Much has been written on the presidential candidates use of social networks, including a recent post from Simon. While I was online this morning catching up on news, I saw a banner advertisement for Obama. I also received a text message alerting supporters of his Vice Presidential pick, Joe Biden (even though the effort was scooped by some overzealous reporters). On Facebook, I’ve seen a consistent Obama presence and now, after her Convention speech, even his wife, Michelle has Facebook Fans. A link to that speech was also emailed to me the next morning. I watched the entire thing and emailed it to my Mom.

I don’t recall seeing anything online from John McCain, and really nothing memorable in traditional media except his television ads comparing Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

The candidates’ online presence and lack thereof clearly illustrates the key difference between them: one is young, forward-thinking, open to change, innovative, and relates to me on my turf (aka the Internet). The other is old school with traditional campaign tactics. There are great learnings in Obama’s campaign strategy for businesses attempting to enter the online marketing arena.

• Know your audience and relate to them where they already are visiting.
• Find out the tools that they use and weave your way into their online experience.
• Don’t overlook the potential in media such as text messaging and email.
• Be real, open, and accessible.

Google has announced the upcoming release of new quality score “improvements” to the AdWords system. There are three key aspects that will effect PPC advertisers…

The Quality Score will now be calculated in real time. This seems to mean that if your ad is performing particularly well in a given day, it will it be given a higher quality score resulting in better placement. This should be very interesting to see how it will effect current campaigns and what adjustments will need to be made.

Keywords will no longer be “inactive for search.” In the past, if a keyword was not performing well, you would be forced to increase your bids. But, this will no longer be the case. Now, they will always be active. But, since they have a poor quality score, they likely will not generate much traffic.

I would be very cautious with this, however, as there is the chance that you will begin to receive a spike in traffic from these types of keywords. Make sure you check to see what keywords are in your ad groups that are “inactive” and make sure you want them to be active or else it’s better to delete or pause them.

“Minimum bid” is being replaced with “first page bid.” The minimum bid is no longer going to be necessary and so instead, it is being replaced with first page bid, which allows you to see how much you need to bid in order for your ads to be shown on the first page.

Of course, all these changes are being made for two reasons. One, they intend to push ads that perform well towards the top of the rankings, resulting in more relevant ads for searchers. Secondly, it’s intended to make Google more money.

That is, at the end of the day, the main reason why they make change. But, in order for Google to make more money, they need to keep advertisers shelling out money. And to do that, they need to stay ahead of Yahoo and Microsoft by providing advertisers with the most advanced paid search platform – that when managed correctly – delivers a great return on their advertising dollars.

My wife and I have been watching the Olympics whenever we could over the past two weeks.  We’d watched almost any sport that was on and usually enjoyed it.  But on Saturday, NBC did something I couldn’t believe.  They aired about two hours and ten minutes straight of the most boring TV I have ever sat through (and why I did, I’m not totally sure).  They aired every minute of the men’s marathon run.

Now, I have nothing but respect for anyone who can run 26.2 miles straight.  I’d be hard pressed to run 26.2 feet – let alone recreate Pheidippides’ historic run.   But, that doesn’t mean that I’d like to spend 2 hours watching someone else do it.  I’d have been fine with watching the first ten minutes, cutting back to it every twenty minutes, and then watching the end. 

But seriously, why would you televise the entire race?  Show me something, anything else!  Watching linoleum curl would have been more interesting (if nothing else for that cool/geeky science aspect).  Plus, commentators run out of interesting things to say in an exciting sport so you can only imagine what they came up with during this riveting spectacle.  “Look they’re at a water station.”  “It really cools them down when they pour it on their heads.”  “Yeah, they sure like water, Bob.” or “These runners are really… running…”  I was on the edge of my seat.

So, why would NBC in its infinite wisdom show such fascinating TV during prime time? (Granted it was on Saturday, which is not a historically high-rated TV night).  I can only come up with two reasons:

1. They thought live-and-boring would trump taped-and-interesting or…

2. They didn’t think it through.  In either case, I think number 2 applies.

So, the moral of this story?  When you spend billions (or just hundreds) of dollars on a marketing campaign, think through how the audience will see it/hear it/understand it.  Throwing  money at anything only makes you poor.  Make sure your campaign is thoroughly thought through (say that three times fast). 

