Permuto Discoveries » Shaukat Shamim

What to Expect This Holiday Season

Shaukat Shamim — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:27:23 +0000

The discussion regarding shopping this holiday season has included mixed predictions, with most anticipating a modest improvement over last year’s total spend. The standout, of course is online retail – which both Comscore and Forrester predict will see a marked improvement compared to last year, as well as the rest of 2009. The following is a snapshot of this holiday season, by the numbers. It offers valuable insight to the ways in which various demographics are spending, the trends in spending behavior, and where and how consumers are looking to spend:

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The Myth of Cyber Monday Explained

Shaukat Shamim — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:30:08 +0000

Cyber Monday is generally referred to as the online equivalent of Black Friday, the holiday season’s single busiest shopping day. The notion first came about when Shop.org realized that online sales tended to spike up for many retailers on the Monday after Thanksgiving. However, when the term was first used as a marketing tool, it was little more than that — in fact, to many it was only considered hype. However, over the last five years the term has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy as more and more retailers are beginning to participate in Cyber Monday promotions, with daily sales rivaling the actual largest online shopping day of the season (traditionally mid-December). Interestingly, this may be the year Cyber Monday actually becomes the biggest online shopping day of the holiday season:

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Target Markets: Ad Spending Across Four Benchmark Sites

Shaukat Shamim — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:02:53 +0000

There’s no secret that different types of websites attract different levels and types of advertisers – but the variance is rarely elaborated upon. For instance, Facebook’s top 100 advertisers spend $49,045,000 per month, while the top 100 advertisers of IMDB ($7,217,400), CNET ($3,094,000), and NYTimes($7,128,500) combined spend about 1/3 ($17,740,000) that of Facebook. This of course addresses the levels of ad revenue by popular sites, and is just one of the findings from the most recent Nielsen AdRelevance report. Of special note are AT&T’s spending trends, and the rate at which this brand has invested online, especially in the four sites included in the study.

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Social Networking Sites Capture More Time and Advertising

Shaukat Shamim — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:59:02 +0000

According to a recent report by the Nielsen Company, the time an average American spent on social networking and blog sites such as Facebook and Myspace nearly tripled in 2009. This study, which cites the company’s research from August ‘09 found that social networking and blogs account for 17% of all time spent on the internet, up from 6% a year earlier.

Perhaps not surprisingly, advertising spending on these sites has also surged. Accordingly, the estimated $108M spent on sites such as Facebook and Myspace signaled a 119% increase from a year before. In terms of total online advertising spending, social networks and blog sites now account for 15% of total online ad spending. This is significant given the global recession.

According to Jon Gibs, VP of Media and Insights at Nielsen:”This growth suggest a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used…while video and text content remain central to the Web experience – the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth.” This echoes recent findings by Netpop Research, which claims people have replaced time spent on traditional entertainment, with time spent communicating online (contributing to social media, social networking, blogging), and that out of the 105 Million American broadband users, 76% now contribute to social sites.

via NeilsenWire

Bing Gains Ground on Google in Search War

Shaukat Shamim — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:56:05 +0000

Yesterday, Sharon Gaudin wrote an article about comScore’s most recent report, which lauded Bing’s 9.3% share of the search market. This report reflected Bing’s position at the end of August, and illustrates a significant increase from 4.8% of market share in early July. Consequently, Google’s share slipped 0.1%, with the search behemoth now holding onto 64.6% of the search market. Also included in this report was notice that Yahoo! has maintained its position of second most-search engine with 19.3%; AOL, however, dropped by 3%. Similar reports by Neilson Co., reported that Bing had reached 10.7% of total market share for search advertising. According to Ezra Gottheil, of Technology Business Research, Bing’s recent success has positioned the new search engine to become, “…the other search engine.”

According to this study, there are two further developments that are expected to increase Bing’s clout:

Microsoft’s beta release of Bing Visual Search (similar to Google Image Search).
Yahoo! and Microsoft’s recent alliance, which will see Yahoo! using Bing as its primary search engine.

According to Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group, Inc.:

“I think it will be another couple of quarters before we can tell if Bing will be a serious competitor for Google search,” he added. “Google is definitely taking the Bing threat seriously, despite its still-overwhelming market position. Google understands just how important this battle is. More importantly, they know that Microsoft and Yahoo are determined this time to grab a big slice of the market. The resources that Microsoft and Yahoo can devote to the battle, along with their determination, make them a serious threat to Google. And Google knows it.”

While Olds has it right in saying that Bing has not significantly affected Google’s position as the world’s foremost search engine, it is safe to say Bing’s recent success is nothing less than impressive. Further, these new findings are sure to lead to more resources being used by each of the major players, as they compete to further (or retain) their market reach.

via Sharon Gaudin@ computerworld.com

Which Industries Use Google AdWords The Most?

