Interesting use of QR Codes

I'll be associating QR Codes with Heineken for a while.

CPC & CTR benchmarks

While the optimization process should be a never ending one, striving towards bringing down CPCs / CPLs, increasing CTRs and Conversion Rates, it is always helpful to have some industry benchmarks.

Below is some data from a report created by Marin Software. Needless to say data would vary across campaigns, geographies, campaign budgets etc.

[Full article at - Q4 Reports: Search Advertising Growing In Efficiency]

 

Benchmark CPCs & CTRs by Industry

One of the most useful statistics for small to medium businesses, all the way up to large enterprise search advertisers is bench-marking average CPC’s and CTR’s within their industry.
According to Marin’s report, this is how it shook out across seven major verticals:

2012

A very happy new year to everyone.
2012 is here and so are everyone's expectations for wonders in the digital world :)
Here's hoping the year is going to be full of innovation, creativity, results, virality, conversations and lots more.

Happy 2012 everyone.

Interesting things of 2011 in a nutshell - http://www.webpronews.com/one-last-brief-look-at-the-web-of-2011-2011-12

According to Nielsen, the top web brands in 2011 (in the U.S.) were:

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Yahoo
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
5. YouTube
6. Microsoft
7. AOL Media Network
8. Wikipedia
9. Apple
10. Ask

For social networks and blogs (again, in the U.S.) the list was:

1. Facebook
2. Blogger
3. Twitter
4. WordPress
5. MySpace
6. LinkedIn
7. Tumblr
8. Google+
9. Yahoo Pulse
10. Six Apart TypePad

The Top online destinations for video (in the U.S.) were:

1. YouTube
2. VEVO
3. Facebook
4. Yahoo
5. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
6. AOL Media Network
7. Hulu
8. The CollegeHumor Network
9. CNN Digital Network
10. Netflix

Twitter

Twitter’s most tweeted events (in terms of tweets per second):

6,939 – JAN 1 – New Years
4,064 – FEB 6 – Super Bowl
5,530 – MAR 11 – Japanese earthquake and tsunami
3,966 – APR 29 – UK Royal Wedding
5,106 – MAY 2 – Raid on Osama bin Laden
6,303 – MAY 28 – UEFA Champions League
5,531 – JUN 13- NBA Finals
6,436 – JUN 27 – BET Awards
4,995 – JUL 11 – Home Run Derby
7,166 – JUL 17 – Brazil eliminated from the Copa America
7,196 – JUL 17 – End of FIFA Women’s World Cup
5,449 – AUG 23 – East Coast earthquake
7,064 – AUG 25 – Steve Jobs resigns
8,868 – AUG 28 – MTV Video Music Awards
7,671 – SEP 20 – Troy Davis executed
6,049 – OCT 6 – Steve Jobs passes away

The top hashtags of the year were:

1. #egypt
2. #tigerblood
3. #threewordstoliveby
4. #idontunderstandwhy
5. #japan
6. #improudtosay
7. #superbowl
8. #jan25

The top topics were broken down by category:

TV:

1. Pretty Little Liars
2. Two and a Half Men
3. The Craigslist Killer
4. Golden Globe Awards
5. People’s Choice Awards

Movies:

1. Thor
2. The Dark Knight Rises
3. X-Men: First Class
4. Fast Five
5. Green Hornet

Music:

1. Rebecca Black and Friday
2. Nate Dogg
3. FEMME FATALE
4. Gerry Rafferty
5. Gil Scott-Heron

Facebook

Facebook’s top games:

Gardens of Time (Playdom)
The Sims Social (EA)
Cityville (Zynga)
DoubleDown Casino (DoubleDown Interactive)
Indiana Jones Adventure World (Zynga)
Words With Friends (Zynga)
Bingo Blitz (Buffalo Studios)
Empires & Allies (Zynga)
Slotomania-Slot Machines (Playtika)
Diamond Dash (wooga)

Facebook also shared the following topic lists for 2011:

US Top 10 status trends

1. lms (like my status)
2. tbh (to be honest)
3. Death of Osama bin Laden
4. Charlie Sheen
5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
6. Casey Anthony found not guilty
7. Packers win the Super Bowl
8. Hurricane Irene
9. Insidious (movie)
10. Death of Amy Winehouse

Most Shared Articles

Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and Tsunami (New York Times)
What teachers really want to tell parents (CNN)
No, your zodiac sign hasn’t changed (CNN)
Parents, don’t dress your girls like tramps (CNN)
(video) – Father Daughter Dance Medley (Yahoo)
At funeral, dog mourns the death of Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan (Yahoo)
You’ll freak when you see the new Facebook (CNN)
Dog in Japan stays by the side of ailing friend in the rubble (Yahoo)
Giant crocodile captured alive in Philippines (Yahoo)
New Zodiac Sign Dates: Ophiuchus The 13th Sign? (The Huffington Post)

Some really interesting campaigns.

The Volkswagen Beetle. Juiced Up



Augmented Reality is already bigger than most people think it is.

This Dark Endeavour


Augmented Reality Cinema



Simple but effective - 700 Lives

Having the right image sizes on Google

It's always important to target the right sort of ads on the right sort of network/site. In terms of volumes 728x90 seems to be the most popular ad dimension in the Google Display Network.

In my past experience however 300x250 not only are high volume ads but also higher conversion rate ads too whereas 728x90 ads don't convert that well. Of course conversation rates are dependent on a lot of factors and a mass generalization shouldn't stop you from testing all possible formats of ads available.

Introducing G-Male

Hehe :D

Including --- Increasing

I was a little surprised to see 'Consider including:' (right hand corner above 'Check Spelling') as an option in Gmail today. It is an interesting functionality as it might add more people to 'conversations'. Of course I'm not how many would use it because the concept of an email is that it goes to certain people only - those that you intend to talk to. 

Something like this would be so brilliant in Outlook though, since generally work emails get marked to multiple people. Let's see if I ever end up using it...

Social Media Revolution

Unfortunately I'm always surprised when I realize that people haven't seen the below video. Of course it is my mistake to assume that a lot of people would just come across this stuff. What's interesting though is that to whomever I show it, they are just amazed by it.



My favourite bit is 'What happens in Vegas...' ;)

I do however prefer the first version of the Social Media Revolution video. The data and it's pretty much in the same format - probably the 'totally blown away' effect just revisits every time I watch the first video. If you'd like to watch it, you can visit - http://youtu.be/sIFYPQjYhv8


For some India specific data you can check out -

The Next Web = H + R+ V

Rob Scoble talks about interesting apps that take interactions in the virtual world a step ahead by linking 3 things - 'Humans + Reality + Virtual' as he puts it.



On another note - what an interesting job it would be to scrounge the internet looking for interesting stuff :)