Try to look at it from the perspective of your target audience.  If I was X target audience demographic, how would I interact with Y marketing materials whether it’s a print piece, a Web piece, or a TV/Radio piece.  Don’t assume they’ll jump through whatever hoops you’ve laid out. 

Think about how you would react to the same sort of materials if you were in someone else’s target demographic.  If you take the time to think through every aspect of the life cycle of your campaign, you’ll see better responses, happier customers, and possibly a blacker bottom line.

Remember slow and steady (and thought through) wins the marathon (sorry, I just had to).

Click Fraud has been a serious concern for careful marketers for a long time now. But, Click Fraud also has become a scape-goat for some poorly performing campaign symptoms caused by laziness or lack of knowledge:

1 – High bounce rate/low average time on site
Most often, you will find this is the case when you have a descriptive ad that takes the visitor to a generic or a content-mismatch page (for example an online jewelry store with an ad about a silver bracelet that links to their home page describing gold jewelry).

2 – Low conversion rate
There are many causes for a low conversion rate – ranging from a user un-friendly checkout process to a bug on your site. Or, your ad may produce traffic that is just not interested in your product (if your ads imply that you are the lowest price online shoe site and you are clearly not).

3 – Traffic from same IP address (with a caveat)
If you find that you are getting a lot traffic to your site from your PPC from the same IP address, go to www.dnsstuff.com and use the WHOIS lookup. Many IP addresses resolve back to the ISP (like Earthlink or AOL).

4 – Expensive CTR (Your initial Max CPC gets you no traffic even though there is a lot of inventory)
This is a common occurrence when you initially get started in PPC. Your CPC is based on not just what you are willing to spend in relation to what your competitors are, but also your quality score, and importantly your CTR history. So, if you are launching your first campaign, expect to bid high until you can get a history of good CTR

5 – Traffic from non-Google sites, even though you have opted out of the Content Network
Opting out of the Content Network does not guarantee that all of your traffic will be a result of Google searches. Not only might your ad still show up in Gmail, Google Maps, or other Google sites - and unless you have manually opted out of the Search Partner option – you will still see results from sites like Ask.com, AOL, and many, many, many other smaller search sites that are Google’s search partners

More common symptoms of Click Fraud generally result around a big change in campaign performance. Some examples below are:

Spike in traffic from a campaign with no spike in spend or logic/seasonality-cause

Drop in traffic from a campaign with no spike in spend or logic/seasonality-cause

Change in ad performance – if your campaign has been running for a time with a high CTR and a high conversion rate, and all of a sudden the performance drops. First check to make sure there is not a problem with your site. If nothing has broken on your site, start the deeper dive.

Traffic from same IP – when the results of the WHOIS lookup shows that the IP resolves to competitor or other non-ISP traffic

No one wants to waste their PPC budget on bad clicks, but before you go to the search engines with the accusation of Click Fraud, make sure that you’ve done your due diligence to eliminate the symptoms caused by a poorly performing or expensive ad.

There have been quite a few articles written about the use of social media by the candidates in this extended US election cycle. But, when you look at those who are no longer candidates, their use of these networks has generally stopped. (Hillary – 2 tweets since she dropped out of the race, Chris Dodd hasn’t even logged into MySpace since January, etc.)

Which leads me to believe that they don’t really buy into these tools as a way to keep in touch with their electorate unless it’s either time to beg for money or votes. Yes, it takes resources to stay involved with these networks, but they do have a staff that they can task an hour or two a week to throwing up a blog post, or tweeting some accomplishment.

In the long run, they’ll be seen as active participants on these networks rather than just trying to subvert them to their needs every 2-6 years.

When you get to the office of President, there is the official website – Whitehouse.gov – that lists the latest news, holds the archive of Presidential radio addresses, and puts up the occasional video (the last one currently listed is 3 months old). Now, the Whitehouse does have a twitter account, but I could not find a link to it from the whitehouse website,

Looking at the UK, they take a slightly different approach. The Prime Minister’s office has an official Website – number10.gov.uk – that also lists the latest news, but it also has links to the official YouTube channel, the official Twitter account, and the official Flickr account (not just photo opps by the PM, but also shots of the Downing St. garden in bloom) – all of which appear to be in regular use.

