By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch,  Mar 2, 2011

In January, Google introduced a useful addition to AdWords that potentially makes managing negative keywords across multiple campaigns a lot easier. Maybe it was because January is such a busy time of year, but it’s a feature that seems to have passed by many advertisers. Here’s a recap.

What are Negative Keyword Lists?

Simply put, a central place to store master list(s) of negative keywords and apply them to multiple campaigns. This is an improvement on the old way of doing this in AdWords, when you had to laboriously copy and paste negatives between campaigns – a process which can mean copying 1000s of words for a mature campaign that’s been built out over time.

Accessing Negative Keyword Lists

The lists are easy to access. In AdWords, simply click “Control panel and library” on the left of the screen, and select “Negative keyword lists”.

In the example above, you can see that I’ve already got a list in place of 127 keywords applied to 4 campaigns. You can create multiple lists and apply them to different combinations of campaigns. This is useful if you want to apply a master list of negatives to all campaigns, and another, separate list to only a select few – for example if your product range is limited in some regions, but not everywhere.

Creating new lists is easy – just click the “New negative keyword list button”, name the list and paste in the keywords. Of course you’ll need to spend some time consolidating existing lists across campaigns – more on that later – and then you’ll need to apply them to campaigns. That’s where I am afraid AdWords interface design provides something of an obstacle.

Applying Negative Lists to Campaigns

Using this feature, it feels like Google designed it without thinking through the workflow involved for existing campaigns – i.e. most of their customers. Once you have created lists, there’s no easy way to apply them to multiple campaigns. Instead, you have to go into every single campaign and then apply the lists(s) that are relevant to that campaign.

Here’s the process:

1. Click “All online campaigns” on the menu on the left of your screen
2. Click the campaign to apply the list to
3. Click the “Keywords” tab
4. Scroll to the bottom of this screen
5. Click “Negative Keywords”
6. On the right of the inflated lists that appear, click “Keyword Lists”
7. Click “Add”
8. Click “Add” next to the negative keyword list you want to apply
9. Repeat across multiple lists
10. Click “Save”

Unfortunately, you need to repeat these steps for every campaign – there’s no way at the time of writing to select multiple campaigns and apply the same list(s) to them all at once – which would have been a real time saver. There’s no way to apply them to multiple accounts within the same MCC, either, something that would help with enterprise level accounts like national retailers.

Negative Keyword List Deployment Steps

Interface gripes aside, negative keyword lists are a worthwhile addition to any AdWords campaign. Here’s some steps to follow to get the most out of them:

1)     Download your account via AdWords Editor;

2)     Sort the columns in Excel and delete all of the rows and columns with anything other that negative keywords and the keyword type in them;

3)     Use these to plan the lists you need – I’d suggest a “Whole Account” list of terms you’d never, ever want your ads to appear for, and then any more specific lists you need around those you have in AdGroups or only in some campaigns in the download;

4)     Re-arrange the negatives in the download to populate these lists and save them;

5)     Add any additional terms that spring to mind, or you can find via SQRs or keyword tools;

6)     Save the master list(s) and then start adding them via the procedure above;

7)     Update your campaign build out process to include applying these lists to any new campaigns in future.

Negative keyword lists will no doubt become a standard of AdWords campaign management – hopefully Google will improve the interface over time and add support via AdWords Editor and the API, too.

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch,  Mar 2, 2011

Many agencies, publishers, and advertisers across Europe have been sent documents by the European Commission (EC) recently, requesting detailed information about the online advertising marketplace — and about search marketing and AdWords in particular.

This is part of an investigation into Google and antitrust. While a response isn’t mandatory, questioning from industry bodies has elicited a response that suggests the commission can, if it wants to, make it compulsory.

I’ve been critical of Google’s market dominance in the past and still firmly believe strong competition in every area of their business is good for the industry and for consumers. But while reading and answering the overlapping questions in the two documents my agency has received, I feel a growing unease that the bureaucrats who will ultimately pass judgment on Google may do more damage than good.

