PPC Advertising, The Internet & More

Interesting use of QR Codes

2012-01-14T16:04:00.000+05:30

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

CPC & CTR benchmarks

2012-01-14T01:00:00.000+05:30

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

2012-01-03T17:15:00.002+05:30

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.

2011-10-28T00:11:00.000+05:30

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

2011-10-14T16:19:00.000+05:30

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

2011-09-01T14:52:00.001+05:30

Hehe :D

Including --- Increasing

2011-07-07T00:22:00.000+05:30

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

2011-06-26T23:53:00.000+05:30

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

2011-06-26T00:12:00.000+05:30

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 :)

Creativity

2011-05-22T01:29:00.000+05:30

If you can think about how to make 'features' work for you, you can do interesting things -

Tagged! Facebook photo trends [infographic]

2011-05-15T17:24:00.000+05:30

Tagged! Facebook photo trends [infographic]

Learning

2011-05-15T17:23:00.000+05:30

The interesting as well as annoying thing about learning is that it can happen anywhere, anytime and from anyone.

Another interesting thing about learning is it isn't necessary pages and pages of content that you have to go through to get the wisdom that will take you far - thus I'd like to share Robin Sharma's Facebook Page with you.

Apart from regular update about what's new on his blog, Robin Sharma writes some really interesting one line quotes which make me sit back and think about things like leadership, entrepreneurship, improvement, innovation and more.

If you have the time, I'd suggest you check it out.

Few recent interesting quotes from him -

Leadership has little to do with titles and lots to do with choices.

Sooner or later people reveal their beliefs via their behavior

Real leaders help people who've never believed in themselves catch a glimpse of the best within themselves.

There can be no creativity without bravery. At it's heart, innovation is an act of courage.

If your biggest goals don't scare you at least a little, they're too small.

The teacher who fails to remain a student fails as a teacher.

Google Chrome: Dear Sophie Video & a new product 'use'.

2011-05-07T00:22:00.000+05:30

Interesting way to increase usage of a product (or 2 or 3).

I'm sure there are lots of parents out there who would want to do something like this (as a diary/journal) for their kids

I find thoughts/ideas / directions like these to be very interesting for the simple reason that they take the same product and they package it for a new use. They create a whole new market in this manner for the product that is already being used though in another fashion.

The use of these Google product is really just like what photo albums used to be in the olden days. Where you'd store pictures (sometimes chronologically) of big events. In our multimedia world of today though you can do so much more than just pictures though and the video proves it.

I personally feel though that this should be more a campaign for Gmail rather than a lot of the other Google products and especially not Chrome since Gmail is where the catalogue of the child's life would exist till she grew old enough.

The objective must always be at the center

2011-04-11T00:46:00.000+05:30

A good idea is not one that is exciting...a good idea is one that achieves the objective.

Very interesting Twitter Contest

2011-02-26T14:45:00.000+05:30

Will you ever have Tic Tac again without remembering this?

2011-02-26T03:00:00.000+05:30

The beauty of Social Media is that brands can find interesting (and highly cost effective) ways of being top of mind / increasing brand recall of their brand/products/services. The only real requirement is good quality (shareable) content.

The beauty of great quality content is that with the help of the users, the 'brand message' goes out to thousands of people without the brand having to worry about it.

Interesting Stats

2011-02-26T02:49:00.000+05:30

About Facebook -

And since a lot of people haven't watched the Social Media Revolution Video here goes -

Why I love SEM [Google AdWords]

2010-10-03T14:56:00.000+05:30

So many people who I 'grew up with' learning Search with - mainly Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - grew tired of search and I used to wonder how they could say things like 'I'm bored of doing search', 'all search campaigns now seem the same', etc etc etc and they used to wonder how I hadn't switched to other forms as digital advertising (like media, mobile, etc) already.

I think part of the reason was, that around the time my friend moved to sales, media, planning, etc, I moved to a larger work role where I oversaw search campaigns. I did have my fair share of media planning and buying but I guess I don't enjoy the negotiating and justifications required in media. It's just not my cup of tea and I'm bad at it. And if this is to be argued, well I at least don't like it so enough to stay away from it.

Today while I look after so many Social Media campaigns and executives, I still love SEM the more. And once again, because I am teaching SEM at Ignition, I find I am asking myself why it is that SEM is something that I will never grow tired off. I think a lot has to do we my personality - it sort of spills over into search engine marketing.

Some of the reason are obvious -

1. Search Engine Marketing is based on logic and reasoning. It about using common sense. And I am a pretty logic person at most times. I do believe the world should revolve around logic (yes Mubashir round logic and not the sun :P). If you can think correctly, you can have run a good campaign.

2. I love the complexity AND simultaneous simplicity of Google Adwords. It's a great paradox. If there is anything that is close to perfection it's the Google AdWords Platform.

3. Google AdWords gives advertisers SO MUCH control. Being the control freak I am, what could be better?

4. You get proved wrong and more often get proved right (if you are being logical). Thanks to near real time data an advertiser can see how things are performing and it helps to know which of your notions are right and which are wrong.

5. Small changes make big differences (at times) - Optimization when done correctly will give you huge benefits in saving money/increasing volumes/bettering conversions/etc.

6. You can sit in one corner in front of a computer and set up and run an account without having to interact with anyone. [I'm more anti-social than most people think I am ;)]

7. Evaluation is easy and changes are measurable. Changes aren't unfortunately irreversible but Google has found a way around that too. Did I mention I think they are brilliant and AdWords is nearly perfect?

8. You get to be observant. Actually you are expected to be observant. And the more observant you are, the greater your chance at success. [Well this is true for things other than SEM obviously but in SEM you get 'success' faster than in other things in life].

9. Instant gratification is built in, in a way. Unless traditional media or even SEO and SMO, traction happens nearly right away. You don't need to wait for days or weeks to see numbers rolling.

10. SEM is a mix of numbers AND communication. It's not enough to see clicks, costs, etc, you have to reach out to people and connect with them.

On most days I do wish I was better at Maths so that I could be better at SEM but well we go to roll with what we have and the good things for me is that my lack of mental maths ability doesn't hinder my SEM Campaigns.

Well here's to hoping I can help some other people find their passion for Search too and can continue for many years honing my skills in Search.

Instant

2010-09-17T00:31:00.000+05:30

All these 'instant's...as if (near) future generations weren't going to struggle with 'instant gratification' issues thanks to (just) regular Google and Youtube being such a big part of their lives.

The Ability to Measure

2010-08-26T03:32:00.000+05:30

It's quite annoying to sit in a meeting where an offline partner agency presents a plan, gets asked 3 silly basic questions about the TV and Radio spots, while you get asked more than 20 ridiculously detailed questions about ROI on the online/digital plan which doesn't even have10% of what the offline budget is.

A lot of us in the online advertising field are pretty perplex about why it is that we get asked the exact cost per acquisition of a customer by our clients when these same clients don't even know the number of customers they are getting from other channels.

I personally feel the problem lies in the fact that on online mediums, advertisers can actually know what they spent and how much of that translated to actual ROI. I think this is brilliant but it definitely doesn't give a client the right to demand any ROI they deem fit.

I'm left wondering if one of the biggest advantage of the digital medium is actually it's biggest disadvantage.

Tip Of The Day

2010-08-07T00:16:00.008+05:30

Started a 'tip of the day' email to my team to remind them of the things we so often forget.

Packaging is important.