The site also asks for voters to participate and engage by requesting that they submit videos to the YouTube channel for the PM to respond to. And, allows users to create and promote petitions on the site that will then be delivered directly to the appropriate people within 10 Downing Street.

What’s also great about the UK approach is that there’s a level of tongue-in-cheekness about it too. When one national newspaper took advantage of the petition capability to get 50,000 people to petition to have the PM replaced with a popular TV celebrity, the staff at 10 Downing Street threw together a quick video response.

Naturally, there were some that responded that they were upset that taxpayers’ money was spent to create the response, but they’re the ones that don’t get it. It doesn’t matter that it was frivolous, it shows that they are in fact listening. It shows that they are using these tools to engage their constituents year round, not just in an election cycle.

American politicians would do well to look at this and think how they can incorporate social networking into their off-campaign time, because doing so will really help them when it comes to campaign time. If you’re wondering about Obama’s VP pick… 2 tweets this month, and 4 all year for Senator Biden…

Kellogg’s is bringing back Hydrox cookies, at least temporarily. Did anyone really miss them? The cookie, introduced in 1908 and discontinued in 2003, is celebrating its 100th Anniversary. I guess Kellogg’s thought this would be a great opportunity to bring them back for some additional beatings by Oreos.

Hydrox Cookie

So why now? Was it the huge outpouring of protest ( if 1000 petition signatures and 1300 phone calls constitutes a protest)? Or, perhaps Kellogg’s saw the opportunity to generate some press – which it has. I still question the reasoning behind bringing back a brand that has failed miserably. It just seems futile. Sales numbers from 1998 really say it all — $374 million for Oreos; $16 million for Hydrox.

I am a huge fan of cookies, especially the dunkable, chocolate variety, but I was never drawn to Hydrox. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a Hydrox and don’t think I would if offered. I certainly wouldn’t give them to my kids. Why?

The name! It just sounds artificial and chemically. Rule of thumb, if your cookie rhymes with a major brand of bleach, you might want to think about another name. They knew they had a branding issue and even changed the name to Droxies in 1999. Good try Kellogg’s, but changing the name of a product is really the kiss of death. I can’t think of one that has survived it. Can you?

Kellogg’s does a lot of things right – Cheeze-Its and anything touched by Elfin magic for example – but I wish they would just throw in the towel on the Hydrox brand for good. I don’t even like seeing them near my Oreos on the shelf.

As we all know, Google dominates search and continues to increase its share of searches.  The latest Nielson Online data has Google garnering 60.2% of searches and 16% year over year growth.  That translates into a significant amount of additional revenue for Google’s already deep pockets. 

In order to continue to increase their revenue from search, they will either have to increase their revenue per search or continue to steal market share away from their competitors…or both.  Are they really going to continue to increase their search share and eventually end up with a 70%…80%…or even a higher share?  Maybe, but Google is not dumb and knows that they’ll need additional sources of revenue in the future.

That is why they are constantly putting out their feelers to determine new sources of revenue, which critics often refer to as a waste of money.  I’d generally disagree with that assessment, especially since they are in a position now to have the luxury to experiment. 

One area that Google seems to be experimenting in is the Google content network in AdWords.  They are constantly releasing new features that make it more transparent and give advertisers greater control over where their ads are shown and who sees them.

A couple weeks ago, they announced the set of enhancements to the Google content network.  These latest enhancements, that will be rolled out in the coming months, are a result of the DoubleClick purchase.  The four improvements are:

Frequency Capping – Limit the number of times a user sees your ad on the content network.

Frequency Reporting – Find out how many people see your ads on the content network and on average how many times they are seeing them.

Improved Ads Quality – I’m not exactly sure what this feature is, but it sounds like Google is saying they will be able to use the additional data to improve the quality of the ads that are shown on the content network.

View-Through Conversions – Find out how many visitors came to their site after viewing one of their ads on the content network.

These enhancements will give advertisers more control over who sees their ads and give them additional metrics they can use to optimize the content network.  They will first have to hope that advertisers - who had given up on the content network because of how poor much of the traffic can often be - are willing to use the new features and begin to allocate some of their budget to the content network.

