Microsoft opens up the search market?

Jonathan Bowers, February 6th 2008, 3:56PM

It has been almost a week since Microsoft put a deal on the table for Yahoo! to consider. While we don't seem to be hearing much yet from Jerry Yang and his board of directors the rest of the industry has plenty to say - especially Google.

Google is vocal but not quite uniform in its response. One minute, MD for UK Sales Mark Howe is welcoming the competition and the next, senior vice president David Drummond is appealing to competition commissions that a merger will give rise to unfair dominance.

Naturally, the online marketing community is welcoming a long overdue challenge to Google's advertising strength but there's more to this bid underlying Google's concern than many realise. Focus has been placed on the online applications side of a deal but Microsoft has for a while now been developing its demographic ad/search capabilities and has only one rival in this area - Yahoo!.

It is difficult to get hold of accurate figures, but Wikipedia cites Windows Live Hotmail as having 260million accounts in existence which means a hugely valuable database of user information activated when users browse after login. In recent statistics, comScore places Yahoo as the web mail leader with 255m accounts so while something is a little awry it is clear is that Microsoft - with the addition of Yahoo's user data would indeed be a very formidable force in the digital advertising market.

With Google's sign up email (gmail) tiny in comparison, the ability to target ads to the right demographic is one of Google's weaknesses within the market. And with the search leader's DoubleClick acquisition moving forward Microsoft needs to do something to avoid being left behind entirely. The Yahoo! bid brings it back in the eyes of all involved as a force to be reckoned with.

I for one am very excited about how this will develop over the coming weeks and months.

Tags: advertising, google, microsoft, search, yahoo!
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Web content that improves your return on investment

Jonathan Bowers, January 31st 2008, 12:09PM

In relation to other advertising mediums, the internet is just emerging from infancy. It's no surprise then that many people are still not getting sponsored links right and essentially throwing money away by delivering poor relevance.

Search engines reward on relevance for a very good reason - it's what the user wants. So if you place an ad online and it doesn't lead to a page that delivers on the promise of that ad - you are punished two fold. Users will not stay on your site and Google will in turn hold back from rewarding you.

How can Google promote a website that the user doesn't want to see?

There are some very simple rules you can follow in preparing the landing pages for your online advertising that will help to keep the visitors from reverting back to the search results never to return again.

First off, you should make sure your 'Creative' which is the descriptive text within the advert is an exact distillation of the page they will click through to. Then ensure that this page is the most relevant page on your website for these keywords. Do not require your user to click further to find the information they need.

To give yourself the best chance of converting the visitor make sure that the navigation across the website is very simple and user friendly so that your landing page is as few clicks away from a transaction as possible.

There is one major 'don't' with landing pages too. Do not place them in an area that requires a login or registration process before the user can reach the information they require. This is a sure way to send them straight back to the search results with a bitter taste in their mouth.

At UKFast we create new pages for every keyword that appears in our advertising campaign. It's an ongoing process that can be very rewarding when done correctly.

Tags: advertising, adwords, websites
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Microsoft and Facebook - the demographics challenge

Jonathan Bowers, October 5th 2007, 11:05AM

In the search arena, there is one advantage Microsoft has over the market leader and this is the ability to target ads demographically.

I attended a seminar yesterday organised by Don't Panic and Manchester Digital which included speakers from Google, Hitwise and Microsoft. The most exciting presentation of the day came from Mel Carson of Microsoft who talked us through the new Adcentre and the demographic developments that give them an edge.

With 25 million Instant Messenger and Hotmail/Live email accounts in the UK, they have gender and age details on many of us that can help marketers to get closer to their target audience.

Microsoft has made some interesting acquisitions over the last few years that help to shape this area of the business that still represents only 5% of turnover. Inspiring developments in both image and video search are on the radar but one recent partnership which does ring some alarm bells on the demographics front is the purchase of 5% of Facebook.

Privacy was mentioned more than once yesterday. If Microsoft starts to offer targeted ads on Facebook the move will certainly fuel the personal information debate. That is, unless Facebook creates a privacy setting to block targeted ads on profile pages.

I can't think of many richer sources of personal information available online and the question is, does Microsoft have the right to resource it? Some would argue that it is better to receive an advert for a product or service that you want than one that you don't.

One thing Mel made clear was that Microsoft is keen to listen to businesses, work with them and deliver ad relevance, so morality aside, Microsoft's allegiance with Facebook is a step forward for businesses and their online reach.

Tags: advertising, facebook, microsoft
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Online adspend up, Microsoft + ITV play catch-up

Jonathan Bowers, May 21st 2007, 3:07PM

For the first time since Internet adspend began its dizzying climb, television advertising spend has dropped. A new report into online adspend shows that in the UK internet advertising has now broken the £2bn mark. When I began watching these figures in early 2005, internet was catching up with radio spend. In the UK, we now spend almost 4x more on online ads than we do on radio advertising and display advertising has also been dwarfed.

So it is no surprise that Microsoft has just gone all out, spending a reported $6bn on online advertising company aQuantive Inc. But it's still playing catch-up with both Google and Yahoo! having made similar acquisitions previously.

I'm interested in the fate of TV adspend. Until now, overall marketing budgets had been increasing with TV spend increasing also. Now this trend has slowed and actually reversed, the future of Independent television is evolving. In the UK, ITV is the broadcaster that feels slow to respond to such changes. The new website does not live up to the hype and the other major stations appear to be drawing ahead in the IPTV race.

Interesting times ahead.

Tags: advertising, broadcasters, microsoft
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Everyone wants their profit from the web

Jonathan Bowers, August 30th 2006, 10:17AM

The UK's most prominent political bloggers have seen the future. They're centralising their content in a bid to make revenue from advertising. Not just any advertising though - advertising that their readership want to see.

This news is followed hot on the heels by an online advertising conundrum. A number of media companies are suggesting that there is a shortage of expertise in the online advertising arena and this is slowing business opportunities to capitalise on the audiences across the web, particularly on social networking sites like MySpace, Bebo and YouTube.

Does this mean that the sector is not growing as quickly as we would all like it to? Start-up Spiralfrog obviously doesn't think so. The online music outlet, launching in December, is planning to be the first to provide free and legal music downloads. It's going to fund itself, the music labels and the artists through advertising on the site.

In this circumstance 'build it and they will come' is probably a fair assessment. Who is likely to turn down free music with the added bonus of a clear conscience! However, can the net sustain itself across other markets funded purely by advertising?

I'd be interested to know other people's thoughts as I suspect ROI in online advertising will at some point become much more challenging.

Tags: advertising, internet, marketing
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