New Rules for Facebook Promotions

On several occasions we've received the same request from our clients: “Can we give away a product by asking our fans to like or comment on a
Facebook post?” Our response has always been the same – “This breaks Facebook’s policy and the potential repercussion is Facebook’s removal of your Page.” That is, until now.
Last month, Facebook announced that it updated its Pages Terms, which included the removal of the requirement that promotions must be run through apps.
This means that businesses may now request that users like, comment, or post on their Page in order to enter a promotion.

What Does This Mean for Your Business?

By allowing Pages to have Facebook post promotions, businesses can now create and administer a promotion almost instantaneously. Before you say goodbye to Facebook apps though, consider both the pros and cons to running a promotion directly on a Facebook Page. Pros include:

• Immediate engagement
• Inexpensive to administer – no cost for graphic design and third party app
• Simple set-up
• The more fans interact with a Facebook Page, the more likely your Page will show up in their feed

• The promotion isn’t fan-gated (people aren’t required to “like” the Page), as it can be within an app
• Email addresses aren’t collected, so businesses won’t be able to follow up with consumers
• The promotion is short lived because it will only show up in fans’ feeds on the day it is posted, while a promotion on an app can run for months

The Outlook

It’s likely that small businesses with small budgets will use Facebook post promotions more often than large businesses. It’s a quick and easy way to introduce and get fans excited about a product.
With this in mind, larger businesses shouldn't immediately nix the idea of Facebook post promotions. There are certainly applicable times to do a quick giveaway. Whether the business wants to give away a new product, boost engagement for the day, or reward current fans, it is certainly a viable way to get fans active on your Facebook page.
For more information on strategies and considerations for Facebook post promotions, download our most recent POV.

To download this POV please e-mail us an inquiry at: info@digitalbrandexpressions.com.

Image courtesy of Facebook.

Looking Back at AdWords Enhanced

Making the best of it

It’s been about two months since Google forced advertisers to migrate to Enhanced Campaigns.My feelings regarding the changes haven’t really improved. The few good changes, like ad group level Sitelink Extensions, are still outweighed by the negatives like a failure to differentiate between desktop and tablet traffic and the removal of mobile targeting controls.

Google has made one, small semi-concession since originally announcing Enhanced Campaigns. Mobile bid modifiers are now available at the ad group level. That is a little better than limiting it to the campaign level, but only a little. Unfortunately, Enhanced Campaigns aren’t going anywhere, so how do we make the best of a bad situation?

• Account Clean-Up Review performance and refresh the account.
• Mobile Options Segment data by device, and make informed adjustments.
• Extensions Take advantage of the good Enhanced Campaign changes by utilizing the applicable Extensions.

Advertisers need to find a way to live with the new Enhanced settings. A properly configured and maintained account can still perform well under these new conditions. We’ve explained these tips for getting the most from your Enhanced Campaigns in our , and we’re here to help if you need it.

Google Giveth and Google Taketh Away

Our "friends" at Google have been busy of late. Well, they're always busy evolving but a couple of recent adjustments are particularly noteworthy.

First, on the positive front, Google's Hummingbird algorithm update was just announced (although it was actually implemented about a month ago). Google says it is now paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning – i.e., the inferred intent of the search – should do better, rather than pages matching just a few words. This shift to more semantic/conversational search vs. more literal keyword reliance further rewards the kind of naturally relevant and optimized content we recommend and implement as best practice for our clients. In fact, a spot check of our clients organic search traffic over the past month reveals increased visits from longer-tail searches.

Which brings me to the other news from Google. Last week Google announced, in the name of privacy, it was moving to full encryption of keyword search data. This move is not altogether surprising as Google started heading in this direction over the past couple of years with the encryption of searches by anyone signed in to a Google account (gmail, Google+, etc.). We have all seen the increase in “not provided“ keyword data and DBE has been advising our clients that what available keyword data there is needs to be taken as directional.

It’s important to note that this move doesn’t impact our ability to track and compare aggregate organic search traffic, conversions, etc. with other referral sources or previous periods. It’s just that now we’ll have even less keyword detail than before. Our tech team continues to test workarounds for this shift (as we were already doing given the increasing “not provided” trend) and we will share our thoughts on these once vetted. And for marketers who use Google PPC, that keyword data detail will continue to be provided and could prove useful in deciphering what’s happening organically as well.

