Product Differentiation on the Content Network

March 5, 2010 in Advertising, Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | No comments

Adwords has just added a new tool for brand advertisers. Advertising inventory on the Content Network is now divided into above the fold and the whole site. Advertisers can now exclude below the fold inventory on sites in the Content Network in Adwords. Google has turned their Content Network into two different products, with different levels of value.

By default, Content Network bids will be on all advertising space on the site, both above and below the fold. To display above the fold, below the fold placements need to be excluded and bids made for placement on the whole site need to be beaten.

On the Adwords blog post explaining this change it was stated that:

Our goal with this release is to give brand advertisers greater control over where their ads appear, and make the Google Content Network an even more powerful, controlled environment for running high performing brand campaigns.

In practice this will increase the perceived value of one form of placement over the other. A direct result of this will be a concentration of market participants, and allocated budget competing for one of the two kinds of placements. The above the fold placements will be seen as the more valuable of the two, and as a result, the average cost per click will rise. Many advertisers will diversify their campaigns and bid at different levels on both above the fold only placements and whole site placements for as long as they see value in doing so.

Content Network Above and Below the Fold

Content Network Above and Below the Fold

There is also a shift towards using online advertising in branding campaigns. With a greater perceived value in search and display advertising for promoting brand building content, the value of certain traffic sources has been inflated. Google Adwords has talked about branding and search marketing a few times already. By selling advertising on branding value and separating the value of an ad from an incremental per sale return increases the amount of money that most organisations can justify internally on paying more for impressions and clicks.

By leveraging different perceptions of value created by these changes to the Content Network, Google Adwords is increasing competition and consequently their margin per click. Separating cost per click from the profit margin on conversion for some markets in the minds of advertisers will also raise the perceived value of impressions and clicks on both search and websites.This trend will increase the actual value of traffic in a market where there is very little competition among suppliers.

Ironically it was Google with their entry into the market that created that first shift towards linking cost of traffic to profit from sale. The introduction of Analytics and Adwords along with using Adsense to grow their inventory were the main drivers in this shift for most marketers new to advertising online.

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It’s the interaction, not the platform

March 1, 2010 in Online, Social by Anthony | No comments

It is a social media campaign’s content and depth of engagement that matters, not the platform. Youtube, Bebo, Myspace, Friendster, Facebook and Twitter can serve to host and spread the content, but ultimately it is the interaction the campaign facilitates and not the platform that creates value.

The capabilities of the Social Network do dictate what content can shared, how this will happen and with whom, how many and what they will be doing or seeking to do at the time. The selection of Social Network should not determine what the campaign is, or what it’s goals are. The idea of forming a ‘Facebook strategy’, or a ‘Twitter Strategy’ is limiting, and yet persistent.

Markting campaigns are planned around a strategic goal. The tools needed to implement it should be chosen to match the objectives in terms of level of engagement, content and audience desired. Pursuing a ‘Twitter Strategy’ where internal Communications policies will limit engagement, or engaging with bloggers via a ‘Blogging Strategy’ without the resources needed to produce enough content to maintain momentum is just a plan to fail.

The Social Media component of a marketing strategy, from publishing content to actively cultivating a community of activated customers, won’t rise or fall on the Social networking site chosen. The success or otherwise will rest on the resources allocated, the quality of the content and how the brand sits in the consciousness of it’s stakeholders.

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Memes that shape Conversation

February 28, 2010 in Online, Social by Anthony | No comments

This year, it was interesting to watch the Roar losing players. Not because the changes in the team roster were inherently interesting, but because of the conversation that evolved around it. There was one very persistent meme that coloured discussion both in the media and among the fans: the senior players’ ‘drinking culture’.

The idea first surfaced in the media after Frank Farina’s sacking and was repeated as each older player left. This meme was very persistent and effectively framed the conversation around the changes to the club for the rest of the season. Players that used to be lauded by the supporters were now labelled unprofessional, past it, and a bad influence on the club by the very same fans.

What is interesting is what was not discussed as the club let go of their more experienced players, many of whom used to be fan favourites. The discussion was not about why the management were making these decisions, or how this will affect the club’s chances of making the finals; it was dominated by the alleged ‘drinking culture’ of the senior players, fuelled by rumour and loose rationalisation.

It was interesting to see how discussion about events within a community can be shaped so much by a simple meme. Most of the conversation by the fans and media around the club as its team roster was changed was framed by the ‘drinking culture’ meme.

