Engaged Online Viewers Receptive to Advertising

According to a new study "Watching The Web: How Online Video Engages Audiences" conducted by Forrester Consulting for Veoh Networks, , not all online video viewers are equal when it comes to advertising. While some online video viewers still only "snack" on short clips, there exists a large audience of young, influential, engaged viewers who watch a great deal of long-form online video and pay attention to the brand messages delivered to them in online video environments.

The study found that Engaged Viewers (viewers who watch more than an hour of online video a week) make up nearly 40% of all online video viewers and watch nearly 75% of all online video. Of these Engaged Viewers, those who spend the most time consuming and sharing long-form content:

• Are more likely to watch videos all the way through
• Pay more attention to online video more than they do TV
• Interact with and rate the videos they watch more frequently
• Are twice as likely to recall in-video ads and post-rolls than non-Engaged Viewers
• Agree more readily that advertising is fair and helps pay for their free experience
• Consider banner ads and ads that come in between videos (mid-rolls) most effective

Steve Mitgang, CEO of Veoh Networks, opines "...online video viewing... will create many new opportunities for content providers and advertisers... advertisers (should) re-think their approaches to marketing... to captivate these valuable viewers as they drive online video into a mainstream entertainment medium."

The study found that online video viewing For Engaged Viewers is not a fad but rather a growing consumer habit:

• 61% of Engaged Viewers expect to spend significantly more time watching online video
• 13- to 24-year-olds make up only 15% of the online population, but represent more than
• 35% of Engaged online video viewers
• Engaged Viewers watch an average of 6 kinds of video content, from animation to TV shows to movie trailers, during the course of a month

The study further segmented Engaged Viewers into three sub-groups based on time spent watching video, types of videos watched, comfort level managing the video viewing experience, propensity to share videos, and amount of attention paid to online video compared to TV:

• Watchers, those who spend just over an hour watching video each week and don't engage the experience deeply by controlling playback or sharing videos
• Controllers, those younger viewers take an active role in controlling their video experiences and feel that online video is important to their lives
• Connectors, though just 7% of online viewers, consume 20% of all online video and do 42% of all online video sharing

The most desirable viewers - Connectors and Controllers - watch long-form video more often than Watchers do, so sites that offer a great deal of long-form video are the ideal places to reach them. Long-form video sites not only attract these viewers, but they also foster an environment that secures more viewer attention and engagement with advertising. Connectors are significantly more likely to notice brands and feel ads are useful when presented with products they are interested in.

As online video viewing matures, advertisers can take advantage of the unique opportunity to reach valuable Engaged Viewers by considering these findings, concludes the report:

• Engaged video viewers are more open to enjoying the advertising they watch giving marketers an opportunity to create ads that are as entertaining as the video clips they are paired with.
• Engaged video viewers are more involved in every aspect of the viewing experience, including the advertising.
• Engaged viewers respond to ad formats that don't intrude unfairly. Their preference for banner ads supports this. But banner ads can be supported by a comprehensive ad experience
• As more viewers spend more than an hour a week viewing online video, advertisers can match ads to viewers with long-form content, where the choice of programming defines the viewer

Who Has Time For All This Video Content?

WHEN YOUTUBE LAUNCHED, THE TOOLS enabled everyone to become a producer of video content. Until recently, the production quality of most video online has been entertaining at best but not something a brand wants to regularly sponsor. Now, it seems that every day the phone rings with yet another content producer with stellar broadcast production credentials asking for an opportunity to pitch. It's almost as if all of Hollywood has become unemployed and is looking to peddle their ideas for a video series. If it's not the producers calling me, the indie video sites jump in to fill the time void. There's another Funny Or Die, YuMe or strike.tv eager to partner with brands to bring great, original, and not-for-the-faint-of-marketer-heart content to the world. Since I have a day job that encompasses all of digital media, the majority of online video producer and upstart Web site calls go unanswered or do not receive their just due.

