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The 2012 Super Bowl offered an historic technological first. In addition to broadcast, for the first time in history the big game was streaming live (legally), courtesy of television network NBC.

When I heard that the game would be streaming live, I became giddy with excitement, as this is a major move in the right direction towards accepting and utilizing new media. By legally streaming the game, I felt like NBC was finally making an effort to reach out to and include my growing demographic of young and techy consumers. After all, many of us use alternative methods to view media and don’t subscribe to cable anymore, and 2.1 million of us tuned in to watch the live stream.

In my opinion, NBC fell massively short on its move to stream the game. Here’s a list of massive fails experienced by Super Bowl Streamers:

Streaming Fail #1: Viewers did not get to see the half-time show.

Streaming Fail #2: Viewers did not get to see the Super Bowl commercials.

Streaming Fail #3: Viewers experienced a significant loss of video quality.

Streaming Fail #4: Viewers watched the same 3 commercials on repeat for the entire game (somebody shoot me please). Note: these 3 commercials were the only content that was exclusive online to the Super Bowl streamers.

Streaming Fail #5: Viewers experienced awkward transitions between the game and commercial breaks, often missing game play.

Streaming Fail #6: Viewers had to repeatedly switch to full-screen mode, as advertisements forced an exit from full screen view (see image below).

Streaming Fail #7: Viewers experienced a delay of 10-15 minutes, making Twitter and Facebook a total spoiler alert.

….Whatever… We just streamed all the good commercials, the best plays, and the halftime show later. So, take that!

I knew of at least 3 Superbowl parties that were exclusively streaming the game, and I witnessed all of the smack talk go down by disappointed viewers. And I don’t mean the smack talk about the players and teams. I mean the smack talk about NBC and their horrendously embarrassing display of streaming media. I recall frequently hearing statements at the party such as “(expletive deleted) get it together NBC!” and “please make it stop!” … Let’s just say it got ugly.

I understand there are probably many motives for NBC to intentionally have the experience be “less than optimal” for streaming viewers. First and foremost, NBC’s television advertisers would likely start seeing red if their multimillion dollar time slots became digitally undermined by streaming. All other reasons after that are just icing on the cake.

Don’t get me wrong. I am very pleased that NBC made an effort to stream. Hopefully they’ll regroup and get it together for their next major television event. Here are a few tweets from angry viewers:

Over the past 2-3 years I have noticed a decline in the amount of fresh (and awesome) content offered by major mainstream television networks. Seasons are shorter, off-seasons seem to last longer, and re-runs dominate air time. Why aren’t major networks racing to provide more fresh stuff for us to watch? After all, it seems like everyone I know is ravenously waiting for more quality content to stream torrent legally watch.

 Take MTV.com for example. While looking at today’s TV schedule, I can see that out of 24 hours available for programming, only an hour and a half is comprised of new content. Now, unfortunately I don’t have historical data for MTV’s lineup from 2 years ago, but it sure feels like there’s a lot less new stuff to watch. How is it that we’re living in the information age and yet left yearning for more content?

As viewing methods such as online streaming or torrent viewing are on the rise, the audience that actually “watches television” seems to be decreasing. I know plenty of people who don’t currently subscribe to any television or cable providers. These people rely heavily on other -ahem- methods to find viewing entertainment. Certainly I would never participate in online piracy, but… you know… I “have a friend”.

A growing number of entrepreneurs are taking matters into their own hands and sharing their original content on their own individual websites. Famous comedian Louis CK had had enough from major networks and decided to offer his new stand up special on his very own website, downloadable for $5 a pop. No Newscorp. No Fox. No FX. Just Louis… And yes, I paid the $5.

Currently, the public at large has made it clear to copyright advocates that we want our torrents, and that we generally feel entitled to free content. We’ve adopted the attitude that we just don’t care about our flagrant pirating cutting into advertising revenues for major networks and communication conglomerates.

Long story short, this might be the time for independent content to rise. Our technology has made major content less profitable (or at least more of a headache). Our technology has also made is easy for the average person to create and distribute his or her own content. Maybe we no longer need media conglomerates to provide us with fresh content, while trying to cling on to past paradigms of copyright censorship. So hurry up and get working on that script you’ve been talking about. I’m running out of stuff to watch.

