'Net Features : 3282011

CPC Campaigns - Best Time of Day

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:30:00 GMT

What is the best time of day to run your CPC campaigns?

A recent study conducted by online customer acquisition firm NetElixir examined the time of day that online orders and clicks peak. The findings indicate that there is a daily pattern for both behaviors with orders peaking during midday, while clicks (indicating people researching products) increase steadily throughout the day. These behaviors can provide guidance to retail marketers on the best times to run online ads.

The research reveals that online purchases peak during the midday hours between 2:00PM – 7:00PM, while clicks increase steadily throughout the day starting in the morning hours to about 10PM. Unique visitors to the site and on-site purchases followed a distinct hourly pattern based on the 32 retailers studies (see chart below with the amount of clicks on the left Y axis and orders on the right Y axis). Activity for both orders and clicks is at its lowest point in the early hours of the morning and rise over the course of the day, with clicks steadily increasing throughout the day and orders rising more sharply and peaking in the afternoon hours.

NetElixir makes several recommendations for improving SEM effectiveness based on the study including breaking down perforamnce by the hour to increase aggregate rturn on investment, and applying time-bound search tactics.

“The search advertising industry in 2011 is hyper-competitive. Retailers need to adopt smart optimization techniques and intelligent SEM technology in order to compete with increasingly sophisticated advertisers,” said Udayan Bose, CEO of NetElixir. “Analyzing and understanding when shoppers search and purchase can help to create more precise and effective search engine marketing strategies.”

Mobile Search Insights - 49% Make Mobile Purchases

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:00:00 GMT

Performance marketing agency Performics last week released results from its 2011 Mobile Search Insights study.

The study revealed that of people using the mobile Web at least weekly, more than half (57 percent) use the mobile Web more than once/day, with more than three quarters (77 percent) using mobile search more than five times in the last month.

It's not just the frequency that is important however, but also the satisfaction and adoption of mobile search. 75 percent of respondents saud that mobile search makes their lievs easier and 53 percent said access tomobile search has changed the way they gather information.

“Mobile paid search has surged as a percentage of overall paid search spending for our clients, particularly over the last 15 months,” said Daina Middleton, CEO of Performics. “We expect March to be the double digit tipping point, when mobile paid search will represent at least ten percent of paid search impressions for all Performics clients.”

All that usage and value of course leads to one important thing - sales. 49 percent of respondents made a mobile purchase in the last six months. That's almost enough to make you rethink your mobile strategy entirely, right?

New Digital Payment Platform from American Express

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:30:00 GMT

American Express today unveiled a digtal payment and commerce platform to address the changing ways consumers interact and exchange money - with one another and with merchants. Dubbed Serve, consumers can make purchases and person-to-person payments online via mobile phones, and at merchants accepting American Express cards. While this is not an alternative to merchants existing payment processing solutions, it could act as a good supplement.

“We intend to quickly evolve the Serve platform by adding new features and functionality as we learn from consumer and merchant experiences. To encourage a broad cross-section of people to experience the benefits and convenience of Serve, we are working with a range of partners to integrate Serve as a payment method and deliver customized offers, and we will waive most consumer fees for the next six months,” said Dan Schulman, Group President, Enterprise Growth, American Express.

Payments are the primary focus of the consumer-focused Serve platform, but a number of American Express partners will use the platform to deliver offers. Three of the first are Ticketmaster, Concur and Flipswap. Ticketmaster will offer Serve as a platform for customers to make and collect payments toward ticket purchases from other customers. Concur will utilize Serve as an expense management and reimbursement method for transactions processed via Concur’s small business expense reporting service, Concur Breeze. Flipswap will utilize Serve to issue refunds more quickly to consumers who sell or trade in their old mobile and cell phones for reuse or recycling.