Imagine if the TV world had this issue. Clearly, they do not, because (1) lots of money is spent annually on integrations and (2) there are a finite number of shows being produced, most of which are continuations of known programming. Furthermore, agencies and marketers have become experts in reviewing and selecting scripts where a brand's insertion will most often appear to be natural or organic, hopefully not detracting from the show's entertainment value. Typically, there is a resident expert who takes on this arduous task. In most, if not all, cases agencies have yet to bring these experts into the online video world, where we typically lack content guidelines, adequate projections on delivery performance (which impacts pricing), a content ratings system to know if the content is suitable for marketers, and little opportunity for retribution should the program not achieve moderate success.

As a first step, however, we need to define success. The challenge resides in measurement options being limited and lacking visibility. There are three measures that are easy to capture without incurring incremental cost -- total streams, average viewing duration, and click-through data from clickable placement in or around the content -- assuming the program is set up to track this data. Notably missing are brand metrics, buzz/sentiment metrics and demographic/behavioral audience composition, which are more common currency for digital measurement these days and often come with added expense. There are likely to be others, but these are top of mind. It is safe to assume that success will be achieved if the show hits a "feel good" number of streams/views.

How then does an industry with unlimited content address this unprecedented issue? One option is to hire a few of the most talented content creators. Being a part of a media agency, that would be somewhat novel but not entirely unheard of. Would the agency then offer a production studio solution for branded or unbranded content that needs to find a home via Web syndication? Or should another video Web site be created, launched and wholly owned by the agency? If holding companies can own ad networks and other technologies, then why not own a video Web site or two (or 100)? Another option is to stick to business as usual, with reps and vendors calling on anyone who will pick up the phone or email them back. That, however, seems like a lot of time invested with low return on that investment. The fall-back option is to create a gateway to funnel this information through a resident online video content expert, adding to the agency's wide berth of specialized services.

No matter which road is taken, something needs to be done to ensure indie video content online is properly considered alongside other online video options. Otherwise, it will be the same network Web sites that will continue to command share of wallet. The result will be their ability to maintain high prices relative to other quality online video options due to lack of real competition and supply constraints

Industry Click Fraud Rate Holds at 16.2 Percent in Second Quarter 2008

Botnets Grow to Make Up More than 25 Percent of All Click Fraud

AUSTIN, Texas – July 22, 2008 – Click Forensics™, Inc., . today released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the second quarter 2008 from the search advertising industry's leading independent click fraud reporting service - the Click Fraud Index (www.ClickFraudIndex.com).

Now in its third year, the Click Fraud Index monitors and reports on data gathered from the Click Fraud Network™, which more than 4,000 online advertisers and agencies have joined. The Click Fraud Network provides statistically significant industry PPC data collected from online advertising campaigns for both large and small companies across all the leading search engines. Key findings from data reported for Q2 2008 include:

• The overall industry average click fraud rate was 16.2 percent for Q2 2008. That's down slightly from the 16.3 percent rate reported for Q1 2008 and up from the 15.8 percent click fraud rate reported for Q2 2007.
  
• The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 27.6 percent. That's down from the 27.8 percent rate reported for Q1 2008 and up from the 25.6 percent average click fraud rate reported for Q1 2007.
  
• For the first time, traffic from botnets was responsible for more than 25 percent of all click fraud traffic in Q2 2008.
  
• In Q2 2008, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from China (4.3 percent), Russia (3.5 percent), and France (3.2 percent).
  

"Although click fraud rates were relatively unchanged in the second quarter, we found that the methods used to commit click fraud have become increasingly more sophisticated and difficult to detect," said Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics. "The threat from botnets is the biggest concern as they have grown to cause over one quarter of all click fraud. Online advertisers should be extra vigilant in watching for traffic from botnets in their search marketing campaigns."

The Click Fraud Index publishes data collected from the Click Fraud Network (www.ClickFraudNetwork.com), the industry's first independent third-party click fraud detection service dedicated to helping companies more accurately monitor their online advertising campaigns for pay-per-click fraud. Click fraud data is tracked and published on a quarterly basis for specific search providers, industries and trends. The service is unique in that it monitors online campaigns for click fraud by correlating data collected from search provider campaigns and the advertisers' own web sites – providing the industry’s most accurate view of click fraud to date.

About Click Forensics, Inc.

