What does Search mean for Web 3.0?

By Buck Dossey, Associate Director, Client Strategy & Development

The original title I wrote down for this article was the antithesis of what’s above: What does Web 3.0 mean for search? As I was researching this question, I quickly realized that it is not Web 3.0 that will define what search experiences are like, but rather search which will define what the Web 3.0 experience will be like.

So let’s take a step back for a moment and think about all the progress that’s been made over the course of the last several years. We have gone from everyone scrambling to hire anyone that knew any level of HTML in order to get websites created and published, strict limits on email inbox sizes, and pop-up ads galore.

The Context Effect

Then MySpace came around and you could actually contribute to a website. Certain websites like Match.com had allowed people to create and manage profiles for years, but there was something different about MySpace that changed the game. That game changer is what I refer to as the Context effect.

The reason why MySpace became the first brand that reached everyone (albeit everyone within my generation) was that for the first time web users could connect to each other and display those connections to anyone visiting their profile page. In addition, profile pages were customizable and thus attractive to you if you believe you are unique (just like everyone else). Self expression finally had a home online that was easy, customizable, and reflected real life.

Enter Facebook. Facebook’s rise came somewhat after MySpace, their initial exclusivity to only college students with an.edu email address made them instantly the cool place to be. Facebook also didn’t let you mess with the layout of your profile page, which puzzled many folks like me who were used to having to labor through layout after layout for their MySpace profile.

But Facebook changed the game, and they did so by making it about quality personal connections rather than flashy (and slow) profile pages. When you take a step back, this strategy actually makes a ton of sense. In life, happiness comes from the quality of your relationships with people who matter to you, not how you express yourself superficially.

Click to view larger image.


Facebook and Beyond

Today, the scene is set for the next revolution. MySpace’s star has started to fade, while Facebook continues to rise. Facebook’s gamble on personal connections and quality of content is more valuable than MySpace’s glitz, only to give rise to a more important challenge: making sense of all the information available, and doing so in a way that is personally relevant to each individual user.

So let’s bring the idea I mentioned earlier back to the fore: the Context effect. MySpace succeeded early because they made their site about self expression in the context of one’s real, offline life. Facebook took the context effect to the next level, and honed their user experience based on several different layers and types of context built on a platform of content quality.

The next phase of the web, or Web 3.0, will take this idea of context and make better, more relevant content more easily accessible to web users. The first evidence of this is found in a product called Facebook Connect.

If you’ve never heard of it, it’s simply a way for websites to talk to each other and share information. What makes it interesting is that Facebook is allowing websites to interface with it to use your information (opt-in only) to make your web browsing experience more relevant. Let’s say you are interested in buying that snazzy VW Jetta with a Diesel engine featured on Mythbusters this week and you’re checking out an auto-sales website that has 5,342 comments on it.

How do you sift through all that information?

Web publishers have for a while enabled users to promote better content over poorer content, but with Facebook Connect, those comments could be filtered to show just the comments from people in your personal network. This is the Context effect in full force. Rather than show you comments from the world ad nauseam, only the content that is attached to people with whom you have a personal relationship with is shown, giving you an instant gauge on credibility.

Facebook Connect will also enable websites to identify Mavens and Influencers within a relevant community and allow them to get these folks into the fold. Because websites can recognize how connected you are through Facebook Connect, they’ll be able to evaluate how they should sculpt your user experience.

The Facebook example is a great way to see the way that Context (as defined by Facebook and participating websites) is shaping our online experience today.

Web 3.0: Your Personal Internet

The Context Effect will be the hallmark of Web 3.0, and it’s actually well underway already. Google Personalize Search is one such implementation, which serves results based on user behavior. Search Engine Land has a good article by Danny Sullivan talking about Google’s efforts to increase its relevance and usage.

Google Web History tracks every search query you’ve put into the search engine since the product launched (assuming all necessary requisites like having and being signed-in to your Google account and whatever else I don’t know about).

While Facebook honed the Context-based success of MySpace, search engines will utilize input from every user to deliver customized results. This takes the Context effect to the next level. It integrates your entire web experience from search engine to website and back again into a customized experience based on what’s important to you and your needs, as dictated by your personal network and search queries.

The web has come a long way so far, and continues to develop and innovate at a break-neck pace. The amount of information is so great that an additional layer of information filtering is needed to make the web experience more relevant. The context of your personal needs and your personal life will dictate your entire experience online, making the web smarter, faster, and more relevant.

