How Does Mobile Search Impact Day to Day Marketing? Part 2

Targeting- the key to a good campaign

As new ways to reach consumers emerge through new technologies there is a lot that Madison Avenue must grapple with and adapt to.  Solely following the rules above and throwing all of your eggs into the online basket will not quite be enough. The advertising industry still has a business that is worth approximately $200 billion - spanning print, TV, magazines, radio, and outdoor media. Online display, meanwhile, is currently only worth about $15 billion. Most organizations will simply follow the money, and so campaigns for “old” media still take up the bulk of time spent in devising a marketing strategy.

 

However, as marketing dollars continue to shift to online and more effective ways to reach consumers through online channels emerge, Madison Avenue will shift their focus accordingly. Throughout history there has always been a group of unreasonable individuals that challenged where things are and where they are going. For example: many people said the car wouldn’t replace the horse or that TV couldn’t have advertising every ten minutes or that people wouldn’t need the ability t o speak to each other on the go.

 

The pundits will continue to exercise their views regarding new products that lead to new experiences. Hindsight tells us that pundits are often exactly the ones that get it wrong- but in the end, it’s not about wrong or right. Success in the new search will be about marketers’ and ad technology providers’ ability to continue to evolve. Like any new medium, things are not perfect when they first hit the market; they evolve and mature over time.

 

A greater shift to online advertising requires more advanced capabilities from digital and mobile ads. An elevated level of creative that embraces interactivity and adaptive design will emerge that will appeal to consumer’s desires to access more information via their smart devices and the advertisements they encounter. Most mobile content is viewed now not only through the mobile browser, but also through apps.  Free content isn’t free- the price for users comes in the shape of ad-supported content.  With publisher-specific and user-customized news apps finding new traction, getting onto those apps’ ad rolls will be key for

 

advertisers as users shift from keyboard and mouse to touch and swipe. Importantly, the ads presented in these apps must have relevance to the apps’ content, or the user will become fed up with both the app developer AND the advertiser.  And when the user is fed up, it leads to the worst possible outcome for all involved- they delete the app.

 

Putting it all together

 

At present, the mobile search market is completely limitless. But rules are starting to round into shape.  The winners will be chosen from firms that can provide compelling, well -targeted content, target users who use touch screens for the majority of their time on the Web, and those who understand how to mix their campaigns across many different mediums.

How Does Mobile Search Impact Day to Day Marketing? Part 1

Advertising Q&A

Q) What is the best way that I can utilize social media to complement my paid search efforts?

 

A) Social and paid search are great stand alone marketing tools but when used together they can be very powerful. The trick is to ensure that efforts on each of the platforms complement each other. For example, you could use your existing paid search campaign to support a promotion you are having for your Facebook fans. This allows you to achieve a number of objectives: Drive “Likes” to your Facebook page, advertise your promotion, expose your brand and create a fan base.

 

If you are having a special promotion that is only available on your site you can use all your channels to promote the same message which means you create one consistent message on Facebook, Twitter, and paid search. Each of these efforts should drive customers to the promotion in order to achieve maximum results. How you leverage paid search and social will depend on the unique marketing goals of your company.

 

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How Does Mobile Search Impact Day to Day Marketing? Part 1

Smaller Screens Require Specialized Answers

While desktop search is dominated by one company, Google, mobile search is currently a “Wild West” with plenty of undiscovered territory and a different set of user behaviors to be decoded.  For advertisers and publishers in this new mobile frontier, the question of traffic retention requires a different answer.  The search of the future - both in engines and ads - needs to be more anticipatory, better integrated; and must deliver compelling, useful on-demand results for the user to remain on your page or app.

 

The current state of play

The Web search game has been decided, and the decision for most users is one of convenience. At the beginning of the year, according to Search Engine Watch, Google accounted for 66.2 percent (up from 65.9 percent in December 2011) of all searches, with Bing and Yahoo well behind.

 

For Google, the war was won with distribution. As a recent study by comScore shows, browsers and default engines narrowed the search gap.  By winning the race to be the default browser engine, Google stormed the search market before any competitors really had a chance to get going. But user patterns are currently undergoing a massive sea change.  At the moment 50 percent of Americans own at least one mobile device that can access the Web.  Over the next decade, 4 to 6 billion people will use a tablet, smartphone, or other mobile device as their primary access point to the Internet.

