Google Tries to Provide More Ad Transparency

"Because ads should be just as useful as any other information on the web, we try to make them as relevant as possible for you," says Susan Wojcicki, Google SVP, Advertising. Over the coming weeks, users will be able to learn more about ads served up to you by clicking the "Why these ads" link next to ads on Google search results and Gmail.


When you click the “Why these ads” link, you’ll find information about why you’re seeing a particular ad and how it’s personalized for you. If you’re searching for a local restaurant while you’re on vacation in Hawaii, you would see ads for restaurants that are nearby, rather than restaurants in your hometown.

"Why these ads?":

Coca Cola "Rules" Social Media

Coca-Cola ranked as the world’s top brand, with a following on Facebook of 34 million fans, growing at a monthly rate of nearly three percent, posting seven times a month, each garnering more than 235 comments and nearly 1,750 “likes,” according to Covario.

The top 100 leading brands on Facebook includes Hyundai, Disney, Bayer, HP, Victoria’s Secret, Best Buy, Samsung Mobile, Dr. Pepper and Macy’s among the top 10 brands using Facebook effectively.

Perhaps significantly, 35 percent of respondents say “driving sales” is the number one priority for social media programs, but 47 percent see the goal as driving engagement and driving brand awareness, and another 14 percent say they are “driving friends.”

Overall,  65 percent are using their social media programs, and their Facebook pages, to drive “soft” conversions, not explicit sales. Those results point up the fact that social media programs can have multiple goals. But the findings also illustrate the tension posed by social media. To the extent that the purpose is “community” or “socializing” or “fun,” does lead generation interfere with those purposes? If not, how can lead generation be reconciled with the other values? 

The study also has other implications. Traditionally, media efforts by brands have come in clear buckets: paid media (advertising), earned media (public relations, media relations, press relations) and owned media (brands acting as publishers and content creators on their own sites). 

The Covario study suggests top brands fund social media programs partly out of advertising budgets, partly out of PR budgets and partly out of new budgets. Both in terms of practice and internal thinking and budgets, social media is a new mix of outbound communications, marketing and sales promotion.

In many ways social media is a replacement for traditional advertising, public relations and marketing. In other ways it is a new blend of tactics. The rather clear implication is that competencies and skills also will have to change, both on the part of brands and other practitioners in the ecosystem.

At one level, the changes are "merely" about the ways brands spend money. At another level, the changes also reflect and contribute to a change in our understanding and practice of media. 

Historically, the growth of media has been fueled by advertising. If advertising support changes, so will media. In simplest terms, if traditional media has been supported by advertising, and advertising spending shifts to social media, there will be less traditional media and more social media.

Facebook users are “active” users, or using the application  more than four times per week. Less than 40 percent of Twitter users are considered active users, by way of comparison.

Facebook counts nearly 50 percent of its user base as power users (use the site at least once per day). A study done by comScore last year showed that Facebook occupies nearly 10 percent of the user time online globally. Users were spending an average of 450 minutes per month on the platform, compared to 230 minutes on Google, for example.

Facebook users number 800 million as of the time of the writing, more than any other social media platform. Twitter is estimated at 245 million users and LinkedIn, the key professional social platform, 120 million users.

Facebook tips for brands

What Irritates People on Facebook

Yes, you can target content on Facebook. But marketers also need to show common sense and good judgment about doing so.

You need to respect people when advertising on social networks, and often, that does not seem to happen.

"Creative" Accounts for 52% of Ad Success, Says comScore

To the extent that the aim of an ad campaign is to stimulate additional sales, advertisers need to pay more attention to the quality of the creative, comScore says.

"The quality of the creative is four times more important than the characteristics of the media plan in generating sales,” said Jeff Cox, executive vice president of comScore ARS. “In fact, creative is the single most important factor and accounts for over half the changes in a brand’s sales over time.

Getting the creative right is absolutely essential, and yet its importance so often gets minimized in the process of developing an ad campaign. Now is the time for advertisers using digital, as well as more traditional media, to get serious about optimizing their creative on the front end so they don’t get a rude awakening when the ads don’t work and they are left wondering what went wrong.

In other words, a good plan and a good channel are helpful, but more than half of any new sales generation will hinge on whether the advertising succeeds in motivating behavior. That's more art than science, but it would appear too many advertisers neglect the art part.

comScore ARS Research Highlights Importance of Advertising Creative in Building Brand Sales

So What are Businesses Doing with Their Ad Budgets?

