Sorry for the reference to apple picking, but here in the Northeast we are smack in the season, and nothing beats a ripe Honeycrisp apple.  The issue at hand is that as an industry we do not have a standard way to compare Search conversions to Display conversions.  There is much digital ink spilt over how Display and Search work in tandem.  There is even a recent study put together by comScore and Starcom showing the lift when Display and Search are ran together.  So, I pose the question will we ever, or even if we should, be putting our energy into finding one?

Search recently has been the darling and did not have to justify conversion cost because we were always the lowest, but the landscape has changed.  Google has seen its CPCs more than double because search was the cheapest.  They also saw an influx of marketing spend due to the economy, which equals more online competition.  Search is measurable, so when a CMO’s rear end is on the line, they need hard facts about their marketing spend, and search can provide that.  Display has been soft.  There are a lot of publishers out there fighting for the dollar, and they are more than willing to negotiate rates.  Google doesn’t negotiate rates.  So with the decrease in a Display CPC and the targeting capabilities that ad networks have, Display conversions have become cheaper to come by.  This then brings up the conversation / question from the client of why are we spending in search when we could be putting our money in Display and getting cheaper conversions.  I don’t even want to go into the conversations we, as search providers, should be having with our client about the beauty of search and that we need to be there when an active hand raiser is requesting us.  They all have been preached and argued more than the DA of NYC has been busting politicians, but when a client becomes locked on a bottom line conversion cost, you need to plead your case the way they want to hear it.  We need to have apples just like Display.

My point of view is obvious, Display just has to place an ad on a page on a web site that the visitor (whether they see the ad or not) then becomes a conversion without doing a search before.  comScore and Starcom’s findings state that 16% of people online click on a Display ad, and that only 8% those make up 85% of those clicks.  Search has it a little harder; we actually need to convert that person as they are viewing our ads.  So by nature, Search is more engaging than display.  I question that comparing Display to Search is even something that we should doing.  Now convincing the client is a whole other issue that makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.  We don’t compare TV to search, even though some clients have tried, so why do we compare Search to Display.  Display is just a targeted TV ad with more interaction if designed right.  I am not here to cause a rift with my brothers and sisters, but to help create a resolution that allows us all to be one big happy family. 

I am curious if we came to a resolution will it actually become standard, or more of those resolutions that seem standard but come with the caveat that needs to be tailored to the client.  Let me explain this better through an example.  I want to keep a conversion a conversion, and still measure revenue that is brought in through that conversion, but I want to increase the “value” of the Search conversion.  Let’s say that since a Search conversion is an actual conversion that happened directly from our ad, that we value it 50% more than a view through conversion.  Should that 50% more value be standard across all clients (I actually don’t believe so)?  We then start treading on the whole argument that each client and each campaign will need to have percentages given out, which then puts us in quicksand.  I have not had a situation where we came to the conclusion of what percentage of value should be attributed to a campaign in a quick manner.  By the time we come to a conclusion, the campaign is over.

There are areas where Search can use a view through, but the bulk of our campaigns are click based.  Google could even one day allow their text ads to become view through based, and this could possibly be the Holy Grail that allows us all to pick apples, but right now Google doesn’t have plans for this, plus I don’t see much incremental value being added to search through view throughs.  Thus, Search is picking bananas (at least we are somewhere tropical) and Display will continue to pick apples, at least while they are still in season.  What are your thoughts?  Or do you hate fruit all together?

*The image accompanying this post is from www.pixelpicks.com.

I still remember, vaguely, when Fonzi jumped the shark on Happy Days, signaling what we know today as the decline of the show, but more importantly, I remember when Henry Winkler actually jumped a shark on Arrested Development.  Much like Happy Days, Twitter seems to be in a decline.  This statement is based on general observations and not on actual usage statistics because user statistics don’t show the real value that something can provide.  I know from personal usage (I have been registered on Twitter for over a year now) that I check it frequently and every once in a while I find something useful, but a majority of the time there isn’t anything that peaks my interest.  The following is some of my observations why I believe that Twitter has strapped on their water skis, hit the ramp, and are flying through the air in their best Fonzi impersonation.

There is too much spam right now.  Everyone is asking me to check out their sexy pictures, which I would if I a. wasn’t at work, or b. didn’t have morals.  Even the ones that don’t ask me to check out their pics are someone who is trying to be the social marketing entrepreneur of the year and just posting news articles from other sites.  Trust me lame guy, I have news aggregators that I have been using long before you lost your job and decided that we had a real need for you getting me news.  Also, these twammers are all about getting followers for their Twitter profile.  Red flags tend to be raised when you have over 1,000 followers and no updates.

People seem to be locking their profiles now in order to follow them.  Dave Navarro (@davenavarro6767) of Jane’s Addiction has done this recently and swears by it.  I have also seen more people that do not deal with fame lock their profiles.  I am tempted to do this but I feel that I would be defeating the purpose of Twitter.  I have always treated Twitter as my public profile and Facebook as my more private profile.

Even legitimate twitters, at least on the surface, are now willing to take money to post ads in their tweets.  I don’t knock them for trying to get the money while there is money to be getting, but come on, you have 4,000 followers and I don’t have a clue who they are or how I begin to target them other than a generic message.  I could definitely do test messages to see which one resonates the best, but then I come back to you only have 4,000 followers and 10 updates a day.