So always remember to ‘package’ your plans, results, efforts, etc in as brilliant a way as possible. This doesn’t mean put everything you think into a PPT with some pictures along with text but rather showcase how good your idea is, how well you have thought through things, how solid you process is, how much hard work has gone in, how quantity and quality is present,etc

Some fundamentals never change

2010-02-27T12:45:00.002+05:30

The more campaign I run (PPC and SMO), the more I realize that some things stay constant irrespective of brand, product, budgets, etc.

Some fundamentals that are important to every campaigns are -

1) Objectives needs to be defined before hand.

Any marketing activity is useless if the objectives are not decided before the campaign goes live. This not only help one have the right communication but also help when it comes to measuring the success / failure of the campaign.

2) You have to be talking to the right person and saying the right thing.

If you aren't talking to your Target Audience, then no matter what you are saying, it's all wasted. So it is also important to know who your TA is. Also you must ensure that you are saying the right things. A prospect always want to know (at some point or another) what is in it for him/her. If you can mention benefits up front, it helps everyone.

3) Measuring results.

While it's not easy to calculate ROI for every medium/metric in advertising, it is important to make the effort. While in PPC it's easy to calculate costs and revenues to a large extent, in Social Media different metrics should be chalked out based on the objective. So if it is to communicate with a large number of people, the number of fans/followers/visitors etc should be tracked.

4) Tweaking of campaigns for optimization.

One big advantage of the online marketing medium is that it offers you great flexibility in changing targeting and communication. Tweaking a TVC or changing a print buy after it has gone live is impossible but online there is huge scope for making small but effective improvements to a campaign. This advantage should definitely be used and campaigns should be optimized. It doesn't matter if you are marketing a B2B or B2C product or whether you have huge budgets or just a small one.

Social Media Marketing / Optimization

2010-02-14T14:37:00.004+05:30

Have ventured head on into Social Media recently. It's interesting the potential that social media and provide to businesses.

As always the US and UK markets are the most 'evolved' in using social media platforms. Certain great case studies are out there showing what companies are doing on through the medium.

What I believe is still the most important thing to do before starting a social media program though is setting up a certain objective for the same. You have to know what you want out of the activity to be able to create a good strategy and measure results. Of course while setting objectives, it is important to understand this medium - its strengths and limitations. Would setting up a good program lead to direct increase in sales? Maybe, maybe not. The potential of this medium is to connect with your customers, those who are your loyalists or are happy with you and even those who are unhappy with your product/service. It's a great medium to address these people. Once shouldn't look at this medium to just figure out how many clicks they can generate to a website or how many more products can get sold via it.

The speed of things today

2010-02-14T14:32:00.003+05:30

Interesting statistics in the Image below -

Just goes to show in what a fast paced world we live in today.

You can get such interesting facts about the internet at - http://www.facebook.com/honeyishrunktheworld

Creating a Data Driven Culture

2009-11-06T01:08:00.003+05:30

'There are lots of weird people in the world and they all have ADD and they are all using your website' - Avinash Kaushik.

Some very interesting points made in the presentation. If you have 20 odd minutes, it's worth a watch

New AdWords Interface Webinar

2009-10-28T01:56:00.005+05:30

Honestly I am not a big fan of the new AdWords Interface. Mainly because I find that the jump from what we were use to before as compared to what we will have now is just huge and it will take a long time for familiarity and easy to set in.

But of course the new interface comes with a great many new features. Some of which are just totally brilliant.

The New AdWords Interface Walkthrough webinar is a good place to familiarize yourself with all the new features and get some handle on how to navigate around the account.

I highly recommend it if you either don't like the new interface or if you are struggling with how to do stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9-ncKZYiIw

Flash Action Scripting Resource

2009-10-14T15:30:00.002+05:30

Came across this website - www.video-animation.com/flash_28.shtml when looking for action scripting basics. It seems like a really good site to pick up the basics. There is a small explanation and also a little code about ever operator, functions etc. There isn't too much depth to it but at least it gets you started on the right track.

Google for Advertisers

2009-09-21T20:48:00.002+05:30

If you haven't seen the Google for Advertisers microsite, you should have a look.

While it's not very in-depth, it's a good easy way to figure out what all is available via Google for advertisers and a basic how to go about getting started.

Another resource page to watch any online sessions etc is the On-Demand Videos & Blogs page at the National Agency Training section.

Google Analytics

2009-09-20T12:30:00.003+05:30

A very good resources to learn about Google Analytics is the Conversion University.

It has presentations that you can quickly watch and figure out all the basics about GA features and options.

'Social Media Revolution'

2009-08-13T13:17:00.001+05:30

Not sure about all the stats but it's an interesting video none the less. And the message is quite clear and quite correct.

Social Media is NOT a fad.

Some Google Search Tips and Tricks

2009-08-09T18:56:00.000+05:30

Yahoo Glue Page

2009-08-07T14:26:00.003+05:30

The Yahoo Glue Page results. I personally don't like it mainly cause if I want something from wikipedia, I can go there directly or if I want to watch a YouTube video I can find it myself on YouTube. While I understand that universal/blended search is a BIG thing, such segregation is pretty useless. It only makes sense if those videos, articles, blog posts etc get ranked and come to you.

Yahoo Chat

2009-07-28T00:16:00.003+05:30

Well I stopped using Yahoo mail long time ago so don't blame me if this is very old news :)

[Also I am not a big follower of all things Yahoo, at least not as much as Google]

So to my surprise today - I log in (to search for an old username) and suddenly a small window pops up and I realize it's a chat window :D and I think to myself FINALLY Yahoo got enough sense to follow Gmail and build in a chat client into their mail.

Well it's not going to induce me to log in more often because most of my contacts are already on Gtalk.

Quality Score Fact of the Week Series

2009-07-24T15:42:00.003+05:30

If you do not check out the Adwords Agency Blog regularly, you should definitely check out their Quality Score Facts Series.

There are some interesting QS facts there (which most people might be unaware of) such as -

Restructuring your account does not cause you to lose your historical Quality Score information.

Quality Score does not suffer when your ads are paused or showing infrequently.

A few bad days of test performance will not ruin your Quality Scores. (provided you stop the experiment that is performing badly)

Your ad conversion rate does not affect your Quality Score.

And some more interesting facts.

YouTube Insight

2009-07-23T18:37:00.003+05:30

Well if anyone knows the important of data, it is Google and it is good to see that they are providing more data to users (and content owners/spreaders).

From the YouTube Blog -

Uploaders can find even more information about their videos via our free analytics tool, YouTube Insight, including stats about their popularity, geographic audience, and viewer demographics. But most of this information is hidden from the view of the millions and millions of people who've never posted a video to the site, and who therefore don't have access to much of the data we make available to uploaders.

That's why today we're giving you the ability to make some information collected in Insight available publicly to anyone watching your videos on YouTube. Now when you watch a video, you can learn even more about it and its audience: on the watch page, under the "Statistics & Data" section, you will be able to see metrics about a video's views over time, its popularity in different parts of the world, the top drivers of traffic, and the video's top three audience demographics.

Full article at - http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-statistics-coming-to-video-near.html

Twitter Leaps 1,989%

2009-07-23T15:23:00.002+05:30

Twitter.com was again the fastest growing site for the month, increasing 1,928% year-over-year, from one million unique visitors in June 2008 to 21 million unique visitors in June 2009.

By Nielsen's calculations, Facebook continued to lead as the #1 social networking site for the sixth month in a row, with 87.3 million unique visitors in June 2009.Data from Nielsen competitor comScore - which uses a different methodology to calculate unique visitors - put Facebook's June unique visitor count at 77 million for June, the first month comScore said that Facebook overtook MySpace.

