Internet Marketing, Social Media, Business | StuckInTheFunnel

Twitter Users are Twice as Likely to View Your Ads

According to a study from research firm  Interpret, LLC, Twitter users are twice as likely to click internet ads than those who stick to traditional social networks such as Myspace, LinkedIn and Facebook.

The study was conducted on 9200 Internet users in August 09 and concluded that 24% of Twitter users had rated or reviewed products online compared to 12% of those who used other social networks, but not Twitter.

It was also found that the users of Twitter are twice as likely to view online company profiles than non-Twitter users (20% vs. 9%).

Why is this the case?

Given the hyper/ADD nature of Twitter and the fact that it is not a destination site is the primary culprit behind these numbers in my opinion.

Twitter’s rapid stream of information is more conducive to link clicks than social sites which provide content that requires more concentration and engagement.

What does this mean for your business?

Get on Twitter and start building those relationships. Put a strategy in place that leverages Twitters’ click happy audience and get your brand noticed.

Thoughts on Adobe’s Acquisition of Omniture

On Tuesday of this week, Adobe acquired the web analytics company Omniture (Nasdaq:OMTR) in a transaction valued at approximately $1.8 billion.

Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture furthers its mission to revolutionize the way the world engages with ideas and information. By combining Adobe’s content creation tools and ubiquitous clients with Omniture’s Web analytics, measurement and optimization technologies, Adobe will be well positioned to deliver solutions that can transform the future of engaging experiences and e-commerce across all digital content, platforms and devices.

This is one of the most exciting acquisitions I have witnessed in my career. My initial start in web development began with Macromedia Flash 6. It seems like just yesterday that Adobe picked up Macromedia back in April of 05.

When Adobe acquired Macromedia, they obtained a set of tools that were ideal for publishing and controlling content on the web. Since that acquisition, the world of web publishing has changed. A business’s web presence is no longer a credibility statement; it is a central hub for their marketing objectives, both on and offline. Combining the publishing power of Adobe’s current program suite with Omniture’s ability to measure online conversion and ROI will improve the workflow and integration between the design, technical and marketing levels of an organization.

What I would like to see Adobe offer now that they Omniture’s tools in their pocket:

1. Improved Web Analytics for Flash – Flash has always been the black box in the browser when it comes to analytics. It would be great to see some integrated components or Actionscript libraries that allowed Internet Marketers to analyze user engagement for Flash interactions and content segments.
2. SEO Assistance Within Dreamweaver – Many SEOs write their XHTML code in a tool like Dreamweaver and use outside programs such as Web CEO or SEO MOZ to score its SEO friendliness. Imagine if the scoring system was integrated and flagged your code with suggestions as you were writing it? Talk about workflow efficiency…
3. Weighted Analytics – Generally analytics code is pasted at the bottom of your XHTML document. After a visitor hits the page, you are given a broad view of how they interacted with it (time on page, what they clicked, etc.)  It would be beneficial to give certain page elements a weighted score for reporting purposes. For example, if a user spent 5 minutes viewing a product video, that could be flagged with more weight than clicking a generic link on the page.

 

This is truly a huge development in the realm of web content publishing, internet marketing and web analytics. It will be interesting to see how things develop and how industry competitors respond. Will Microsoft’s Expression Studio start to include similar features? We will have to wait and see.

What Do Ads on Twitter Mean for Internet Marketing and You?

Last week (Sept 10th) Twitter amended it’s terms of service to include the right to display advertisements. However where, when and how the ads will be pushed is “open for exploration”:

The Services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the Content or information on the Services, queries made through the Services, or other information. The types and extent of advertising by Twitter on the Services are subject to change. In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Twitter and its third party providers and partners may place such advertising on the Services or in connection with the display of Content or information from the Services whether submitted by you or others.

It was only a matter of time before this occured. It takes a lot of resources to dispatch the amount of SMS messages that Twitter does each day.

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Consumer Resistance to Mobile Advertising Will Not Stop Its Growth

According to Gartner, mobile advertising will increase 74% ($913.5 million) this year and is expected to exceed $13 billion by 2013, despite initial consumer resistance.

I’m guessing the the ability to implement location based ad targeting is luring marketers to adopt mobile based advertising. If you have a GPS like me, you may have already seen ads display for nearby stores/restaurants within close proximity to your current location. Increases in GPS technology will continue to make this trend stick, especially with the younger demographic.

A study from Parks Associates released in July said that mobile advertising revenues in the US and Canada will grow from $208 million in 2009 to $1.5 billion by 2013, despite possible early consumer resistance to mobile ads.

The Parks Associates report said that the adoption of smartphones, 3G network data plans (or newer wireless services), and downloadable applications will spur this growth in ad revenues, with significant increases beginning in 2010.

As an Interactive Marketer, I am excited to explore this trend. However, as a consumer, I am a bit apprehensive about receiving targeted ads on my smart phone. It will be interesting to see how things develop.

Tags: mobile marketing, mobile marketing projections

Bing Searches up but Google Holds on to 67% of Global Search Share

A July 2009 analysis done by comScore, Inc revealed that 76.7 billion searches last month which equates to a 67.5% market share, could be attributed to Google. Yahoo ranked a distance second at 8.9 billion searches (7.8% share). Chinese engine Baidu placed third with 8 billion searches (7.0% share).

Overall, search websites saw an increase in activity when compared to figures from last year. I’m sure this correlates to increasing internet usage around the world.

Here are the numbers:

Search Volume by Region

The analysis proved that search behavior varied considerably by region. Among the five global regions comScore tracks, Europe accounted for the highest share of searches at 32.1%, followed by Asia Pacific (30.8%) and North America (22.1%).

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Tags: Google, Microsoft Bing, search engine market share