List of Posts

Posts Tagged ‘search’

Search remains strong in a struggling Australian economy Thursday, February 5th, 2009

When Australians were trying to decide how to spend the Federal Government’s Christmas economic stimulus, it’s clear that their first stop was online.

Google search enquiries in Australia during the Christmas and new year period grew by more than 50% in some categories when compared to the same period in 2007/08, B&T has reported.

Searches for banks and financial institutions rose by a massive 74% from November 2007 to November 2008 and credit card searches achieved a 24% spike in December 2008 from the same period in 2007.

Google recorded growth of 36% in searches overall for shopping and Christmas-related categories in December compared to the same period in 2007 year, with food and drink searches growing by 48 per cent. Searches for apparel were also up by 46% on last year, followed by photo and video equipment searches (42%), mass merchants and department stores (41%) and computers and electronics (34%).

Real estate-related searches rose by 41% in December, while travel-related searches were up by more than 36% and automotive “deals” achieved 24% growth over 2007.

Google Australia general manager Karim Temsamani told B&T that brands need to be wary about not having an online presence. “The worst thing for a brand is to be talked about from a word of mouth perspective or to have an ad on TV or other media, and then for the consumer to go online to find that product and it’s not there.”

Google also revealed that search volumes for January are up 20% on last year.


That was the year that was Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

Yes, it’s that time of year when people look back at events of the past year and come up with predictions for next year. There are so many of these kinds of stories that have already been published, I’m going to summarise some of them and link to them. Today, it’s looking back at 2008:

  • From AdAge - Check out Digital Predictions that Didn’t Pan Out, Viral Videos You Should Have Seen (my vote goes to Christian the Lion - it’s a tear-jerker, and the only appropriate use of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” on record!), and the Fastest Rising Search Terms of 2008 (I’ve heard of that Obama fellow, but who the hell is David Cook?)
  • 2008 was the year of online reputation management, crowdsourcing, and the rise of the attention economy, according to BizCommunity.com
  • Barack Obama was the social media pin-up boy for 2008 (too many links to choose from)
  • Twitter is becoming a victim of its own success

Tomorrow, predictions for 2009…


‘Glimmer of hope’ for online ads in recession Monday, December 1st, 2008

Everyone agrees advertising overall is tanking as a result of the ‘GFC’ (global financial crisis), but how online advertising will be affected is a matter of intense debate. The online industry, naturally, is bullish on the prospects for online ad spend growth, but what do the battered finance and political media think? The Economist entered the debate last week, saying that although online ad spending in the US fell by 27% during the dotcom recession, ”the web has changed a lot since 2002. Back then, gaudy display “banners” on web portals such as Yahoo! and MSN were the preferred technology. These still exist, but they now account for less than 20% of online ad spending.”

As they pointed out, more than 50% of online ad spend now goes to search advertising, while in brand advertising, rich media ads are taking over from banners. Because these forms of advertising are easily tracked, spending on online advertising is now “much less speculative, so that it starts to be treated instead as a cost of sales. This is one reason why online advertising should suffer less than other sorts.”

This still leaves the problem of how advertising spend is transferred from traditional advertising to online. As the Economist points out, “At the beginning of the year Jeff Zucker, the boss of NBC Universal, a big television and film company, told an audience of TV executives that their biggest challenge was to ensure ‘that we do not end up trading analogue dollars for digital pennies’. He meant that audiences were moving online faster than advertisers, thus leaving media companies short-changed. Now, near the end of the year, the situation looks even worse, as the recession threatens to turn even the analogue dollars into pennies.”

The Economist points out that online traffic is moving towards sites where advertising has so far proved ineffective - such as user-generated content havens like YouTube and social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook - “and is therefore cheap. This, says Mary Meeker (an Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley), presents an opportunity for innovation and arbitrage by clever marketing managers as they cut their conventional ad budgets. It may also provide a glimmer of hope for the advertising industry as it enters recession.”


Online advertising stays strong in Australia Friday, November 7th, 2008

Online advertising growth in Australia continued to power along in the third quarter, although things are expected to slow down this quarter, according to the IAB’s latest Online Advertising Expenditure Report, released today.

The B&T newsletter reports that online advertising has experienced a 30% growth year-on-year, with advertisers spending a record $450 million in Q3, $100 million ahead of the same period last year.

While growth is expected to soften in Q4 in response to the global economic crisis, the IAB is still anticipating a 20% year-on-year growth.