There's a question we ought to be asking about what businesses might be doing with their ad budgets. Though overall advertising in the U.S. market appears to be up about four percent, business-to-business advertising is down about 19 percent. One suspects portions of those budgets have shifted to social media, websites, online and other channels.

Ad Sales On Facebook To Reach $1.3B In 2010

For a company that for quite some simply said it would discover a revenue model, Facebook will book $1.28 billion in ad revenue in 2010, compared to $665 million in ad revenue in 2009.

MySpace, on the other hand, will bring in just $347 million this year, down from over $400 million in 2009. MySpace might book just $297 million in 2011, according to eMarketer.

eMarketer: Ad Sales On Facebook To Reach $1.3B In 2010; MySpace Sales To Plummet

Slow Recovery Ahead for Total Media Ad Spending

Online ad spending will grow while traditional advertising channels will remain stagnant or decline, says eMarketer.

Marketers who turned to digital for its effectiveness and measureability in tough times will continue to appreciate those qualities as budgets go up, and with the world’s population spending more and more time with digital media, dollars will follow eyeballs, eMarketer predicts.

One also wonders whether the greater efficiency of online and mobile formats also is having some effect. Advertisers might reason they can achieve their objectives even while reducing overall spending.

Slow Recovery Ahead for Total Media Ad Spending - The eMarketer Blog

Facebook Is Closing the Ad Revenue Gap with the Portals

Facebook’s self-serve ad product apparently generated $300 to $400 million in revenue in 2009, a significant portion of the $800 million or so Facebook generated in total. The self-serve system allows advertisers to create small ads that appear on the right-hand side of Facebook pages and then target the ads to segments of the Facebook audience.

Facebook Is Closing the Ad Revenue Gap with the Portals - The eMarketer Blog

All Online Advertising Does Not "Suck"

No, all mobile or Web advertising does not "suck," as Apple CEO Steve Jobs says. But Jobs probably is right about rich media being an easier way to make ads engaging. Good creative helps, too, as shown by this Google spot for Chrome.

Why Most Advertising Will Continue to "Suck," Despite iPad

It's easy to lament the relative "ineffectiveness" of banner advertising, or for Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, to argue that mobile and online advertising "sucks."

Online banner ads have click through rates of perhaps 0.03 percent, even when lots of people are exposed, some would argue.

Though improving, it remains difficult to match an actual user's present interests, location and spending intentions with a relevant and compelling message, most of the time. So targeting will help.

But even targeting won't entirely fix the problem. Some say rich media is part of the answer, and that makes intuitive sense, as it is easier to create an emotional bond or reaction using rich media, compared to most other forms of messaging.

Rich media banners, on the other hand, might get a three-percent to 10-percent "roll over" rate. If the creative is good enough, users actually will spend time playing around with the content. That can be a game-like experience, video or even compelling content that doesn't use video.

But really-interesting rich media takes time and money to create. And that is going to be the biggest problem. Most campaigns will not support the creation of truly-compelling creative. Think of the ads developed for the Super Bowl and you'll get the problem. If it were financially possible to create that sort of content routinely, marketers clearly would.

There is another angle as well. Much advertising works, even when largely falling on "deaf ears" and "inattentive eyes." Sure, there's lots of waste. But enough eyes and ears are reached, even with simple messages, to justify the marketing expense. Targeted is better, but even minimal targeting, with everyday, run of mill creative, will produce results sufficient to justify the investment.

Not every movie ever produced is a "hit." In fact, most are either flops or modest successes. That will hold for most advertising as well.

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Mobile Ad Spending Isn't Hype, But is Dwarfed by Online Spending

Everyone would agree that 2009 was not the best of years for advertising spending. But spending might not reach 2008 levels until 2012 or 2013.

Advertising might not reach pre-recession levels until mid-decade. There is at least some thinking advertising might not even reach pre-recession levels during the current decade.

Mobile advertising, Apple and Google expect, will grow fastest, from a low base. But online Web advertising still will be two orders of magnitude bigger than mobile advertising by 2014, Yankee Group predicts.

Apple iAd Wants to Change "Ads that Suck"

It isn't clear whether the typical mobile ad created for Apple's new iAd network will be as immersive and interactive as the example Apple CEO Steve Jobs shows here.

But the example suggests what Apple would like to see happen: ads that are closer to entertainment than anything we've seen so far, incorporating interactive and gaming experiences, for example. To use the obvious analogy, today's ads are outside the content; in the "Toy Story" example the ads are part of the content, essentially.

The issue will be how talented advertisers will be, not so much Apple. Unless firms are willing to allow Apple to produce the "creative," as well as handle the placement, it is doubtful most ads will be this well done.