The Ad Exchange Value Proposition

By David Gould, President

A recent survey conducted by Collective Media claims that 89% of “top decision makers” plan to spend money with Ad Networks this year. That’s up from 5% last year. I’m not surprised to see an increase in that percentage although the magnitude of the increase is somewhat questionable. As the article points out, I suppose it’s no coincidence that Collective Media is an Ad Network.

The survey also indicates that less than 15% of respondents will spend on Ad Exchanges. Again, this is no big surprise considering the nascence of the exchange industry and the relative lack of experience and exposure for marketers. What really caught my eye was that less than 7% thought that Ad Exchanges would ultimately supplant Ad Networks.

That tells me there is a fundamental lack of understanding of the Ad Exchange value proposition. So where does the value lie?

1. Market Efficiency – the exchanges are rapidly moving to a place where real time bidding will take place on individual impressions (disaggregated buying). That ensures that both the advertiser and the publisher get a fair market-based price for each impression.
2. Buying the Audience Not the Content – Currently Ad Networks offer advertisers the opportunity to buy placements adjacent to content. The value of those placements is determined by inferences made about the types of people consuming that content. Ad Exchanges offer the opportunity to buy the audience. Bids will be placed on individual impressions. The bid value will be determined by knowing something about the individual who will see the placement and not by inferring something about that individual based on the site content. That means that two impressions on the same web page within minutes of each other could and probably will cost something different. That’s because the value is determined not by the page itself but by on whose computer or device that page is loading.
3. Audience Insight – Ad Exchanges provide transparency to whom each impression is served by shifting the decision to serve an ad from the Ad Network to the Advertiser. That enables advertisers to gain consumer behavior insight at the impression level. In other words, advertisers can learn a little something more about their audience with every impression served and action tracked. As this data is collected and aggregated, the advertiser’s ability to serve more relevant ads increases with every impression.

I believe it’s only a matter of time until the marketplace recognizes the value proposition here. When that happens, we’ll see an explosive growth in Ad Exchanges at the expense of the Ad Networks. I’ll be interested to read the results from next year’s version of Collective Media’s survey.

Communicating Value, Not Buzz Terms

By Matt Duffy, Associate Director, Client Strategy & Development

Last week I was having a conversation with a co-worker and during the course of our chat, I became very self-aware of the number of industry buzz terms we were casually floating back and forth. Such terms include (but are certainly not limited to) the following… optimization, maximization, expansion, analytics, linking strategy, pinnacle keywords, efficiency, testing, meta data, etc.

As online marketers, we constantly throw around such buzz terms in common dialog. At times, with the use of these terms we may deter our audience away from what we’re truly attempting to communicate. Search is no doubt a unqiue media channel and our world can have a lot of complexity. However, our language and the way we communicate doesn’t have to be.

Take for example analytics….an important component of our jobs and a term we toss around on a daily basis. We could go on for hours talking about the tagging process, variations in the tools we could use, the vast amount of data and statistical information we could carve up in a hundred different ways. However in doing so, the importance of analytics to the health and success of online marketing can be lost between buzz terms and technical dialog. It’s our job to find ways to communicate with our clients in a matter that they clearly understand, and can further articulate to people within their organization. Sometimes that requires becoming a story-teller.

Follow me on this example…. “Analytics and your house”

Imagine you go to work one day, and shortly after you leave I enter your home. What can I learn about you by going through your stuff? For starters, I can determine what food you like to eat by going into your fridge. I can determine what you like to watch on TV by rolling through your Tivo, or what you like to read by checking out the magazine selection on the coffee table. I can dig through your garage to find you’re an avid skier. I can look through pictures and find out how many siblings you have, where you went to college, and perhaps where you grew up. I can discover the number of people that live with you in the house, and can probably infer what room of the house you spend the most time in.

After uncovering this information, would you say I am now more equipped to target you with future marketing messages?

• Like to hit the slopes?...here’s some flight deals to Colorado that may peak your interest.
• Spend most your time in the kitchen?....here’s a few recipe’s you may want to try out for the next dinner party.
  

Analytics operates much the same way. The concept of analytics is basic…we have a window into what people are doing in your house. What pages are they viewing the most? How long are they staying on a given page? What path do they take through your site?

My goal here is not to over-simplify the process of Analytics or the robust data it can provide. But at its core, analytics is all about a deeper understanding of consumer behavior through data, which helps us as marketers better target your audience. Isn’t this a value any marketer would be interested in?

As media channels such as TV, print, and online become more and more integrated within your organization, it’s imperative to find ways to communicate concepts that people can latch onto and understand the value, without getting caught in a barrage of industry buzz terms.