A frequently overlooked part of the link building process is tracking. All too often we get links, we celebrate their value, and then we move on, as if it as if our job is done. Don’t forget that websites move, URLs change, and links break. Staying on top of this can save you time and precious SEO value.

Let’s pretend that you’ve secured a great link on an esteemed site. What happens when, for whatever reason, the webmaster of that site decides to remove your link at some point in the future? After all, you probably wouldn’t notice. What’s to stop a rogue blogger from removing links from their sites? All your link building efforts would be negated, and you would have little way of knowing this unless you monitor each and every inbound link to your page on a regular basis, which would be a tedious manual chore.

This is where proper link management software comes into play. Link management software should allow you to monitor and track your link building progress, keeping your time efficient and your efforts effective. We recently switched up our link management software and decided to try Advanced Link Manager, software by Caphyon. With Advanced Link Manager, we can easily see if any links to our clients’ websites have been removed or added.

When I’ve worked hard to obtain a link, it’s easy for me to see that webmasters or bloggers have followed through with their promise. If the link were ever to be removed, I’ll be able to see in ALM that it has been removed. At this point, I will reach out to the blogger or webmaster for that link and say something like “hey, uh, what’s going on? I thought we were friends.” …metaphorically speaking, of course.

Advanced Link Manager is also chalk-full of useful data for competitors’ websites. We’ve taken a liking to setting up profiles for the websites of our clients’ competitors. This way we can see a comprehensive view of each competitor’s unique set of links, with the ability to track and make historical data comparisons. This enables you to keep an eye on all the new valuable links recently obtained by your competition. Imagine being able to discover each and every valuable link that your rival obtains, when it’s obtained, allowing you to nullify their link building efforts by seeking out their same links in order to level the playing field.

It’s best to find a tool or software that sorts and monitors links for important values such as PageRank, Alexa Rank, Follow/No Follow, and whether a link has been added or removed. Advanced Link Manager, our new link building tool, offers these data, as well as the referrer’s number of backlinks, the referrer’s number of outbound links, the MozRank, and a quality ratio. Other helpful features are abound, but don’t just take our word for it. Do your research. Tool around with the free 30-day trial and see what your site can get out of it. Worst-case scenario: you’ll get 30 days of free competitive backlink data on an unlimited number of websites.

The Internet may be free for users, but not so for advertisers. Somebody has to pay to keep Gawker and CNN in business!

Today’s story about the Rove Group shows how some cyberthieves can make it even more expensive, effectively adding a private tax on those advertising dollars.

And unfortunately, there is not a lot that can be done by an individual person or company, or even a large-scale Internet platform.

What happened?
The Estonian-Russian “Rove Group” distributed software that infected 4 million computers around the world. This malware redirected users to sites and advertisements chosen by the Group.

Why did they do it?
Money. Easy money.
Users were redirected from where they wanted to go, to sites where the Group displayed ads — and the Group got paid every time someone viewed or clicked on an ad.
In other words, all those advertisers were paying for impressions (eyeballs) and visits (clicks) that were completely unintentional and fraudulent.
Advertisers paid, and the Rove Group collected.

How did they get caught?
They infected several hundred computers at NASA. That organization pays more attention to security (but still not enough, obviously), and investigators found out what was happening.

Does this happen a lot?
Oh, yes.
Think of the number of computers out there, and of those, how many are properly secured and monitored for invasions. Even in the most hopeful scenario, the number of relatively unsecured and unmonitored computers is HUGE.
When it’s easy to infect a computer, and you can make money by doing so, you KNOW someone — many someones — will seize the opportunity.

Why don’t search engines and ad platforms detect this?
They do — sometimes.
They are good at detecting stuff that has a pattern. If too much traffic comes from some IP, or region, or during a time period, or on a specific area, for example.
They are not good at detecting seemingly random visits and clicks.
And if those visits and clicks are spread across search engines and ad platforms, patterns are even harder to detect.
So advertisers will routinely get credited for “suspicious clicks” and the like. But there’s no way to give credit for something you can’t detect.
The search engines and ad platforms are usually more of an information source, helping police and other governmental investigators find and destroy botnets.

