Alert Blog Reviews

Maybe you can have too much of a good thing. As the Internet allows advertisers to slice and dice large segments of desirable markets into thinner, more defined slices it also creates something that is much less desirable: smaller profits. How is that you say? How is it possible to make less on my advertising spend when I am advertising directly to the group that most needs or wants my products? Well, it’s simple supply and demand. While you are targeting a much more defined market you are not going to be alone in that quest to advertiser to just the people that will buy. Remember those pesky competitors? They want those people too because their claim is that they are better than you. Now you are going to find a price war that drives up costs for advertising and makes customer acquisition costs rise which in turn hurt the bottom line. So maybe there is too much of a good thing after all. MediaPost tells about a study performed by the MIT School of Management that has looked at this in detail Professor Alessandro Bonatti, working with Yale University economics professor Dirk Bergemann on this research, says “… newspapers have a very limited ability to target audiences… specialized magazines can do better… Google has a very good ability to target who’s browsing each page… (though) online advertising has the potential to drive out traditional advertising, it does not necessarily follow that online advertisers will make more money… ” Bonatti continues, “…as technology keeps improving, more and more web sites can sell very narrow products to very specialized audiences… with lots of people targeting the same audience the profits to be made through specialized advertising become more and more spread out… instead of competing for one large pool… you will have price war in each targeted segment as the slice gets more and more narrow.” Bonatti concludes that, “… the better the technology, the lower the profits for advertisers… “ Not the news that advertisers want to hear but it sure is music to the ears of the niche ad networks that attract these more narrowly defined groups. Advertising price war? We’re in! Woo-hoo! Different verticals are responding more rapidly and it also is dependent on just how far CPM’s fell during this downturn / recession / economic morass. Real estate is seeing an increase in CPM’s jumping 17% from Q2 to Q3 of last year while foodies are driving that category up almost 91% in the same period. Here is a chart from Adify Vertical Gauge for you to gloss over and wonder what it really means. So be careful what you wish for advertisers. Sure it’s great to advertise as close to the buyer as you can but you’re not the only one with that strategy. Let’s hope you are the one with the deeper pockets at least.

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For Ads the More Targeted May Mean Less Profitable

Google must know something that we don’t. Why else would they be SO open in their new move toward transparency as to allow for extensions on Chrome that, gulp, block the very lifeblood of their money printing operation? Well, considering the market share that Chrome currently has (around 40 million users) and the mindset of someone likely to use (or even know about) this extension the thought of this kind of ‘allowance’ is probably bigger than the reality. The New York Times reports In a manifesto-like e-mail message sent last month to all Google employees, Jonathan Rosenberg, a senior vice president for product management, told them to commit to greater transparency and open industry standards. Rather than hoard knowledge to exploit it, he wrote in “ The Meaning of Open ,” share it and watch Google and the entire Internet prosper. The resulting openness is allowing for ad blockers as extensions but this decision did not happen without a Mountain View trip to the revenue mountaintop for advice. Speaking at a conference on Dec. 11 in Mountain View, Calif., Linus Upson, engineering director at Google, said there were many discussions before allowing ad-blocking programs “because Google makes all of its money from advertising.” But he explained that the prevailing thinking was that “it’s unlikely ad blockers are going to get to the level where they imperil the advertising market, because if advertising is so annoying that a large segment of the population wants to block it, then advertising should get less annoying.” “So I think the market will sort this out,” he said. “At least that is the bet we made when we opened the extension gallery and didn’t have any policy against ad-blockers.” That was a long quote but it’s the last sentence that was uttered by a company that is both loved and scorned at the same time. This is uttered by a company that some would think anti-trust is in their future in the same way it was for Microsoft and IBM. Letting the market sort it out is the only way to go in the long run. Sure there will be hiccups but the alternative (some form of regulation that reads real well but in practical use is just plain stupid) is not going to work. I think that there is enough evidence from 2009 for that one. Similar extensions are currently available on Firefox, which has a much larger market share but has not exactly stopped Google in its tracks so that may be the evidence needed. Oh and if you want to gain access to these blockers here’s their stories and a link or two for you. As it happens, two 28-year-olds, Michael Gundlach, an independent programmer from outside Athens, Ga., and Tom Joseph, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Mount Sinai Medical School, separately went through the exact same experience. In telephone interviews, each told of excitedly looking to see if he could install a Chrome extension of his favorite Firefox add-on, Adblock Plus, which prevents ads from appearing on Web sites, whether bright flashing animation or the text ads that Google serves up after a search. They did not find one. So, naturally, each spent a day or so creating a rough version of such an extension, with much more work to come. AdThwart from Mr. Joseph is now No. 2 in popularity among the more than 1,200 Chrome extensions; AdBlock from Mr. Gundlach is No. 8. Together, they already have more than 120,000 users. Happy ad blocking!