Facebook #1 for Time Spent

Nielsen also reported that Facebook is the #1 social networking site in the top 10 when ranked by average time per person, with visitors spending an average of 4 hours and 33 minutes on the site in June. This is a 240% year-over-year increase.

Visitors typically spend a much smaller amount of time on Twitter, though the average time per person on that site increased 522% year-over-year, from 5 minutes and 2 seconds in June 2008 to 31 minutes and 17 seconds in June 2009, making it the fastest growing by time per person among the top 10.

Full Article at - MarketingVOX

Personally I am not a huge fan of Twitter. To me it seems like noise. Especially if you don't have a good number of followers. Currently I would think Average Time Spent is highly critical (and number of repeating users) unless either of the Social Networking Sites comes out with a revolutionary way to monetize their offering.

Effective Ads

2009-07-03T15:27:00.002+05:30

In search is doesn't matter how simple your ads are as long as they are effective. I happened to chance upon this ad today. At first I felt it was strange and the advertiser was wasting his money but on thinking about it for a few seconds I realized that the ad said everything it needed to. It was very simple, very short but was effective. The target audience for this ad would have no reason not to click it.

Ad in Blogger

2009-06-18T23:21:00.002+05:30

I am not surprised seeing this. Google used this space for great cross promotion of their (relevant) products / features. But there is a limit of how many such messages you can give users.

Blogging on the go

2009-04-15T21:25:00.003+05:30

Well not such new news but still interesting stuff - Blogger makes it easier to now post from a Mobile or via Email.

Will write more once I check the features out.

Keyword Basics

2009-03-16T14:32:00.012+05:30

Was going through the Keywords Insights Webinar and founds a few interesting slides that I am attaching here. While the Webinar is quite basic (if you already know details about keywords) but a good refresher sort of watch and I would recommend it if you have about 25 mins or so to spare.

[You can find past AdWords Webinars at - http://www.google.com/adwords/webinars]

Interesting slide but the smaller things that can be confusing - cafe and café are treated different. All punctuation except "&" "_" are treated as spaces. Apostrophes are treated as apostrophies when added correctly. And keywords are not case-sensitive.

The two 'Did you know...' points below are important to remember.

Few new things I learned about broad match - like each expansion is measured in effectiveness for each advertiser and that impressions of the expanded broad match are not used for quality score evaluation.

Negative Keywords can be used in all match types (this is 1 fact that I think few people know). What is important to note in negative keywords is that broad match negative keywords never replicate the way broad match keywords work. Which means that a broad match negative will not not show your ad for synonmys, plurals etc. So if you are sure you don't want certain types of keywords to show your ads you should add pluarals and synonmys too.

While the example on Long Tail here is only related to misspellings, Long Tail keywords are any keywords that are low volume and low competition keywords leading to lowered CPCs. But I believe no matter how much you want to expand the long tail, the words you choose should directly be related to your product /service. Also your bid to have cheaper keywords should not lead to your overall quality score dropping. Having high CTRs and high relevancy also help lower CPCs

Video on Google Ad Auction

2009-03-15T19:55:00.004+05:30

Nice (basic) video explaining ad ranking and actual CPC
[The only important thing missing in the video is that you are charged 1 cent more than the advertiser below you. So basically the formula for avg CPC becomes - {AdRank of Competitor(of advertiser below you)/Your Quality Score} + $0.01]

Expandable Ads on Google Content Network

2009-03-11T19:47:00.002+05:30

So it does seem that Google is very serious about 'branding' budgets too. They are looking to get more advertisers to use the content network for branding purpose and this is a step in the right direction. (Gadget ads are a great way to have very interactive ads via the Google Content Network).

The only issue with these expandable ads is that a user has to click on the ad for it to expand and contract (they will expand to wherever there is free space on the page). The only problem with this is that the creator of the ad will have to put in a line that says 'Click here to know more' or something which is a waste of space because a lot of ads expand the ads on a mouse over. Of course that does give a negative user experience but I think people are used to it.

Full article - http://adwords.blogspot.com/2009/03/announcing-expandable-ads-beta-engage.html

Image taken from the Inside AdWords Blog.

Sulekha to charge for Classified service

2009-02-25T00:58:00.003+05:30

Source AlooTechie. Full article at - http://www.alootechie.com/content/sulekhacom-plans-switch-its-classifieds-services-paid-model

In case you don't want to read the article, the service won't moved to paid right away. The service will move to a full paid model after 6 months to 1 year.

Of course there is apparently a clarification in the comments section -

Sulekha.com Classifieds will continue to be free. We are implementing, however, multiple options where users can *choose* to pay either before they post an ad (for additional premium ad features) or after they have fulfilled their need (if they are satisfied with our services). We remain committed to serving the widest range of transactional needs for users across multiple cities for free…while providing ways for them to pay if they choose to.

I have to say that I don't like this news (full paid for all users). Maybe they should do some kind of split where corporate etc pay for the classified but individuals don't have to. Or maybe they can even charge by category. For instance if they know that lots of people search for travel agents but few search for language classes, then they should charge those listings which are created by travel agents. Or as stated there should be a paid service for 'premium ad features'. Well we will see what happens in 6-12 months time.

YouTube Embed Options

2009-02-24T22:31:00.004+05:30

YouTube now gives users options to customize how videos look once embedded. These options include showing related videos, showing a border, size, etc.

It's quite interesting even if it isn't something necessary. It gives more look and feel freedom to users who choose to put up YouTube videos on their pages.

YouTube New Feature

2009-02-24T21:54:00.003+05:30

Watched 4 videos on YouTube today but this was the only one where I saw this 'feature'. It is a bulb icon that says 'Turn down the lights' (marked in red) and when you click it, the page clears up and darkens out so the video really stands out (screenshot below).

It gives a good user experience. And the best part is that it is fast. You could turn down or 'turn up the lights' with great easy. Just click the icon and in a few seconds the page changes.

Facebook Statistics

2009-02-23T12:39:00.002+05:30

Came across AllFacebook - The Unofficial Facebook Resource.

Still in the process of checking it out but whatever I have seen so far, it looks interesting. It has Demographic Statistics, Facebook Page Statistics, Application Statistics, etc.

Windows Live Messenger Advertising

2009-02-20T00:55:00.004+05:30

I always find it a little annoying when I mouse over on the ad in the messenger and the ad expands. But being in advertising myself I accept it as something that will always be part of life on the internet (I am not so understanding with ads on other mediums though).

Anyway today I mouse over by mistake and the ad expands to double the usual size (wonder if MSN is calling it an 'innovation'). I wonder how much extra (if any) LIC paid for a 'bigger' ad. Why I bother to post it here is because this was doubly annoying than the normal sized expanded ad.

Anyway wasted ad. I already got my insurance done a while ago.

Quick SEO Analysis of a Website

2009-02-16T18:47:00.002+05:30

Sumita forwarded me this link to http://website.grader.com. It is a great website to get a quick SEO analysis of a website (at least for lay people like me).

I think it covers a good number of parameters going beyond just the Google and Yahoo Index.

Creating Forms for Surveys/Polls

2009-02-16T18:09:00.002+05:30

I don't know why I haven't heard of this before so in case you haven't either there is good news. You can now create a Form via Google Documents.

Details at - http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/02/stop-sharing-spreadsheets-start.html

Bye bye to sites like SurveyMonkey. Mainly because I can create the form and host it on my own website. (Of course no bye bye to SurveyMonkey if don't have a place to put up the form)

It's easy enough to figure out with a little playing around.

Goooooo Google.

(Of course you data gets capture in a Google spreadsheet)

Google is going to shut down their Radio Ad Service

2009-02-15T00:10:00.003+05:30

First it was their Print Ad offering and now the Radio Ads (going off on May 31st). I don't think Google's model is fitting the more traditional forms of advertising.

