Joining forces

The digital advertising world is an ever-changing one. The one question that has remained constant is, “How do we maximize our advertising revenue?” Publishers have many options available, including selling ad space on a revenue-share model and by CPMs (Cost per 1000 impressions). Publishers want to make sure that they can sell as much of their ad space as possible and at the some time be able to fulfill each and every order for ad space.

Yahoo! Microsoft and AOL have partnered up to sell each other’s remnant ad space. That way if one of the companies cannot fill an order for impressions, they can use ad space from one of their partners and split the cost. This is a great benefit to each of the three companies, because they are now less likely to turn down a deal due to lack of ad space.

The hope is that the there would no longer be lost revenue that could have gone to Facebook, Google or to ad networks. It remains to be seen how this deal affects the rest of the digital advertising world once it goes into effect later this year.

Google bought Motorola, declaring a war with competitors, thus protecting the “Android” open source system in front of Apple and Microsoft´s demands.

It’s not the first time a major company has made a critique through video, but this is perhaps the most direct we’ve seen. Supposedly leaked onto the internet after being shown at an internal Microsoft meeting –no one has admitted to it– the video shows a “Gmail Man” personifying Google’s mail system.

The objective is to prove that Google spies on their clients’ emails in order to show advertisements fit for their needs. In contrast, Microsoft proposes Office 365 as an alternative to Gmail.

How a clever guy got the attention of top advertising creative directors through Google search.

Google vs Bing

Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery, but when it comes to search, maybe not. This past week, search engine giant Google accused MSN’s Bing of copying their search engine results and attempting to parasite their algorithm. Sounds simple but complicated. Complex but feasible. Legal perhaps. Ethical, probably not. For the past decade, Google has invested thousands of man-hours into developing and perfecting the ubiquitous search engine that almost all of us use today. Clearly, it has been a huge investment of mammoth proportions, and one they wish to protect. For Google, obviously this is serious business; and as one of the fastest growing, cash compounding companies in the world, they (like Microsoft and Apple before them) aim to fight ferociously to keep their secret sauces a secret.

In late Spring 2010, the folks at Google started to notice that the Bing search engine started doing exceptionally well and seemed to PUT return the exact same results as their own Google engine. It seemed odd, and so, like any shrewd competitor, they decided to launch a sting operation in late December. They injected code into certain pages, then temporarily ranked what is called in the search industry a “honeypot” site that would usually not show up when searching for certain terms. That generated about 100 synthetic searches (searches that weren’t being driven by humans). This code allowed their “honeypot” page to show up whenever someone—Google employees and volunteer spies—typed in this uncommon and unused search term.  There was no reason for the Bing search engine to return this particular website unless they were copying results from Google. Get it? The trap was set.

When they finally were up and running with their sting operation, their “spy” team was asked to use the trap search term from home using Internet Explorer with suggested sites in the Bing toolbar. Voilà! Only a couple of weeks later, Bing was serving up results that were exceptionally suspicious considering the honeypot site which was unrelated to the search term. Uh-oh. Bing-O!

Bing has not denied these accusations. Will it erupt into a major legal war? The stakes are high. And while it is relatively unimportant to us as users, it will definitely be something to keep an eye on if you are a marketer or professional who uses SEO methodologies in your marketing mix. The big question for the moment is whether you Google search or Bing search this issue for more information.

NCAA Basketball

Of course through a Google search I was able to find various articles with a few key word matches. The first was an article from 1999, “Hispanics are Immune to March Madness”,  which while interesting is a bit out of date. The second was an article in Hispanic Business that went into detail stating that your office pool is illegal and that companies should have a policy against it. OK, so I was 0-2 in my initial search and decided to try another tactic.

I decided to check out some key Spanish language sites with a sports section such as ESPN Deportes, Univision and Terra. While I did find nice photos of cheerleaders, lots of soccer news, pre-season baseball scores, and even some Formula 1 racing information, information about the NCAA tournament was pretty much non-existent or at least well-hidden.

In the midst of the NCAA Tournament, I am surprised by the lack of attention given to this prime-time finale and am looking forward to seeing the program ratings. If any of you come across information related to this or other posts, please leave your comment.

Work with the right partners

While reading the latest article in Advertising Age that highlights the negative aspects of a network relationship for publishers, I continue to wonder who these ad networks are.  YES, I have experience in various ad networks and YES I have ownership in one such network, so I am somewhat biased.  However, an introductory line such as: “In typical scenario, a $5 CPM can end up netting a publisher $1” is misleading.

In all fairness, as the article goes on, it refers to the ad dollar from the client level, citing expenses for the agency, data provider , ad exchange and ad network.  Of course, they also like to cite the well-known publishers such as CBS, ESPN, Time Inc.,  and Turner that have publicly announced that they have discontinued their network relationships.

For publishers such as CBS, they have the sales teams and resources to sit on inventory, enter into a contract with DoubleClick for DART for Publishers and have someone dedicated to running the system, whereas for most publishers there are limited resources at their disposal, and one key question is, where can you generate the necessary revenue while keeping expenses down?

Publishers should absolutely value their traffic and also choose their network partners wisely. As a standard practice, website publishers usually receive 50% of the revenue generated by their ad network partner.  While the article speaks to cutting the ad dollar from the point of origination, it should be noted that the actual ad network is only one step, and in general some parties (such as the agency) are probably going to be a part of any advertising deal, and are therefore unavoidable. All networks are not alike, and it is important for publishers to ask difficult questions and monitor their partners. However, if you are a publisher contemplating doing everything yourself, have a close look at the costs and effort required to sell 100% of your inventory.

Twitter

Twitter, the popular microblogging system, could be on the brink of changing the world of online advertising. Everything seems to indicate that we could soon begin to see ads on its pages. Until now, people wondered, besides agreements with certain companies, when Twitter would start to generate profit. Now we have the answer.

According to rumor, the start date would be some time in March.

Twitter -again, according to rumor- would have the intention of showing relevant and truly useful ads and, of course, they would not be intrusive. This last point will surely be controversial for some of the more “sensitive”  Twitter users.

Bearing in mind that Google, Yahoo and Bing have begun to include Twitter conversations in search results, and that there has been a tremendous growth in users and page visits, the future couldn’t be brighter for a company that many didn’t take seriously when it first appeared.