Google Ad Planner: Viva La Revolution
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Yesterday, Google announced Google Ad Planner which is a new service that helps advertisers to buy online media that is targeted to their audience of choice. It is a media buying tool that allows you to search, identify, target, buy and report all through an easy to use online interface.
You may be asking “Isn’t this just an expansion of Google Trends?”
No, the two are related but Google states “Google Trends for Websites is designed for all users. Google Ad Planner is designed for advertisers and agencies, and offers features such as .csv exports, MediaVisor exports, and demographic estimates.”
The tool seems very easy to use and campaigns can be set-up and implemented in minutes. I recall setting up media campaigns in the dot-com era that took weeks to set-up, and even longer to create meaningful reports. Viva La Revolution!
Google is making online media buying more accessible to the common marketer (or marketing agency - cough cough). Setting up a campaign is easy.
First, the advertiser needs to specify the specific demographics and interests of their target market, or search by topic, for relevant web sites to advertise on in Google network of millions of web site advertising partners. The advertiser can then select the web sites that they are interested in advertising on and are then returned detailed aggregated web site statistics. Selections can be modified to meet their needs and then saved into a media plan.
Advertisers that are familiar with using Google Adwords, and more specifically the Google placement targeting feature, will be happy to hear that you can export the list of Web sites from Google Ad Planner, and then import them into Google AdWords using the ultra handy Google AdWords Editor tool.
Google Ad Planner is still in Beta, but if you have a pre-exisitng Google Adwords account that you spend more than $500 a month in, I encourage you to apply for a Google Ad Planner Beta Invitation. If you are not spending $500 a month in Google Adwords, I encourage you to step up and join the revolution.
Posted by Chris Breikss on 06/25 at 11:52 AM(3) Comments • Permalink
Visa Business Network Boosts Facebook’s Ad Efforts
As part of a small-business network Visa designed for Facebook, the world’s largest credit and debit card processor is paying for $2 million of advertising on the socializing site. Visa also will promote the new Facebook service in a multimedia marketing campaign beginning next month...Read the full story here, or learn how this can benefit your business on Facebook.
Posted by Chris Breikss on 06/25 at 09:44 AM(0) Comments • Permalink
Firefox 3: The Best Browser Ever for SEO?
Monday, June 23, 2008
Mozilla released Firefox 3 this week to much fanfare, with the organization claiming more than 8 million downloads on the first day (to be confirmed by Guinness, no less).
Bottom line, the latest version of Firefox is nothing short of fantastic. Besides boasting improved performance (a drawback of v2), Firefox features one-click bookmarking, a “smart” location bar that learns as you use it, and a full zoom that lets you expand any part of a web page. In all, Mozilla claims over 15,000 improvements over Firefox 2.
Now, the jury is still out in the 6S office whether Firefox 3 has now established itself as the market’s superior browser. But we do agree that cool new SEO add-ons and Google’s Firefox toolbar could very well make Firefox 3 the new SEO browser of choice – and give IE7 more than a run for its money.
Here’s how to add Firefox 3 to your SEO arsenal. First:
1. If you haven’t already done so, download Firefox 3.
2. Install the Google Toolbar for Firefox. With this toolbar, you can add custom buttons for your favourite sites, send web pages by e-mail, text, or blog, and create bookmarks you can access from any computer.
Next, install these SEO add-ons:
1. SEO Book.com’s SEO for Firefox. This excellent tool adds all kinds of data to traditional search result lists, giving you an overview of why a page is ranking where it is.
2. SEOmoz’s SEO ToolBox is a collection of free SEO tools, including inclusion and backlink checks, and indexed pages and page rank reports.
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Relationship on the Rocks: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Deals
Friday, June 20, 2008
Why can’t they all just get along? For our sake?
Google announced last week that Yahoo will be granted access to Google AdSense, changing (and improving) search and content advertising for Yahoo users. Not everyone is pleased with this proposed arrangement.
Carl Icahn, 46th richest man in the world, currently owns 4% of Yahoo and is attempting to replace the board. This is of course being done to reopen the merger talks with Microsoft. The Yahoo-Google deal stipulates that the whole arrangement can be thrown out if the current Yahoo board is replaced.
While this deal looks great for advertisers, every day online customers and publishers, it will significantly limit the growth potential of Icahn’s portfolio. When speculation began to surround the Microsoft/Yahoo deal, shares consistently increased in value—however, when the deal was quashed, that value dropped and shareholders are understandably upset. CEO Jerry Yang is not a popular guy at Yahoo right now.
What do these deals mean for us? The current search landscape appears to be ready for a change by either Microsoft, Yahoo or both in an attempt to reign in the Big G. Search will be business as usual, with Google slowly gaining more of a market domination until second and third place decide on their next move. Whether these moves involve banding together or joining the leader remain to be seen.
It looks like the overall quality of search advertising will improve with the Google-Yahoo deal, but choice for end users will diminish.
For more information about Thursday’s Yahoo-Google agreement, read the Official Google Blog.
Posted by Chris Breikss on 06/20 at 12:22 PM (0) Comments • Permalink
Gunning for Google in Search
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
An interesting article that appeared today in BusinessWeek about the future of search.
In short, it talks about future innovations and new technologies in the search industry. Topics discussed include semantic search, specialization, and open-source search. Outlined also are projections on the economy of search marketing within the next 5 years, as well as what companies like Google and Microsoft are doing to incorporate new technology into their search engines...Read more
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Video: Duane’s World, Excellent!
Friday, June 13, 2008
A few weeks ago Duane from Adobe came by the 6S Marketing offices to interview John Blown for an episode of Duane’s World on Adobe TV. In the interview John discusses a number of strategies for getting Adobe Flash based websites to rank well - and there are some great Flash SEO tips in there. We had a great time at the office talking to Duane about Adobe technologies and how we implement them in our processes.
Duane’s World is an informative a funny show that airs on Adobe TV and discusses leading edge companies and how they use Adobe software.
Check out the video!
Posted by Chris Breikss on 06/13 at 09:59 AM
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