach on the web so it only makes sense to offer targeting 2.0, BT. Being able to aggregate that level of data across their search and network, gives them a compelling arguement for giving a better slice of a user’s behavior, opposed to other networks with less reach, and less areas to pull cookie data from.

Smaller behavioral targeting firms sell or at least should sell based on their data collecting algorithms since most do not have the reach of a Google or Yahoo!. Google like PlatformA has a network, and has operated based on content/contextual channel targeting but now is integrating behavioral targeting technologies with the acquisition of DoubleClick (just as PlatformA acquired Tacoda). Pressure from the recession is affecting the online ad space, and with the amount of ad space inventory nearly limitless, smart marketers are looking for better ways of targeting their audiences outside of just content/contextual targeting.

It will be interesting to see how Google’s behavioral targeting solution competes with the likes of Audience Science (formerly Revenue Science), PlatformA (Tacoda), Specific Media, and others. There is no question they have the reach, and more data to aggregate together, but do they have the technology and algorithm behind the network to fuel true behavioral targeting? Time will tell.

Check out Ad Age’s Article at:

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135152