The questions in the documents fall into several broad categories:

• Define the digital services you provide and therefore the marketplace.
• The extent to which campaigns need to differ per country and to what extent that poses barriers.
• Scenarios around when ad spend would be switch away from horizontal PPC ads (i.e. AdWords) to other platforms or ad types.
• A surprising number of questions around how easy it is to port data between AdWords and other platforms, how easy Google make this and if it could be done “by a programmatic tool.”
• Questions about the AdWords API, legal agreements with Google and anyway Google tries to restrict the use of other platforms.
  It’s the questions about porting campaigns and the API that worry me. This isn’t one question but a series, probing for details of current processes, in-house and external tools, and the time and money involved — all asking if Google makes this difficult.

We all know that a copy and paste of a campaign from Google into adCenter or any other ad platform won’t bring the best results — the systems have different campaign options, treat search strings and match types differently, have different consumer user bases, etc.

I wouldn’t want to use a “programmatic tool” to dump campaigns into other system from AdWords.

Do I want to download them, open them, edit them to fit each platform and then quickly upload them? Yes. We all know how to use the various search engine editors and Excel today.

This feels like a line of inquiry a competing ad platform would push hardest — we all know there’s been lobbying. I’m not accusing any one company and I trust the EC has processes in place to prevent bias. I’m just wondering aloud if this is the most useful direction for the commission to proceed in.

What worries me is this is exactly the sort of narrow-minded approach to the market that could lead to a ruling that’s bad for PPC — at an extreme, ordering Google to add a “port” button to copy campaigns to adCenter or other systems — with no reference to the poor performance that may follow. Knowing how to get the best out of different ad platforms is a skill in itself.

Hopefully the detailed answers being written by search experts will steer the commission toward more genuine areas of concern, such as Google’s practice of contacting big advertisers directly without telling their agencies (I saw an example of this the other day, unsolicited by the client) or locking-off top AdWords slots for its own products — and that’s before we talk about DoubleClick or their market share as a whole.

Martin Sorrell never said a truer word when he described Google as a “frenemy.”

This topic will be a slow burning one in Europe — and in all likelihood, by the time the bureaucratic wheels have finished turning, the marketplace will have changed again, anyway.

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch,  Feb 2, 2011

Following its successful rollout in North America, Microsoft and Yahoo are focusing on rolling out the Search Alliance in Europe, starting with natural search results on Yahoo UK.

This move is largely welcome. With a UK market share of less than 10 percent for Yahoo and MSN, it makes more sense to manage campaigns on one interface. Right now, Yahoo staff are being trained on adCenter in preparation for moving their clients’ campaigns over.

Filling in my agency’s response to the European investigation into Google, I had to list a number of features of the AdWords platform. We all know the depth and breadth of development of AdWords outpaced Yahoo (and Overture) and comparative newcomer Microsoft a long time ago.

But where are the beta trials from Redmond? Where are the new initiatives, the new ideas from engineers that will differentiate the adCenter platform from AdWords, raise the revenue per search Microsoft receives, and grow loyalty with advertisers?

Try as I might, I can’t remember the last “big” change or enhancement on adCenter since Microsoft launched a desktop tool similar to AdWords Editor.

Parallel Races

It’s easy to sit outside a company and poke holes at their strategy. Microsoft has lots of intelligent, hard-working people who are pushing their search efforts forward — sometimes despite other people internally, I suspect.

They’ve built a search engine, created a PPC platform, and started to take the fight to Google (but let’s be honest, Yahoo’s been the main loser and Ask was already fading away).

As Bing introduced new features and received attention, Google seemed to wake out of a slumber and started rolling out new features in search results, continued its relentless development of AdWords and, with increasing speed, the development of its display business through DoubleClick.

So the foundations are firmly in place from Microsoft. They’re gaining traffic from their Yahoo deal and their own activities. Bing keeps adding new features.

But where’s the innovation in adCenter? I’m not talking blog posts, research reports, or tools around-the-edge (which they are often good at); I’m talking hardcore, at-the-center innovation that every advertiser, big or small, will be able to use. Things like Google’s sitelinks — self-service, enhancing search results and, crucially from a revenue per search basis, raising CTRs (and often ROI for advertisers — leading to increased budgets).