Full story at -

Google's Traditional Media Blog - http://google-tmads.blogspot.com/2009/02/google-exits-radio-but-will-explore.html

AlooTechie - http://www.alootechie.com/content/google-shut-down-its-radio-ad-service-31-may

Google mentions that it is going to concentrate on online streaming audio though. Since I never used the Print Ads or the Radio Ads, I don't know what an advertiser might be losing out on. I don't even know what it was like to use the options and I guess I will never know. Ah well out with the 'not working' and in with more tools and mediums that will work. Or at least Google thinks are good enough to take a risk on.

Voice-based search launched in Mumbai

2009-02-09T12:39:00.004+05:30

Finally Google's voice-based search has arrived in Mumbai (and Bangalore). Going to test it out soon :)

The product manager makes so much sense where he says that speech recognition technology is important for a country like India because people might not have easy access to PCs.

Wonder if we will see this service grow (and also the how of it's growth and impact) and when they will move to regional languages (which is going to be important in a country like India).

Source - AlooTechie

Google India has launched its voice-based local search service in Mumbai and Bangalore where users can call a toll free number (1 800 41 999 999) from any phone to search for local business and movie show-times and get the results by SMS. The company had earlier introduced this service in Hyderabad and later extended it to Delhi/NCR.

According to Google, if a user is looking for pizza delivery businesses he can just call and say ‘pizza’ and his area name like ‘Bandra’ in Mumbai or ‘MG Road’ in Bangalore to get listings near him.

“We are continuously working towards improving our speech recognition technology but it is still not perfect and it may not recognize you at times. We will transfer your call to an operator after 2 recognition failures and the operator will assist you with your query,” Rutvik Doshi, product manager, Google, has said.

“We believe that speech recognition and voice access to information is a very important technology for India because it helps us reach users who may not have access to PC or are on the move all the time,” Rutvik Doshi has added.

According to the company, Google Phone Search is free of charge and can be reached from any phone number - landline or mobile - in Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. The service is currently available in English, Hindi and Telugu.

It would also be interesting to see how something like this could be applied to even the internet.

When I was a kid and use to watch The Jetsons (I think that was the name of the cartoon), I use to love that robot the daughter use to have. I already dreamed of asking a question, or definition or translation of a word aloud and having someone (or something) answer back to me with a correct response. Maybe someday I will own such technology :D

'Web Search Strategies in Plain English'

2009-02-01T19:46:00.003+05:30

The video is created by Lee LeFever of The Common Craft Store. I would suggest watching all the videos that interest you because they are in a very easy to follow format (apart from being creatively displayed - loved the drawing and cuts outs moving around the board).

Ads on YouTube

2009-02-01T17:40:00.003+05:30

I don't end up watching YouTube a lot so I am not sure if these ad formats are new or not but I do find them annoying. The screenshot has ads at the end of the video which is still alright but there are a couple of videos where they show in the video pane itself (found a screenshot. See below). Sure it can be shut but it is quite annoying.

I think this is a silly way to make a little more ad revenue on YouTube. They should focus more on ads in video formats. Maybe not for every country but at least where broadband isn't a problem.

Which rises an interesting qustion about 'universality' of brands that are internet based. What if YouTube in the USA was very different from YouTube in Italy or Taiwan? Does it matter?

No more Google Print Ads.

2009-01-23T14:36:00.002+05:30

Google is going to stop offering Print Ads from February 28th. Those advertisers who are already advertising will have their ads running till March 31st.

From the Traditional Media Blog -

It's always difficult to say goodbye to products. Lots of people at Google have worked hard on Google Print Ads. Some advertisers have seen good results and our partners have dedicated time and resources to help get it off the ground. But as we grow, it is important that we focus on products that can benefit the most people and solve the most important problems. By moving resources away from projects that aren't having the impact we want, we can refocus our efforts on those that will delight millions of users.

More at - http://google-tmads.blogspot.com/2009/01/turning-page-on-print-ads.html

Integration of Products

2009-01-23T00:29:00.004+05:30

I was very surprised when I sent someone a YouTube link in Google Chat (via email not Gtalk) and right away the song image with a play button popped up in the chat window. On clicking it the video started loading in the chat window itself. [Screenshot below].

Fantastic integration of products (even if it isn't necessary). I mean I don't have to go to YouTube to see the video (again wasted probable traffic - and I can't understand what benefit YouTube will get with fewer visitors on YouTube.com unless they start showing ads before or in-between the video).

Brilliant user-experience :D

Do more with less

2009-01-22T19:43:00.002+05:30

If you haven't checked out Google's 'Do more with less' page, you should.

It's not like you will find lots of things you didn't know about. But I like how it seems like a one stop shop for Google advertising products.

Believing in your own product.

2009-01-13T01:27:00.004+05:30

Now I understand the whole 'we believe in our products' but this is just insane.

I searched for 'Google Chrome' (I am not sure if Google has a standard URL for its products - I guess they do follow the google.com/product but you won't always get it right. For instance it's google.com/talk and not google.com/gtalk) and I got the above SERP.

Now why would they have a Sponsored Listing when they can have such a strong Organic Listing. Well it's alright to have an ad when there are other advertisers (not sure if Chrome is Trademarked or not so not sure if they can block other advertisers from show in - they can't in the United States because their Trademark Policy is different for US/Canada but I searched in India).

Even if they do have a marketing budget that they have to exhaust, they shouldn't use it on the brand term but rather on generic terms.

Also is isn't like someone who is looking for Chrome will settle for some other browser. So even if there are other advertisers, I don't think searchers would sway just because they saw ads (unless the ads said and the landing page proved that the browser being advertised is better than Chrome. But I still don't think that that is good enough to sway a user looking for a Chrome download).

Well it doesn't make sense to me. Let me know if it makes sense to you.

I am not even going to get started about the Ad Copy. I am sure they get brilliant CTRs on this ad but the CTR will have little or nothing to do with the copy of the ad.

New Google Favicon

2009-01-10T23:18:00.004+05:30

Hating it. It's so UN-Google.

Search YouTube

2008-12-24T18:08:00.003+05:30

I like how YouTube now gives a search bar in every video (on the top when you mouse over) when a video is embedded.

I wonder how it helps them though, cause the search results feature in the same video space and doesn't take the user to a results page on YouTube.com. Which means they aren't generating additional traffic to the website. Of course if in the future there are ads that are pre-roll or post-roll in videos (or even put somewhere in the middle), then every additional video watched helps.

Attention Grabbing Ad

2008-12-24T02:16:00.002+05:30

How does an ad like this not get disapproved?

While I do understand that they might not be violating any policy of AdWords (repetition is only to the extent of a number repeating twice and punctuations and special characters are not excessive) but it still grabs attention.

Good for the creators of the ad. They are smart enough to get away with it. Another trick employed by the write is the way iPhone is written. Now my best guess is that the term 'iPhone' is trademarked and therefore advertisers cannot use it in the ads. But it look like iphone at first glance, which is better than saying 'iPhonee' like another ad does. |Phone looks less fishy as compared to iPhonee.

Negative Keywords in various Match Types

2008-12-24T02:02:00.004+05:30

For everyone who laughed at me when I told them about 'negative phrase match', I give to you an article from the AdWords Help Forum.

There are Match Types for negative keywords. What the article doesn't help with is figuring out if negative (broad) works just like broad match keywords work.

