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Welcome to the February 2009 Newsletter:

Recent studies have proven the effectiveness of display advertising on search.  According to recent Specific Media Ad Effectiveness data, by comScore, the study demonstrates that consumers exposed to display advertising were more likely to search for brand terms (i.e. automotive manufacturer), and segment terms (i.e. vehicle class), than unexposed consumers.

The study shows that display advertising has a direct impact on both paid
and organic searches and clicks.

eMarketer agreed that "there is a connection between display and search ads...often it's not the search ad alone that gets consumers to act, but the context of all the marketing that preceded it."

And complementary data from eMarketer says that search and display ads will retain the highest share of online ad spending formats through 2013, and will be the only formats to maintain double-digit share through that period. 

If you haven’t yet considered display advertising as part of your marketing mix, now might be the ideal time to present the benefits to your client.

Contact us for more information.

By now, most brands and businesses have bid on their search branded keywords and any words even remotely related to their product. But the next phase of keyword bidding has just begun. Try mentioning "camping" in your facebook status and you'll see ads for weeks about camping social networks and camping gear.

So, are you bidding on your Facebook keywords? If someone mentions "new car", "big screen TV", or "vacation", there are hundreds of brands and services that would do very well to attract those users. As is the problem with all behavioral, the ads could appear after the fact and be worthless. Someone who writes "just bought an HDTV" isn't going to respond well to an ad for the newest 50" plasma. But that's what optimization and keyphrase construction is all about – finding the strings that work and bidding the right price.

Our advice to brands is that they get started now. It doesn't require a cannonball into the pool, but dipping a toe and finding out what works now puts you in the game at a time where accountable media is more important than ever.

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This is not a hatchet job on the old guard of online data. Think of it as more of an invitation to folks from comScore and/or Nielsen to help educate us on why it's worth still paying for their services. Not sure where we'll host this panel, but if these folks are willing to appear, we’re sure we can get leaders from Quantcast, Compete, and/or Hitwise to sit on either side for what would be interesting to many conference hosts.

Some background on what sparked this. comScore's panel sees web-wide within 1MM users, Compete sees web-wide within 2MM normalized users, and Quantcast sees 210MM monthly users an average of 200 times per month. Not web wide but 100x the scale; up to you to decide which is the trump card there. Full disclosure – Beep! is partnered with Compete on data services.

Compete Pro offers an enterprise edition that provides three logins for less than comScore or Nielsen charge for one login. For that price you get search info, rankers, and similar sites. Last we were pitched from the old guard, these were all separate services that got very expensive very quickly. Quantcast's rankers, Site-o-graphics(tm), and similar audience tool is 100% free and they insist it'll remain this way. Nothin' beats free!

As we meet with media professionals around the country the reigning theme in defense of CS/N is "that is what their clients accept." We just can't imagine this is the only reason, although it is indeed what we're told.

So, readers, CS/N executives, please offer your thoughts and comments. Either we’re way off base or ComScore and Nielsen are in trouble.

Contact us for more information.