Digitally Crafted – a recap of the week in online marketing

In this week’s round-up of the most important talking points within the fast-moving world of digital marketing, we learn that Twitter launches its new lead generation tool in a bid to assist marketers. Pinterest partners with big brands to provide contextual information to pins and there’s been significant enhancements to Google Analytics’ Goals, including a new set-up process, templates and verification option.

Social media

100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
Just days after celebrating its eighth birthday, YouTube is marking the occasion by sharing a couple of cool stats about its service. Users of the world’s most popular video sharing service upload 100 hours of video to the site every minute. Meanwhile, YouTube also reiterated that it currently receives one billion visitors to its site each month. Read more

Pinterest partners with brands to add information to pins
Pinterest just got an upgrade that could make it easier for users to gather information by navigating in its site. Instead of exclusively linking back to the original source, pins from certain brands will now display information such as recipes, movie reviews and price information. It’s hoped the site will see more useful pins rather than having to dig around and click to other websites. Read more

Twitter introduces ‘two-factor authentication’ to stop password hacking
Twitter is introducing “two-factor authentication” using mobile phone verification on the social network, following a number of high profile cases in which passwords were swiftly stolen by hackers. Security breaches within the Associated Press, the Guardian, Financial Times and the BBC have led to this new infrastructure. Any attempt to log in from a new device requires a code that is sent to a pre-designated mobile phone. Even with the correct password, the login will fail without the code. Read more

94% of teens use Facebook, have 425 Facebook friends, but Twitter & Instagram adoption way up
Teenagers use Facebook far more than another social media site and have over 400 friends on it, on average. However, Twitter and Instagram have massively increased in usage in the last 12 months, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, together with Harvard’s Berkman Center. The study covers US-based teens and social media, with an enormous number of findings within its full report. Read more

LinkedIn simplifies user interface with new navigation bar as it aligns mobile and desktop experience
LinkedIn has conducted a spring clear out of its labyrinthine navigation system in a bid to streamline the user experience. The introduction of an all-new navigation bar, which priorities the most popular functions including the search box, is designed to simplify LinkedIn as a whole. A pate of tweaks in recent months has seen the business-orientated social network revamp its homepage, profiles and mobile app. Read more

Twitter launches lead generation tool to help marketers
Twitter has announced the launch of a new product to its range of ‘Twitter Cards’ – lead generation. The tool has been tested using a handful of brands, with the tool now available to Twitter’s managed clients; although the company has plans to launch the Card globally and to SMEs in the near future. Read more

Organic search marketing

85% of UK smartphone users have searched for local information online, but third of SMEs don’t have websites
New research carried out by Hibu, formerly Yell Group, has found that 85 per cent of all UK smartphone users have searched for local information online, with 81 per cent of these then taking action as a result. However, more than a third (37 per cent) of small and medium-sized enterprises still don’t have a website to target those customers. Read more

Top charts in Google Trends – the most searched people, places and things
With Google Trends it’s possible to see what the world is searching for. Today users can find new charts of the most-searched people, places and things in more than 40 different categories, from movies to sports teams and tourist attractions, built on Google’s Knowledge Graph. Read more

Google Analytics updates goals set-up flow, adds new templates & offers a verification option
Google Analytics has announced a number of new updates this week to Goals, including a new set-up process, new templates, and a new verification option. Goals are created at profile level, and can be started by navigating to a user’s account, property and profile from the admin tab. Once the correct profile is selected, a user must click Goals and then select Create a Goal to begin the goal set-up flow. Read more

Browsers

Mozilla delays blocking third-party tracking cookies in Firefox 22, says more work is needed
Mozilla has announced that it will hold off on blocking third-party tracking cookies in the latest version of Firefox. The browser developer says that there is “a little more work” to be done before it was going to become available. It’s believed that this feature will become a default setting for Mozilla’s browser, which will then enhance its Do Not Track enforcement protocol. Read more

Paid search marketing

Google launches real-time bidding platform ‘Open Bidder’ [BETA], seeking testers
Google announced the launch of Open Bidder for developers to build real-time bidding solutions. Currently in Beta status, the platform uses the Google Cloud Platform and DoubleClick’s real-time bidding protocol. Over a year in the making, the Open Bidder team wrote recently in a blog post that the platform removes development barriers for companies looking to build their own RTB technology. Read more

