Google Call Tracking
Google enables and optimises call tracking from mobile landing pages; http://eicker.at/GoogleCallTracking
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Deals Launch
Facebook Deals will be available soon in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco; http://eicker.at/FacebookDealsLaunch
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Mobile Acquisitions
Facebook goes mobile: acquires Snaptu (apps) after Rel8tion (ads) and Beluga (messaging); http://eicker.at/FacebookAcquisitions
Gerrit Eicker
Display Advertising
Joel: The future of display advertising is bigger than you think, a $200B business; http://eicker.at/DisplayAdvertising
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Mobile
Facebook launches: new iPhone/Android apps, Single Sign-on via Places API, Facebook Deals; http://eicker.at/FacebookMobile
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Gerrit Eicker
TNW: “Facebook held its ‘mobile event’ for over 7,000 viewers. In his opening remarks, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, ‘Our goal is to make it so that no matter what platform you are building, your apps can be social…And that over the next few years, entire industries will be rethought as social applications.‘ He also mentioned that 200 million people now use Facebook via mobile devices.”
Ray, Forrester: “Today’s pronouncements demonstrate the ambition and vision Facebook has for itself in mobile computing and socializing over the long term, but in the immediate future Facebook now is poised to bring the wonders of checking in to the masses. … Facebook’s new Deals feature is uniquely positioned to bring rapid changes to consumer behavior over the next year. Here’s why: First, Facebook is a platform with 500 million avid users (compared to the 4 million who currently use Foursquare), and with each passing month more consumers are accessing and updating Facebook via their smartphones. Second, Facebook’s new Deal platform is free for marketers and SMBs; anyone who claims a location on the Facebook Places platform can easily and quickly launch an offer. Finally, marketers are lining up to create offers on this new Facebook platform. … One outstanding question is how Facebook’s new Places features will affect the fledgling LBS category. … It seems evident to me that the LBS space is in for some profound changes in the coming year as Facebook Places becomes as familiar to Facebook users as status updates and fan pages are today.”
SEL: “The world of location-based services changed dramatically today. And the changes that Facebook announced place the company firmly in the center of that very dynamic universe and ecosystem. – Toward the end of becoming a “platform” for mobile, Facebook made several significant announcements aimed at developers. There were also announcements aimed at consumers and marketers, ‘Deals’ being the big one. … It thus appears very simple to create an offer for Facebook Deals. The simplicity of this page will be significant for the millions of small businesses that will undoubtedly be interested getting access to this offering. And it will be opened up to small businesses in the near future – initially 20,000 and then the broader audience. … Deals will be a big hit with both consumers and marketers, whether large or small. Coupons is one of the most effective and popular forms of mobile advertising and Facebook’s reach will make it a huge player in this segment. – It will take a little while to digest all the implications of these announcements as well as to see their impact on the market and the mobile ecosystem as a whole. But I’m pretty confident that they’ll be significant and even lasting.”
IF: “Facebook is seeking to allow developers to build in a social environment no matter what phone they’re building on, whether that’s RIM, Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, or the mobile web. The company recently reached the milestone of 200 million people actively using Facebook mobile products across all platforms. … ‘You can rethink any product area to be social, have it be more engaging, have it grow virally, and remake whole industries’ says Zuckerberg.”
VB: “With a new single sign-on feature, Facebook aims to become the way users log into all their mobile applications. It’s already doing this to some extent, by allowing users to log into non-Facebook websites using Facebook Connect, but the company’s mobile chief, Erick Tseng, said the goal here is to make the process as simple as possible on phones, where typing in user names and passwords can be a huge pain. … On the privacy front, the news today doesn’t seem hugely significant, but I still expect some complaints when users start seeing Facebook data showing up in other apps.”
Guardian: “Facebook today revealed a series of improvements to its service on mobile devices in a move that lays the foundations for new revenue streams from retail stores, venues and small businesses. – Mobile is seen as a powerful platform for the expansion of Facebook, particularly in the developing world where internet adoption is increasingly skipping desktop computers and growing rapidly on the mobile web. … Facebook’s head of mobile business, Henri Moissinac, told the Guardian the improvement could be interesting for developers. ‘Augmented-reality apps like Layar will be able to visualise deals in real-time around a user’s location,’ he said.”