Several races are happening in parallel here. Market share is one, but there are others (e.g., innovation in PPC, further exploiting the connection between display and search).

Microsoft and Yahoo have strong experience in display and have done some work in this area — but Google is catching up, fast. They may not have the premium level display inventory Yahoo and Microsoft have access to, but with remarketing in AdWords Google has made the sort of retargeting once considered the preserve of the most well-funded advertisers available to all.

Search marketers are adopting this tactic in droves — but only on Google’s platform or through third parties — not adCenter.

What Could Microsoft Do?

So, if I think Microsoft should be innovating more in PPC, what would I suggest? The obvious example, sitelinks, bears some thinking about.

Sitelinks undoubtedly offer convenient ways for site owners to channel consumers into the right section of a site following a one-word brand search or ambiguous generic. The format and mechanics could be different — sitelinks can be improved in terms of reporting data and control over which links are shown.

Is this copying an idea and developing it further? Yes. After all, Google wasn’t the first PPC engine — they took the idea and added engineering rocket fuel.

Several other areas spring to mind — things Google is already doing, but not always that well: local information in PPC ads, incorporating feeds to enhance PPC ads (more control of which products display for which searches would be a start), and the ability to buy non-premium display inventory via adCenter for retargeting.

There are probably much better ideas out there, not to mention the ones bubbling away in the heads of engineers at Microsoft.

Do I feel Microsoft is distracted by the challenge of onboarding an increased volume of traffic, new advertisers, and training Yahoo!’s staff? Yes.

Do I hope we’ll see a burst of innovation on adCenter afterward? Yes.

But underlying concern is it’ll be too late — Google will have moved ahead in all these races, and there will be new ones opening up that adCenter won’t be equipped to enter. That will be bad for all of us in search — especially those of us in a market where Google already dominates 90 percent of searches.

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch,  Nov 19, 2010

The search industry never stops. From AltaVista to Google, and GoToast to Search Ignite, the fortunes of companies and technologies evolve over time.

I was reminded of this recently when training new hires. They’d never head of names like AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, etc. — companies that defined the search space less than 10 years ago.

So, how do you keep up to date?

Ignore the Noise

It’s important to recognize that there are many, many blogs and articles published about search every day — and many more “experts” on forums and Twitter and in Facebook and LinkedIn groups.

You can ignore most of them. The ability of the search industry to report on, discuss, analyze, argue about, and regurgitate a fact until it has been distorted out of all proportion and attained myth-like status is legendary. There’s a lot of noise — so you need to spend your limited time on sites that are credible and, most importantly, correct.

It’s also important to note that the search engines are no longer search companies — they offer much broader product lines; so you will need to keep up to date on developments in all their products, too, as search is often integrated into them (and paid search revenues pay for them).

Select an RSS Reader

I can’t think of an industry news site that doesn’t have an RSS feed — so choosing a good reader is crucial. There are many available. I use Google Reader to collate and organize feeds by topic in folders as it’s tied to my Google login and easy to use on any computer, iPad, or mobile.

I often use Feedly linked to Google Reader as it offers a slicker interface that feels closer to a magazine. Another bonus of Google Reader is that you can add any URL to it — not just RSS feeds — and Reader will monitor the page for changes and present them as if a feed has updated.

Many sites offer several feeds — follow those most relevant to your area of work and interests; it’s easy to overload yourself with feeds and find you have more than 100 articles to wade through every morning. Pretty soon you’ll find you’re too busy to bother, and end up reading nothing.

Keep an Eye on the Mainstream Press

Sometimes announcements by the search engines receive mainstream coverage — or a story breaks about a negative issue, like the recent Google Street View privacy coverage. Add the technology sections of mainstream sites like the New York Times, USA Today, BBC News, etc., to your reader to ensure you know the stories your clients (and their bosses) are reading over their breakfast.

Digital Overall

To keep any eye on the wider industry I follow a few key sites — Mashable, The Next Web, Robert Scoble, John Battelle’s Search Blog, and Econsultancy, to name a few.

The Search Stalwarts

There are a few search-focused sites that are must-reads. Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land are the two heavyweights; I receive their newsletters every morning as well as follow their feeds; they provide a summary of the most important search news and topics. Search Engine Roundtable is also important and often have details of new Google tests or rumors with some basis to them as reported on other sites or forums.