My understand (from long ago) is that your negative keywords work as exact negatives in the sense that synonyms, plurals, etc will not be considered negative. Only if it is a multi-word negative keyword, the order the negative words appear in the search query doesn't matter. The ad will not get triggered (if the negative keyword words are present).

Talking about negative keywords always gets me confused so I am going to stop right now.

Google launched an Analytics Help Forum

2008-11-29T20:21:00.003+05:30

The Google Analytics Help Forum was created to help people get answers to their questions about GA.

Reminds me of my WebMasterWorld days :) I had nearly forgotten my login ID.

Google should have a Help Forum for all of it's more complex products. Of course it takes time, effort and money but users of those products will be so much happier. But there are always Google Groups if needed.

Experiment - AdSense

2008-11-26T01:50:00.002+05:30

I figure it is about time that I figure out how AdSense works. Therefore once the application gets reviewed, and everything is okay, I will have ads running on my movie blog.

I swore never to have adsense on my blogs but need to figure out how it works. And if it actually shows potential of generating income, then I will go ahead and think about AdSense more seriously.

The one thing I don't like about the Google Ad Serving System

2008-11-26T00:48:00.002+05:30

Contextual advertising is great. It's actually a blessing because it gives the best sort of ROI.

But only contextual targeting is a bad thing (unless budgets are very small or objectives very minutely defined to acquisition). There should be a way to target demographically on search. For that matter even Psychographic and Behavioralistic targeting should be possible.

Firstly for all those people who will say 'but Google doesn't stop you', I am sorry about a 1st page bid of $10 is ridiculous and it IS Google's way of stopping you from being 'irrelevant', that is, non contextual.

While there is still some aspect of Behavioral targeting that gets covered because the system once in a while takes care of 'following the searcher', it is not enough. The system is still contextual in a sense because the context of the 1st few searches displays ads on the other non-related searches after.

So why is it important that we can target other than contextually? Firstly not all advertisers are looking for direct ROI. What about the branding aspect of advertising? Secondly, people have latent needs. Thirdly the responsibility of converting a prospect (even just a probable one) into a customer is the job of communication. But if my communication isn't visible at all because of the AdWords quality score system, then what chance do I have to convert those who don't want at this moment want what I have to offer, into people who will buy my product?

Now I do understand the need for relevancy. And it would be very annoying if I saw an airline ticket ad when I was searching for a mobile phone. And therefore I believe that such targeting shouldn't believe allowed to every sector/vertical but can actually leave out those sectors that are already very advertiser heavy. Adding non relevant ads to a saturated results page won't help anyone. But there are enough search queries that don't display even more than 5 ads. What about these?

And I am not even saying that the system should just keep everything running. Google has built a complex system and it wouldn't be difficult for them to change it a little. Where it doesn't find relevancy between the keyword and the ad or between the ad or the landing page or even keyword-ad-landing page combination, it should set a higher CTR goal for such a keyword-ad combination. But it should give the keywords and ads a decent number of impressions.

If people find the ad relevant even though it's not contextual what's the harm?

Yes there would be debates about what benchmark CTRs can be and how the system is unfair etc but it's a better option.

I have been in countless situations where I know a certain group of people (either split by age, interest, gender, etc) would like what I have to offer but because they don't search for it I can't show it to them.

I am glad the 'Inactive for Search' status disappeared but having such high minimum budgets to be on page 1 is as good as the keyword being inactive.

Lively No More

2008-11-21T01:12:00.003+05:30

Google had decided to shut down Lively.

This makes so much sense because Lively never really stuck with people. It created a buzz when it started but then everything just fizzed out. It was and would never have been a real competitor to SecondLife, or any other related social networking platform / MMORPG (as some people like to believe it is but I am not sure about the role-playing bit cause you're being yourself hehe).

The end of Lively will happen on 31st December.

Anyway for more information you can read details at Lively.com.

New AdWords Interface?

2008-11-21T00:50:00.003+05:30

There is some beta testing that is currently happening for changes to the AdWords interface. Let's hope it make things better like they say it is suppose to. Currently it is only a small group of advertisers who have the invite and see the changes (which aren't done yet but more of in the process so that changes happen faster with user feedback)

If you would like to be considered for the beta testing of the new interface you can sign up at the beta sign-up page.

Customization comes to Gmail

2008-11-20T19:34:00.004+05:30

Gmail is launching 30 themes for it's users to choose from (also a 'minor facelift' to the current Gmail default look).

More details at the Gmail Blog.

Some of the themes sound very interesting - 'nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company.'

Don't have the option for my mailbox yet but eagerly awaiting them (just to see what it's like - doubt I'll want more than the default look). Gmail team says it will be available to all users in a few days time.

New Google Tool

2008-11-19T11:14:00.002+05:30

Google has launched a Search-based keyword tool.

Haven't studied it in depth but from what I see already, I am not sure how this is better than the current keyword tool (except of course giving very nice filtering ability).

Relevancy....?

2008-11-18T14:34:00.004+05:30

Now I do understand keyword-ad relevancy but I do not understand why advertisers / their agencies would make ads like the one below -

I searched of a movie and the ad reads -

Reading Dasvidaniya Movie
Review Online? Buy Health, Car &
Travel Insurance Online at 0% EMI.

Where is there any relevance to what I searched for? Yes this is a good way to bring in more impressions and even maybe more clicks than you would otherwise would, especially in a competitive sector like insurance but just think about how many people might click the ad by mistake or worse still think there is some offer related to the movie or something.

A better approach would be to have an ad that outright states what the product is and what the offer is. So an ad like -

Don't Have Insurance?
Buy Health, Car & Travel Insurance
Online at 0% EMI Today.

In this manner none of the clicks would be wasted an only those people who are interested in knowing about insurance after seeing the ad will click on it.

Yes chances are CTRs would be VERY low and the keyword will eventually not show the ad due to low quality but the clicks that did come in would have been of a better quality.

Of course the objective of the campaign would define what sort of strategy needs to be used but an ad like the one I got served, actually kills the brand value of ICICI in my mind because such an ad looks desperate and irrelevant.

Jerry Yang to quit as Yahoo CEO

2008-11-18T10:58:00.002+05:30

Full article at - MarketingVox

Yahoo has had a pretty rough year. The deal with Microsoft didn't happen. The deal with Google didn't happen. Share prices fell. Lot of people left the company.

Let's see if a new CEO will help steady the company and make it stronger in the coming years.

The Google Business Channel

2008-11-13T18:01:00.003+05:30

I thought I had made a post about this but apparently not.

If you don't know about the Google Business Channel on YouTube, it's good you came across this post. The Google Business Channel is a repository of not only Google webinars but also some additional educational videos (tutorials for instance).

It even covers topics like AdSense, Ad Planner, Google Analytics etc apart from the regular AdWords videos.

Do check out the Channel at the earliest - http://in.youtube.com/user/GoogleBusiness

VLOOKUP

2008-11-13T16:20:00.006+05:30

I find that it is very important for anyone working with numbers to have some knowledge about Excel / Spreadsheets.

Below is a presentation on how to perform the Vlookup function in MS Excel (it's a little slow but worth waiting for the loading - there might be better slides/videos on the topic out there. I haven't looked).

I myself am lost with this one a lot of times even though it doesn't seem very complicated. Though I have only seen life demonstrations of how it is done and never this kind of step-by-step presentation (which is quick and easy to follow). It helps to get an understanding faster and also to easily go back to the example.

Also SlideShare is quite interesting. Another post on it sometime in the future.

