Online Ad Industry Losing Trust

According to a recent survey conducted by the online marketing tracker- Fournaise Marketing Group, an estimated two-thirds of marketing departments in the US & UK were not sure whether they could trust the traffic profiles promised to them by online media owners and publishers.

Factors like click frauds, lack of trust in traffic and click through reports, and inability to verify whether ads are being displayed on targeted websites or particular sections of a site, etc. are some of the major concerns sighted in the report.

As per the Fournaise Marketing Group there has been a substantial decline in click-through-rates, which is affecting the conversion rates too. Fournaise emphasized on the necessity of a proper and full auditing system to win the trust of advertisers.

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Is the New “display URL policy” in AdWords a Major Concern?

There is a warning notice that you will confront immediately after logging in to your AdWords Account, which reads:

“Starting in April, display URLs for new ads will be required to match their destination / landing page URLs, without exception. Please adjust your URLs accordingly when creating new ads.”

Reading this the first thing that comes to mind is we will lose one of the most powerful techniques of reducing CPC (Cost Per Click), as there will be no more ad testing with fancy URLs and automatic redirects. One can still have multiple domains but no redirects will be allowed.

However, I come across a new possibility by which you can assign multiple names to your website. And that too in a Search Engine friendly way. Check this to know how

Target Ads with ‘Demographic Bidding’

AdWords advertisers can now avail a new ad targeting feature “Demographic Bidding”, specially designed to modify bids and restrict clicks that don’t convert well on the participating sites in Google Content Network.

Demographic bidding will allow advertisers to bid by age groups, gender, or combinations of those groups. The feature is available in contextual advertising as well as in placement targeting, and supports both CPC and CPM bidding.

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Yahoo Joins Click Forensic to Fight Click Fraud

In a significant move, Yahoo has announced a partnership program with Click Forensic during the recent SES (Search Engine Strategies) Conference. The partnership is seen as a more confident approach on part of Yahoo to fight the click fraud issue.

Click fraud has been a major concern in the world of paid advertising. It acts like a thorn, pricking holes, draining advertisers’ budgets.

Following the partnership, Yahoo will share its pay per click ad information with the click fraud auditing firm Click Forensics to identify fraudulent clicks, helping advertisers drive better ROIs.

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Landing Page Load Time to influence 'AdWords Quality Score' soon

Google has recently announced its plan to include ‘landing page load time’ as a factor in AdWords Quality Score. The ‘landing page load time’ is seen as an important factor in determining the performance of an ad in AdWords.

It’s sighted that users have the best experience with a page that loads quickly after clicking an ad. On the other hand a page that takes time to load can force users to abandon, which in turn will affect the conversion rate.

For AdWords advertisers it is time to test and re-test the loading speed of their landing pages (specific to their geographic regions) and earn a better quality score in AdWords. A high quality score in AdWords will help advertisers to have lower minimum bids and thus improve their conversions.

Microsoft gets YaData to boost Online Advertising

After the much hyped but not happening deal with Yahoo, Microsoft still seems to continue with its Online Ad reinforcing resolve. The Corporation has recently acquired a prolific Israeli ad-targeting start -up YaData. The acquisition is seen as a strong step in providing a more focused, value oriented online advertising platform by Microsoft.

The new integration will enable Microsoft to provide advertisers with a highly focused, richer targeting experience. Advertisers will be able to connect with their audience more efficiently and in a more engaging way.

YaData Company is headquartered in Tel Aviv. The company provides advanced tools for the discovery of unique customer segments. Its solutions are designed to automatically identify and target specific customer groups. YaData primarily focuses on behavioral targeting, which serves up advertising based on visitors’ behavior.

US Media Cos Unite to form strongest Online Ad Network

Leading US media companies namely Garnett Co. Inc, Tribune Co., Hearst Corp., and The New York Times, join hands to form QuadrantOne-a new online ad venture that targets advertisers seeking national audience.

As stated by the chief executive of the new form company, quadrantOne will be able to provide customized online campaigns on highly competitive basis. The allied cos. will dedicate advertising inventory to quadrantOne.

