Appeared in MediaPost, June 5, 2009, quoting David Gould:
Facebook has snagged yet another exec from Google. Grady Burnett, who had led the company's AdWords business in Ann Arbor, Mich., will leave to head online sales at Facebook. The move could help Facebook build a better ad targeting platform and gain traction.
Burnett will help drive efforts for the tools that people use to create and run ad campaigns on the social network site. He reports to Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg, who left Google in 2008, after spending six years at the company supporting online sales channels for both AdWords and AdSense.
The argument among industry experts has been that some activity on Facebook helps to catch people in search cycles a bit further in the funnel, according to Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief at Search Engine Land. "The Google and Facebook apps are similar in the sense they both allow a short message post," he says. "The difference is they tend to show up more textually, based on the information the person sees and the information in the person's profile."
Tapping expertise from an ex-AdWords Googler who understands how people handle search advertising could give Facebook the boost it needs to build a better platform, Sullivan says.
David Gould, president at Resolution Media, says the move shows Facebook is serious about doing a better job of monetizing the site. "With Sheryl Sandberg and now Grady Burnett leaving Google for Facebook, the hope is we'll start to see more Google-like ad opportunities from Facebook," he says. "They key is to create a more commercial mindset for Facebook users. Reaching consumers at the moment of relevance is what makes Google so powerful for marketers."
The sentiment on the shift has been pretty much unanimous. Ex-Google employees can help build Facebook's ad platform into a much more powerful tool for advertisers. David Szetela, owner of Clix Marketing and host of PPC Rockstars, calls the front and the back ends of the Facebook platform "primitive" compared with Google AdWords.
"Advertisers need better tools for organizing and managing the structure and content of ad campaigns," Szetela says. "They need to use a variety of ad media types, such as text, static banners, animated banners and video. They need to generate detailed, flexible reports to optimize campaign performance."
Szetela says if Facebook can achieve "superior targeting" and serve-up tightly defined demographic ads focused on behavior, demographics and lifestyle, they could significantly boost ad revenue.
Ex-Google AdWords Pro Jumps To Facebook
Launching a New Account?
Nathan Gawel, Associate Director, Client Solutions
As search continues to grow, everyone from the large agencies to the small business owners are launching new PPC Search Accounts. Talking with others in the industry, we identified 5 major mistakes people make when launching new PPC campaigns.
1. Lack of Strategy.
The biggest mistake made today when launching a new PPC campaign is the lack of strategy or thought behind the launch. Most companies/people have the ability to build out keywords, append tracking, set up an Account, and turn on an Account. What most people do not think about when launching the accounts are:
- Why are we launching this account and how did we organize the account to reach these goals.
- What are the expectations for 30 days, 90 days, and the next year?
- Who is the audience and how are we adjusting our account to better reach the goals based on that audience.
2. Dependency on Technology.
The lack of strategy often is the result of a dependency on technology. Technology often creates keywords that are too general or irrelevant all together. If and when these keywords get launched they can spend a lot of the budget quickly and can hamper a successful launch. More often than not, technology does not understand the audience, who they are, what their purchase cycle is, what the conversion latency is, etc. Without the strategy, technology can hurt your launch more than it can help.
3. Only using Google.
Including yours truly, many see Google as the easiest engine to use, faster to get live, largest in volume, and sometimes the best returning engine. Unfortunately, many launch in Google and call it a day. Each engine has its advantages. Because one account did not work well in Yahoo or Bing (MSN for those still sleeping), does not mean the next one will not. Bing traditionally has high returns, but lower volume. However, the value and volume of return is enough to carry a launch as a whole to goal. If launched properly (i.e. adjusting creatives/match types/negatives for yahoo algorithm), Yahoo! can provide much needed conversions.
4. Competing Goals.
Many times clients/businesses are looking for too many goals. For example, trying to build a campaign that increases newsletter signups, individual product purchases, offline sales, and decreasing the CPC is pretty much impossible. This happens when there are too many cooks in the kitchen. For instance, a department head, the CMO, and multiple product managers are all looking to search to deliver on different goals. When building an account or optimizing the account for one goal, they could very well be hindering another. Trying to increase offline sales might require creatives that are not conducive to online sales. Focusing on the #1 reason above will help avoid this issue.
5. The Launch and Leave
Building and preparing for a launch can take weeks or months (depending on the client size, tracking, etc). So when the final day comes, the account launches, and all QA is done…some make the mistake to let it ride for a week or two to gather initial learnings before making any adjustments. There are many things to check for within the first 24 hours.
- Reporting – are the technology vendors/bid management tools tracking properly?
- CPCs – did you launch at too low of a CPC? Start high to gain Quality Score faster?
- Negatives – are your ads showing where you wished they wouldn’t?
- Budgets – are you spending a lot faster/slower than you thought?
- What is the next step?
Launching a new account is never easy and rarely goes without any hiccups. My last recommendation is please, please, please do not launch on Fridays. Not only is it annoying to work Saturday and Sunday to check all your work, but often times Sundays and Saturdays’ traffic reacts differently than during the week and can give you false results that are just going to change on Monday. Plus, most importantly, vendors & 3rd party support are not available on the weekends…so if there are technical questions or issues outside the launcher’s hands they often go unresolved until Monday. Launch On!