Vloopup

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: function vlookup)

Quality Score changes (Improvements to Ad Quality)

2008-10-31T11:32:00.002+05:30

Pasted below is the latest update from the Inside Adwords Blog -

We're always working on improvements that will help us show the most relevant ads to our searchers, and we're excited to tell you that we'll soon introduce two changes designed to enhance how we calculate Quality Score and rank ads. The first change helps better evaluate the precise quality of your ad - regardless of its position on the page. The second change improves how we promote ads to positions above the search results. Let's take a look at both of these changes in more detail.

More precise Quality Score calculation
Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the most significant component of Quality Score because it directly indicates which ads are most relevant to our searchers. As you probably have observed, ads in high positions typically earn better CTR than those in low positions, because ads in high positions are more visible to searchers. To calculate the most accurate Quality Scores, it's important that the influence of ad position on CTR be taken into account and removed from the Quality Score.

In the coming days, we'll update the portion of the Quality Score algorithm that accounts for ad position. This will result in more accurate Quality Scores, ensure that ads compete fairly for position based on their quality and bid, and enable Google to show the most relevant ads to searchers by rewarding high-quality advertisers with better ad positions.

Higher quality ads above the search results
We're also improving the way we determine which ads show in the yellow region above the search results. These positions are particularly valuable to advertisers because they are prominently positioned on the page. Given their prominence, it's especially important that these ads be high quality; we therefore place extra emphasis on quality when determining which ads to show in this location.

To appear above the search results, ads must meet a certain quality threshold. In the past, if the ad with the highest Ad Rank did not meet the quality threshold, we may not have shown any ads above the search results. With this update, we'll allow an ad that meets the quality threshold to appear above the search results even if it has to jump over other ads to do so. For instance, suppose the ad in position 1 on the right side of the page doesn't have a high enough Quality Score to appear above the search results, but the ad in position 2 does. It's now possible for the number 2 ad to jump over the number 1 ad and appear above the search results. This change ensures that quality plays an even more important role in determining the ads that show in those prominent positions.

Keep in mind that these enhancements may cause changes to your ad position, spend, and performance. We're launching these updates soon so that you'll have enough time to review your accounts and prepare for your holiday season advertising. While we don't believe that any immediate changes are needed on your part, we encourage you, as always, to watch your key metrics and to make adjustments as appropriate.

We'll post again once these changes are live.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Google Slips Image Ads into Search Results....

2008-10-29T19:25:00.003+05:30

So says an article I just read -

Google's sponsored search now includes expanded product results and images.

A search for diamonds, for example, brings up a text ad from Blue Nile that enables users to see more information without leaving the search page. When clicked, product listings — complete with images — appear, "[consuming] the entire window," writes MarketingPilgrim.

More at MarketingVox. [Do check out the whole article and see the images]

To me this sounds like a hoax article of sorts. Not that I am saying it can't be done or that Google will never do something like that. Some how I always thought Google wouldn't do something like this. And if they do it for diamonds, what about other categories? I did a few searches myself and didn't see these ads and until I see them I am going to find this impossible to believe.

Let's see if it is a success and they role it out more extensively.

SEO Experiement - Successful in 1 day

2008-10-23T21:51:00.003+05:30

Ah well I don't know search engine optimization very well I guess.

Yesterday I spoke about how I wanted to have deepalipanjabi.com rank higher than my LinkedIn profile and so I changed my 'display name' in Blogger to carry my first and last name. Well today deepalipanjabi.com is ranking higher than the LinkedIn profile page.

I checked today and the experiment seems to have been a success. I am going to go back and change my 'display name' in Blogger to just 'deepali' and see what happens.

Small SEO Experiment

2008-10-23T01:33:00.003+05:30

When I search my name the following are the results I see -

The LUCY & Contest2Win results were actually showing up over the LinkedIn result a few days back. I went and changed my last name to just the initial at both these sites. I thought it would take a while for the SERPs to get cleaned up (meaning these sites to show lower down when results for my name showed) but it happened quite quickly. Though I don't as yet see a change in the way the content is displaying so maybe this is Google just being Google.

So anyway I want this blog to rank over my LinkedIn profile and I am not sure if it will work but I changed the 'display name' in Blogger to have my full name. So now each post will be signed off with my first and last name. I am hoping this pushing deepalipanjabi.com over LinkedIn . Lets see what happens.

Facebook Photos and Videos

2008-10-22T01:36:00.002+05:30

Uploaded Photos and Videos for the first time to Facebook today. Just wanted to test the system they had in place for the same. It was quite simple actually. Nothing a regular Facebook user would get baffled with. I was quite surprised that the size of video that Facebook allows you to upload (1024 MB and under 20 minutes).

The good thing is that the privacy bit still stays - the person uploading the video can decide who can view it. Also tagging the video is also possible. So people who are tagged, the video will automatically get added onto their profile.

Tomorrow will create a YouTube account and see the process to upload a video and the space they provide.

It is unbelievable how easy it is to share stuff in the virtual world.

What makes good virals...

2008-10-20T21:18:00.003+05:30

And unfortunately (or fortunately) ladies and gentlemen, it boils down to...you guessed it...CONTENT.

Okay so as part of my job I obviously have to think about online buzz. What can be done to get something out there and get people talking about it. There are always some idea floating around and to some extent the activities succeed because you are still doing some level of targeting.

But I think my biggest lesson about online viral activity happened recently. There is a link I have been forwarding to people (http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=HtkToX8pIHk). It's a dancer (Phillip Chbeeb) from the show of 'So You Think You Can Dance'. Now I am not a fan of this show. I never knew of this person in the video before I chanced about this video. But I can't stop sending the link to people and telling them to watch it. Mainly because I am sure EVERYONE I send it to, will absolutely love it. None of my friends / family will think it sucks or that I wasted their time and internet bandwidth cause the video is fantastic (ya I won't send it to uncles and aunts who are really old or don't like dance or hate anything new age or 'street' or whatever). I gain nothing by passing this link around and yet it's all I want to do with it. That's the power of great content I guess.

Some of the ways I sent the link out -

1) I created a post about the video on my blog
2) I made the URL my display message on all my messengers
3) I uploaded the link on my Facebook status space
4) I sent the link in IM to a few people
5) Sent the link out to a few people on mail because I don't want them missing out on it.
[Contemplated creating a Tweet about it but figured all the people I know there will get the message somewhere else from me]

Yahoo APT

2008-10-18T19:09:00.002+05:30

http://apt.yahoo.com/

Imagine display ad buying without talking to publishers :)

Facebook Advertising Discount

2008-10-18T13:32:00.005+05:30

In case you haven't caught the ad - Facebook is giving $25 of on the first ad buy in a new account.

It's a good way to get advertisers to test Facebook as an advertising medium.

More details at - http://apps.new.facebook.com/talktothem/9/

Never ran Facebook ads myself so not sure how effective it is.

Google (AdSense) In-Game Advertising

2008-10-17T17:58:00.002+05:30

Google has launched AdSense for Games , a program that integrates video advertisements into web-based games, complemented by text and image ads. According to Google, these ads can be displayed before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over, as predefined by game developers and publishers.
[Source:AlooTechie]

While I understand the benefits to marketers (as mentioned in the video), I would love to know how it actually equates to either ROI or visibility (brand awareness).

The concept of owning web-properties

2008-10-17T17:36:00.003+05:30

Owning a property on the net is earning real estate in the real world. The more property you can have the better it is for you.

I don't mean just owning some domains etc and displaying ads on them (though that is a good way to generate money if you can get enough traffic to these domains).

If you are a big brand and wish to be visible, there is a lot better and cheaper visibility you can get online instead of spending offline. The thing about internet buzz is that something lingers around even after the excitement has died down. Where as offline once your word of mouth marketing dies down, there is little to nothing that is around for people to remember you.