There are of course many other digital industry and search sites — the above sites link to good sources as they cover stories, helping you find other sources.

Don’t Forget To Cull

One last piece of advice: don’t forget to delete feeds. Over time, sites change editor, or their focus shifts or their writing declines in quality. So when a site seems to publish nothing of interest, delete it — your time is precious.

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch,  Oct 22, 2010

Recently I posted some tips for paid search newbies. This time, I’m focusing on five ways the stakeholders employing PPC experts can help (or hinder) their efforts.

Communicate!

I still hear of situations where agencies or in-house teams are told days (or even hours) beforehand of a site change — whether it’s a page moving, new product launch or worse, lots of changes. Sometimes they find out only when performance drops.

This never ceases to surprise — search has been around long enough for many marketers to know that on-site changes have an impact on campaigns and sales figures often suffer as a result.

Let everybody know about a likely change, even if it’s not signed off, so they can plan resources, assess any impact on performance, and provide feedback that might improve performance even further (especially in terms of SEO and AdWords quality score optimization). A “mundane” change might be the opportunity to use technical resource already secured to make additional changes that will have a positive impact.

Go Beyond The Click

Many brands give their experts the scope to significantly boost their traffic and achieve their KPIs — but don’t involve them formally in what happens post-click.

Optimizing landing pages can significantly improve quality score and aid SEO — that’s a given. Perhaps more significantly for the bottom line and senior management, combining this with optimizing all the steps to sale can create a further step-change across all traffic sources, not just search.

Recently, I helped a client’s internal team go from a 2 percent to 9 percent conversion rate in one redesign, which helped them exceed targets and invest more budget.

Optimizing pages and the path to conversion, as well as campaigns, creates a positive feedback loop; as every dollar spent on traffic works harder because the site works harder, so keywords or placements that were previously ruled out on a performance basis can come back into reach — exposing the brand to more consumers and potentially increasing market share.

Google knows this — hence Google Optimizer being provided for free.

Automate

PPC can become extremely time consuming — especially if inventory changes on the website a lot, whether in terms of stock levels or prices.

Feeds are a perfect way to automate much of the change required, and some paid search tools can work with them to automate this work. Yet many brands don’t have adequate feeds in terms of content, quality, or frequency of update.

Educate Upwards

A scenario I’ve encountered many times:

1.Campaign starts.
2.Initial data is used to optimize, changing average positions.
3.Client’s boss phones up and angrily asks “Why aren’t we number one for keyword X?”
4.Agency receives a worried or irate phone call or e-mail.
5.Agency diverts time to answering this with a presentation for the boss, meaning they have less time to make the client money by further optimizing campaigns.
This doesn’t need to happen. Much of this time can be saved by educating upwards.

Explain to senior stakeholder that positions are based on achieving targets, not ego building. This is a fundamental step in managing expectations — and yet so often, doesn’t happen and PPC experts find themselves under largely unnecessary pressure born of misunderstanding.

Challenge

After the initial launch period, it’s easy for campaign reporting and meetings to become repetitive and even stale. Challenge the teams — asking what they would do in perfect world of unlimited budget and resource (within reason!) can kick start interesting conversations and ideas — especially if you throw the doors open to other digital channels, the website itself, and business processes.

A client recently started a meeting with several agencies by saying “There are no sacred cows — everything is up for discussion and change today.” I wholeheartedly agree.

I doubt there’s a single PPC team that doesn’t have a mental wish list of three or four things they would fix if they were in control — tap into that. Your sales figures may well thank you.

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch, July 30, 2010

The Yahoo-Bing search alliance is gathering momentum. Watching this coverage from the U.K., where Google has close to 90 percent market share, I can’t help asking: will the deal succeed for both parties — and what does success look like?

Focusing on the Numbers

For Yahoo, the obvious win is cost saving — no longer employing staff or maintaining systems to process billions of searches a year and monetize them. We’ve already seen several waves of layoffs from Yahoo, including search staff.