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Deals
Facebook goes local business, enables merchants to push deals out to existing and new customers; http://eicker.at/FacebookDeals
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Gerrit Eicker
NYT: “Facebook introduced a feature on Wednesday that will allow retailers and other merchants to offer coupons and special deals through its mobile application, intensifying competition in the market for mobile searches and advertising. – People who use Places, Facebook’s location feature, will see a yellow icon indicating that a redeemable deal or coupon is available nearby. They can then use the application to ‘check in’ at the store or restaurant and show their phone’s screen to an employee to claim their deal. … Mr. Kendall said Facebook would not charge businesses directly to list coupons and special deals through the mobile application. Instead, businesses can purchase advertising to publicize their offerings on Facebook, he said. … Facebook also plans to work with nearly two dozen major chains like H&M, 24-Hour Fitness and McDonalds for special offers. But eventually all merchants and small businesses with a Facebook Places page will be able to offer deals. Facebook’s deals program borrows heavily from location-based social networks like Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla, which have long been experimenting with similar ways to offer rewards and deals on cellphones. … For retailers, the Facebook feature offers the chance to establish online connections with real-world customers and learn more about them.”
AF: “So far Facebook claims that the number of users who have used the Places application is multiples larger than any other location service. That would lead us to believe that well over 10 million Facebook users have checked in with Places. If enough brands begin to leverage the new Deals platform, this could clearly be a big win for Facebook. Most significant here is that Facebook doesn’t charge any companies to launch deals. – Contrast that with Groupon who goes through the laborious process of negotiating the cost of every deal that they launch with local businesses. While Groupon has an incredible email list of consumers who want to make purchases, Places based deals could prove to fill a much needed niche. While companies can’t ping Facebook users as they walk by their businesses, users can choose to seek out deals that are nearby. … To be clear, Facebook Deals is not the Groupon-killer that some had claimed when we leaked out information last week about the impending launch. Instead, this is a different business model where customers will have to seek out deals through businesses that they become a fan of. Fortunately, many of the companies don’t think it will be long before most Facebook users are seeking these deals out.”
IF: “The most interesting part of the product is that Facebook isn’t taking a cut of revenue for these discounts, posing a challenge to smaller competitors that use deal revenue as part of their business model. On a business’ Places page, they can set up an offer. There are four kinds: Individual deals, which reward a customer if they check-in once. Loyalty deals, which reward customers for a certain number of purchases or check-ins. Friend deals, which reward customers if they bring in extra friends. Charity deals, which allow businesses to donate to charity for every check-in they attract.”
VB: “The social network’s executives said in a press conference that they won’t charge businesses for the deals. – That’s pretty surprising, since deals are seen as the main way for check-in services like Facebook Places (which includes the deals service), Foursquare, and Gowalla to make money. … Update: A Facebook spokesperson just emailed and said that although the deals are free for the program’s initial launch partners, the pricing could change in the future. … Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor said that Facebook didn’t create the feature to increase advertising. ‘The main thing is to improve the user experience around our Places product,’ he said.”
pC: “It’s not clear how many people are using its check-in feature, called Places, right now, although if this catches on it will clearly give users a financial incentive to use it. Places was introduced in August. Asked about usage, Zuckerberg only said it was ‘multiples larger’ than other similar services. – Zuckerberg did use the event to provide an update on Facebook’s overall mobile usage, saying that the company now has 200 million users who access the social network ‘across all platforms,’ a figure that has tripled over the last year.”
Gerrit Eicker
Web Marketing
Liodice: 10 technological advances marketers can not live without; http://j.mp/bhX3rM
Gerrit Eicker
iAd Advertising
Kathryn Koegels memo to Steve Jobs: the iAd is no miracle worker; http://j.mp/dDvusW
Gerrit Eicker
Historical Marketing Events
From the Audit Bureau of Circulations to social media and viral marketing; http://j.mp/8QSZJ9
Gerrit Eicker
Apple Goes Quattro Wireless
Swisher: Apple is set to announce that it has acquired Quattro Wireless for $275 million; http://j.mp/86fdcp
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Gerrit Eicker
ATD: “The announcement of the acquisition might come as soon as tomorrow, upping the ante in the mobile advertising business significantly. – Google (GOOG) recently forked over an astonishing $750 million for Silicon Valley’s AdMob, a Quattro competitor, which Apple (AAPL) had also made a bid to acquire. – Both innovative start-ups are aimed squarely at the fast-growing market to advertise on smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices.”