If they do utilize the content network and Google is able to drive high quality traffic from the content network, then Google could begin to significantly increase their revenue from the content network.  It will be a slow process and only time will tell if these and other enhancements really do improve revenue for Google and its advertisers.

To celebrate the upcoming Webinar Wednesday focusing on Analytics, I’m proposing a little contest.

Over the years, not only have I compiled many, many, many monthly analytics reports, I’ve also worked with lots of different marketers, reviewing their monthly reports.

These reports can be very ‘canned’ or highly customized. The reports can serve one purpose (just get it done so it can be checked off the to-do list) or multiple purposes (gut-check how email, PPC and other online marketing campaigns are doing, as well as understanding usability issues.)

What I am proposing, is that you submit your best monthly report to me at jbrazelle@serengeticom.com before the August 27th Webinar on analytics. I will chose the best report and the winner can choose from the following prizes:

Option 1 – Free admission to the Analytics Wednesday Webinar (kidding, everyone gets that).
Option 2 – Free one-hour consulting about analytics configuration, what is important to measure, or you decide.
Option 3 – A Surprise!

The winner can choose how much of the report to share in the post dedicated to the winner.

So, if you are currently a marketer, an analyst, or even a business owner who puts together a monthly analytic report, please feel free to send it on!!

So, I got to thinking this week about what going “viral” really means…

Viral – adj. from the English virus meaning of or like a virus.

(I know, I’m a human lexicon. You should see me play Scrabul- errr… WordScraper.) But, being the product of pop-culture that I am, when I think of viruses – I always think of Agent Smith’s classic speech to Neo in The Matrix: “…[humans are] not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus.”

Viruses consume everything they can on their mission to spread as far and as fast as possible. They move so fast because they’re on a limited time frame. They are the original twenty-four hour bug. So, they spread as far and as fast as they can because they know they will die out shortly. Their purpose seems only to spread, disrupt, destroy, and in the process survive. (Viruses will even infect other viruses.)

Are viral marketing campaigns much different? Their purpose is generally to “infect” as many users as possible to spread the brand/product as quickly and as far as possible. Most viral marketing campaigns also seek to deceive or at least trick the user into thinking this viral marketing campaign is something other than a marketing campaign.

If it’s well done, it can be an engrossing, award winning experience. But, most viral marketing campaigns, like pyramid schemes, fall far short of their promised revenue for the client and can sometimes cost millions in backlash. Viral marketing campaigns in general, particularly the bad and/or thinly veiled ones, are a detriment to the landscape. They add nothing to a conversation except a deceitful attempt by a marketer to con the consumer out of a buck.

On the other flagellum, there are bacteria. Some bacteria cause sickness, disease, and death. But, if you’ve ever seen a woman over-sharing her digestive problems on TV, you probably know that there are some good bacteria out there too. They help us with digestion and a wide variety of other things. Yet, they can also spread quickly.

We should add something to the conversation online rather than sneakily weaseling our way into marketing something. We should create campaigns that are funny, heartwarming, or weird simply for the sake of the consumer and not to exploit them.

Arguably, there must be some business model behind why and how we do this so that we can at least break even. But, if we care more for our customers than their pocket books, we will have created long-term customers. And to take the analogy farther than it probably should go, the bacteria will live forever in their gut rather than quickly dying out after controlling the whole body.

Let us then devise bacterial marketing campaigns that interest, engross, and help the average person. Let us not just chase the almighty dollar, but let us build the community and, by extension, all of mankind through our marketing. Let us be at the forefront of a new marketing strategy that invites customers into a better way of living rather than forcing a product down their throat.

If nothing else I think we’ll all sleep better at night.

The answer to that is a resounding YES, especially when you take a look at the data in the latest Pew Internet & American Life Project memo on Search Engine Use.  They found that as of May 2008, the percentage of users that use search engines on a typical day has risen to 49%.   So, almost half of all internet users use a search engine on a daily basis to find information / locate products / research a company.

What about the makeup of the typical searcher?  According to the memo, this person is typically under 49 years of age and makes more than $50k per year – ideal demographics for most companies.

So, what does this mean for you?  It means that you need to make sure that your site can be found in the results for your company / your brand / your services, because if they’re searching, and you’re not there…