Creating Solutions Made as Easy as 1,2,3…

By Viji Davis, VP Client Services

As head of the Client Services department of RM, I am often asked for guidance on how to create solutions for our clients. After putting some thought into this, I wanted to simplify the process as much as possible. The following will give you an outline of the process, but keep in mind there will be a lot of industry research that will need to be done in order to make your solution sound.

Before jumping into the process, I wanted to also add a disclaimer that this assumes that your client’s business goals have been vetted out, identified and agreed upon. If you are still determining what your goals are, you cannot start to create a solution for your client.

Step 1: Put the Consumer (or Customer) First

This step is key to creating a sound solution. No matter what your client’s goals, they are ultimately selling a product or service. Putting the consumer (or customer) first will allow you to focus on the right things. By focusing on who you are targeting and why they make the most sense to target, you will naturally flow into the rest of your questions: What to target them with? Where to target them? When to target them? How to target them?

With our current economic climate, clients not only want volume, they also want efficiency. The series of questions above flow into creating an optimal solution that accounts for both volume and efficiency. In creating the solution, putting the consumer (customer) first will allow you to think about:

• Who is most likely to consume the client’s products or services?
• Who should we/shouldn’t we focus on?
• How can we target spending to focus only on these consumers?
• When should we target them?
• What are their consumption behaviors like?

Step 2: Layer in Products and Services

Once you’ve identified your target, the next step is to layer in the products and/or services your client offers. Things to keep in mind here are:

• What is your client selling and how will each of your target segments respond to the products?
• Do they, the products and/or services, fit each of the segments?
• Are there specific pairings that work best?
• Are there segments that you should de-market to, based on their consumption behaviors and affinity to your client’s product/service?

Step 3: Get Tactical

Now it is time to get tactical and create the solution using the search toolbox: Target, Message, Placement, and Content. Focusing on each of these areas, keeping in mind who your target segment is and the products/services your client is selling will allow you to methodologically create an action plan of what will have the most impact to your client’s business based on their goals and objectives.

Using the three step process outlined above will provide a framework for how to create a solution. Now, get to researching!

SEO Metrics…What to Look For

By Chris Longo, Natural Search Supervisor, Content Solutions

Tracking SEO successes and failures can be a tricky thing to quantify. Every site has their own KPI’s and expectations when implementing a campaign, however success to the client and the agency might vary tremendously. When reporting on SEO Metrics the following variables are always brought into the discussion:

• Traffic
• Rankings
• Visibility

Traffic – Keep in mind there are many variables that occur when monitoring traffic such as PPC, Social Media, PR, and Traditional Media. From there one would also have to take into account seasonable or other external factors (economy, environmental). Traditionally, most reporting is done solely on visits and page views for a site, but focusing on KPI’s (conversions, goals) can be a better barometer of success. It is important to look for sustainable growth and overall long term value when monitoring traditional metrics. One of the most important things to monitor using metrics is to understand if you are growing in market share or if the market as a whole is growing. There are several 3rd party sites that can help you monitor this with traffic estimates such as comScore.com, Compete.com, and Quantcast.com.

Rankings ­– In the past, rankings were the end all be all of SEO success in the eyes of the client but, in reality it is flawed due to the personal and local aspects of the search engines algorithm. Before results show up in a search engine result page (SERP) the search engine categorizes the queried search by personalization and localization. Personalization is based off past behavior in the SERPS. Sites that a visitor has a previous history with rank higher and conversely, sites that the visitor bounces off of frequently rank lower. Localization is based on a visitor’s proximity to a specific query. Different results show up if you are looking for a limo company in NYC than Mobile, Alabama. Reporting on rankings consistently is flawed due to the variable nature of search engines (algorithm changes).

Visibility – Constant monitoring of visits and page views for specific keyword phrases tells the real story of what pages are underperforming. This is key to really finding out where the site is having its successes in the organic space. It is also important to know what the competition is doing. In order to be a player in the space and properly conduct a comparison to the competition of your online marketing efforts do research on what keywords, links, and cumulative rankings they have. It is also important to monitor visibility factors accordingly to maximize potential. Monitor index count, link popularity, and Page rank to ensure that the site is performing up to par.

Metrics Best Practices

1. Set baselines to track progress
2. Keep track of changes made to the site to monitor spikes
3. Monitor implementation over time
4. Keep track of when the search engines cache the site
5. Track all micro-conversions
6. Know where all website equity lives online
7. Monitor the engagement of visitors (time on site, bounce rate, path)
8. Analyze converting keywords

Most importantly use metrics to tell a story of the site activities not as a medium to simply quantify data.