SEL: “That immediately raises the question: What will Yahoo and Microsoft Do? – Yahoo already is a top mobile ad network and so is Microsoft – in both traffic and estimated revenues. Both rank in the top five in terms of monthly uniques, according to various sources. – In 2007 Microsoft acquired Screen Tonic (mainly for technology) and, last year, committed an estimated $500-$600 million in revenue guarantees to be the search and display ads partner for US carrier Verizon (89 million subscribers). Microsoft’s mobile MSN has 25 million (or more) users. … While it will take a few years for big mobile ad revenues to show up and justify these prices, rest assured that the mobile internet will only continue to gain adoption. With 70 million users in the US today, poised to pass 100 million at some point this year, this market is real – and red hot.”
TC: “The move is at once unsurprising and strange for Apple. Unsurprising, because Apple has ventured into this territory before with its negotiations with AdMob and has made it clear that it wants a cut of the soon-to-explode mobile advertising sector. At the same time, this is wholly unfamiliar territory for Apple. The company has long focused on selling high quality devices and the polished software that accompanies it. Yes, it distributes a vast amount of media through iTunes, but it is almost never involved with actually creating this media. Nor does it typically have a sales force selling advertising.”
Gerrit Eicker 08:41 on 7. October 2011 Permalink |
Google: “Mobile advertising has created an entirely new opportunity for businesses to drive phone calls to sales teams and call centers, generating a new method for our advertisers to receive qualified incoming leads. In fact, since we introduced the click-to-call feature to advertisers over a year ago, we’ve had more than half a million customers globally run campaigns with phone extensions. – Two of the most common ways to get mobile customers to call you are either by listing your phone number on a click-to-call ad, or adding your phone number onto your website. It’s easy to measure calls from a click-to-call ad from your Campaign reports, but it can be more challenging to track the calls made by consumers clicking on the phone number on your website. – Today, we are introducing a new conversion tracking metric to help advertisers and agencies do just that: all AdWords accounts will now have the ability to report calls placed from mobile pages. … You’ll now be able to attribute clicks on your phone number or ‘call’ button back to the AdWords campaign, ad group, ad or keyword that brought a customer in. As this is a new tracking metric, there won’t be new charges or changes to CPCs. We hope that this new metric will give advertisers and agencies new, richer information on the value and returns from their mobile advertising.”
Google: “This January [2011], we launched a Click-to-call functionality for mobile ads that enables advertisers to directly connect with potential customers over the phone. In less than a year, Click-to-call (CTC) ads have come a long way and hundreds of thousands of advertisers are using the ad format today. In fact, over the past three months we’ve seen the number of Google advertisers using phone extensions on mobile grow 28% month-over-month, globally. What’s more, Click-to-call ads on both Google Search and Display Networks are generating millions of calls every month on mobile. – We’re excited to see this response to Click-to-call ads and we’re only just getting started! … For more insight into the performance of your Phone Extensions and Call-only Creative ads, enable the AdWords Call Metrics feature. Using a dynamically assigned Google Voice number, Call Metrics provide campaign-level statistics on the number of phone leads generated by your AdWords ads including call duration and caller area code. Currently, Call Metrics is only available to a limited number of US advertisers, but we plan to bring this feature to more advertisers in the coming months.”
SEL: “Google’s Click to Call program has been a huge success. About a year ago Google reported that it had 500,000 advertisers using Click to Call. (That number was repeated again today in a blog post.) And last year former Google Product SVP Jonathan Rosenberg said ‘Click-to-Call ads are generating millions of calls every month.‘ – Calls and call metrics are increasingly important to Google because they’re a form of ‘offline’ conversion tracking that provides more visibility on the true efficacy of keywords and campaigns. … Google’s Click to Call program has relied to date on AdWords phone extensions. Phone numbers in mobile ads (on smartphones) are highlighted, users click them and initiate calls. Those calls are tracked. … For the present the new tracking capability is free. On the PC side Google charges $1 per completed call for its call tracking capability. I’m speculating by analogy that Google may eventually charge a fee for the service. They have not indicated to me that they will however.“