Recently, this short term study that Pear Analytics put together puts some analytical data with my above ranting.  This study should be considered in the eye of the beholder but it does state an interesting trend, “Twitter tweets are 40% ‘babble’.”  I think I would have used a more descriptive term like crap.  It also goes on to state, “8.7% of messages could be said to have “value” as they passed along news of interest.”  That is not much, especially considering the amount of time people spend on Twitter.  I know that people don’t spend 9% of their time on Twitter, but when budgeting out time, shouldn’t you have more than a 1 to 1 ratio of value?

I will still use Twitter and feel that companies should get involved in tweeting, especially if they have something of value to offer the follower.  It can be done respectively, just check out Pizza Hut (@pizzahut), and follow their twintern.  A company mixing in some personality with breaking news and a promotion here and there will go a long way on validating Twitter and keeping it an option long after they touch down on the landing ramp, clearing the shark with ease.  At this moment I have my concerns but I am still thrusting my two thumbs up and saying “Aaay.”

The image used in this post is from Wikipedia.

A very specific example that I have of this is one of my clients saw a 100% increase in their CPC for their brand term in MSN over just one week. We probed MSN to see what the possible reasons could be for this huge increase in one week – their answer was “could be competition.” My first problem with this answer is the could part. Don’t they have a better understanding than could? My second issue with this answer is the competition part. I went online and checked who the competition was, and to my surprise, there was none. I hit the refresh button; again, no competition.

The above is just one example of the increase of CPCs in MSN without a solid explanation. I have seen through another one of my clients our branded CPC has increased from the $1.00 range well into the $3.00 range in a very short period of time, without any obvious changes in the SERP environment.

Yahoo! is not immune to this problem either. They actually had started to show large increases in CPCs about 3 or 4 months ago with no explanation. I have my own explanation – Jerry needs to hit quarterly expectations… I know I said it, it is out there.

Google has increased the CPCs the best so far, and I am not going to go into detail about their Real Time Quality Score. Please read Erika Moersch’s “Google’s Real Time Quality Score Changes Your Query Results” post for more on how this changes the current landscape. I have noticed CPCs go up for a majority of my clients all for the benefit of user experience.

Now when I stated that there is a CPC conspiracy happening, I say it half-jokingly. I am not completely sure that I believe it, but without a tangible explanation for these dramatic CPC increases, I have no option but to entertain the notion. We as an industry need to have a better understanding, and I put this onus on the engines, on what is effecting the CPC fluctuations. We all are or will have to answer the client when they ask why are my CPCs fluctuating so drastically. Right now I don’t believe I have a strong belief in why this is happening and the engines up to this point have not given me a tangible answer. I know from experience that there are many factors that change the CPCs, but none of them seem to be in play of late.

I would be very interested in what your thoughts and experiences are, and hopefully this opens a can of worms. The truth is out there…

(Image credit: Artist: Chris Madden. Thanks to http://flinchbot.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/conspiracy-theory.gif for the image.)

Didit came out with a new study showing “nearly 7% of those surveyed reported that were likely to change their vote before the election.” Now, I don’t want to rehash the survey — enough bloggers out there will do that for me. But I want to discuss the titanic effect these last-minute changes of mind could have on the election and the opportunity for the campaigns on each side of the presidential ticket to use paid search to influence those votes.

Instead of buying votes via friends in high places in the state of Florida, the candidates have the opportunity to basically win the election fairly (7% would decide the election if it happened today), albeit a loophole in campaign financing. If I was Barack Obama, I would be plastering my paid search ads in the obvious places: the issues, political terms, John McCain’s name (even Cindy’s name if he has the budget), etc. But, I would also go after lifestyle terms of people known to be swing voters, independents or the undecided. If an undecided mom is online, I would go after the term Tide detergent and throw and ad out there that states Obama understands the stay at home mom’s peril with the cost of food increasing. I think I would even throw some terms in there that were cool/hip or had a little fun; it would show the lighter side of him, just like his Letterman appearance. The idea here is the opportunity for candidates to use search marketing to relate to voters and get their attention through their lifestyles, especially on topics or demographics where Obama, for example, might feel that McCain has the upper hand.

This is all a hypothetical scenario, but it is amazing how online media, specifically search, plays a role in our lives and shapes the environment we live in. It shows you that if you really want to be a business that is involved in that world being shaped, you better be influencing the search landscape.

Now, I wonder if John McCain has internet access in all of his homes…

I start to scan the newsletter – nope, first article not of real personal interest here, and I keep going. I have to remember I had not checked the account in a few days, so if I want to get my Gmail account cleaned up and still have a productive day, I have to keep moving.

I get to the next article about Google adding YouTube to Google Apps, which is somewhat interesting. Now, I kid you not, the following is the list of articles following the Google Apps one:

• Google Adds YouTube To Google Apps
• Hulu vs. YouTube
• Google Bows New Web Browser
• Google Points Another Missile At Microsoft
• Mozilla Unworried By Partner Google’s Browser
• Google Bows Face Recognition Technology For Picasa
• Google Amasses 13,000 White Space Signatures

So, if you count all of the articles in Around the Net In Online Marketing that day, you get nine. Now, if you count all of the articles that pertain to Google, you get 8. Once the math is done, that means Google had a 89% share of articles, far better than their 70% share of searches that they are at currently.

I poke fun at this, but this shows that either A) Google had a very good day news-wise, B) Ross is paid by the Google machine, or C) or we are coming very complacent with our eagerness to explore other alternatives that are out there. I like to think the answer is B, because I would like to know that someone is making money off of Google, than it always being the other way around.

What I would like to see from our industry is the demand to report about companies outside of the box, to strive for other means to market in search, to reach for – dare I say – the Google Killer without it being a Google Killer. I wish for a universe where we all get along and the search space is shared by 4 or 5, or even 6 search engines with equal share. I hope for change…