For Bing, revenue is the win. More searches to monetize means more paid search revenue (although Yahoo will receive payments from Microsoft). Alongside this, they will no doubt hope to attract new advertisers from Yahoo’s bank of accounts, raising competition between advertisers, and therefore bid prices — further adding to their bottom line.

This is the virtuous circle any paid search division wants to fuel — more advertisers, increased keyword coverage resulting in an increased average number of advertisers per keyword, increased bid completion, and a higher average revenue per click.

This is the circle that both Overture and Espotting worked hard to fuel at the start of last decade when paid search was in its pre-AdWords infancy. Working at Espotting, I experienced how keyword coverage and bid competition were major concerns — and when the company lost Yahoo Europe as a distribution partner, I saw the circle slowing, coverage shrinking, and CPCs falling. Bids that once reached a high point of £15 (“serviced offices”) fell beyond the £3 mark as volume, quality and CPCs fell.

Which brings us to the risks…

The Risks for Yahoo

The risks for Yahoo are around revenue, market share, and brand differentiation. If the average revenue per click Yahoo receives under the deal is significantly lower than from Panama, they will suffer financially. However, the operating expenses they save may outweigh this loss. Overall, they will be in a better position.

Aside from CPCs, the long-term risk for Yahoo stretches beyond search into their wider business.

Yahoo has stated they intend to continue differentiating themselves via their search interface. Fine in theory, but there’s real risk here.

Doing this without a large search team of the ability to reach inside the machine is difficult. If consumers learn over time that Yahoo is effectively Bing, and decide there’s no reason for them to stick with Yahoo, will they go directly to Bing?

Inertia often rules our behavior as consumers, but with Bing running advertising campaigns and offering cash-back schemes to attract consumers, the lack of a unique search experience on Yahoo may be enough to push some consumers to go straight to source and get cash back on their purchases into the bargain. The word “frenemy” springs to mind.

Any lack of search market share could impact their wider business. Content is undoubtedly part of Yahoo’s core strategy — even more some with their acquisition of Associated Content — and one of the main ways visitors get to this content is via search.

So any decline in the flow of traffic from Yahoo search into their own properties will hurt their revenues from display advertising — and undermine the data gathering that is at the core of the behavioral advertising, ad exchanges, and other initiatives that in turn are crucial to Yahoo’s non-search advertising revenues.

Yahoo search traffic isn’t their only source of traffic and data. They receive traffic from the other engines and other areas of their properties, and they gather data from display ads across many other sites as part of their wider network (just like Microsoft does across its network).

Yahoo will have to innovate to ensure they can offer search retargeting for their display clients. Right now, Microsoft and especially Google are innovating in this area.

So for Yahoo, the risk is a decline of overall market share — and revenues beyond search alone.

The Risks for Bing

The obvious risk: the numbers don’t add up, and the revenues from the Yahoo deal are less than the costs of the partnership to Bing, even if they have increased their market share. This could vary significantly by country; in some, Bing-powered Yahoo may prove profitable; in others, average CPCs may make the deal less attractive versus costs.

The other risk is less obvious and more damaging for Bing’s ambitions. What if Yahoo’s users don’t like Bing search results?

If Yahoo’s audience perceives a decline in the quality of results, they may shift to Google — hurting both Yahoo and Bing in the process. However, Microsoft is investing a lot of money, time, and — crucially — talent into their search division, so this seems, on the surface, unlikely.

So, Will it Succeed?

I believe it will be a success — in terms of revenue, and in terms of market share (Google won’t be seriously challenged anytime soon, though).

The real story will be what Yahoo does next, and how the frenemy relationship works out while they compete in the display and mobile spaces — and Google builds their display armory around AdWords and DoubleClick.

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch, July 2, 2010

The iPad. Surrounded by hype, adored by some, denigrated by others.

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad is a category igniter — it won’t end up being the dominant product in its category in terms of sales volumes, but as the poster boy of tablet computing it has drawn attention and media coverage, which has promoted the device category to the public.

However, it’s first to market — and as an iPad user myself, I’m beginning to glimpse how the device will have an impact on search and digital strategies going forward. Here are my thoughts so far.