The though of this post comes from reading an article that ICICI Prudential Life Insurance set up a site to educate people about Unit Linked Insurance Plans (aboutulips.com).

The site is informative and while it is not overtly branded as an ICICI PruLife site (I actually was very quickly trying to find a link to get to the ICICI PruLife site but couldn't find it on this website) , the mascot is around, the colours are the same, etc (the only reason this site doesn't work is because it is all flash and that won't help when it comes to ranking well on search engines).

Now for ICICI Pru this is a good investment if you ask me. They must have paid some cost to create the website and then to host it and maintain it, but the benefits they will get from this website over the coming years will be much greater.

I think big brands should do things like this online. Sure not all ventures will take off. Not all sites will get traffic but if you are giving users content they want/need and can actually use, there is no reason for the site to fail.

MySpace's self-serve ad platform - MyAds

2008-10-17T17:09:00.004+05:30

Social networking site MySpace has launched MyAds , a self-serve ad platform that allows small businesses and individuals to create their own banner ads and serve them on MySpace. The service also lets advertisers to decide who they want to target on MySpace and then track the results of the campaigns.

More at - TechCrunch - http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/12/myspace-launches-my-ads-self-serve-ad-platform

It sounds very interesting because they are giving a lot of targeting options. Not only do they allow gender, age and location targeting about you can also choose interest areas. (Not quite sure if Facebook offers all these options together).

[Also I wonder if Google's Display Ad Builder came out thanks to MyAds]

Would love to know who MyAds works out for advertisers. Time will tell.

Google Phone Search - better article

2008-10-17T12:50:00.002+05:30

Found a better article about Google Phone Search so re-producing it here -

Internet giant Google is all set to spread its wings in voice-based information search in Delhi. Cashing in on the millions of low cost mobile users who do not use the Internet to search for information, Google has recently launched a voice-based helpline number to help you to find a local restaurant or taxi service.

The Google service is similar to Just Dial's but comes free of cost. Consumers have to call up a toll-free number from either a landline or mobile and request for the information they need. Google either delivers the information through an SMS or provides it you instantly. With stringent privacy settings, Google claims it will provide information on flight schedules and movie shows as well.

The search giant, however, is not planning to set up a big call centre, as it wants to make the process completely automated. A Google spokesperson said, "We are collecting voice samples to strengthen our voice recognition process.

We are building and experimenting with voice recognition tools so that we can deliver value and correct information to the users. In Delhi, the service would be available in English and Hindi."

Though Google is not advertising and marketing this service at present, the company believes the word of the mouth will attract more customers. The same strategy was successful for them in Hyderabad where they launched a similar service six months ago.

Call for free phone: 1-800-41-999-999

Source - MiD DAY

Separate stats for Search and Search Partners in AdWords

2008-10-17T12:19:00.003+05:30

Now you can see separate data for search and search partners in your campaign summary and ad group summary pages.

[Click to enlarge - screen shot from Inside Adwords]

Before we could see search and content data broken up but now Google is even providing separate data for Search Partners.

This is good new especially for those advertisers who want a stronger hold on their ROI. Of course there is no break up of which Search Partner is not performing well but at least there is now a comparison point for Google Search and the others search partners. So if advertisers feel they are not able to generate enough conversions from search partners, they can stop using search partners. Currently there is no way to advertise only with search partners without adverting on Google Search.

The AdWords Display Ad Builder Feature

2008-10-16T23:03:00.004+05:30

Google launched the Display Ad Builder today for advertisers in the US and Canada. The Ad Builder tool basically help advertisers create image ads.
[Update:Google did launch this service after MyAds launched their display ad tool builder]

The most brilliant thing about this obviously is that you don't need a graphic designer around to have image ads running in your campaign.

You can create all formats of the ads. The ads are basically customizable templates. You can change everything inside the ad - colour, logo, text etc. There are slots for buttons, images etc also. The templates are in built in flash so there is also automatic animation that happens. They also have interactive ads - so it is easier to create a video ad, a photo gallery ad (this one I am waiting to see - if it is what I think it is then they are incorporating a little bit of Gadget Ads in here), a map sort of ad, etc.

There are also certain pre-designed templates for certain industries. Meaning the images are pre-fixed already.

Currently the Display Ad Builder will not re-size the images so whatever specification has been given, the image must be of that size.

The other brilliant things is that you only have to create 1 ad size and the Ad Builder will create all ad in all the sizes (not all will look fine though - you can look at the skyscrapers in the video to see what I mean)

For a detailed tutorial, please view -

To learn more about Display ads you can visit - http://www.google.com/adwords/displayadbuilder

The site will not only talk about the Display Ad Builder but also talk about display ad targeting, measurement of performance, etc.

Eligibility for Conversion Optimizer

2008-10-16T22:11:00.004+05:30

To get the Conversion Optimizer option in your AdWords campaign, you must have at least 50 conversions (instead of 200 - announcement on 13th of October) for that campaign in the last 30 days.

[Google needs conversion history to make predictions and therefore the 50 conversions criteria exists]

One interesting tip from Google to get the Conversion Optimizer feature, if you are not hitting the 200 conversions in the last month benchmark, and you don't want to increase your CPC or budgets, is that you can change your conversion event. Meaning you can choose a software download instead of the sale as a conversion event (if you are a software seller that give trial downloads). Basically choose an event that happens more frequently.

For more on Conversion Optimizer, please visit - http://www.google.com/adwords/conversionoptimizer

There is more than just Google.

2008-10-16T02:55:00.003+05:30

Was reading an SEO article on directory listings and how Google doesn't seem to give a lot of weightage to the same anymore.

The author had a very good point in saying that Google isn't the only search engine out there. It is the search engine with the most volumes but not the only one. Directory listings apparently help to rank better in Yahoo.

Lesson to remember - Google Isn't The Only One Out There In The World Of Search.

Facebook Photos

2008-10-16T02:34:00.002+05:30

Facebook stores more than 10 billion photos. This number is more than Photobook and Flicr combined (6 and 2 billion respectively). Why this is interesting is because Facebook is more of the social networking site while the other two are purely photo-sharing sites.

I associate Facebook as being mainly a photo-sharing site, when I started there, mainly because that's what friends and family would do most often - they would upload pictures and tell me to have a look.

It's quite interesting though because it means no matter what service you offer (as long as it is something good), if you have a huge fan following (member base), it will move in high volumes.

Some other interesting statistics about photos on Facebook -

Facebook stores four sizes of the images, for 40 billion files stored on Facebook servers; 2-3 terabytes of photos are uploaded daily, equaling over a petabyte of total storage; that’s 300 images served per second and 15 billion photo images per day.

Source - WebProNews - Facebook Celebrates 10 Billion Photos.

Click Fraud

2008-10-16T01:55:00.004+05:30

Google is collaborating with Click Forensics to clamp down on search ad click fraud. [Source : MarketingVox].

Click Fraud is the malicious clicking on ads, by competitors or bots to do one or more of the following -

Waste money of competitor as these clicks will not lead to conversion.
Earn revenues - site owners (publishers) clicking on ads on their sites
Eat up budgets of competitors faster so that when people are actually searching, they don't see the ad of the advertiser (but might end up seeing competitors ad).

Why click fraud is something to watch out for is because it eats up your ROI. You are paying for clicks which are useless because the clicks will nearly never account to sales.

It is important to try and capture IP data of clicks so you can check for a pattern. Many times, multiple clicks from the same IP may not be a sign of click fraud as in certain cases 1 IP might be shared by multiple users.