Click Forensics is the leading provider of PPC traffic quality management and click fraud prevention solutions that help online advertisers and publishers stop click fraud and improve search marketing campaigns. The company also publishes the Click Fraud Index™, the top independent source of industry click fraud data. Click Forensics is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and is privately held with funding from Sierra Ventures, Austin Ventures and Shasta Ventures. More information on Click Forensics and its offerings is available at www.ClickForensics.com.

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Click Forensics, Click Fraud Index and Click Fraud Network are trademarks of Click Forensics, Inc. All other company and product names mentioned are used only for identification and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Media Contact:
Karl Scholz
For Click Forensics karl.scholz@clickforensics.com
(512) 493-0909

Social Marketing Limited By Advertiser Confusion

A recent JupiterResearch study underscores that actual spending on social media marketing has not caught up with the hype surrounding the emerging category.


The report found that half of all advertisers are spending less than 5% of their online budgets on social marketing in 2008. Keeping budgets small is the highly customized nature of social media campaigns, compared to search or display advertising.

"Each social network site offers a wide variety of tactics to choose from, and in such a new market, social marketers have little or no performance history to rely on," wrote Emily Riley, a Jupiter analyst who focuses on online advertising and authored the report.

Nearly 30% of social marketers surveyed said figuring out which tactics suit campaign goals was their biggest challenge, with that figure increasing to 47% for large advertisers. Acknowledging that many advertisers don't have clear goals when approaching social sites, publishers are starting to offer more assistance.

Jupiter says MySpace has taken "a very consultative role," advising marketers when to use sweepstakes, for instance, or in helping to interpret new kinds of metrics such as number of "friends" in a meaningful way.

Facebook, meanwhile, is creating drag-and-drop tools that marketers can use on their branded Facebook Pages to show in real-time which tactics drive the highest level of engagement. A post on the Inside Facebook blog on Monday also suggests the social network needs to do more to let advertisers more fully customize the look and feel of their Pages and incorporate applications.

Jupiter found that MSN focuses on the overall brand message rather than social tools to determine which mix of traditional and new tactics works best. That approach might include banner ads for a movie release in Hotmail that link to a downloadable widget.

For large marketers, better ways of measuring ROI and brand metrics would have the biggest impact on their social marketing in the future. To that end, publishers have to work with advertisers to link audience activity from their own sites, marketer's sites and on search engines.

"Marketers could then use 'scores' to compare relative site performance," according to the report. "If the level of engagement on an advertiser's site resulting from a game widget scored low, the publisher could provide guidance as to how to increase the score based on its knowledge of its own audience."

Jupiter also urges social sites to offer behavioral targeting, which MySpace does through its HyperTargeting program and Facebook via its self-service Facebook Ads platform. But even with social sites making it easier to advertise, the broader economic downturn is expected to slow ad growth.

Market research firm eMarketer this spring lowered its forecast on social network ad spending to $1.4 billion from $1.6 billion, in part because of a weakened economy.

Internet Marketing Company Lazword.com Inc. Celebrates 10th Year in Business

New Jersey based Internet Marketing and Website development services company, Lazworld.com Inc, celebrates its 10th year in business. As one of the oldest internet marketing companies online, the company provides consulting and management services that define, develop, improve, expand, and manage an entire online presence for small-to-medium-size businesses in any industry.

Belmar, NJ (PRWEB) July 21, 2008 -- Internet marketing and website development company, Lazworld.com Inc., is celebrating 10 years of business. Lazworld, one of the oldest internet marketing companies online is a cutting edge internet marketing company with a focus on providing custom internet marketing programs. The company provides consulting and management services for small-to-medium-size businesses in any industry that define, develop, improve, expand, and manage an entire online presence

Internet Marketing Company Lazword.com Inc. Celebrates 10th Year in Business
Since the relationship between internet marketing and website development is very important our product and service offerings reflect and balance the marketing-design relationship.
Lazworld.com founder, David Lazar, gives credit for the company's success back to those who have helped it develop from its conception. "We would like to thank our customers and business partners for contributing to the achievements of this milestone," Lazar said. "On the marketing side, we remain committed to using our internet marketing programs/services, with consulting to generate the best possible results for our clients. On the development side, we strive to re-design and build custom websites that work beyond our customers' expectations. Our extensive history, training, and focused methodologies coupled with our drive to provide customers with superior internet marketing results, has paid off".

