OBSESSED WITH RESULTS

There are so many different types of “new media”.  The question is “Where’s this all going?”  Well, there are lots of probabilities, but all of them add up to another revision of the Internet called “Web 3.0″.

The nerds call it the “Semantic Web”.  Business analysts call it the “Personalized Web”.  This article from “How Stuff Works” suggests that “Many of these experts believe that the Web 3.0 browser will act like a personal assistant.”  An article in PC Mag from 2007, recalls “To many, Web 3.0 is something called the Semantic Web, a term coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the (first) World Wide Web. In essence, the Semantic Web is a place where machines can read Web pages much as we humans read them, a place where search engines and software agents can better troll the Net and find what we’re looking for. “It’s a set of standards that turns the Web into one big database,” says Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks, one of the leading voices of this new-age Internet.”

So you know what?  Its already happened.  Web 3.0 is building 10X faster than Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.  The telltale signs are the number of APIs out there from a site that just got acquired called Programmableweb.com.  The crux of Web 3.0?  A simple conversation between companies that goes a little something like “We love your application.  I’m just wondering….Do you have an API?”.

What will rule with Web 3.0 for you and your company if you are an advertiser?  The rule will be how helpful you can be to your customers with providing them with convenient data.  I guess old fashioned customer service and care will become new again.  Maybe Web 3.0 should be nicknamed “Back to the Future”!

Marie Smith
Social Media Manager
Ionic Media Group

BP ‘manipulating search results’ on Google following oil spill - so said The Times today.

The piece quoted Maureen Mackey, a writer on the Fiscal Times as saying: “What it effectively does is that it bumps down other legitimate news and opinion pieces that are addressing the spill… and [BP are] paying big money for that.”

Er, not quite.

First, BP are buying PPC ads – so they are hardly bumping natural search results anywhere. Second, there is an assumption that BP must be paying “big money” for these PPC ads.

Let’s take the phrase “oil spill”. Sure enough, plug it into Google and BP’s ad is there at the top – in fact, it is the only PPC ad on the page (at least when I did it).

So how much would BP have to pay for this? Using Google’s free Traffic Estimator tool, it would seem they would pay a maximum of $1.38 per click. And Google estimates the number of click throughs that BP would get as between 29 and 45 per day. In other words, a cost of around $70 per day – maximum.

See more at: http://blog.escherman.com/2010/06/08/how-much-is-bp-really-paying-for-those-“oil-spill”-ppc-ads/

For years I’ve read articles about the lift Display provides to Paid Search. However, it’s always been difficult to nail down actual proof due to the inadequacies of tracking or the inability to measure actual impact. So the question remains: Does Display really provide Paid Search with added lift?

The answer: Yes – but it’s extremely dependent upon a wide variety of factors

Over the past six months we have been tracking lift trends for two separate clients with similar products, searching for some indication of lift, optimal frequency and seasonal trending. When results varied between the two clients we had to dig a bit deeper to determine why there was such a difference. In the end, I was able to boil lift down to the following factors:

• Marketing mix: what is the weighting between Display and Paid Search? Are there any other channels in the mix that could have impacted one or the other?
• Awareness: is the product well known, or brand new to the market?
• Constraints: low budgets? Frequency capping? Geo-targeting?
• Message: are the messages synonymous? Do they have the same tone and Call To Action? Is the creative engaging? Does it make an impact and stand out from the clutter?
• Product Type: is this a retail product that needs a credit card? Or a 5 question form that requires limited personal information?
• Buying Cycle: Is it a product that needs extensive research? Or socks?

The list goes on and on and on (envision running up and down Eschers stairs). The most definitive conclusion is that yes, there is some amount of lift and it appears to be relatively one-sided: that is to say, Display usually gave Paid Search lift, not the other way around. However, there are many other elements, such as aided and unaided awareness, that also come into play and require more extensive testing than the click of your mouse. So in the end, it’s best to have a well-rounded media campaign.

And if you’re going to set aside the extra cash to test (http://www.ionicmedia.com/contact.html), 6 months is all you really need.

Dee Dee Paeseler
Account Director
Ionic Media