Google does have an IP exclusion tool and if you think you are suffering from click fraud from a certain IP, you can stop ads from showing to that IP. Up to 20 IPs can be excluded per campaign.

From the AdWords Help Center -
An important note about IP address exclusion: Some large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use a range of IP addresses for all their users. If you exclude an IP address that is a proxy for many users, you could be blocking a large amount of legitimate, and potentially profitable traffic. Google takes no responsibility for this action.

The Tool is available under the 'Tools' link in 'Campaign Management' in your Google account.

I am not very aware of Yahoos Click Fraud Filtering system.

Conversion Optimizer Update (Google AdWords)

2008-10-14T16:14:00.002+05:30

You now need only 50 conversions in the past 30 days instead of the previous 100 conversions.

Keyword Opportunities in AdWords Editor

2008-10-13T23:14:00.007+05:30

The new version of the Editor had a nice surprise. It has a keyword tool (2 tools actually). These are called keyword opportunities. It is available under the 'Keywords' tab on the extreme right.

On clicking you would find a 'Keyword Extension' tab and a 'Keyword Multiplier' tab.

The Keyword Extension tool works much like the Keyword Tool online. You put in a keyword or phrase and it gives suggestions with Volume and Competition (number on a scale of 1 - 5). There is an option to chose match type, add keywords to existing Ad Groups or to create new ad groups. There is also a features to export the keywords to a spreadsheet (CSV).

The Keyword Multiplier works more like the concatenate functionality of excel. You can combine a list of keywords.

The good thing about the Multiplier is that it filters out low volume keywords (or keyword combinations). Again you can add keywords directly and choose match types too.

Very cool stuff I must say. The only draw back is that you cannot find keywords from different geographies and languages without changing your settings of locale and language (which again has limitations). But I am a happy AdWords advertiser :)

New useful features are always welcome and the AdWords team seems to know this better than anyone else.

YouTube Video Conversion to MP3 (Audio) Format

2008-10-12T00:11:00.003+05:30

Interesting website I got to find out about - FLV TO (flvto.com).

You give the YouTube Video URL or code to embed, and it will convert the video into an Audio file. It's a free service.

The quality suffers a little but it's acceptable.

It is an interesting service to offer. Mainly because there is a need for something like this. I am sure there might be other similar sites out there doing the same thing. Of course the debate about piracy will always continue because what was available online (there are some softwares that can download the video for you to store off-line) before now becomes audio in an mp3 format and gets stored and consumed offline with any gadget that can read the file.

What do I see on Twitter...

2008-09-30T00:30:00.003+05:30

Below is what I see when I log into Twitter -

They are promoting some Election 2008 - I guess they are aggregating tweets that are talking about or around the elections. Seems interesting and I wonder if we will see some monetization on these lines...

I mean I can't think why they would do this unless they were testing how it works. What do they get by being a topic specific content aggregator?

Welcome to YoVille...

2008-09-27T16:39:00.003+05:30

As if we needed another version of SecondLife in the virtual world...

YoVille which is being promoted as an app on Facebook is one more version of a virtual world (It isn't like SecondLife - it's more like Google Lively or Habbo Hotel but I say SecondLife because that is the market leader in virtual worlds). I always believe that you won't have too many adopters who will move from their current preferences (of an existing product) unless you are actually offering them something better.

Sure Facebook has its own fan base and sure enough those people are enough to seed YoVille but I don't think they will ever beat SecondLife at its game (not that I am saying they are looking to do that).

The biggest advantage a YoVille will have over SecondLife is that Facebook is not limited to members from only one or two countries. They are way more global than SecondLife (or Orkut or MySpace for that matter) and this might give YoVille first mover advantage in many countries.

Anyway it would be interesting to see how this space (virtual worlds) expands in the coming months and years.

Been to Facebook lately?

2008-09-22T12:33:00.002+05:30

The new version of Facebook has a tab for 'Status Updates'. Before the new look, Facebook did allow you to have a status message but it wasn't this prominent (though lots of people used it). Also there was never a way to comment directly to a status message of somebody.

It got me thinking if Facebook did this looking at the popularity of Twitter. I mean status updates is like microblogging and everyone can see it and also 'reply' to it.

Innovations on the web

2008-09-20T13:58:00.002+05:30

Was watching 'DOWNLOAD: THE TRUE STORY OF THE INTERNET : Search Wars' today and couldn't help but realize that most innovations that have come out on the web and become BIG have been simple ideas.

I mean it's not earth shattering to want a give users better searches. Just as it is not earth shattering to rank sites higher which have more recommendations (in bound links). Also it is not something out of this world to match keywords with relevant advertisements.

I think the same would apply to most of the internet innovations. I mean it's easy to see how people would love to upload and share videos or even just want to watch random ones. It's easy to see how people would like to upload pictures and share them. It's easy to see how people would like to have online diaries etc.

It's just a matter of being sure that you have something that offers value to others and that it can be a money churning machine. And with advertisers moving more and more advertising revenue to the internet, I think worry about revenues is secondary if you have advertising avenues on your invention.

AdLeads - a cost-per-lead online ad marketplace

2008-09-16T00:03:00.004+05:30

Pontiflex has launch a CPL based ad marketplace.

Users can run direct response and display advertising based campaigns, while paying for CPLs instead of clicks and impressions.

Demo of AdLeads

PPC Advertising, The Internet & More

Interesting use of QR Codes

CPC & CTR benchmarks

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

Benchmark CPCs & CTRs by Industry

2012

Some really interesting campaigns.

Having the right image sizes on Google

Introducing G-Male

Including --- Increasing

Social Media Revolution

The Next Web = H + R+ V

Creativity

Tagged! Facebook photo trends [infographic]

Learning

Google Chrome: Dear Sophie Video & a new product 'use'.

The objective must always be at the center

A good idea is not one that is exciting...a good idea is one that achieves the objective.

Very interesting Twitter Contest

Will you ever have Tic Tac again without remembering this?

Interesting Stats

Why I love SEM [Google AdWords]

Instant

The Ability to Measure

Tip Of The Day

Some fundamentals never change

Social Media Marketing / Optimization

The speed of things today

Creating a Data Driven Culture

New AdWords Interface Webinar

Flash Action Scripting Resource

Google for Advertisers

Google Analytics

'Social Media Revolution'

Some Google Search Tips and Tricks

Yahoo Glue Page

Yahoo Chat

Quality Score Fact of the Week Series

YouTube Insight

Twitter Leaps 1,989%

Effective Ads

Ad in Blogger

Blogging on the go

Keyword Basics

Video on Google Ad Auction

Expandable Ads on Google Content Network

Sulekha to charge for Classified service

YouTube Embed Options

YouTube New Feature

Facebook Statistics

Top 10 Video/Multimedia Sites

Windows Live Messenger Advertising

Quick SEO Analysis of a Website

Creating Forms for Surveys/Polls

Google is going to shut down their Radio Ad Service

Voice-based search launched in Mumbai

'Web Search Strategies in Plain English'

Ads on YouTube

No more Google Print Ads.

Integration of Products

Do more with less

Believing in your own product.

New Google Favicon

Search YouTube

Attention Grabbing Ad

Negative Keywords in various Match Types

Google launched an Analytics Help Forum

Experiment - AdSense

The one thing I don't like about the Google Ad Serving System

Lively No More

New AdWords Interface?

Customization comes to Gmail

New Google Tool

Relevancy....?

Sponsored Videos - The YouTube Advertising Program

Jerry Yang to quit as Yahoo CEO

The Google Business Channel

VLOOKUP

Quality Score changes (Improvements to Ad Quality)

Google Slips Image Ads into Search Results....