The Backlash against Google Glass has rightly started - you can prepare with these badges from Stop The Cyborgs.
They’re not technophobes, but want to call out the challenges of this technology - for example most wouldn’t want to be a victim of Glass image recognition as they walk down the street…
We present results from a series of large-scale field experiments done at eBay that are designed to detect the causal effectiveness of paid search advertisements.
Results show that brand-keyword ads have no short-term benefits, and that returns from all other keywords are a fraction of conventional estimates.
Just taking a look at this new research from eBay on PPC investments.
It shows the importance of questioning and testing media investments.
But I think it’s dangerous to read too much into the research since eBay’s brand strength is such that they have limited competition for the type of purchases made there and you would expect PPC ads to cannibalise the organic listings. I’ve seen tests from UK brands that show that brand-bidding DOES drive incremental business. You will also notice that Amazon continues to bid aggressively on AdWords and I know they test AdWords ROI extensively.
You may also know that eBay used to advertise on a huge range of keywords in a less targeted way than most businesses. The report acknowledges that eBay advertises on over 70 million keywords - you maybe saw the eBay ads for “nuclear fission”?
What businesses want from paid search is to drive awareness and sales from people who don’t know a brand and behind the main headlines and articles written about this report there is evidence that PPC is effective:
”_We find that SEM accounted for a statistically significant increase in new registered users and purchases made by users who bought only one or two items the year before.
For consumers who bought more frequently, SEM does not have a significant effect on their purchasing behavior_”.
This review of the research in Search Marketing Standard Does eBay’s Research Reflect The Effectiveness Of Paid Search? reminds us that other general studies such as that by Google (naturally) showed that across their advertisers “89% of paid search clicks are “incremental,” while roughly 66% of all ad clicks occur in the absence of an associated organic search result”.
V2MOM: A planning mnemonic from Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com:
Vision: What do you want? Write it down in 10 to 15 words
Values: What is most important about that vision? What are the values of the vision? Is it growth, is it quality, is it excellence? Write those things down and prioritize them.
Methods: How are you going to achieve it? What are the actions that you’re going to specifically take? In priority, write them down.
Obstacles: What is preventing you from achieving that outcome – right now? Write it down. What other obstacles may occur?
Measures: How will you know if you’re successful? What are the measurements of success? Write it down.
Focus… is tough! These ideas on how to get it in this post on Marketing Focus from Danyl Bosomworth were new to me and look useful.
V2MOM is a clunky acronym, but I like the focus on Obstacles - often when setting objectives we don’t look at what will get in the way. When I used to manage software dev, looking at project risks was a big part of planning, so why not in business/marketing strategy:
We’ve been talking about the potential of scannable clothes for a long time - here’s a new example where scanning with a mobile plays a “How we made video” - so making it part of the experience.
Burberry have integrated it into a campaign. It’s part of the Made To Order campaign with Smart Personalization. Customers are able to order products straight from the runway, and have them delivered in nine weeks with personalized engraved nameplates.
They’re similar to RFID but a new technology developed by Burberry - read more on PSFK.
Some time before Primark has this for how their products were made…
How 50 of the top online businesses make money - a cool interactive tool for lecturers and students of digital marketing.
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