Facebook Deals Launch
Facebook Deals will be available soon in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco; http://eicker.at/FacebookDealsLaunch
Facebook Deals will be available soon in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco; http://eicker.at/FacebookDealsLaunch
Google automates keyword determination and bidding for local business ads with Google Boost; http://eicker.at/GoogleBoost
It is clearly an extension of a businesses investment in local and Google’s interest in all things local and mobile at the moment. However, my biggest concern is how will you be able to monitor and control spend and CPA?
Obviously you can only control your monthly spend: convenience vs. control.
Google: “Boost enables business owners to easily create online search ads from directly within their Google Places account. No ongoing management is needed after the initial set up, and this beta is currently available to select local businesses in San Francisco, Houston and Chicago. – Boost ads are eligible to appear in the ‘Sponsored Links’ section of Google.com and Google Maps search result pages. … To create your ad, all that is required is a short business description, a web or Place page, your business categories and a monthly budget. From there, our system automatically sets up your ad campaign – figuring out the relevant keywords that will trigger your ad to appear on Google and Google Maps, and how to get the most out of the budget you allotted.”
RWW: “As a program of Google Places, Boost could offer substantial monetization that would enable Places to experiment with other innovative location-based technologies outside of advertising. Consulting analyst firm PSFK has identified what it calls Pre-View, real-time data and video served up from local shops, as a key part of the future of retail, for example. Experiments or acquisitions in that field could be made all the more feasible by a fat pipeline of revenue produced by local advertising made easier through automation.”
SEL: “I just spoke to Google and discovered that agencies and third parties managing multiple SMB AdWords accounts cannot get access to these ads at present. I also discovered that $50 is the minimum monthly spend regardless of location or category. However dollar figures and estimated clicks will be category and be location sensitive. Advertisers can spend more than the suggested maximum by using the custom button to specify a higher or different amount.”