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Chrome Extensions Include Ad Blockers

In what may be a mini ‘bell weather moment’ in advertising, Pepsi has decided to keep its usual Super Bowl advertising money in its bank account. While they are not exactly saving it they are certainly redirecting it to online opportunities. I say this is a potential ‘bell weather’ moment because it ends a streak of 23 consecutive years where Pepsi has advertised during the event that attracts some of the largest viewing audiences in the history of television. So what is Pepsi saying with this move? It’s more like a question they are asking the NFL and the advertising world that has made such a big fuss over Super Bowl ads for years: Where’s the value? Not to worry about the NFL though because they are still getting Pepsi-bucks……just not in a big chunk for the big game. Compete tells a little more Pepsi is already a large sponsor of the NFL, having paid millions back in 2002 to replace Coke for the title of the official soft drink of the NFL. The company also sponsors Rookie of the Week section on NFL.com. So the big moment is more about the how Pepsi is deciding to spend its money rather than with whom. The NFL is a marketing juggernaut (I had to use that word before the close of 2009) and will remain so. Even the NFL though is going to have to adjust to the dollars that are moving online that once fueled the just as important Super Bowl activity of watching and rating the advertisements. If last year was any indication that ‘pastime’ may be on the decline as well as many companies didn’t even create specific ads for the big game but simply rehashed old ones. Kinda takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it? So why is Pepsi seeing the online space as the way to go? Compete shows a little data below that may become the new version of the old ‘Pepsi Taste Challenge”. Even more interesting are the differences in competitive share of visitors to Pepsi and Coke sites between control and exposed consumers. Among the control group, Pepsi captures only 16% of visitors versus a lion’s share of 84% for Coke. However, the numbers are completely reversed among the exposed group. So what is your thought about the days of the big Super Bowl advertising buys and the excitement around the creativity of the ads? Are the days of Super Bowl ads being a huge deal going the same way as my NY Giants (meaning directly south and in the toilet)? Your thoughts?

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Pepsi Decides to Use the NFL a Different Way

It’s hard to believe that 2009 is finally coming to an end. As is always a very popular practice the media likes to take us on a stroll down Memory Lane but make sure we take a brief turn onto Morbid Court. Why? Because it is important to recap what celebrities either died or train-wrecked their lives in the past year. I admit that I read these lists more often than I should and often have the “I didn’t know they died!” moments which do literally nothing to make life better. They just happen. So why not look at how advertisers may have or could have benefited from celebrity news that range from death to sordid trysts to you name it? Search Engine Watch has spoken to Blogads CEO Henry Copeland and came away with this The sudden death of actress Brittany Murphy this week tied a morbid bow on a big 2009 trend — that of celebrities dying and falling from grace. According to Blogads CEO Henry Copeland, the unfortunate events provided advertisers on his network, at times, with a considerable amount of additional exposure at no cost. At this point there are a million places to go with this one and most are not complimentary. I am going to stay on the purely business side of this one though which is sordid enough. Basically, there appears to be a little disappointment from CEO Copeland in the structure of the advertising world as agencies and red tape don’t allow for advertisers to fully take advantage of traffic spikes due to these ‘events’. Though Copeland explained that his company could get campaigns “up and running in a matter of hours,” he said that Blogads didn’t receive any calls from marketers during the celebrity events. “Most major brand campaigns are planned weeks or months…ahead of time. So we haven’t had any ‘drive-by’ advertisers hop on a hot story.” He continued, “We don’t anticipate this kind of demand going forward because of the way the ad agencies and their clients are structured… There’s just [too many] decision-makers and [too much] budgeting, time-lag, and iterative looping built into the process. A really agile and smart advertiser should jump into these stories; but the structure of the ad industry makes it almost impossible.” Well, this just seems too good of an idea to pass up! I have the solution to this and I sure hope that no one takes this one and runs with it. I am going to hang out my shingle for my new ad agency called “Advertising Ambulance Chasers”. I think I will add the tag line: “We Get You There Even Before the Lawyers”. I understand traffic is critical for advertisers but are we going to be heading down this road to make sure that we advertise around tragedy because its good business? I hope not. We can leave that to the cable news networks who don’t realize just how pathetic they look when they make all of their pretty graphics and pithy sayings around the major headlines of the day which are always about some form of pain and suffering. Maybe I am just being naive and it doesn’t really matter how you get the exposure just as long as you do. Imagine though, that people get used to your brand showing up around tragic events? Just seems odd to me. As an advertiser or just an Internet marketer in general, what are your thoughts on trying to be ‘agile enough’ to advertise where the trouble is? Is this how you would like to have your brand known? Is there any potential harm in trying to be a morbidly opportunistic marketer? Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Celebrity Death and Misfortune May Help Advertisers