Search Engines and Tablet Devices

Obviously search engine interfaces need to be tailored to the device. The iPad doesn’t support Flash, so any video content embedded into search results will need to be available as HTML 5 video — and for any other formats that different tablet don’t support. This is important as Bing in particular looks to integrated media content directly into the page as part of it’s entertainment channel.

Google has already launched an iPad app — similar to their mobile one — which incorporates search, e-mail, and other popular Google products, as well as a built-in browser. The iPad can only run one app at a time, so this makes it easier to switch between Google products and the web. However, most consumers won’t want to install an app, so ensuring search websites work with the operating systems and browsers of different tablets is key.

There’s an opportunity here to innovate. Google already offers voice-based searching on the iPad and Android phones; so far I’ve found the accuracy variable but no doubt that will improve over time. This innovation can go further: touch screens actively encourage the use of the fingers — so there’s an opportunity to enable uses to interact with search results in this way, for example, expanding plus boxes by swiping down or drawing circles on maps to find local businesses with that radius.

So experts are predicting the days of keyboards and mice are numbered — but I think they will be around for a long time to come. Just as we’ve accepted touch screens on phones alongside keypads, so will touch screen computing be a mainstream experience alongside the keyboard and mouse. However, this could lead to an increase in typos and misspelled search queries; we’ve all got fat-finger syndrome at times!

Geo-targeting

Tablet computers are ideal for using search on the move via a phone or wireless connection. So detecting the user’s location and personalizing search results accordingly is another important aspect of the tablet computing search experience, just like it’s increasingly becoming on “normal” computers.

This doesn’t just extend to search results, though — brands need to embrace geo-targeting, too, driving consumers to landing pages that are tailored to their location — whether that is with store information, products shipped to that area, or other customization. This is getting easier for brands to execute — alongside IP lookups, there’s a W3C initiative that HTML5 supports to develop a standard way for browsers to determine the user’s location after they opt-in to providing that data — so there soon won’t be any excuses. Firefox users can try it here; Chrome and Safari support it already, too.

Landing Pages

As well as localizing page content, brands will need to look at how well their pages work on the browsers and operating systems on tablet computers — some sites simply don’t work well, or at all.

Take Google Reader for example — it relies on a lot on scrolling up and down lists of feeds and within articles; but the scroll bars simply don’t always work when using the touch screen of the iPad, resulting in the user grabbing the whole browser window by mistake. This is a Google issue not an Apple one; other sites with some (but less) scroll bars are fine. Google have assumed that everybody has a mouse; a contrast to using Gmail on iPad, which has a well-designed interface suited to touch screens.

I’ve also noticed a few brands customizing the iPad keyboard in their apps, for example moving the @ key onto the first keyboard layer if the app requires it a lot. Little touches like this make apps and websites a joy to use — as opposed to a nuisance.

Time to Plan

Table computing is, of course, in its infancy and I’m not advocating widespread website redesigns for this device category over night. Brands that offer products particularly suited to the leisure-time orientated nature of the iPad should consider developing apps; most brands should concentrate on fixing any glaring bugs with their website on tablet computers while monitoring their analytics and market research reports for the growth of tablet computing. Now’s the time to plan for the future and ensure you have the CMS infrastructure and analytics capabilities to set up device-specific paid search campaigns and landing page in future.

Brands will need to learn how to offer a rich experience on tablet devices — or risk providing consumers with a poor experience they’ll associate with the brand across all devices.

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch, June 4, 2010

In part one, we talked about factors that should drive the adoption of retargeting (also referred to by Google as “remarketing”). Now we’ll examine the limitations of Google’s offering, other tools, and some thoughts on how marketers can embrace retargeting.

Digital Getting Wiser

The growing maturity of the digital industry, and the level of knowledge within agencies and marketing departments, is an important factor here, too.

Most marketing departments have an awareness, if not in-depth knowledge, of search and display. Increasingly, campaigns are analyzed across channels as tools like MediaPlex, tag carriers, and a number of independents provide the ability to analyze the consumers full journey path during a cookie period — from first impression, to first search, to last search, and the traditional last click.

Once marketers know consumers visiting Site A are likely to search and buy their products and have planned their display and search campaigns to leverage this trend, the next obvious step is to look at where drop-offs are occurring — which consumers are searching, but then not buying — and what sites can they be reached on with retargeting?