A simple meme that can be summed up in a memorable phrase can shape conversation about events and brands. An idea that resonates and helps to create an easily understood context for the way events unfold will almost always spread. Once a meme gains traction with opinion shapers, it will be repeated by both those who embrace it and oppose it, and this will just help to perpetuate it.

Framing the conversation has been important in politics ever since a popular vote mattered. Today online it is still just as vital for guiding opinion. Ideas can spread fast, and, thanks to the volume of information generated each day and the nature of a lot of social networking sites, are not always visible at the start.

As with any other channel, online interactions and content do shape the way discussion around any given subject will develop. Using the Internet to publish content to this end helps to incorporate it in the conversation. From news articles to audio and video, content will be linked to, referenced and commented on. Producing content gives interested parties an opportunity to try to frame the conversation. The success or failure of the attempt rest entirely on how well the content resonates with those who have the authority, both formal and informal, to spread the meme.

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Can Yahoo! just be a Portal?

February 20, 2010 in Online, Search, Search Engines, Social by Anthony | No comments

The big news of the week was that Yahoo! and Microsoft’s search agreement was approved by both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission. Yahoo! is now closer to replacing their search, and search advertising product with Bing’s.

From what has been said, up to Yahoo!’s latest post on the matter, Yahoo! is going to stop being a search engine and simply focus on providing enriched data. In their words:

1) Providing you with rich results that display the most relevant information from Yahoo!’s rich content properties, as well as other great product, local, entertainment, reference, social and tech sites.

2) Showing specific results from vertical search products, like Yahoo! News.

3) Providing handy tools on the left-side of the page, such as our Search Pad and Search Scan apps, site filters that help you refine and explore the search results more easily, and related search term suggestions to help you refine your search further if the results aren’t quite what you were looking for.

Yahoo! seems to see itself as a portal, and is operating as if a portal can be distinct from a search engine. However, Google and Bing have taken a different approach, and have demonstrated that a search engine can become a portal. The inclusion of many Google properties, such as Maps, Base and so on, onto their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) has been discussed at length for years now. Bing has also chosen to follow a similar path, and have developed a suite of additional products of their own. Both Google and Microsoft also have email products that include social functionality in Google Buzz and Windows Live. It is interesting that while a portal site is moving away from search, search is moving towards becoming portals.

Yahoo! SERP for Vancouver

Yahoo! SERP for Vancouver

Google SERP for Vancouver

Google SERP for Vancouver

Bing SERP for Vancouver

Bing SERP for Vancouver

A lot of what Yahoo! has discussed that they can bring to the Internet as a part of their portal business is already provided as a part of the Google and Bing search experience, or as a part of their additional properties. Where we are with search in terms of the richness of data that can be sorted and surfaced in search, each SERP is essentially a portal site. Depending on the term, photos, news, blogs, social commentary and maps can all be presented on the SERP as an algorithmically generated themed portal page. In getting out of search Yahoo! is limiting itself to competing with Bing and Google purely on content that they have the rights to, their existing user-base and presentation of information.

Is this enough? Both Google and Bing are creating more and more properties. Both Google and Bing have been developing more inventory requiring very little ongoing maintenance and have been rolling them into their main SERPs. With the inclusion of more user generated content such as social media updates and personalised search from Google, and Flickr content in Bing Maps and an apparent focus on travel indicated in their PR, how much value can Yahoo! provide as just a portal?

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Bing Powering Facebook’s Search

February 7, 2010 in Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | 1 comment

Bing has had a relationship with Facebook since 2008, and it has just become more involved. The latest announcement regarding Bing’s relationship to Facebook appeared on Bing’s blog on the 5th of this month.

Briefly, web search through Facebook will continue to be developed, including the integration of more of Bing’s features, and this will be rolled out both in and outside of the USA. Facebook will provide all display advertising within their site; however, Microsoft will continue to provide the search ads. In the whole post, it is the following paragraphs that I find the most interesting:

Bing will continue to exclusively power the web search results on Facebook. This change will also enable Microsoft to continue its focus on driving strong performing campaigns across our own social media and communications tools, including Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail, and via rich content environments across MSN and Xbox Live.

This is an exciting time for us as we continue to work with Facebook on great new experiences for customers. As you know, Bing has been very focused on helping customers make important decisions. We believe that counsel from family and friends can be a big part of that process. Going deeper in web search experiences with Facebook, in addition to the collaboration we announced last October about bringing public data from Facebook’s API into the search experience, will enable us to do great things together for our customers.