So it goes with Google – a little give, a little take. Check back soon as you can be sure there’s always another update coming….

Data Divining

Data “mining” metaphors may be cliché these days but I still find them more directionally meaningful than “the tip of the iceberg” ones that are also commonly used. All the iceberg metaphor says is that there is a lot more data hidden beneath the immediately visible surface. At least the data mining references imply there are nuggets of value in “them thar hills” if you look hard enough. Of course, the key question is - where to start digging?

Using my mouse as a divining rod, here are some places in Google Analytics where I have found some paydirt:

• Advanced Segments: Google provides a number of default advanced segments that let you filter and look at your data in a more comparative way. What’s even better is that you can create your own Custom Advanced Segments to filter and drill down on metrics that are unique to your own brand.
• In-Page Analytics: Want to get a sense of how people are navigating your web pages? Check out In-Page Analytics to generate a heat map overlay on your page that can show you clicks, conversions, revenues and/or other goal performance data. Then just click to see the data for another page. Note that the data can be presented by advanced segments so you can again see differences in performance based on referral source, device type, etc.
• Conversions: This whole section of Google Analytics is well worth exploring. Sub-sections I find particularly worth digging into include Assisted Conversions and Top Conversion Paths. These acknowledge and help understand the relative value of your integrated, multi-channel digital tactics. Google has also added Attribution modeling to this section which may help you further e-value-ate your tactics based on first-click vs. last click actions. (Personally, I’m a first-click believer but that’s a blog for another day.)

Remember to set Shortcuts once you’ve found the data sets/reports you consider to be revealing so you can easily dive right back in and continue your mining efforts. You can also create customized Dashboards to share your findings with others.

That’s enough for now. Stay tuned because, unlike the melting iceberg, the nice thing about mining analytics is the well/vein will never run dry. Happy divining!

Ads on Pinterest--Expected or Opportunity to Innovate?

On Friday, September 20, Pinterest announced that it is going to start running ads. It did so via an email from founder and CEO Ben Silbermann to its registered community saying that Pinterest was going to start carefully experimenting with ads to generate revenue for the brand. Here is an excerpt:
“While we haven't figured out all the details, I can say that promoted pins will be:

• Tasteful—No flashy banners or pop-up ads. 
• Transparent—We’ll always let you know if someone paid for what you see, or where you see it. 
• Relevant—These pins should be about stuff you're actually interested in, like a delicious recipe, or a jacket that's your style. 
• Improved based on your feedback—Keep letting us know what you think, and we'll keep working to make things better.

For our first test, we'll promote a few pins in search results and category feeds. For example, a pin for a Darth Vader outfit from a costume shop might be promoted in a search for “halloween.” Nobody's paying for anything yet—we want to see how things go and, more than anything, hear what you think.”

A follow-up to the announcement appeared in TechCrunch, where Josh Constine opined that either traffic was down or that mobile was becoming a more powerful delivery platform than desktop.  A company spokesperson confirmed the latter for TechCrunch:

"The world is going mobile and we're excited about that trend. Traffic continues to grow, breaking records consistently month over month and week over week. Mobile usage became the majority of traffic last summer and continues to grow in absolute numbers and as a percentage of traffic, which may account for third party discrepancies in measurement." 

 It will be interesting to see which mobile ad model Pinterest tests with the advertisers it has selected for the testing period and which model or models stick. Will it go the Facebook route with ads in feeds and no differentiation between desktop and mobile users or the Twitter route adding promoted pins? Will ads scroll along the bottom of the screen offering something related to the pins you’re viewing? Will the model be cost per click (CPC) or cost per impression (CPM)? Or will they discover something entirely new based on the interests and support of the pinners who love them?

“Something new” would be the most interesting, of course. From the responses I’ve seen, pinners seem to understand that Pinterest needs to make money in order to keep the platform growing and useful to them. There will always be complaints about change, and those will get attention, but really, I think most people understand that social networks start out free to gather audience and then at some point need to monetize or die. And as Debra Borchardt points out for The Street, the investors need to feel the money coming and this looks like a move towards IPO. So wouldn’t it be cool if Pinterest continues to pioneer in the community spirit and actively involves its community in voting through to the advertising model it decides to push forward with, a la the fourth bullet point in Ben Silbermann’s email?

