A Word to Mobile Marketers: Dumb it Down.

Posted on November 5, 2007 by marc meyer

By 2010, over 300 million people will be using mobile phones and PDA’s. The five big verticals of mobile marketing and search will be : Consumer Package Goods, Fast Food, Entertainment, Travel, and Financial. Two other industries not to ignore however, are gaming and adult. In all of these market segments though, there will always be a need to vomit the information to the consumer, if you will.

Graphic analogies aside, what marketers need to have, to steal a line from “Top Gun”. Is a “need for speed”. having said that, internet marketers and web designers have to build their mobile sites in a completely different way for mobile users. Below is a short list of things that will need to be done in order for the experience to be a positive one for mobile users.

1) Keep the layout simple and compliant to the device(more on this later)

2) Small URL’s. At some point, someone will have to type in your mobile URL into their device.

3) No Forms. Why you would want forms on a mobile site escapes me, but if you stay in the business long enough, you tend to see it all.

4) Make the naviagtion simplistic and linear. Keep the user going down a logical path.

5) Be specific in the content, so that the user finds what they are looking for quickly. Bear in mind that mobile users have an immediate need and reason for surfing mobile content, give them a quick result.

6) Limit the number of clicks and drill downs for the user to get their information.

7) Refrain from using graphics and ads. They will only cloud the page and the result and slow the results to a crawl.

8) No scripting, no plugines and no tables.

9) Try and develop a page that can be navigated using one hand. I know it’s virtually impossible but, put yourself in the users place.

10) Make the content accessible regardless of device and regardless of bandwidth needs.

11) Keep the following specs in mind as well:

120 pixel screen width
Use XHTML
Use UTF-8 character encoding
Use JPEG’s and GIF’s
Page size should be 20Kb’s
Color: 256 min.
No scripting
Css1 style sheets
Http/1.0
No image maps
Limit Links

You’ll save yourself a lot of grief and headaches if you, wanting to cash in on mobile marketing, subscribe to certain design constraints when building your mobile ready websites. I know there are others that still need to be discussed, but the above should help in at least giving you a small checklist to utilize in your quest to be part of the next great marketing boom. Remember KISS! (Keep it simple, stupid.)

Click Fraud is on the rise.

Posted on November 5, 2007 by marc meyer

Recently The Click Fraud Index run by Click Forensics showed that click fraud rate was on the rise. What you will find interesting about these numbers are

Key findings from data reported for Q3 2007 include:

The overall industry average click fraud rate was 16.2 percent for Q3 2007. This is an increase from 13.8 percent for the same quarter in 2006 and from 15.8 percent for Q2 2007.

The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.1 percent in Q3 2007. That’s up from 25.6 percent for Q2 2007, 21.9 percent for Q1 2007 and 19.2 percent for Q4 of 2006.
Over 60 percent of traffic from parked domains and made for ad sites was click fraud
In Q3 2007, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from France (4.2 percent) China (4.1 percent) and Germany (3.7 percent

Publishers and advertisers have recently felt the impact click fraud is having in the content networks. Increasingly, publishers are seeing a performance drop in the content network traffic quality. Advertisers are seeing their conversion rates drop significantly on content networks because of bad traffic coming from parked domains and other low quality sources.

“Click fraud activity continues to grow especially on made for ad sites, parked domains and on the content networks,” said Tom Cuthbert, president and CEO of Click Forensics. “Advertisers, publishers and search engines need to take notice because content networks are becoming the fastest growing source of click fraud. Ensuring their quality is essential for the pay per click advertising market to continue its growth

Google is everywhere, you just have to look!

Posted on November 2, 2007 by marc meyer

OK so when is Google NOT in the news? They seem to be everywhere these days. Such as the latest:

LOS ANGELES / MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—November 1, 2007—MySpace, the world’s largest social network, and Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced that they are joining forces to launch OpenSocial— The partnership spearheads an initiative to standardize and simplify the development of social applications. Today’s announcement underscores MySpace’s commitment to supporting standards that foster innovation in an increasingly social Web.

But if we delve further, I think you’ll find that Google might be getting into business partnerships and alliances that we never thought possible.

Take for instance influencing children at an early age:

Behold Jimmy, a seemingly normal kid:

But If we look closer, we can see that, yes indeed their appears to be a tattoo of sorts on his upper arm. Holding his arms in the air victorious, jimmy celebrates knowing he got in on the IPO. He has already secured his first round of funding by the way.

Next we have Google heading in to the inner city. Sensing a huge push of viral marketing and word of mouth on the latest pair of Air Jordans. Google has hitched a ride, so to speak.

Knowing that we are a sports crazed nation, Google has decided to move into the NFL and bank on the New England Patriots and their stellar QB, Tom Brady. Everyone likes a winner. Can you say bandwagon?

Look Closely, Yep you guessed it, Google sweat towels for all of you QB wannabe’s out there. BTW, Tom Brady is endorsing Google Search for 6 years and $360 million. Let’s move on.