In the “Finally!” department, Google is taking legal action against advertisers who used Google’s name and logos to promote their get-rich-quick scams. The “Make Money on Google” ads were rampant in both search and display advertising in the first half of this year. Google cracked down on the search ads in July, but naturally, the scams and the sites continued to flourish. Google, like a good trademark holder, has finally come to its senses and is now suing the scammers for using its name in vain. They’ve filed suit (PDF) against Pacific WebWorks and other unnamed defendants for a number of counts, including trademark infringement, trademark dilution, cyberpiracy and unfair competition. The scams worked by advertising that buyers could “make money from Google.” The buyers purchased a “free” kit to teach them how to do this, paying a nominal fee and S&H. However, Google contends in the suit, buyers received nothing of value and were subjected to high recurring charges on their cards. Some buyers even contacted Google for refunds or to stop the recurring fees—another reason why Google feels compelled to sue now. Pacific WebWorks was slapped with a class action suit last month in Illinois, but the suit sought no injunction to stop their advertising. Google’s, filed in Utah, naturally does petition for an injunction to stop the false advertising until the trial can ascertain whether the claims are true. The unnamed defendants (listed as “Does 1-50″ in the complaint) are kind of like placeholder defendants. Google admits in the complaint that they don’t know everyone who’s running this scam, but that they will amend the complaint once they do. “Upon information and belief,” Google says that the other defendants are materially connected with Pacific WebWorks, though they appear to operate as separate companies. The separate entities use the same website templates, testimonials and other information to purvey their scams. What do you think? Will Google win? And what took them so long?

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Google Sues Make Money with Google Scams

Business can now be done online. The coming of the internet has changed the way business is done the world over. However, there are certain businesses that could be referred to as online business. This is because they exist only online. There are many people who are involved in online business. This is because the opportunities for this kind of business are immense. Millions of dollars are made daily on the internet by those involved online business. There are several types of online businesses. Types of online business Affiliate or advertizing business This is the most common type of online business. In this type of business, you don’t have anything to sell, or better still, you don’t do direct sales. You provide the avenue for people to advertize their products and you share the profits. What is involved in this kind of business is that you have to provide a website with content related to a particular product. The one who has the product displays her/his advert alongside the content. Those who visit the website see the adverts and if they follow up on it, depending on the agreement between you and the product owner, you make some money. Retail business This involves selling goods and services directly to customers. There are many things that are sold online. You can buy tangible goods ranging from food to houses and there are services such like banking security. Forum This is a type of online business where an avenue is provided for people to interact. This is just like building a mall and letting it out to others. At the forum, buyers and sellers interact and do business. When any product is sold, the owner of the forum gets a share of the deal. There are very well established forums online. There are a few things to consider when deciding on which online business to choose. Your interest You must choose an online business that you can easily run. That means it should be related to your interest. For example, if you have a passion for writing, you can decide to do the advertising based online business. You provide content in the form of articles that will lure readers to you site. Then, you enter into an affiliate agreement and start earning from there. Related to this is the area you concentrate on. There are some areas that have a lot of players; whiles others are yearning for people. You must choose an area that will not give you too much competition. Your time There are some online businesses that need a lot of time to run. You will have to be online responding to calls and emails. If you don’t have that time, don’t enter such a business. Choose one that will not demand a lot of your time. There are many opportunities in the online business. Many people are taking advantage of these opportunities and are making huge amounts of money. You can also do same. All it takes is a little patience and you will be earning great money.

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Online Business: What You Need to Know

For this post, I need two volunteers! Let’s take this announcement from Google: …we’ve decided to allow publishers to limit the number of accesses under the First Click Free policy to five free accesses per user each day . This change applies to both Google News publishers as well as websites indexed in Google’s Web Search. We hope that this encourages even more publishers to open up more content to users around the world! And yes, you sir. The Financial Times report on how much news scraping exists on the web: The study of 101,000 articles published by 157 newspapers found that more than 75,000 sites reused 112,000 almost exact copies without authorisation, and a further 520,000 articles in part… The study found Google accounted for 53 per cent of the advertising being run alongside unlicensed stories … I will now combine these two articles into an incredible–or incredulous–observation. Is it pure coincidence that on the day News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch was in Washington telling the FTC about the need to reform "fair use" laws to prevent the "theft" of its content, Attributor pulls out some heavy numbers in support and Google decides to bend a little? I think not! Forget the fact that Bing is rumored to be courting the newspaper industry to dump Google, the search engine plans to lose a significant slice of revenue, if the publishing industry faces any kind of mass reform. Think about it, Google offers to change the "First Click Free" terms in order to save the AdSense revenue it makes from bloggers, and the more nefarious scrapers. It’s a small sacrifice, right? You’ve heard of the expression "an irresistible force meets an immovable object," right? News Corp. is about to meet Google head-on! Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Google Offers Newspapers the First 5 Clicks Free to Keep AdSense Scrapers Alive