Could it be worse, or could it get worse?
Absolutely!
First, botnet-based fraud could be on the rise, adding more of a tax.
Second, the malware is definitely getting more sophisticated, making detection, prevention and removal more difficult.
And the third area goes beyond advertising, into economic and military security. Everyone who has seen high-tech thrillers like the Jason Bourne movies suspects that “the government” has sophisticated ways to tap into and take over many systems. Just last week, the US publicly named China and Russia — the nations and their governments, not just people living there — as major sources of cyberattacks. And to show that the US is likely doing this as well, the stuxnet virus that hit Iran’s nuclear program was widely reported to be the work of the US and Israel. And that’s just what we know about… Botnets are a great vehicle to do lots of misdirection when conducting an attack, and are often attack vectors themselves.

What should I do?
Not much on the government side unless you’re in the know!
And unfortunately, even as an advertiser, there is not much you can do.
A few firms focus on click and impression fraud detection. They probably don’t detect much beyond what the ad platform, and especially the search engine, already do. But they can sometimes find new events. And as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. So, complaining about fraud can sometimes result in a credit.
The best thing to do is to continually focus on performance, measured by your accounting ledgers as well as your web analytics, and find out which campaigns and channels are working.

Bottom line
It’s sobering news that this is happening and there is little to be done.
Obviously, keep your own computers and networks as secure as possible, so you don’t become part of the problem.
And as an advertiser, continue to measure and act on performance data. And consider using — or just test — one or more fraud detection firms.

One of the most common questions is for folks to ask “how do I compare with my competitors?”  Could be spend, traffic, conversions, whatever…with the trackability of the internet everyone believes that we have perfect information and competitive insight all the time.

Fact is, it can be incredibly hard to leverage various sources to know definitively how your website metrics might compare with another.  There are rough ways to estimate it, but frankly its all black magic voodoo.  And any of these estimates don’t pass the barest of sniff tests.

To answer the question of “how am I doing” just sent out some very broad Google Analytics comparative stats.  Sort of interesting reading as a rough guideline of how your metrics might measure up. But remember, these are numbers across hundreds of thousands of G.A. websites, across all sorts of industries and nationalities. Draw firm conclusions at your own peril!

• Bounce Rates: US averages a 42% bounce rate, with paid search traffic at the lowest with 41.4% bounce rate (organic search had a 47.9% bounce rate).
• Traffic from direct-to-site is still the largest source with 36.5%.  Search engines (blending organic and paid) accounted for 27% of all traffic.
• Conversion rates in the US average around 1.0% (much lower than our internal averages of between 2% to 5% depending on page type). US did have among the worst-converting goal rates, with Italy, Iceland and even Russia ranking higher in conversion rates.

Paid Search on Google used to be a simple step-by-step process.

1. Impression – A query was submitted to Google
2. Click – The user reviewed the paid search ads and clicked on the one that seemed the most consistent with their needs
3. Conversion – Based on the quality of the website, the product available, and the conversion path the user completed the sale

However, times have changed. With the introduction of Google Instant Preview on paid search ads users can view landing pages before they even decide to click on your ad. How? All they need to do is click on the little magnifying glass next to each paid search or organic listing and they see a snap shot of your landing page.

So what should you do to ensure that you are capturing qualified traffic?

• Incorporate your top keywords onto their respective landing pages – Google pulls out and highlights regions of your landing page that incorporate the search query. Therefore, you want to make sure that the text on your landing uses those terms. This will increase the relevancy  of the landing page to the user.

• Choose targeted landing pages – Send your paid search traffic to the most applicable landing pages available. For instance, for a product specific keyword do not use your main site as the landing page. Send the user directly to the product page. If a user previews the site and knows they are going to have to do extensive navigation on the site to find the product of interest they will click on an ad requiring less effort on their part. 

• Avoid flash landing pages – Google Instant Preview does NOT recognize flash. Therefore, landing pages built in flash look blank. This does not make a very good first impression.

Conclusion? That little magnifying glass makes a big impact on the paid search competitive space. Make sure that when you are choosing and designing landing pages you think about not only your post-click but also your pre-click impression (no pun intended).

Tags: Google, paid search, PPC

If you are running a business where you capture email addresses (either on the web or in store), you should be doing email marketing.  There are no exceptions to this rule, no caveats, nothing.  It’s simply the easiest way to reach your existing customers and increase their lifetime value.