“A cornerstone of the long-term vision for Serve is developing partnerships with commerce, gaming, entertainment, and social networking organizations,” said Mr. Schulman. Partnerships, with players such as Ticketmaster, Concur and Flipswap will introduce Serve to new customers and help build scale. These companies have loyal communities of customers, and we are thrilled to partner with them as we grow and expand Serve's reach.”

Analysis, Insights and Scale at BuzzLogic

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:00:00 GMT

Media analytics and analytics platform BuzzLogic announced a noteworthy upgrade to its “conversational” media planner and buying component of its online ad platform.

BuzzPlanner now includes the ability to input specific brand goals which generate hundreds of URLs that can be targeted with ads, optimize the placements according to conversation change metrics, and scale the media plan to maximize return.

After inputting a query based around specific audience and campaign objectives, the planning module ranks and outputs hundreds of URLs for targeted ad placement, which the company then places on behalf of the brand. BuzzPlanner also allows the company’s media team to optimize during the campaign as it uncovers more dense, relevant and higher reach conversations to greatly improve ROI.

“We did business with more than 70 of the Fortune 1000 companies last year providing them the ability to improve ROI through our integrated solution using conversational metrics as our levers of optimization,” said Dave Hills, BuzzLogic’s CEO. “In a world where all content is social and conversations take place throughout the visible Web, the improvements to BuzzPlanner help scale and optimize media plans and buys for the highest return.”

Better Adsense Earnings Reports

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:30:00 GMT

Google announced this week that it has begun displaying more earnings data to publishers on the Adsense dashboard.

As you will be able to see in the image below, Google is now showing earnings for the current day, the previous day, the month so far, and the previous month as well as any unpaid finalized earnings and most recent payment information.

Also, alerts will be appearing at the top of the homepage to ensure publishers don’t miss anything too critical.

Adsense publishers can also expect a few more changes in the coming months, including the ability to view the top channels from the home page.

Startup Cloud Program Powers Entrepreneurs

Linc Wonham — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:00:00 GMT

More Americans are starting their own businesses than any other time in the past 15 years, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. One of the key developments driving today’s startups has been the emergence of cloud technologies.

To help power the growing number of entrepreneurs with online talent, Web employment platform Elance has launched its Startup Cloud program that helps new companies tap into the human cloud. Elance is partnering with startup accelerator The Founder Institute to help entrepreneurs find the best online talent around which to build their new businesses.

The Startup Cloud program will feature best practices for entrepreneurs in the pre-launch startup phase, as well as those seeking ongoing hiring needs as their companies mature. Startup founders will learn from other business owners how to effectively scale their staffing to achieve the best results.

The Startup Cloud site will include articles, videos and slide shows such as the following:

•    A Blueprint for Building Your Startup in the Cloud
•    10 Key Online Hires For Your Startup
•    Tips for Managing Your Online Team
•    Startup Stories: How They Did It

Elance will also host a 12-week contest beginning March 28 in which three winners in April, May and June will be awarded a $500 credit for online freelance services that can be applied toward anything from designing a business logo to building a new website or mobile app. Contestants are asked to submit an entry stating how they would use an Elance professional to help build their business.

Brightcove Widget for the Ektron CMS Platform

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:30:00 GMT

Online video platform BrightCove and web content management solution Ektron have expanded their partnership, enabling customers to incorporate branded video intot heir online properties and marketing campaigns through a new Brightcove widget.

“This is an exciting partnership that makes it easy for customers to take advantage of the most advanced online video platform and Web content management system in a fully integrated way,” said David Mendels, Brightcove president and chief operating officer. “Now thousands of marketers around the world can execute state-of-the-art video campaigns with the same efficiency as any other aspect of building and maintaining their websites and marketing campaigns.”

Ektron customers will be able to use Brightcove's media transcoding, management and publishing tools within the Extron user interface. Users can simply drag-and-drop a Brightcove widget into a site, page, or marketing campaign, creating a rich platform that can fuse text, audio, images and video into a transformative Web experience. Ektron also supports inserting Brightcove’s player embed codes manually for more customized video experiences.