As a pinner, I’d really like that. As a marketer, I like it even better.

The State of “Our Industry”

Way back in February when we were planning the editorial calendar for this blog, writing about “the state of our industry” for my September post seemed like a good idea.

 If I were writing this 8 years ago, I would have said it was search engine optimization. Three years later, in 2008, I would have said it was search engine marketing.

By 2009 DBE started linking SEO and social media marketing together.  This was because our optimization team had picked up on algorithm shifts that showed the search engines were rewarding websites for brands that were talked about in the social channel with better natural rankings.  I presented an overview with case studies at  at the Custom Content Council’s Media Day in NYC in the summer of 2011.

A year later, Fast Company invited me to write about this trend. A number of optimizers reacted very negatively to the article, saying they just didn't see what my experts were seeing, but quite a few others responded that they, too, were beginning to see proof that social mentions were impacting their websites’ rankings. And now this approach, which was controversial to so many just a year ago, is considered to be SEO best practices today.

But the evolution of “our industry” should not just be viewed in terms of algorithmic changes.

At a future-focused conference for Business Development Institute back in July 2010 I talked about media convergence and how delivery devices were no longer marketing channels.  I showed how the lines were rapidly blurring between television, the Web, print, mobile and social media and that people would “tune into” each according to their needs, and that those needs would be driven by content and engagement preferences. As marketers, I said our job would be to ensure that messaging was found wherever stakeholders congregated on the Web and that a brand’s messaging was relevant wherever it was encountered, “breadcrumbing” stakeholders to other encounter points until they had enough of the pieces of a brand’s story to make a purchase decision.  (And then to stay engaged with the brand for ongoing purchase opportunities.)

During the last few years, DBE’s leadership team has continued to evangelize about this need for true marketing integration, from a planning, execution, and analytics perspective.  Most recently, Marc Engelsman, our director of client strategies and analytics, spoke about this at Integrated Marketing Week 2013 in New York City.  We've shown how brands benefit from an integrated approach that abandons silo-thinking (SEO, PPC, social media, TV, email, etc. as separate, unrelated tactics) and instead markets strategically from the purchaser’s perspective.  When marketers are collaborative with their audiences, engagement rises and sales, along with other business actions, rise along with them.

Integrating all of their owned, earned and paid digital activities with offline marketing to create synchronicity and natural content flow is what marketers are striving for now. Content strategy, planning, and creation are mission critical. So are sparking and facilitating social media conversations around that content and other topics important to brand’s audiences. Every brand is a publisher, and every social media community manager is a reporter, a publicist, and an advocate for the community all rolled into one.

All this leads me to now think of “our industry” as digital marketing—but I only add “digital” as an adjective because DBE’s deliverables tend to be executed in the digital space, even though our value to our clients is coming from the branding and strategy perspectives these days as much as it comes from result-producing executions. In time so much more marketing will be done digitally than is done “traditionally” that it will no longer be necessary to use the adjective “digital.”

In fact, it’s already happening.  A story in The Wall Street Journal reported P&G is shifting even more spend to digital, with 25-35% of its budget in the US going to digital channels like social media and PPC.  What’s more, P&G executives said digital media in many cases is proving to be a faster and cheaper way for P&G's brands to reach consumers, and feedback is also faster. So as a less expensive channel, the emphasis for digital can be stronger while the dollars are proportionately lower than what is spent on more production-intensive television and broadcast and costly print.

So “our industry” really is marketing. And the state of it is that it’s booming, it’s shaking people up, it’s creating new opportunities. Looking forward, it’s going to be less about specialists and more about renaissance thinkers who are creative, innovative, collaborative, analytic and thoughtful. It’s going to require marketers who can leverage technologies and tools to help them think better, smarter, faster and in ways that take marketing to new heights. It’s going to create new avenues to success for those ready to embrace what marketing has always been about: connecting brands with the people who will benefit from them the most.