I’ve seen many folks send emails without really having a true reason to communicate with their customer.  Below are 5 quick tips to help you avoid this common pitfall:

• Always send an email with a topic in mind – Sending an email just for “sending’s sake” is never a good idea.  Always consider that you have a small window of opportunity to make an impact with your customer, so choose your topics wisely.  For example, communicating a sale, an event, or a new product is always a good idea.
• Create a communications calendar – Ideally you plan out your communications on a quarterly basis.  If this is not possible, try to get together with your marketing folks at least once a month to discuss customer emails and plan out topics ahead of time.  This will ensure that you content is interesting and not redundant.
• Always include at least one link back to your site and track that link –  Even if your email system can track basic metrics such as opens or clicks, it’s always a good idea to tag the links back to your site with Google Analytics tags (if you have GA installed).  Here is a quick reference to help you get started with GA URL tagging: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578
• Test subject lines – Subject line testing is by far the easiest way to improve the performance of your email campaigns.  Simply split your list in half, and send 50% of your recipients a test subject line.  An easy way to gauge the success of this test is to measure the difference in open rate and site conversion rate (by subject line).
• Test different email design templates – If you have a standard template you always use, well that’s great!  It’s always good to test alternatives though, because often time’s different formats will work for different types of communications (e.g. a sale vs. an event announcement).

And here’s my final bonus tip! Test your email creative in all major email clients.  This includes Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Outlook 2007, and Outlook 2010. This way, you can safely ensure that 90% of your recipients are getting a visually appealing experience when they open your email.

If you are doing email marketing, you are already miles ahead of many businesses… Just remember that a few additional changes can go a long way.

Tags: Email, email marketing, marketing tips

I am very excited to announce I will be leading an upcoming seminar as part of the ongoing AdWords Advantage Online Summit. This 2 week series will help you learn more about how you can get the most of out of Google AdWords. Below are the specifics on my session. I hope you can join me!

Two-‘Fer: Expanding Your AdWords Real Estate –AND– Advanced Data Segmentation

INSTRUCTOR: Mark Evans, Founder and Managing Director of Ionic Media

Session Description: Learn about two different yet fundamentally linked aspects of AdWords advertising: Improving creative and measuring results:

1. Expanding your presence in the AdWords paid search results. This comprises adding sub-links in your ads, map locations of your stores, and product images.
2. Capitalizing on new data segmentation options. This will grant you a greater ability to analyze your results and make the necessary optimizations.

DATE AND TIME: May 18th at 11:30 a.m. Pacific (2:30 p.m. Eastern)

Register now!

There are three main ways an online media buyer can effectively buy media: 1) direct to publisher 2) through a network or 3) through an exchange. Each offer its own drawbacks and benefits.

For example, buying direct to publisher has a higher cost, while previously agreed to placements are guaranteed. Doing a media buy through an ad network offers flexibility and audience targeting, but sometimes lacks transparency. Finally, buying through an exchange offers a low cost, demographic and behavioral targeting, but the threat of appearing in “below the fold” or “remnant” inventory.

The increased availability of behavioral data from data exchanges allows ad exchanges to target much more accurately and compete with  direct publishers on quality of media. We often wonder whether buying from exchanges and networks is lower quality, due to the lower price. When you consider the sheer volume of inventory that needs to be liquidated by “premium” sites, it simple isn’t possible that some of it doesn’t find its way onto the exchanges. Selling inventory on an exchange is almost a guarantee that it will be purchased. That’s much better than letting it go to waste. So perhaps the notion of “you get what you pay for” really doesn’t apply to exchanges after all. It seems the odds of getting quality, premium site inventory should be higher when you consider that premium sites must liquidate it on the exchanges.

In other words, you may be buying a Toyota instead of a lexus, but it still has all the same parts and performs all the same functions.

When I meet with representatives of networks and exchanges, I always ask how much inventory they think publishers sell on exchanges. I’ve heard guesstimates that range from 30 to 50%  of publisher inventory being sold directly, leaving the rest to be sold on exchanges.

Google has dome research that corroborates the guesstimates of my reps. In 2010, Google asked online media buyers: “what percent of your online advertising was purchased direct from a publisher rather than via an intermediary (network, exchange, DSP or other)?”