Third-Party Tools

Google’s offering enables this sort of tactic, but only for sites with AdSense ad units on them. Using a third-party tool like MediaPlex or DoubleClick Boomerang as well, brands can run this sort of activity web-wide. Not just retargeting to “lost” prospects who didn’t convert, but targeting existing customers with cross sells.

Once you’ve dropped a cookie that tells you things about the visitor/customer, your only constraints are your budget and ideas. No doubt, other tools providers are scrambling to introduce this functionality if they don’t already have it.

Display’s New Best Friend?

Google’s announcement also included one other piece of important information: it’s not just for search. Once you’ve added a piece of code to pages on your website, you can retarget consumers who visit the site through any source:

• Sending a customer CRM e-mail out? Retarget customers who click but don’t buy with a display ad.
• Have a members-only area? Retarget recent log-ins with a new product.
• Receiving a lot of direct traffic as a result of a new TV campaign? Don’t let your competitors suck up sales from the interest you’ve generated — run a display campaign featuring the TV ad tailored to people who have visited the site but dropped out mid-shopping cart, with your order line phone number in the advertisement.

All of these options could make retargeting display advertising’s new best friend, a shot in the arm that could cause brands to fundamentally re-examine the interaction of search and display, and to remember a basic fact when planning: consumers don’t operate in silos, and neither should we as marketers.

It’s finally official. Google will, with hardware partners, offer a TV solution that combines web access, streaming video and broadcast TV – including side-by-side browsing and viewing. Not their first foray into TV, but the first one that’s consumer focused.

Now it’s only available in the US this Autumn, so the impact of this for UK advertisers is over the horizon, but here’s my first thoughts.

Will the public use it?

As a digital and technology enthusiast one of my first reactions was “at last”. Let’s contrast that with my fiancée. She works in digital too – but isn’t interested in gadgets. Her reaction was to wonder if the public actually want another set top box in their living rooms?
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It’s a very good question and reflects the nature of most TV viewing: passive, relaxed. Whilst iPlayer and other TVoD offerings allow us to time shift, after selecting a show we watch passively. And a lot of the population don’t use these services (but they are growing). So will consumers want to access the web or search for videos on their TVs – don’t we already pick up a laptop or mobile in front of the TV for this, but most of the time, just want to relax?

But…I can see how the public can be convinced. Google can promote YouTube content – not just short videos but full shows and channels (e.g. It’s Channel 4 http://www.youtube.com/user/channel4 or IPL deals http://www.youtube.com/user/channel4) and win more exclusives to make the platform attractive.

Plus it’ll be built into new TVs; a premium option to start perhaps, but Google must know that some times a standard is best created by ensuring with no barrier to entry on the cost front – think Video Plus in the UK some years ago.

Accountability in TV?

TV advertising has long been criticised by people in digital for is lack of detailed accountability. Yes, there are industry standards like BARB that sample the viewing habits of a percentage of the population and then extrapolate them of the whole country. But they are being outpaced by the spread of TV content to multiple TVs, laptops, phones, iPads, consoles and the consumption of multiple media whilst the TV (or radio) is on.

So Google could tell which ads are watched when, and with enough market penetration, provide advertisers with almost-real time stats on the volumes of sets tuned in when ads show. But it won’t know how many people were watching that screen, or if they were distracted by other media on a device or in print etc.

Or if the TV was playing to an empty room.

Replacing BARB – “Google Viewer Research”?

Of course, one day they could aim to replace the set top boxes BARB have in 5,100 UK households with a survey platform on their own system that doesn’t just record viewing patterns, but asks participants questions about shows, adverts and what else they are doing whilst the TV is on…there’s a revenue stream all in itself, overlapping with the likes of TNS and other media research companies. Advertisers could pay to run surveys on this platform, just as they do now to track online brand campaigns with the likes of Dynamic Logic.

New Opportunities for Advertisers

So, what does this mean to advertisers and agencies?