New AdWords Editor update for enhanced campaigns
Google rolled out a new version of AdWords Editor this week. The latest version features more ways to make bulk changes to enhanced campaigns. New capabilities include: Bid adjustments for placements, topics and audiences; Mobile bid adjustments at the ad group level; Upgrade campaigns in bulk using CSV import of the Add/update multiple campaigns tool; Enter ValueTrack {ifmobile}, {ifnotmobile} parameters. Read more

Mobile

Mobile is almost as popular as desktop for travel research
When researching their next holiday or business trip, consumers are just as likely to turn to their mobile device as they are to use a laptop, according to new research from JiWire. The new report into mobile’s role in the travel industry shows that 56 per cent of consumers use their laptop to research travel options, compared to 49 per cent on tablet and 48 per cent on smartphone. Read more

77% of smartphone-driven retail purchases happen in stores
As part of its “Mobile Path to Purchase” research, Nielsen, xAd and Telmetrics have released some additional findings about the use of mobile devices in retail shopping. Among other things, the research argues that so-called showrooming is “overhyped” and not that widely practiced by consumers. Other research, most recently from Google, suggests the opposite however. Read more

PR

PRIA launches best practice intern guide
The Public Relations Institute of Australia has launched a comprehensive set of guidelines for managing internships, to address issues of fair work, payment and management highlighted in last year’s national RCG survey. The guidance attempts to balance the entitlement to utilise interns on an unpaid basis for academic credit, avoiding their possible exploitation. Read more

Daily Mail publisher’s print revenues slide
Revenues at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday declined six per cent to £287m in the six months to the end of March 2013. This has been attributed to the decline of print ads and circulation, however the Mail Online juggernaut continued with a 61 per cent year-on-year surge in revenue to £20m. Overall, DMG Media – home to newspapers and assets including digital recruitment business Evenbase, property operation Zoopla and Groupon-style deals service Wowcher - reported the revenue declined seven per cent to £406m. Read more

Digitally Crafted – a recap of the week in digital marketing

In this week’s round-up of the biggest talking points within the world of digital marketing, we learn that Bing increases its search market share to more than 17%, YouTube expands its live streaming to all channels with a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and Apple celebrates reaching the 50 billion mark for App Store downloads worldwide.

Social media

Facebook completes one-column Timeline rollout, says users now adding 200m items daily to new sections
Earlier this week Facebook announced it has completed rolling out the new sections on its Timeline profiles to everyone. Two months ago, Facebook debuted the new one-column Timeline, with an emphasis on redesigning user profiles that let people have a single place to add items of interest. Content from apps are now more prominent as they have their own section in the left column. The company says users are now collectively adding almost 200 million items a day. Read more

Organic posting is most popular social media tactic, but not the most successful
More than one-in-three large social media advertisers are dissatisfied with their efforts from both paid and organic social media strategies, according to a study by Kenshoo Social called “The Key to Successful Social Advertising”. With 73% participation among respondents, organic posting on branded pages on general social networks like Facebook is the most popular social media tactic. All of the advertisers surveyed use paid social advertising tactics, however they were more likely to implement organic tactics like branded pages and content than to use paid ads. Read more

Google+ now chooses your ‘best’ photographs
New Google+ features mean Google can now automatically enhance and select your ‘best’ photographs, the company has announced. Speaking at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, it was said that as more users uploaded photographs to Google+, largely due to the fact Android phones do so automatically, it was becoming more important to pinpoint the best images. Read more

YouTube Live streaming expands to all channels with at least 1,000 subscribers
YouTube Live, the live streaming service that the video network first launched in limited beta form more than two years ago, is being expanded to a significantly wider audience. This week, all YouTube channels boasting more than 1,000 subscribers each will be able to broadcast live video content to their viewers, available on all devices. Previously this was only offered to select partner accounts and video game developers. Read more

Organic search marketing

Germany tells Google to tidy up auto-complete
A German federal court has told Google to clean up the auto-complete results its search engine suggests. The court insisted Google must ensure terms generated by auto-complete are not offensive or defamatory. The case was started by an unnamed German businessman who found that Google.de linked him with “scientology” and “fraud”. Read more