By providing Facebook with its websearch functionality, Bing can get around the strong Google brand, and get its search tools in front of people where they already are, rather than attempting to change existing habits the hard way. Bing’s features are comparable to what Google provides through their search experience, and Bing’s intent to become a decision engine and their integration of Wolfram Alpha has a lot of potential.

When you stop and consider the social networks that Microsoft is already heavily invested in, working with Facebook makes a lot of sense. The quote: “…bringing public data from Facebook’s API into the search experience…” is interesting in what it points to. Google is leveraging their own social data through Gmail, Google Reader, etc, to further enhance their own search results, and to provide a better ad product.

How Bing will use the data is collects from Facebook will be very interesting. As a recommendation engine, Facebook is incredibly effective, and the volume of data that they collect is very cool, or very scary, depending on your views. Data mining how links, information, video and photos are shared, tagged and recommended would be invaluable for Bing. Between these announcements and the development of Google Social, search will be a very different place in five years time, at the latest.

It is very silly to write off Microsoft too quickly. While they did release Vista and they have gone through anti-trust litigation, they still have considerable resources, and large companies can still be creative and agile.

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Search queries and the Skinner box

February 4, 2010 in Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | No comments

How someone searches is a result of every single query you have ever done. It is a learnt behaviour shaped by an ongoing conversation between the user and the algorithm.

The results page for each query is feedback on how well the question was articulated. If the results are relevant enough to end your search, that is good. If it was not, then you try a new approach and adopt a new method. For most web literate people, this process is repeated dozens of times everyday.

What appears on the results page is determined by three factors: the query itself, how the search engine interprets the query, and what sites appear to be the most relevant to this query. The user only has control over the query that they put in. However, over time, this will be influenced by the interaction between the search engine, the sites it indexes, and what the user deems relevant enough.

In low competition namespaces where optimisation activity is low to nonexistent, it is only feedback from the search engine that shapes user behaviour. Assuming an effective algorithm, the user may not have to try as many different query structures, refinements or synonyms to find a site that would be relevant enough.

In a more competitive namespace where the optimisation activity keeps pace with or exceeds the search engine’s ability to control what is deemed relevant for a specific query, the user’s behaviour is affected by both the search engine and SEOs who consider that namespace to deliver a good return. Assuming that the optimised sites do deliver an experience that is relevant, then this will have minimal impact on user behaviour. In namespaces where there is more than one potential subject, then optimisation activity for one may force a shift in the search behaviour of the users seeking the other.

A crowded namespace can have another interesting effect on search behaviour: an increased use of a site’s branded terms to locate it by existing customers. Where there is a high level of competition on generic product terms, or the most relevant site for the namespace is outranked by less relevant results, the user can be taught to use branded instead of generic terms.

Search engines are Skinner Boxes. Each time the user conducts a query, they get feedback on how closely it relates to their intent. In response to this feedback, their behaviour changes. The feedback they receive comes from two sources: the search engine itself, and those optimising for it. These in turn influence how the user describes the product online, and can encourage them to hone in on a more focused range of queries.

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Esoteric knowledge and added value

January 28, 2010 in Online by Anthony | 2 comments

Social media’s potential goes beyond creating branded spaces filled with advertising material. As an interface between the brand and the rest of the world, the interactions created through these tools demand far more information of a much more niche nature than usually distributed via advertising. Sometimes, neither the agency nor the marketing department are able to deliver or engage on this level. So why focus all social media activity within these business units?

As the custodians of the brand, those coordinating marketing communications do have a role in any social media effort, even just to maintain an Integrated Marketing Communications strategy. However, in execution sometimes a brand’s strategic goals are best served by those outside of the marketing and communications professions.

It is the industry and professional information that people from other parts of the organisation have that can sometimes add real value. In industries where esoteric knowledge defines the product or creates the point of difference, making this information more visible and easier to access can help build or promote the brand. This practice is hardly unique, and already exists offline.

Hiring super users as brand ambassadors, like bartenders to represent drinks companies, is already a proven practice. Extending this to include using employees with special knowledge of the brand and products to generate content and interact with customers online is not much of a paradigm shift.

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Search Query Commonality and Clusters

January 21, 2010 in Online, Search, Search Engines by Anthony | 1 comment

Search is an interesting creature.  As well as a way to generate traffic, it is an interesting study of language and intention. Ignoring for a moment how search engines also function as a Skinner box with the effect this will have in consumer behaviour, what someone types into a search engine is an indicator of where they are in the sales funnel and what their intention is.