The highest number reported was 18%, meaning that online media buyers purchase 56% or more of their online media through networks and exchanges.

It’s also been reported to me by a vendor partner that display inventory on ad exchanges is up 300% from one year ago. On the other hand, total display inventory is only growing by 20-25% per year. The difference must be made up somewhere, and its likely from publishers liquidating inventory on exchanges.

The data shows that the media buying industry is rapidly increasingly its reliance on exchanges. At ionic, my team fervently believes there is a “right brand and right goal” for exchanges, networks, and direct to publisher buys. We keep this in mind when choosing our media partners, and create media plans with a prudent and appropriate blend of networks, exchanges, and direct to publisher placements.

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Tags: behavioral data, Digiday, digital, exchange inventory, online media buyer

Online video used to be a very simple thing: it was YouTube, or maybe newscasts that you watched because you wanted to see a local car chase. As broadband increased every user’s bandwidth, computers themselves became more powerful, consumers started creating their own video content, it became clear to us, media professionals, that sets of eyeballs were moving to online video. Therefore, we had to be there. What we didn’t realize at the time were how many types of online video there would ultimately be for us to utilize in campaigns. This will, without a doubt, continue to change. As for this very moment in April of 2011, here are the most prevalent types of online video:

Pre-roll:
Probably the most ubiquitous type of online video. Pre-roll is often referred to as “in stream”, because it appears before video content or at its mid-point. Pre-roll is the most expensive type of online video. This is because of its length (15, 30 or 60 seconds, generally) and level of engagement of the audience member. It’s basically a commercial on an online video. This is why Hulu is so popular with advertisers; it has also created a niche of providing premium video content.

In Banner Video:
Generally a 300×250 banner placement that will show a 15 second video clip within it. Most publishers have restrictions on how long a video can be, some may allow it to be longer than 15 seconds. The cost for this placement is the same as typical banner placements. The video is not flash, but real video, just like the pre-roll. It can start involuntarily, or voluntarily. This is subject to publisher regulations.

Branded entertainment:
Branded entertainment is relatively new to the marketplace. Its primary purpose is to create an arena for product placement, built into a story with which the consumer will engage. It’s secondary purpose is to go viral. Branded entertainment is a major help to any social media campaign.

Ex: The T-Mobile Royal Wedding

Now that you know what online video is, why would you use it? Mostly for brand engagement and brand awareness. 40.6% of advertisers use online video for brand awareness, 26.5% use it for brand engagement. Many media professionals, myself included, believe that online video is the ideal way to extend TV content to the online world. As an advertiser, this is in your interest in order to extend reach. In a sample media plan given at DigidayLA, targeting females age 18-54 (a universe of 59.6 million), 1.7 million individuals in that target were only reachable online.

Nearly every demographic is watching online video for one reason or another. In fact, 83% of individuals aged 65+ have watched online video. This makes me think that online video isn’t generational, but rather is a part of an evolution of internet usage. Eventually, everyone will use online video content for news and entertainment, and sometimes communication. Many of us already have televisions that can utilize online content, the blend will continue.

What are the next big things in online video?

1) YouTube is set to soon be part of a global video ad exchange. This will vastly increase the amount of pre-roll inventory available to media buyers. It will probably make the inventory more affordable as well.
2) Opt-in as a tool to measure engagement. Right now, mobile video only charges the advertiser if a consumer clicks on the video. An opt-in feature, which would allow advertisers to count engagements with a video when a user opts-in. This would quantitatively prove that online video is good for brand engagement and brand awareness.
3) Mobile video. Our phones and networks aren’t quite robust and fast enough to handle mobile video well, but they will be there in the next 1 – 2 years.

Online video is a very exciting place to be. My team at Ionic Media has executed several online video campaigns with unique creative executions that drove traffic and actions on our advertiser’s site. We now recommend incorporating at least 15% of most budgets into online video; whether it be in banner video or pre-roll.

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Tags: Branded Entertainement, digital, digital media, in stream, In-banner Video, mobile video, Online Video, online video campaign, Pre-Roll, Pre-roll video, product placement, social, Social Media, social media campaign, video ad, viral, viral video