Google’s Matt Cutts: Black hat and link spammers less likely to show up in SERPs this summer
A new video from Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, answers a number of questions about what webmasters and SEOs should expect in the near future with regards to SEO. Cutts indicated Google’s next generation Penguin update, is expected to launch in the next few weeks. Meanwhile Cutts confirmed Google would be going “upstream” in their bid to deter link spammers and the value of the links they are acquiring from the sources. Read more

Bing rises above 17% search market share as Google slips
Bing’s U.S. search market share has reached another all-time high, passing 17% for the very first time. It appears Bing gained at Google’s expense, with Google’s dominance slipping six-tenths of a percentage point last month, according to comScore’s April 2013 qSearch report. Read more

Content marketing

Just 14% of businesses say their CMS gives a complete view of engagement across channels
New research from Econsultancy and Adobe shows that, although organisations are very aware that their ability to implement an effective content strategy is tied to the integration of their CMS with other technologies, the promise of the technology far outstrips their current reality. The data shows that 94% of businesses believe it is “quite” or “very important” to tie content management together with the ability to measure its performance on-site (through web and mobile analytics). Read more

Online privacy

Microsoft finds that half of Britons do nothing about online privacy
Research for Microsoft’s first ad campaign to raise awareness about online privacy found that although 84% of people are concerned about it, almost 50% are doing nothing about it. These statistics come just days after Microsoft launched its UK arm of a major international above-the-line campaign targeting internet users to encourage them to be aware of their online footprint and use the privacy features of Internet Explorer. Read more

Digital skills

Digital skills get £15m boost
Prime Minister, David Cameron has unveiled the Big Lottery Fund’s £15 million grant aimed at making the UK “the world’s most digitally skilled nation”. The funding is designed to build the skills that people and organisations across the UK will need in order to take full advantage of support and services available online. The grant should help address the fact there are 16 million people in the UK who currently lack the basic online skills to confidently use digital tools. Read more

Seven million Brits have ‘never used the internet’
More than seven million adults in the UK have never used the internet, according to research from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Figures show 43.5 million adults were now online – one million more than in the same period last year. However, 7.1 million remain offline, with the elderly and disabled still the least likely to be connected. However, 16 million adults still don’t have the basic online skills to actually take advantage of the digital tools available to them. Read more

PR

News International to charge £2 per week for Sun+ access
News International Group has today announced its long-awaited paywall for The Sun website will launch on August 1st, costing £2 per week. The Sun+ access will include a new bundle of entertainment products, including exclusive content from its daily tabloid newspaper, access to Premier League clips and other perks such as great value offers and promotions. Sun+ will be available across web, phone and tablet devices. Read more

Apps

Apple passes 50 billion App Store downloads
Less than five years after launching its App Store, Apple has hit 50 billion downloads. The news has been announced officially after posting a countdown in early May. As promised, it is also giving a $10,000 App Store gift card to the person who downloaded the 50 billionth app, which will be announced soon. Read more

Digitally Crafted – this week in online marketing

In this week’s round-up of the most important talking points within the world of digital marketing, we discover that smartphone paid search cost-per-clicks were almost half the expense of desktop ads in Q1 2013. We also discover that mobile commerce looks set to scoop 15 per cent of all online retail sales in 2013 and the vast majority of businesses confirm personalisation is critical to their overall success.

Social media

Baby boomers drive Facebook and Twitter growth
The overall proportion of British adults with a social networking profile increased to almost two-thirds (64 per cent) in 2012, in comparison with 59 per cent a year earlier. Recent Ofcom research suggests baby boomers were responsible for the rise. The proportion of 55 to 64-year-olds with a profile soared to 35 per cent in 2012 – up from 24 per cent in 2011. No other age group showed a statistically significant increase over this timeframe. Read more

Facebook sets up marketing advisory board
Facebook has set up its first UK-based marketing advisory board, including top marketers from the likes of Tesco and Coca Cola. The social network giant is seeking to improve relations with brands in an effort to drive up spend on its products. The newly created board is due to meet four times a year in a bid to improve the service the network delivers not only to its users but marketers. Read more