With long tail search queries it is hard to clearly see what is working and what is not, unless you group traffic around commonalities. With search traffic, the most relevant is the actual phrase, as this reflects user behaviour and can provide a guide for future SEO activity. Time of day, search engine used and the user’s browsing history are also useful.

Multivariant statistics are good for this, especially Cluster Analysis. I pulled a quick sample of some search query data via Google Webmaster tools for a demonstration. I am aware that there is more than one search engine, and I know that data on terms a site appears on is meaningless without information on clicks or search volume per query. This is what you might call a convenience sample.

As I do not have SAS Enterprise Miner on this machine, this analysis will be simple. Each cluster will be split on a commonality that is greater than 20%. If there is no such commonality, then it is exhausted.

Cluster Analysis

Cluster Analysis and Search Queries

As is demonstrated within the sample, there is still a significant dissimilar longtail. A few very niche groups identified were also identified in the sample. Ultimately, this data is not a true representation of user behaviour. Just because a number of different individuals found your site using the same small cluster does not automatically mean that they are after the same thing. More information is required to make those conclusions. This is just a model. It can help guide your decisions, and it can indicate points of interest worth investigating. What it is not, is gospel.

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On War, On Marketing

January 17, 2010 in Advertising, Social by Anthony | 1 comment

Carl Von Clausewitz wrote about an interesting concept in ‘On War’. Friction. To quickly explain it: when the best practice for a pursuit is clearly understood, and the strategic and tactical concepts are simple and widely understood, the most important factor in success is in execution and overcoming friction.

Clausewitz wrote about warfare in the 18th century, but a lot of the ideas he developed regarding leadership and strategy are interesting and remain relevant. Friction is one idea that is especially relevant.

Most plans are simple. A website needs to be built, or a certain amount of creative needs to be made and published. All the information needed to meet these aims is available to practically everyone in the market place. The success or otherwise of most projects is not in the planning. It is in execution.

This is where friction comes in. Clausewitz wrote about how an inability to communicate clearly, weather, the uncertainties of the terrain, incomplete, old or incorrect intelligence can all stop a commander from executing their strategy with the speed and certainty needed.

The same can be applied to online advertising, and other projects. As important as the original vision, brief or spec maybe, it is how well the project is executed, and how well unforeseen problems are dealt with that determine its success.

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Yet more on Australian censorship

December 29, 2009 in Uncategorized by Anthony | 1 comment

About a decade ago there was a case involving a student newspaper, an article called “The Art of Shoplifting” and the ACMA. A good account of it can be found at “Courts may shoplift free speech” but briefly, the article was Refused Classification (RC) and the authors had some legal trouble.

Currently, the Australian government plans to implement mandatory ISP level filtering to block URLs displaying RC material. There is a long list of objections to this open ended plan to censor the internet, ranging from the technical through to the philosophical. Almost all of these points have been explained in detail elsewhere.

There is one point that does deserve more attention:  are broadcast media standards relevant online?

Assuming for a moment that the filter does not impact user experience, only blocks RC content and cannot be circumvented, it would still a very bad idea.

The problem is in what content can be RC, how people actually use the internet and how content can be shared, and aggregated. Laws regarding classification were made for a world where media could not spread easily. When ‘The Art of Shoplifting’ was published it could not be posted to a blog, copied onto publicly visible personal spaces, distributed via RSS to multiple aggregators or appear listed on http://digg.com/ or http://www.stumbleupon.com/.

The conversation generated by the article is also now visible, where in the past it would not have been noticed, or searchable. Not only is interpersonal discussion now visible and spread through multiple forums, it can also take multiple formats, from text, to images, audio and even video.

Publication is synonymous with conversation online, and it now takes advantage of all the new accessible tools. Video,
images and audio are as much a part of interpersonal communication online as the written word. The very nature of conversation has fundamentally changed since those laws were penned.

Now that it is visible online, does this mean that discussions on euthanasia will now be subject to an ISP level banstick? How about religion – will this involve anti-vilification laws simply because it happened on Twitter rather than at the pub or via SMS?

People will always be people, even when they are online. Actually, people will be people especially when they are online and assume a certain level of anonymity. Under Australian law, exactly how much of this activity will be potentially liable to legal sanction? Once the infrastructure is in place to remove URLs from an Australian internet, I fear we will find out, and some people may be rather surprised.

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