While all three categories - general display, classifieds, and search and directories - reported strong growth, search and directories dominated, accounting for $212 million of total spend for the quarter, 33% ahead of the same period last year. 

The finance, computer and communications, and motor vehicle sectors represented 52% of display ads. Recruitment dominated spend in classifieds, followed by real estate and automotive.


OK, you’re right, it’s boring Saturday, November 1st, 2008

One of the main reasons online advertising and marketing has taken as long as they have to gain traction in the contemporary media mix is that putting together an online campaign isn’t as sexy as creating a TV commercial. No big production budgets (and accompanying commissions), no hob-nobbing on the sets while eating ridiculously elaborate food from over-priced caterers, no award ceremonies in the south of France, no ‘did you see my ad on 60 Minutes last night - along with 2 million other people?’ Instead, online offers practical, measurable messages aimed at meeting customers at their point of need - effective, but yes, boring.

Kevin Lee wrote a piece in ClickZ this week about creativity in search engine marketing and I started out thinking, “Great, here are some examples of how creativity is used in online marketing!” Unfortunately, Kevin’s message was the same as mine: effective, but boring.

“A creative strategy often includes thinking differently about your product, service, offer, pricing, or buy-flow. If you’re selling a product, do you offer alternative payment options? If a service, do you offer different subscription lengths?” he writes.

“What about your offline business? Is there a way to make your online search and offline shopping behavior sync up better? Consider using offer codes and coupons.”

Consider offer codes and coupons - woo hoo! I’m passionate about the potential of online, but I can see where the agency creatives are coming from - there needs to be some sizzle with this steak. Viral campaigns and some uses of YouTube are the exception (see one of my favourites, the “Will it Blend?” campaign, here) - but this is very hit and miss at present.

Kevin Lee has asked ClickZ readers to send him examples of creativity in search. I’ll keep my eye out for them and share them with you - as long as they’re not about offer codes and coupons…


Does searching online broaden the mind more than reading? Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Interesting report from the ars technica website:

“A new study of older individuals has now looked at brain activity as subjects undertake Internet searches and it concludes that, for regular Internet users, far more of the brain gets engaged when searching than when reading.

“Like other studies that rely on fantastically expensive functional MRI equipment, this one had a small subject population: a dozen each of regular Internet users and Internet novices. The savvy users typically went online a minimum of once daily, while, on average, the novice group reported using the Internet either not at all or once a month. The average age of both groups was in the early to mid-60s.

“….Volume measurements suggest that nearly twice as much of the brain was engaged when the experienced users searched than when naive users did. The additional areas engaged included those thought to be involved in decision making and complex reasoning. The implications are that those familiar with Internet searches have learned to become mentally engaged in the process in a way that goes well beyond reading.

“….taken at face value, the results appear to suggest that frequent access to information on the Internet can create a higher mental engagement with the content.”


Porn loses its lustre online Thursday, September 18th, 2008

I have found a new favourite technology writer - Robert X Cringely at Infoworld. His recent article “Is Sarah Palin more popular than porn? Search me“, is a hoot. He cites a new book by Hitwise general manager Bill Tancer, which shows that searching for social media is now more popular than searching for porn online. As Cringely (yes, that’s his real name, not a pseudonym) writes, “‘As social networking traffic has increased, visits to porn sites have decreased,’ said Tancer, [who] indicated that the 18-24 year old age group particularly was searching less for porn.

“I’m guessing Tancer has not visited many social networks, or that all his Facebook friends are old farts. Because when you’re age 18 to 24, social networks ARE pornography. In fact, they’re better. Have you seen some of those profiles? Two words: humena humena.”

I never knew how ‘humena humena’ was spelled before - you learn something new every day!

He goes on to write about something (or someone) else who has gone on to become more popular than porn on the Internet: Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

“Hitwise also measures the most popular searches for political terms. You can guess which lipstick-wearing pitbull of a hockey mom tops the charts there. Per the Washington Post: ‘… in her first two days in the national spotlight, US Internet searches on all things Palin outnumbered any other politician in the past three years…. In many cases, her name was searched alongside the word ‘hot.’ I’m guessing that also includes searches for Palin’s head photo-shopped onto various nude or bikini clad models. 

“Does that qualify as porn? If so, I think Tancer needs to revisit his conclusions about social nets.”

A geek with a sharp sense of humour - got to love it.