 

Applying the lessons of the Web to the Phone

Aside from the long-term explosion of number of devices owned, search volume will be rapidly migrating to mobile over the next five years. According to a recent BIA/Kelsey report, 30 percent of all searches could nclude a location-based comment, thus making the GPS-enabled smartphone the clear “weapon of choice”for most users moving forward.

 

The first phase of the online advertising world was viewed through the lens of the desktop. Since then, access to the Web has been continually evolving as new devices emerge and change the way we access and interact with the Web. In the very near future smartphones will have 3 to 4 times the number of desktop users worldwide. The number of users who access the Web will multiply by the same fold.

 

Where two paths diverge

Of course, as the audience splits, the user expectations for Web and Mobile are vastly different.  Mobile, in its infancy, has traditionally reflected a complimentary experience to the desktop, but this is quickly transforming to meet the shift in on demand, on-the-go user behavior.    The sit back and browse experience won’t cut it for users on the move; adaption of the Web on mobile will become highly infused with location-based filters coupled with highly interactive and adaptive features, from “swipe and scroll” interfaces, to the next evolution of voice-acted responses.

 

Developing ads for the new search reality

Like any emerging medium, there are flaws that can arise. Think about the evolution of TV ads. There is a noticeable difference from the ads of the 1950’s to what we see today. The history of advertising on traditional platforms tells us there are good and bad campaigns. For  earlier age. But the reality is,  like many things, the advertisements get more robust over time.

 

How Does Mobile Search Impact Day to Day Marketing? Part 2

USA Network | White Collar | HTML5 Gamified Banner Ad on the iPad from Glow Interactive on Vimeo.

Who is Benefiting from Facebook’s Graph Search?

It is a well known fact that search ads convert better than display ads. When a user searches for something, he indicates his immediate interest much better than by simply looking at a particular page.

 

Facebook collects tons of data on people’s interests, likes and relationships. Until recently, the only way to monetize this content was to display ads next to a person’s page on Facebook.

 

Enter: Graph Search. At first glance, it seems that Graph Search might be an excellent vehicle to monetize Facebook’s content. Graph Search can qualify a user better than ever since it stands at the intersection between a user’s current intent (the search terms) and his connections interests (the graph).

 

A number of applications can benefit greatly from Graph Search. One example is recruitment, where a recruiter may find potential candidates by narrowing down occupation, location and specific interests. Unfortunately, Facebook is not perceived as “The” professional networking tools. Its competitor, LinkedIn, is the preferred platform to manage your professional career and relations. The fact is that receiving a business requests to connect on Facebook feels like meeting your boss in your favorite bar: it’s awkward.

 

Another application for Facebook Graph Search is product marketing. It can be a great tool to learn more about the consumers who use your product. Finding what consumers have in common will help develop micro-marketing campaigns to cater to a specific demographic.

 

Those applications and many others will depend on how much data users decide to share. Facebook has an interest in sharing your personal data with other parties, but Facebookers may not like the result. How would you like your name to be the top in a result list about “people who like to get drunk”? You can find some embarrassing questions and results on Actual Graph Search Results on Tumblr. In the end, users may choose to make more data private to avoid being cast in undesirable ways.

 

As a new capability, Graph Search is bound to get bashed in the early stages. As it matures and we find genuine applications for this new way to search, we will add it to the toolset we use to explore the digital world around us. As more people use it, and more revenue are associated with it, one problem will eventually arise: search results rigging. Once companies understand how Graph Search is used, they will develop SEO strategies and find ways to make their results move to the top of the list. The usefulness of the results may be greatly reduced once this happens.

 

Also take a look at  How Google Knowledge Graph Search Impacts Retailers.

Written by: Gerald Burnand, CTO at NTENT `          

10 Tips for Creating Impactful Landing Pages

If you get a lot of clicks and they aren’t converting, it might be time to take a look at your landing page. We’ve come up with 10 Tips to help you create impactful landing pages. After all, creating an impactful digital advertising campaign isn’t just about developing compelling ads; it’s about creating an experience on your landing pages that outlines a specific call to action and a defined consumer path.

For more tips on how to make your paid search campaigns, including NTENT, a success download our Best Practices Document, call us at 212.967.9502 or email us at customerservice@ntent.com. We are always happy to help!