Organic search marketing

More than 50% of searchers click the first result, 75% click on deep links result
The value of ranking first on a search engine results page (SERP) is no secret, but this week Bing has placed some hard numbers on it. More than 50 per cent of its users click the first search result on the page, while more than 75 per cent click there if the first result also includes Bing’s deep links. This comes after a member of Bing’s Research & Development team, Dr. Ronny Kohavi, shared valuable data on how Bing’s users interact with search results. Read more

Paid search marketing

Smartphone paid search CPC’s 46% cheaper than desktop in Q1
New data from Kenshoo on paid search cost per clicks (CPCs) found that smartphone ads were 46 per cent cheaper than desktop ads in Q1 2013. In comparison, tablet CPCs were just 18 per cent lower than desktop CPCs. This highlights the fact that it is still relatively cheap for businesses to target customers through mobile search campaigns – an opportunity many brands are still failing to take advantage of. Read more

AdSense gets new 970x90 ‘Super Leaderboard’ ad units
Google AdSense is now offering 970x90 ad units, a newly adopted IAB standard size also known as ‘super leaderboards’. The new larger size is designed for ad placement on wider screens with the goal of appealing to brand advertisers wanting to make a larger impact on their advertising audience. Read more

Mobile

46% of consumer goods marketers use mobile ads for brand awareness
New research from Millennial Media finds consumer advertisers primarily use mobile advertising for brand awareness, as opposed to driving site traffic or increased footfall in-store. Almost half (46 per cent) of consumer goods advertisers confirmed their primary campaign goal was brand awareness, compared to an overall average of 14 per cent among all industries. Read more

Mobile to win 15% of online retail sales in 2013
A new report from eMarketer estimates that 15 per cent of all online retail sales will be made on a mobile device this year, raking in upwards of $39 billion by the end of 2013. The majority of sales will be made using a tablet device with only 35 per cent of mobile sales occurring from a smartphone. This year’s projected mobile commerce sales reflect an 11 per cent increase from the previous year. Read more

Email marketing

Poor quality data is the biggest barrier to effective email marketing
Poor quality data is the biggest barrier to effective email marketing, according to the new Econsultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Census 2013. Half of all respondents revealed the quality of their email database was holding them back with their email campaigns; which has now been the main issue for three years running. The Census reviews the amount and type of email marketing carried out by organisations and the way it is conducted. Read more

User experience

94% of businesses say personalisation is critical to their success
The growing importance of delivering a personalised experience online was highlighted in a new Econsultancy and Monetate survey, which found 94 per cent of firms believed personalisation was ‘critical to current and future success’. Additionally, research found that for two-thirds of client-side respondents, both improved business performance and consumer experience are the primary influences for personalising the online experience. Read more

Digitally Crafted – a recap of the week in online marketing

In this week’s round-up of the biggest talking points in the world of digital marketing we learn that the UK’s paid search CPCs overtake those in the United States for the first time, mobile advertising triples to record levels, and Google outlines why new pages may see rankings decline over time.

Social media

Vine adds trending hashtags to aid content discovery
Vine has announced a small tweak in a bid to help its users discover content quickly and more effectively: trending hashtags. Appearing on the Explore area, these will show the fastest-rising hashtags on Vine, although they aren’t necessarily the hashtags with the most posts. Read more

Facebook introduces Home, a launcher for Android devices that puts people ahead of apps
Facebook recently launched its new launcher for Android devices. ‘Home’ will be available as a free download from the Google Play Store from today. The launcher has been designed to help users turn their Android device into a more social phone and will initially be compatible with the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung GALAXY S III and Samsung GALAXY Note II. Read more

Facebook starts charging users up to £11 to contact celebrities
Facebook has begun charging its UK users up to £11 to send messages to celebrities. It costs a standard 71p to contact less well-known figures who don’t boast an army of fans or followers. Facebook confirmed the experiment, but said it didn’t know whether it would be implemented across the whole social network. The trial began in the US in December and has since been extended to 36 further countries including the UK. Read more

