Welcome to the first installment of our new Monthly Industry Roundup Series. As we go about our work all of our planners, managers, analysts, designers and creative technologists gather facts and trends about the digital marketing industry. We decided not just to share them with each other, but with you as well! The last day of each month will feature a roundup of trends and statistics we’re seeing in the interactive landscape. We hope you find it helpful and check back August 31!
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MOBILE?
For Q2, Google reported 21% growth, attributing a large percent of this growth to mobile advertising. Read more here.
According to a recent study by the IAB, approximately 47% of tablet users engage with ads on a weekly basis. The study also showed that after ad engagement, 89% of tablet users take action.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SEARCH?
Google and Bing hit an all-time high in the search market share while Yahoo hits an all-time low. It will be interesting to see any switch ups from new Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer to combat this trend. Previously an organic model, Google Shopping is transforming to a pay per click model. Although it’s been slowly rolling out the official completion is October 1st. The Product Listing Ads (PLA) will be visible in the regular search results along with the AdWords Text Ads. We would suggest you monitor traffic from both sources closely because you may see a drop in AdWords text ads but an uptick in your PLA’s. Check out our blog post for a more in-depth look. Somewhat search related; listen to the latest Location3 rap for some clever interpretations of search.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN LOCAL?
The day after announcing Marissa Mayer as CEO, Yahoo! rolled out a new local listings management interface for its users. Although the user can add the same amount of information as before, the look of the interface has changed significantly. More notably, while adding information, a business email is now required and each listing must be verified by a code that can be sent via mail to the business in order to publish in search results. This change seems to show that Yahoo! not only wants to ensure that the right people are making legitimate changes to listings but that it’s also moving towards rebuilding its reputation with a new CEO and improving their local search. Get more details here.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN ANALYTICS?
Google releases an official Google Analytics app for Android phones, so you can now check your stats on the go!
Google publically announced the release of Google Analytics Retargeting. Read our blog to learn more about results we have seen for clients.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN DISPLAY?
Google announced in early July that it is now allowing users to “Mute Ads”. Users will begin to see an “X” appearing in the top right corner of Google display ads which will allow them to “Mute This Ad”, preventing them from seeing future ads from that specific campaign. Read more about this on Google’s blog here. In an effort to improve display advertising effectiveness and measurement, the IAB, Association of National Advertisers and American Association of Advertising Agencies are finalizing the pilot testing for the viewable impression metric. This metric “would measure only ads that are actually seen by a user”. The concept of a viewable impression has been a hot topic lately in the display industry.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN VIDEO?
According to comScore, 144.1 million viewers watched 14.6 billion videos on YouTube alone in May. Check out a post by our video guru for 5 more reasons why online video is expected to continue to grow in 2012.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SOCIAL?
Facebook Ad Updates: Mobile Placement and Mobile App Usage Targeting
Facebook has opened up mobile placement for sponsored stories to all advertisers. Mobile sponsored stories flow through newsfeeds much the same as regular newsfeed stories, however, they contain a small “Sponsored” notification. Mobile ads are outperforming desktops overall, a result we can confirm with client Facebook advertising campaigns.
Rumors are also circulating about a new targeting option based on mobile app usage. In early July, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook will be launching mobile ads that display to users based on apps they visit using Facebook Connect. Amazon.com, LinkedIn and Yelp are just a few of the apps using Facebook Connect, potentially providing a wealth of information on user behavior, interest and intent, which could then be used for delivering very specific messaging to the right users at the right time. No release date has been set at this time.
Foursquare Local & Promoted Updates
On July 18, Foursquare launched Local Updates, which allow multi-unit and franchise businesses to communicate with customers through messages that include specials, news and/or photos. These no-cost updates are managed through the merchant dashboard, and can be published to all locations, near a single location or near a group of locations. To learn more or test this new feature, speak with your Location3.
On July 25, Foursquare announced Promoted Updates, which function the same as Local Updates, but are shown to more users. Currently, Promoted Updates are in private beta, but Foursquare has confirmed that the full rollout should occur in the next couple months. If you are interested in running Promoted Updates when they open, please let your Location3 rep know.
HootSuite Google+ Page Integration
HootSuite opened up Google+ Pages to all users in mid-July, allowing for a more efficient method of managing Google+ brand pages directly from the HootSuite interface. Previously, only enterprise users were able to add Google+ Pages. Management includes posting messages, targeting circles and advanced circle management. Analytics for Google+ Pages is still only offered to enterprise users.
Twitter Ad Updates: Targeted Tweets
On July 19, Twitter launched a new targeting feature for their Promoted Tweets product, allowing advertisers to promote tweets to specific audiences without having to first send the tweet out for all followers to see. Targeting for this new feature works the same as general targeting, which includes keywords, hashtags, handles and geos, and allows us to reach a more relevant audience to increase engagement rates. Learn More.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SEO?
Google Webmaster Tools has come out with a new feature that allows us to see the most recent links found by Google. We are starting to analyze these to see how they line up with links that we have placed through our outreach efforts.
We have officially moved away from article submissions in the aftermath of Google’s Penguin Algorithm update as we believe these backlinks will be devalued.