Lazworld is one of the first one-hundred companies ever certified as a Google Advertising Professional; Lazworld is a certified Yahoo and MSN/Microsoft advertising partner, and a member of SEMPO.org. Lazworld has published one of the most comprehensive internet marketing glossaries online at Internet Marketing Glossary. The company was one of the first to provide internet marketing consulting and management services, first to leverage micro/mini websites to expand an internet marketing strategy, and has had a positive track record of creating internet marketing strategies that use ethical best practice methodologies and keep its customers ahead of competitors.

In 10 years, the service offerings have remained constant always focusing on Internet Marketing and website development. "Since the relationship between internet marketing and website development is very important our product and service offerings reflect and balance the marketing-design relationship." Lazar said "We know that if a website does not work, it can be changed and tested or re-designed and tested until it does work."

While the Lazworld product and service offerings have remained constant they have been fine-tuned to keep current with client needs, industry trends, changes, and best practices. The company combines a mixture of various internet marketing avenues that are 100% custom for each client website they promote. And the company offers internet marketing products and services that include: pay per click, search engine optimization, website analytics, keyword services, online media buying, strategy development, custom consulting, and more. The company has a history of working with Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.

With a strong record of business success and customer satisfaction, Lazworld.com looks back at the past 10 years with pride and looks forward to the next 10 with great anticipation, continuing to forge the path of providing leading internet marketing and website development services for small- to-medium-size business. For more information visit the website at http://www.lazworld.com or phone 1-866-422-8911.

About Lazworld.com Inc.
Lazworld.com was founded in 1998 and offers a suite of leading edge, proven, internet marketing and web development management and consulting services to help you define, develop, improve, expand, and manage an entire online presence. Lazworld.com is one of the oldest and most respected Internet Marketing companies in the world with an impeccable reputation and an extensive list of satisfied clients. For more information visit the website at http://www.lazworld.com.

Contact Information:
David Lazar
President and Founder - Lazworld.com Inc.
Office (732) 280-8069
Fax (732) 280-7635 E-mail
info @ lazworld.com

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Spoof ads run in Philly.com, Inquirer, Daily News

The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com ran a series of spoof airline advertisements yesterday that a spokesman said were meant to gauge their collective power "in generating awareness and traffic for, in this case, a brand that doesn't even exist."
The full- and partial-page ads for Derrie-Air, a fictitious environmentally friendly airline purporting to offer fares based on a passenger's weight, appeared 21 times in sections of The Inquirer, 15 times in the Daily News, and on the Philly.com home page.

Jay Devine, spokesman for Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C., owner of the newspapers and Web site, said the ads were also meant "to put a smile on people's faces."

The ads carry no disclaimer, but one does appear on the Web page to which readers are referred in the ads. It says, in part, "The Derrie-Air campaign is a fictitious advertising campaign created by Philadelphia Media Holdings to test the results of advertising in our print and online products and to stimulate discussion on a timely environmental topic of interest to all citizens."

Devine said the print ads carried no disclaimer because "our goal was to drive people to the Web site."

He said early results showed a "click-through" rate for the online ads of 1.25 percent, compared with a national click-through average of 0.05 percent. The advertisements were to appear yesterday only, he said.

SEMPO Interview

Social Media: 'Agencies Don't Get It,' Survey Says

TNS/Cymfony study polled more than 60 marketers

NEW YORK Clients are placing more emphasis on mastering social media but find their agencies ill equipped to help them succeed in that space, according to a new survey.

TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony polled more than 60 marketers in North America, France and the U.K. to gauge how they are faring navigating the world of social media. It asked them for feedback on their agencies' abilities to help. TNS found, in its words, "Agencies don't get it."

Clients complained that their agencies -- creative, media, public relations, design and others -- typically treat social channels like blogs as traditional media. In other cases, their ideas are not backed up by practical skills in the area. What's more, one client pointed out that his agencies have little of their own experience using social networks or video-sharing sites for themselves.

"I think traditional ad agencies have very little contribution to make," Bryan Simkins, a marketing specialist at FedEx, told TNS. "They are mostly driven by their compensation models which are made for closed media. Those models don't apply in open media."