According to reports from Neilsen Online Data, QuadrantOne will cover around 50 million unique visitors per month across 27 markets including D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Google Traffic: A Gift or A Curse

Google is no doubt the leader in online advertising, which is holding more than 60 % search market share. But along with the massive traffic advantage in Google, PPC advertisers of today also experienced the curse of larger and larger ad spends.

This happens because the CPCs (cost per clicks) on their ad campaigns are getting higher and higher every time. There was a time when the CPC for highly competitive keywords is just a mere fraction of your bids. Now even the long term phrases will cost you a good spend.

On the other hand Yahoo has substantially lower traffic, but here CPCs on long key terms as well as long competitive terms are comparatively lower. PPC advertiser can add more value to their advertising budget in Yahoo.

However, there is also the advice that a PPC ad campaign doing good in Google despite of large expenses, may not give the kind of conversion one looks for in a different PPC engine like Yahoo. Also at the same time a different ad campaign with great CTR (clicks through rates) in Google can have a better conversion ratio after spending in Yahoo.

A Big Fight over Online Ad Dom … Soon

In the field of Online Advertising Google is the largest player and things are looking up for Google, which reported fourth-quarter revenue rose more than 50 per cent and profit was up 17 per cent. But the recent $ 44.6bn Microsoft offer to teem up with Yahoo has set the guns rolling for a bigger battle over online advertising dominance soon. The combine power of Microsoft and Yahoo is expected to create better and more credible alternatives that might shook the Google’s innovative Empire.

CPA Vs CPC & CPM

Over the years Internet Advertisement has witness tremendous growth with more and more advertisers jumping into the fray. Online ad models like the CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions), and CPC (Cost Per Click) becomes a huge hit among millions of advertisers. However, along with the guaranteed benefits, there are certain risks still in question with these models.

First it was the CPM model that draws the attention of the advertising community. The model is a great tool to obtain certain predefined amount of clicks, but the guarantee of actual conversion is undefined and advertisers are at their own risk.

Again the reigning CPC model, which brings unlimited amount of clicks have earned tremendous success in the online ad market. But then it also involves certain risks. Even though the advertisers have the freedom to choose and compare their bids for better conversion results, the click fraud issue is a major concern here. Effective measures have been implemented by major search Engines to curb this issue, but advertisers are still open to the click fraud harm.

The CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) model, however, seems to offer the best guarantee for advertisers. It offers the advantage of getting clicks that really converts. Also there is no click fraud risk involved here as the advertisers have to pay only for those clicks that return value for their ads. So for the advertisers the CPA model seems to be a better option in terms of curbing unnecessary ad spends while making sure that ads were being displayed only when they are most likely to convert.

Time to Upgrade Google Analytics Tracker

For AdWords Advertisers using Google Analytics tool, it’s time to upgrade their old analytics tracking system with the new and more advanced version, which has been made available to all Google account holders recently. The new analytics tracker namely “ga.js” is a complete javascript rewrite that succeeds the existing old version “urchin.js”. One can go through the Google Analytics Migration Guide PDF for detail reference.

The new tracking version has brought many updates to Google Analytics system, while making advanced features accessible in a much better way. For example, one can track the performance of a webpage on multiple Google Analytics account. Like sites with user generated contents can be able to integrate their authors' Google Analytics IDs alongside the company’s own tracking account.

It also enables you to check and analyze how your AdWords traffic compares with your site’s average or how one conversion goal compares to another over time, and more ...

Google’s Conversion Optimizer Now Out of Beta

The Google Conversion Optimizer is out of its beta test. It’s now available to qualified advertisers worldwide. For advertisers, whose Ad campaigns have enabled AdWords Conversion Tracking and received a minimum of 200 conversions within the last 30 days. The good thing is advertisers no longer have to manually adjust their bids to reach their CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) goals.

Launched in September, 2007, this advanced AdWords tool is intended to enhance advertisers’ ad value by automatically finding the most optimal bids for an ad auction. The Conversion Optimizer calculates the optimal CPC bids by using the conversion history of a given search query, location of the user, and conversion history of particular sites in the Content Network.

Though there are certain features that are not compatible with Conversion Optimizer like placement targeting, position preference, etc. , the best part is that the tool is being seen as a real time saver by automatically showing only those ads that are most likely to convert.