Shaukat Shamim — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:40:54 +0000

We recently published a graphic that illustrated the contribution of the top 100 AdWords spenders to Google’s total daily and monthly revenue. Today, we decided to use complementary data in order to determine ad volume, by industry, for these top spenders. Perhaps intuitively, ‘Retail ‘constitutes the largest percentage of AdWords ads at 54%, followed by ‘Search Engines’ and “Travel and Accommodation”, which are both at 14% respectively. We have also included a list of the the top 100 advertisers, and figures on industry-wide ad volume:

The 10 Most Common Mistakes in Online Advertising

Shaukat Shamim — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:07:08 +0000

It’s no secret the recent economic crisis has forced many businesses to rethink their marketing and advertising expenditures. While, not long ago, many were once satisfied with ad reach and exposure, ad executives and business owners have become increasingly concerned with ad efficiency and ways to increase ROI. If you currently spend money advertising online, or are interested in advertising online you should do your research; there many potential pitfalls, and no shortage of ways by which money is spent with little to no conversion impact. For businesses large and small, the following constant the ten most commonly made mistakes in online advertising — and should be avoided at all cost:

Turning Potential Shoppers Away

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While high-conversion traffic should be a primary goal of advertisers, discouraging all types of traffic is never a good idea. One way advertisers can seriously curtail multiple flows of traffic is by turning potential shoppers off from their brand. Aesthetically unappealing, offensive, or altogether annoying (ie., pop-ups, or forced advertisements) can turn customers off.

Pegging Success to Traffic, Not Conversions

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While a lot of advertising is about grabbing attention, the end goal is ROI. Many new advertisers become excited by the opportunity to build brand awareness and web traffic, but neglect potential customers’ experience while on the site. The sales cycle is ever-changing, and with a slower economy, and increasing number of shopping comparison sites, advertisers must present a site that educates and assists consumers.

Poor Ad Placement

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Today many turnkey ad solutions are available to the aspiring advertiser, and understanding where and how ads are placed is extremely important. For example, with Google AdSense, leaving the content network on and allowing broad match can lead to increased visibility, but also increasingly less-targeted ads. Additionally, if search terms are more specified, including the use of long tails, and commercially-linked terms, a more customer-targeted strategy will be realized – one that may generate less traffic, but it will most likely have better conversion rates.

Not Having a Call to Action

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The intention of generating web traffic is to eventually generate conversions. Having an extremely well-targeted ad campaign – display or search – without a (or with a difficult to find) call to action, is a very bad idea. By sending web visitors to a homepage, from which they have to then navigate to the product that initially sparked their interest, makes it more difficult to complete the transaction. Effective advertisers are those that make purchasing as easy as possible

Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket

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While new technology has enabled small-level players to reach broader audiences, one mistake many advertisers make is restricting ad placement to one channel. Recent research indicates that customers spend significantly more when multiple channels are used, and a failure to embrace new channels, such as m-commerce and social networking traffic, can seriously limit a campaign’s effectiveness. Similarly, this can also include restricting ad spending to only certain type of sites, especially when similar audience and presumably similar conversion rates exist elsewhere.

Not Understanding Reach of An Advertising Plan

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An online advertising campaign should be thought of as integral to part of a larger marketing plan. Advertisers should be able to account for where their ad dollars are being spent. Effective advertising includes accounting for where ad spending is allocated and tracking levels of efficiency. The tools for tracking conversions are better today, and , under-performing ads should be scrapped, in favor of new avenues being explored. This will help to save money in the long run.

Wasting Money

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While this might seem like a very broad statement, it is not. Many online businesses, look to expand their reach and allocate specific budgets to advertising, without a plan for creating customers. If are looking to advertise online, and do not have a plan to reach as many targeted audiences as possible your learning curve will be very gradual. Ad spending should be increasingly specific and targeted -– awareness has been replaced by effectiveness, as it is more easily measurable.

Ignoring the Competition

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The Internet has increased competition. There are more players in each industry trying to get the attention of the same audiences. Failure to pay attention to your competitors efforts can be hugely detrimental, in that trends in how to generate customers can be altogether missed. Additionally, keeping a watchful eye on competitors can help you to avoid making the same mistakes they do, which will always save you money in the long run.

Writing Off Social Communities

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Social Media, Social Networking, Social News. While many thought they were just trends, the last several years have proved otherwise. Each social community is increasingly commercializing, and each offers new channels through which advertisers can appeal to new audiences. Similarly, they increase dialog and engage existing audiences in new ways. Sites like Twitter and Facebook in particular, allow businesses and customers to interact in a way not possible five years ago.

Failure to Measure Results

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Failure to measure, or failure to understand measurement are common mistakes made by many advertisers. Using analytics tools to understand ad effectiveness will lead to increased understanding of: which ads are more efficient, which sites send more conversions, and what customers do when they get to your site. Understanding how customers navigate your site can not only help refine your ad campaign, but also illustrate shortcomings in the user-friendliness of your site. Failing to measure is a conscious decision to ignore the most precise measurement tools in all media.