The increase in social media has led other analysts to highlight the dearth of skills at agencies to help clients navigate the social landscape. Forrester Research, for instance, published a report last month that found agencies are poorly structured to help clients leverage opportunities with communities of shared interests.

"The existing marketing partners do not understand the ins and outs of the social media space," David Harris, e-business manager at Suzuki, told TNS. "They can do more harm than good if they apply old models."

Jim Nail, chief marketing and strategy officer at TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony, said frustration from clients surveyed, only some of which was published, was across the board.

"You get the sense that agencies talk a good game," he said. "They put up a good presentation about what social media is, but when you get to implementing campaigns, the day-to-day management skills are not meeting the marketers' expectations."

That could haunt agencies as more clients make social media a top priority.

Nearly 50 percent of marketers said social-media efforts needed to be handled at an executive level with "significant" resources. Another 30 percent agreed social media is a "revolutionary opportunity."

In his comments, Intuit's Scott Wilder called it a "Pandora's box" of consumers relying on word of mouth to evaluate companies and products.

"One of the big barriers right now is people are struggling with where this lives and how it is incorporated into their organizations," Nail said, pointing out that social media cuts across marketing, public relations and customer service.

The perceived lack of social media competence at agencies will present opportunities for new providers, Nail predicted, as too many agencies hew narrowly to their niche, whether it's media, creative or PR -- something backed up by client feedback.

"I really think that agencies need to focus heavily on how they can build excitement within the live space of the Internet," Carolyn Holliday, e-marketing manager at Fila USA, told TNS. "Outside of just placing ads, they need to start dialogues with existing and potential customers."

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People Will Talk -- About Social Networking. A Lot.

by Catharine P. Taylor

IT IS A WEEK AND 41 new Facebook friends since my first appearance as Mediapost's Social Media Insider. (I received a few LinkedIn connection requests, but no MySpace friend requests. And none for Plaxo, either.) Some of my new friends, like Entertainment Weekly's Scott Donaton and Forrester's Charlene Li, are actually friends rediscovered through the social graph. Others, like a guy who updated his status 10 minutes ago to say that he is talking Flex with some developers, are people I don't know. But, I assume that he read my column and took my pitch for Facebook friends to heart -- as so many of you did.

So, if my original group of 54 friends from last week was a somewhat loose collection of people in my professional circle (mostly people who I've hung out with ever since I started writing about this Internet thang), now it's warped into something almost indistinguishable. I wanted all these friends and yet I don't actually know them. Such is the peculiarity of friendships in the virtual world.

I certainly wasn't expecting this much response to my first column. But greetings to all my new Facebook friends, and thanks to the (at least) 30 other people who emailed or commented at the bottom of the column itself. Say the phrase "social networking" in a crowded room, and I guess it really gets people talking.

If you read last week's column, you know I decided to come clean and make clear that, as intrigued as I am by social networks and social media, I also have a lot of skepticism about parts of this world. Huge valuations based on nascent business models? I've seen that movie before. What I thought I'd get back by attempting to deflate the hype was a ream of preachy emails complaining about how I didn't get it, how I didn't understand that social media would rewrite relationships in the real world, kill mass market advertising forever-- and perhaps bring world peace.

Instead, what I got back were emails that read more like confessionals, as many of my new friends admitted that they, too, were skeptical. Wrote one woman, "I definitely appreciate your candor about feeling both intrigued and skeptical about social media." Said another, "Although I'm not a 40-something soccer mom, and I am a social media strategist, I *totally* get what you mean by 'skeptical'."

Said another, "I have to admit, I am on Facebook quite a bit, and I have not engaged in any of those quizzes, games or polls. I think I was turned off by one floating around about a year ago that measured whether you were a 'better person' than someone else. How can a social network tell, and if I lost, would I really want that broadcast to the world?"

Sheesh. Great question.

I guess I'm not alone.

While I leave you pondering that, I'm off to the final morning of the Interactive Advertising Bureau conference to see a few people in the flesh.

Next week I promise to write more about the business implications of social networking. Enough yammering on about me and my new friends.