Many offline campaigns now encourage the viewer/reader to search for a phrase instead of mentioning a URL. Taken a step further when the browser can be easily called up beside the picture, consumers can be directed to content specially designed for them that integrates with the advert – instead of “finding out more at a website” they could be directed to use their Google TV browser to talk to a customer service rep via IM, receive an instant discount, or watch a product video. When the hassle of finding the laptop, remembering a URL doing a search is removed, “frictionless” advertising and fulfilment could be step closer.

Think Sky’s Red Button, but on steroids – and potentially any TV advertiser could take part, not just those with large budgets to develop a Red Button solution.

Interactive shows could become common, too – Living TV already feature comments made by viewers on their website during ad breaks when screening “4 Weddings” (ok, so that’s my fiancée’s viewing choice, not mine!). One-way broadcast TV could become more interactive– but again, it depends if the viewing public want to take part; just as a section of the UK population aren’t using social media sites (no matter what the pundits tell you), so consumers take up off the boxes, let alone interactive participation, is not guaranteed.

Agency and Brand Skill Sets

So who is going to be best placed to run ads on Google TV. TV people? Digital people?

Neither – and both. The skill sets used to create and place TV adverts are still vital for Google TV – the TV ads will, or the foreseeable future, be from conventional sources. That revenue keeps the channels on air.

The skills of search and digital display planning and buying will be as important as ever for the digital element. Integration will be even more important. I think the smartest agencies will hire TV and digital talent and integrate them if this platform becomes mainstream; the trend is already there with the growth of online video; some clients place it with their TV teams, others digital teams.

These are my initial thoughts, and I want underline that take-up by the public amongst the clutter of laptops, sound systems, games consoles, DVD and blueray players (and dusty VCRs) is key – this could be the next big think for Google, or a flop that fades away.

But…I’m keeping a shelf free in my lounge, just in case.

Duncan Parry, Co-founder and Head of Paid Search

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch, May 7, 2010

Alongside all of the coverage of the iPad, Apple and Google’s growing war, and iPhones being left on bar stools, Google’s launch in March of a retargeting capability from search into the content network felt comparatively ignored.This is one of the important trends for search and display marketers of 2010. Many may not be using retargeting now (sorry, remarketing as Google calls it), but we’ll look back on 2010 as the year this became a mainstream tactic. This should be the year most paid search and ad serving tool providers rushed to support retargeting, if they didn’t offer it already.

Why? Three reasons: the recession, Google and the growing maturity of digital.

Tear Down the Digital Wall!

We all know display budgets have suffered from recessionary pressure over the last few years as brands cut budgets, looked for efficiencies, and in many cases stopped any activity that didn’t generate a return in terms of direct acquisition.

Retargeting helps close the loop between search and display and knocks down some of the walls that have developed in the industry. Consumers don’t perceive display and search silos – they go about their business on the Web, reading content, using Facebook, seeing ads, and then search when they’re ready to start their journey to a purchase. They don’t care about how we structure agency teams or brands allocate their budgets across channels or attribute sales.

Retargeting allows display and search budgets to work in a more complementary manner; not passively when post-campaign analysis is carried out and trends are spotted, but actively, with conscious decisions taken to retarget consumers based on search clicks during their research phase.

A Boost for the Google Content Network – and Paid Search Generics

Google entering this space is an obvious move for the company. Their revenues from the content network will increase if this works, and many advertisers have, despite Google’s insistence to the opposite, found that the content network just doesn’t work for them.

This could bring them back into the content fold. Once Google backs a marketing technique, agencies and many brands start questioning if it’s something they should make a pillar of their strategy (to the frustration and relief of display and search people who have been shouting into the dark that this was the way to integrate disciplines for years).

Potentially, retargeting will also further underline the need to invest in generics term in paid search or as part of a natural search strategy. While often expensive and competitive, these terms many receive a boost as brands deliberately re-engage consumers “lost” after visiting a site via a generic term.

If a retargeted ad causes them to revisit the site and buy, when previously they may have not done so, future investment in a generic term can been justified and the cash involved made to work harder. This approach drives increased volumes and becomes a positive feedback loop feeding into the bottom line if managed efficiently.

Next time, we’ll look at how digital is getting wiser, some third-party tools, and display’s new best friend.