Google ‘to buy WhatsApp for $1bn’
Search giant Google is said to be in negotiations to acquire fast-emerging messaging service WhatsApp for a cool $1bn. Previous rumours claimed that Facebook was also keen on purchasing the popular cross-platform mobile messaging app, but as yet it hasn’t spoken publicly about any potential deal. WhatsApp reportedly earns $100m a year and processes up to 18 billion messages per day. Read more

As many as 20 million Twitter accounts are fake, says report
A new report claims there are as many as 20 million fake Twitter accounts existing on the web, with tens of thousands of new accounts being created each week as part of a multi-million dollar business. This latest study from two Italian security consultants, found that a number of businesses were profiting from offering batches of fake followers to customers ranging from as few as 1,000 for $18 to as many as one million. Read more

Spotify gets social with release of ‘follow’ button globally
In a bid to add to its reputation as the ‘Twitter for music’, Spotify has rolled out its new ‘follow’ button globally. Instead of building a playlist of every song by an artist you like, you can now press the follow button and automatically add all of their music to your Spotify account. Read more

Organic search marketing

Google explains why your new page’s number one ranking may drop
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts has posted a video explaining why it’s not uncommon to see a new page rank very well in Google early on, and then, that ranking may decline over time. Cutts argues in his video that Google takes its time to decipher new content and ascertain the most relevant result queries due to indexing more signals over time. Read more

mCommerce

Facebook to see big boost in mobile display ads this year
It is being predicted that almost 30 per cent of all mobile display ads will go to Facebook this coming year. The social network is the number-two mobile ad destination in the United States, accounting for 9.5 per cent of mobile ad revenues in 2012 and is expected to take 13.2 per cent this year, according to eMarketer. Read more

Mobile advertising triples to record levels
Mobile advertising in the UK grew 148 per cent year-on-year in 2012 to an impressive £526 million, with total digital ad spend hitting an eye-watering £5 billion. The continued popularity of smartphones and tablets and the enormous increase in app usage caused mobile advertising to almost triple and that figure is only set to grow with almost two-thirds of the UK population now owning a smartphone. Read more

Apple & Google account for 74% and 51% of app revenue & downloads respectively
New research from Canalys’ App Interrogator found there were a staggering 13.4 billion app downloads in the first quarter of 2013, generating a revenue of $2.2 billion. Of that figure, 74 per cent of the app revenue went through Apple’s iTunes network, while Google Play accounted for the most app downloads with more than half (51 per cent). Read more

Online advertising and paid search marketing

Bing Ads responds to AdWords Enhanced Campaigns
David Pann, general manager of the Search Network at Microsoft, has reiterated that Bing Ads will not go the way of AdWords Enhanced Campaigns in reducing device targeting options for paid search. Pann revealed Bing Ads believes strongly in giving advertisers the tools and flexibility to control their spending, target the most relevant audiences and ensure they can get the best return on investment. Read more

UK paid search CPCs overtake US for first time
UK paid search cost-per-clicks (CPCs) outstripped those in the United States for the first time in the final quarter of 2012, according to new research from Kenshoo. The report, conducted during the fourth quarter of 2012, spanned the Kenshoo platform comprising over 100 advertisers and totalling £1 billion’s worth of paid search spend globally. Read more

Tablets yield 15% lower RPC than PCs
The proliferation of tablet devices has begun to lower the value of the tablet segment overall for paid search marketers, even as competition continues to heat up. The Q4 Digital Marketing Report by RKG found that tablets generated 15 per cent lower revenue per click than traditional PCs. The RKG report is one of many that challenges Google’s claim that usage behaviour and ad performance among devices are similar. Read more

Ad group-level mobile bids coming to Enhanced Campaigns
Google announced this week that ad group-level mobile bids will be coming to Enhanced Campaigns. The added functionality will be available to all advertisers in May. This fairly substantial modification means that mobile bids will no longer only be able to be set at campaign level. Read more

Digitally Crafted - rounding up the last 7 days in digital marketing

In this week’s round-up of the most important topics within the world of digital marketing, we learn that email is now the top activity on smartphones – ahead of web browsing and social media – Google confirms that webmasters won’t benefit from link sellers linking to their site and a recent study confirms that blogs remain more influential than Twitter accounts.