Deconstructing Search Engine Bias

by Rob Garner


Over my last two columns I've looked at activist-initiated campaigns to provide deeper insight into the way people use search engines, both in terms of the impact on searchers, and from the perspective of those who see search as an effective communications tool. While also considering the trust searchers place in their search engine, one additional insight I gained from talking with activists and reviewing their campaigns is the increased importance on search as editorial, for both natural and paid search. Considering both a searcher's trust, and that search results can also be viewed as editorial content, I thought it would be interesting to switch gears and explore the topic of search engine bias, particularly for the purpose of helping the average searcher better understand and think more critically about his or her search engine results.

For a thorough discussion of the major issues surrounding algorithmic bias, I highly recommend reading Eric Goldman's "Search Engine Bias and the End of Search Engine Utopianism," first published in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology in Spring 2006. In it he discusses why bias exists, why bias is desirable and necessary, how market forces limit the scope of bias, and how engines are accountable to "fickle searchers." Goldman also asserts that engines are beholden to "majority interests," and that PageRank's "non-egalitarian voting structure causes search results to be biased towards websites with economic power because these websites get lots of links due to their marketing expenditures and general prominence."

While I don't agree with the paper's end conclusion that personalization will eventually render bias moot, it does offer a very thorough and logical presentation on the premise and issues around search engine bias. In building on Goldman's description of PageRank as a type of bias, the following list highlights other additional elements of search bias (note that there are many more considerations than those listed here):

Anti-spam bias (real or perceived spam). If a site appears to be spam, as defined by the engine, then that site or offending document might not rank as well as it would otherwise, or could be permanently banned from the engine's index altogether. Meta refresh, and even the use of same-color text on same-color background are examples of tactics that have been previously used by spammers. Adapting these tactics might create a permanent bias against your site, even if first intentions were good, and the site is "legitimate" (as Google refers to sites in the patent document link below).

Big site / authority bias. Simply put, bigger sites with unique content, years of domain trust and a healthy backlink structure have a greater chance of getting a new page ranked across a wider variety of terms and phrases, as opposed to a much smaller site with fewer or no links, and a narrower-themed scope.
Blog / buzz bias. Blogs have hit prime time in Google Web search, and a blog with the previously mentioned characteristics can get ranked in minutes -- and sometimes even stay in position for months or longer.

Bold text bias. Bias is also shown in a SERP when a keyword or phrase matching a query is bolded or highlighted. Bolded text in the title, description and even the URL can make someone look, give them a reason to click, or give them a reason to bypass other non-bolded listings.

Domain bias. A trusted domain is given credence and higher visibility in the search engine results. Newer domains have to prove themselves by myriad factors. Google patent #20050071741 details many ways in which a "legitimate" domain may be considered in its algorithm (see claims 38-40). Be aware that just because it's written in the patent, doesn't necessarily mean that it is being used by the engine. Other details in this patent also offer many other possibilities of Google bias.

Feed and submission bias. Paid and free feeds now permeate the first page for certain results sets. Yahoo intersperses paid listings into its natural results ( Search Submit Pro), and Google Base provides top Web listings for maps, product listings and more. To get in, you have to pay or submit directly for free.

Link bias. Links are the cornerstones of most popular search engine algorithms, and the difference between having a lot of quality links, or no links at all, is the different between being found, or not.

Image / video bias. As Hotchkiss's eyetracking research found, images visible above the fold can prompt someone to quickly scan to your asset over other text assets on the search results page.

Textual bias. As simple and obvious as it sounds, at this point in search history, results are heavily weighted toward text. Designing sites in Flash or other image-based elements can make your site fall victim to this bias, unless other considerations for text are made.

Paid search bias. Like it or not, the top search results page is biased towards paid search. This is a simple bias to overcome -- just break out your credit card.

Personalization bias. Personalization bias is when the search engine shows customized results based on a user's previous search history, sites visited, subscribed feeds, geographic or IP location, and other factors.

Hopefully this list illustrates that bias is often the reason we choose one search engine over another, but it doesn't negate the need to think critically about search results. If you have any additional thoughts or additions to the list, post them to the Search Insider blog.

Lower My CPC Blog....

Hello and welcome to the lower my cost per click blog.

This blog is about the cost per click aspects of internet marketing - why pay per click, what is a click worth, but more importanly how clicks convert to leads, sales, and new customers.

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