June 2010

Apple vs. Google: It’s really starting to look like a clash of titans. The two companies have dueled in numerous marketplaces – smartphones, operating systems, and the like – but their most recent battlefield is a market upon which Google built its massive success. It’s also a market from which Apple hopes to draw 10% of its revenues by 2012. This market is none other than advertising.

The world of internet advertising has been conventionally dominated by Google. As times changed and people began using internet from their phones, Google adapted its ads to show up on mobile devices. However, AdWords ads remain at the mercy of Apple when it comes to iPhone users, as they could lock them out of the system at any time.

Apple, for the time being, isn’t going after Google directly. The company is targeting users in another mobile device activity that is swelling in popularity – mobile applications. Mobile device applications, known as ‘apps’, are becoming as popular and well-used as the internet on smartphones, and Apple is well-aware of this.

Thus was born iAds, the platform for advertising on apps. So far, it’s been a hit with advertisers: in its first 8 weeks of release, Apple has over $60 million of committments to advertise on iAds in 2010 – much of it from large companies such as Unilever and Citigroup. Analysts feel that this strong showing so early in the development of iAds is promising, even a long-term threat to Google. However, this is not to say that Google should be worried too much – $60 million is nothing compared to the billions of dollars of annual revenue Google generates from AdWords.

While it is too early to tell just how great of a success iAds will be, things are already look up for the newest addition to Apple’s product offering. It is also too early to say whether or not Google and Apple will end up fighting for control of the market, as there is still plenty of opportunity in the market itself, and many niches and media for each company to develop.

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I came across the following domain name in an Adwords Display Network report (aka: content network): adsenseformobileapps.com.

According to Google, if your content network campaign is opted in to show ads on mobile devices, this is the domain name that shows up for those visitors who see and click on your ad via a mobile app.

For one of our client’s campaigns a lot of clicks were being generated without any conversions, so I added this to the excluded placements list to stop any more wasted clicks.

If you pull reports regularly, you can catch this kind of thing.

Take a look at your own content network reports (e.g check your automatic placements) regularly to see if domains like adsenseformobileapps.com are generating clicks and therefore costs, without conversions. If so, get rid of them!

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Google has re-branded the Google Content Network and launched a new site to promote the Google Display Network.

If you’re new to the Google Display Network, in a nutshell it is the network of websites owned by Google and sites owned by third party publishers that show Google text and banner ads to their visitors.

Before the re-brand, Google had been placing more emphasis on the Content Network with the launch of multiple new features like ad re-targeting or re-marketing as Google calls it, and a push to get advertisers to try banner ads using its display ad builder.

When you do a search in Google, you’re seeing ads on the search network. When you see an ad on your favorite website and you see the “Ads by Google” image at the bottom of the ad, the website you are viewing is part of the Display Network (Formerly the Google Content Network. The launch of the Display Network website and renaming the content network is really just a PR play to make something that already existed look new again: a classic marketing tactic.)

Here’s a quote from Google that summarizes where you can show your ads using the Display Network:

The Google Display Network will comprise all of the sites (apart from search sites), where you can buy ads through Google, including YouTube, Google properties such as Google Finance, Gmail, Google Maps, Blogger as well as over one million Web, video, gaming, and mobile display partners (our display partners include all of our AdSense and DoubleClick Ad Exchange partner sites that allow text and/or display ads). The Google Display Network offers all ad formats –  text, image, rich media, and video ads – enabling you to unleash your creativity and engage potential customers across the Web.

A few of the benefits of the Display Network include:

• Clicks and Conversions can be much cheaper than the Google search network
• You can target the websites you want your ads to show on
• You can use re-targeting to show your ads to people who have visited your site in the past
• You can often generate far more traffic than is possible on the search network, even for niche terms
• You don’t need to use keywords to show your ads if you choose
• You can show image ads, text, ads, video ads, interactive flash ads, and mobile ads

Our clients have known about the content network for quite some time and some have been taking advantage of the power of image ads for a while now to drive traffic and conversions at a lower cost than traditional search traffic.

If you’d like to learn more or want to test driving and conversions using the Display Network, get in touch or give me a call 778.899.4523.

PS: I almost forgot. Google released a study on

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The phenomenon known as ‘group buying’ is not all that new, but is quickly gaining popularity – not only among deal-hungry consumers, but among businesses looking for a lot of instantaneous exposure.
For those of you who haven’t heard, group buying is a deal between companies and a group of consumers.  The company cuts the consumers a really good deal, in exchange for:

• the sheer volume of business from the group of consumers

• the exposure, both through the consumers themselves and the word-of-mouth buzz if the experience was good

The method for setting up such a deal is through a broker of the service itself.  These companies operate by signing companies up to offer a deal to their subscribers, and then taking a cut of the deal to make a profit.  Enter the core of the group buying phenomenon: the group buying website.

Group buying websites (such as Groupon, featured in my post earlier this week) were started in big, social media savvy cities with a city-wide scope.  Since then, they have spread to nearly every urban centre in North America and Europe.  Not only that, the trend shows no sign of slowing down or becoming yesterday’s fad.  In fact, the coupon conoisseur has a range of options, with many cities represented by multiple deal-brokering group buying websites.

Here are a few players in what has become a very saturated market.  Deal lovers should have more than their fill of discounts after signing up for a few of these services:

• Groupon
• Citydeal (operated in Europe; subsequently bought out by Groupon)
• Shnoop
• Grooster
• CheapToday
• LivingSocial
• Tippr
• OfferMint
• DealOn
• Offermatic
• 8Coupons
• StealTheDeal
  

The group buying concept has proven to be so popular with consumers that there is even a website where you can sell your unused coupons – CoupRecoup.com claims to be the Craigslist of Groupons, so consumers can buy coupons that are sold out, or that they didn’t  purchase before the deadline.

Group buying sites are here to stay – particularly with the young, newly-affluent professional urban crowd.  Part of the success of the concept is the willingness of businesses to offer deals in exchange for large-scale exposure.  Knowing that the population segments they are going to reach are actively looking for interesting venues, these businesses offer great deals that they hope will generate regular customers, as well as a lot of word-of-mouth advertising.  Young urbanites in turn love the selection of hip, new places to choose from, and purchase coupons.  As more and more of this demographic continues to sign up, the draw for young or little-known businesses becomes even greater, and selling a coupon becomes a more integral part of their advertising strategy – and so on, and so forth.

In short, if you’re a city-dweller looking for fun – look no further than group-bought coupons; if you’re a small business owner looking for cheap exposure, group coupons should be part of your marketing strategy.

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