Bing Me Up Scotty … I’m Diggin’ It
By David Gould, President
Sorry, couldn’t resist jumping on the Bing hoopla bandwagon. Let’s face it; you can’t hide from Bing or the prolific puns that have littered the digital landscape over the past week. That said, maybe you shouldn’t hide. Bing has some pretty cool things to offer.
My colleague, Viji Davis, wrote a post in this very blog two days ago describing Bing’s performance in a number of different categories. I won’t waste your time repeating her wise musings, but I do want to talk at a higher level about what Bing is … or maybe isn’t.
Bing has been promoting itself as a decision engine, not simply a search engine. David Berkowitz points out that “the idea of a search engine is to get you where you want to go…” Bing does that, when necessary, but actually goes a step further and strives to provide you with the information you need without ever having to leave Bing.
Berkowitz argues, that makes Bing a hybrid between a portal and search engine. I’d argue that a search engine actually is a portal in the truest sense of the word. According to Dictionary.com a portal is “a door, gate, or entrance”. Isn’t that what a search engine is, a doorway to the World Wide Web? Conversely, what many commonly think of as portals, in the context of the internet, are actually aggregators. Yahoo aggregates content so that, ideally, you’ll never leave their properties.
For that reason, I think Bing is really more of a hybrid between a portal and an aggregator. It gets you where you need to go, but only if it can’t deliver what you need itself. It’s a finely tuned aggregator that delivers content (versus links) tailored to your desire.
A perfect example of this is checking the status of a flight. If I want to know the status of United Flight #686 today, I can type it into the Bing search box and get the following at the top of the search results (in a flash I might add) …
Click to view larger image.
Pretty cool … other search engines refer me elsewhere. The same works for weather and traffic in an instant.
The implications of a search engine that actually keeps users around instead of directing them elsewhere are numerous and we can expect to read plenty on that in the near future.
Search and Compliance: Why It’s Important
Robyn Pearlstein, Paid Search Manager, Advertising Solutions
A few weeks ago, Nate wrote about the FDA sending letters to 14 pharmaceutical companies for not including enough risk information or full drug names. In a nutshell, the FDA has not yet offered a black and white solution or firm guidance to the advertisers but the agency is beginning to understand the need to define rules and regulations in the search space as it is now one of the most relevant, effective forms of advertising. While it is the FDA’s job to regulate pharmaceutical advertising and protect consumers from false marketing claims, it is also their duty to provide solutions to advertising they find inadequate.
Once these regulations become clear, it is extremely important for pharma advertisers to quickly grasp and implement in order to avoid the ultimate search marketer’s nightmare: going dark while competitors gain share of voice for on-label terms (cue ominous music). Or, even worse, be slapped with another huge fine or lawsuit.
Google’s new trademark policy keeps marketers on their toes
The issue of compliance has again risen to the forefront in mid-May when Google announced its new trademark policy that would align Google with the other tier one engines in terms of how it treats trademarked terms. This means that advertisers, especially those playing in the retail space, will be affected in a bevy of ways. It is now up to the advertiser to monitor competitors’ use of their terms in order to protect the brand and avoid any Google editorial and compliance issues.
Additionally, there are several lawsuits pending regarding trademark issues. So, it would be wise for all advertisers to follow these cases closely to ensure they understand the ever-changing trademark laws so they don’t fall into a lawsuit themselves. One misstep could compromise hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales revenue.
Fair and clear guidelines are needed more than ever for search marketers
As search budgets continue to mimic the volume of searches in the US (according to MediaPost, searches increased 39.4% during April year over year while some search budgets have increased nearly 20% year over year), it is critical that marketers keep their actions in line with the ever-changing and evolving search policies. Just one 95-character ad is the difference between boosting the bottom line and losing millions.
What is Bing?
By Viji Davis, VP, Client Services
What is Bing? Well, for one, I’m not talking about the cherry. Microsoft announced ‘Bing’ last Thursday as their new search engine, previously codenamed Kumo. What Bing developers are dubbing the ‘decision engine,’ differentiates itself through its organization of user relevant content around four key areas:
- Better local results
- Shopping results
- Travel
- Healthcare
Local
Bing says “ …by organizing search for better navigation, Bing delivers better results in less time.” They use the example of searching for “orchid delivery san francisco”:
Click to view larger image.
Shopping Results
One interesting thing that Bing incorporates is Rebates. Users can get cash back for shopping on Bing (the screenshots still show this as ‘kumo cashback’ until Bing is released to the public). The following example for a search on “digital camera” also shows Bing’s new layout with a left hand navigation that lists related search topics.
Click to view larger image.
Travel
Microsoft has rolled in the current ‘Farecast’ into Bing to be rebranded as ‘Bing Travel.’ The search for “flights to hawaii” are organized by not only cheap flights to Hawaii, but also by the cheapest last minute flights to Hawaii.
Click to view larger image.
Healthcare
Bing not only claims to have more relevant information on healthcare, but also says “The average search experience is littered with bad links and excess information. Bing provides a variety of tools to get healthcare information in less time.” See the query for “headache”:
Click to view larger image.
Should you Bing?
Search is evolving and engines are becoming more focused. Bing’s specialization is a continuing step in that process. Bing is now open to the public - jump on and enjoy!