Social media

‘Unpublished’ Facebook post ads can now be shown in news feed
A new change to Facebook’s ‘unpublished’ post ads, which were originally created only for targeted marketing purposes, means they can now be much more visible to users via their news feed. Advertisers can now do more than just show within the right hand ‘ad’ side of the Facebook page layout – their adverts can be pushed directly onto the feed meaning a Facebook page can now create a post that no fans will see organically, but promote the content to a targeted advertising audience via their news feeds. Read more

20% of consumers think hashtags are mainly useful for researching products
One-in-five consumers believe that hashtags are primarily useful for finding information on brands and products, according to a new RadiumOne survey into consumer attitudes towards hashtags. The most common use (30 per cent) is for identifying trends, with more than half (58 per cent) of all respondents confirming they use hashtags. Unsurprisingly, the report also found that consumers would be more willing to use product-related hashtags if they were rewarded with discounts. Read more

Search marketing

Link seller linking to you? Google says you won’t benefit from it
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, has unveiled a 90-second video describing the scenario when a website that is selling links also links to your site. In short, Cutts explains that when sites that sell links link to your site, you’ll not benefit from the link. Perhaps more importantly, you’ll also not be harmed by the link in the eyes of Google. Sites that do sell links will eventually see their toolbar PageRank downgraded by as much as 50 per cent. Read more

Facebook rebrands ‘nearby’ as ‘Local Search’
Last year Facebook re-launched its mobile ‘Nearby’ app feature to enable users to search for local business information through the network. It has now been rebranded again, to be called ‘Local Search’, which, in essence, is somewhat more self-explanatory. Facebook’s aim appears to be to generate significant local search volumes through the app, providing an alternative to Google’s own localised search functionality. Read more

Web browsers

Safari still leading the way with 61% of mobile browser market
Net Applications, a site that monitors web traffic, announced this week that Apple’s iOS browser, Safari won almost two-thirds (61 per cent) of all mobile browser web traffic in March – a six percentage increase on the previous month. Safari now dominates the marketshare, owning 40 per cent more than Android’s default browser. Opera Mini, Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer hold less than 10 per cent of the marketshare combined. Read more

Mobile

Email is top activity on smartphones, ahead of web browsing & Facebook
A new study from IDC has found that email is the most common smartphone activity among adults in the United States, with web browsing and Facebook usage a close second and third respectively. The report of more than 7,400 iPhone and Android users aged between 18 and 44, was primarily designed to highlight how Facebook helps users connect with others via their smartphones. 78 per cent of respondents check their email on their smartphones, compared to 73 per cent who browse websites and 70 per cent who interact on Facebook. Read more

63% of Brits more likely to view a video ad on their mobile if it’s on an entertainment app
Almost two-thirds (60 per cent) of mobile users like to watch content from major networks on their device, according to research by mobile ad network Mojiva. 63 per cent of those surveyed also revealed they were more likely to view video advertisements if they were on entertainment apps or websites. Mojiva’s research of 1,000 consumers found that, although 64 per cent of Brits watch all or part of adverts displayed before a video, less than half (49 per cent) could remember the brands shown in the pre-video ads. Read more

User experience

43% of consumers abandon online shopping cart before purchase, claims study
Almost half of all online shoppers have abandoned their online shopping baskets at some stage in the last 12 months, a new report has found. Research by industry analyst, Redshift Research, which sampled the views of 1,000 online consumers, found that 43 per cent of consumers had failed to complete an online purchase at some stage. A lack of customer interaction was blamed by almost half (44 per cent) of respondents, along with another third of people (34 per cent) who cited a lack of support which prevented them from shopping online altogether. Read more

PR

Blogs still more influential than Twitter, says study

New research indicates that, not only do blogs still have tremendous online influence, they actually drive more sales than many other forms of social media. Within the Technocrati 2013 digital influence report, it was said that blogs were one of the most trusted forms of online media, with 31 per cent of respondents being influenced to purchase via blogs – the third highest medium after retail sites (56 per cent) and brand sites (34 per cent). This serves to highlight the value of marketers and the brands they represent engaging with relevant high-profile bloggers in their field. Read more