Of course Google realizes how important brand image is and thus knowing that Chicago is making a play for the summer olympics, they have decided to buy the Olympic brand.

Shrewd move if you ask me. Google really hasn’t gotten into the sports marketing arena as much as others, so this is certainly a way to get seen, what do you think?

Speaking of shrewd, there is no one more shrewd than Larry Ellison of Oracle, don’t you think? And he’s been quiet lately, too quiet.

Lastly, we were doing a tour in D.C. the other day, and we just love those White House tours, and they brought us by the oval office. Well I know you’ve heard about Lincoln slept here blah blah blah… But how bout Segei and Larry slept here….? I knew the government was hurtin for cash when I saw this:

Maybe you can’t see what we saw up close, so we took a quick pic.

You guessed it. At least we all know who we have to answer to from now on. As if you didn’t know that already! And you thought Al Gore invented the internet!

Do You Hulu?

Posted on November 2, 2007 by marc meyer

In their quest to reduce the amount of what little reading people do, News Corp. and NBC launched “YouTube Killer,” Hulu, in beta Monday. While the site has been in development for months and suffered much criticism, it is finally finding some friends in the interactive world.”The technology they’ve put together on this short notice is not only adequate, it’s also better than most of what else is out there,” said James McQuivey, a TV and media technology analyst for Forrester Research. “I think they have moved a couple of steps forward compared to their competitors in the industry.”

According to the Associated Press, users can watch content from News Corp., NBC, and more limited content from Sony and MGM for free on Hulu.com or partner sites such as AOL, Myspace and Yahoo!

“When you aggregate great content together, it makes things easier for the user,” said Hulu chief executive Jason Kilar.

Great news for librarians, Barnes & Noble and Borders, don’t you think? Soon we will be a content starved nation craving videos of anything! The final version should be out in a few months

Mobile Marketing, Are you ready?

Posted on November 1, 2007 by marc meyer

The thing that you grab along with your keys, your purse or your wallet, what is it? It goes wherever you go. The quick and obvious answer: Your phone. Mobile marketers salivate at this Personal Digital Advertising Device or PDAD. You as a captive audience waiting to be pounced upon by advertisers and marketers is like a 12 ounce steak to a chained up Bull Dog. And why not, you are carrying around your constanly changing, always updating bulletin board/commercial/ad, right there in the palm of your hand.

Before I go any further, chew on this. 16 million children under the age of 17 have cell phones. Ever wonder why Google wants to be a player in the cell phone market? Why not? Every one has one. I will go on record to say that over 70% of the people in the US over the age of 17 have a cell phone. Given that challenge, wouldn’t it make sense for an advertiser to want to tap into that potential?

According to Accuracast a London based SEM company, “Mobile search engine marketing seems poised to be the next big thing in the world of search.” That would be a safe statement if there ever were one. Recently Google Mobile launched its first advertising program targeted at mobile phone Internet users in Japan. Given that Japan is one of the largest wifi/ internet users in the world, this seemed to be just a test market, and indeed it was. It no doubt, served notice to the world that a new era in search engine marketing was upon us.

As well, Microsoft has aggressively been developing and pushing their own mobile platform for the past few years now, and it is just a matter of time before they will announce their own mobile advertising service. Wasn’t it not too long ago when all we talked about was, What is Microsoft going to do next?

Furthermore, T-Mobile and Google formed a partnership last year, which ensured that Google would be the home page for all T-Mobile customers browsing the web on their mobile handsets.

Couple this with Google’s pending launch of their phone and you can see the writing on the wall. Mobile search and Mobile marketing will be huge. The question is, How do you, as a marketer tap into this, with the same relative ease that people have been accustomed to when using traditional online marketing methods and techniques?

Yes it’s true that mobile marketing is still in its infancy at present, but growing rapidly. It might not be the most effective medium for all businesses to market their products and services. But as a business owner, when exploring new ways to acquire customers, foolish is the one who ignores the pink elephant in the room. When evaluating a company’s future sales and marketing strategy you have to think about the audience, and when they might use their mobile phone or PDA, if at all, to search for products or services. The reason being is because of the latency with some mobile browsers, the patience of mobile users is not where it needs to be for effective mobile search.

But in other situations, mobile search is a perfect fit. The wait for the mobile internet market to mature and become a more established medium will not be as long as you think. cCouple this with the subsequent maturation of advertising and marketing on mobile search engines, and you will see a convergence rivaled only by the advent of online search as a knee jerk reaction to all things done as it pertains to a computer.

Google is pioneering the way to reach Wifi browsers through the technology it knows best – search. Mobile marketing through SMS is too restrictive to be a resounding home run. A lot of companies still use it very effectively, especially to promote mobile games, ring tones, and events such as American Idol voting . However, the reach and effectiveness of such advertising is limited by the same factors that limit bulk emails – lack of targeting. You just don’t know enough about the person behind that phone number.

Mobile search advertising on the other hand, allows businesses to reach potential consumers who are looking for their services, anywhere, even far away from a PC or a wired network connection.

Like all new channels, the mobile search advertising medium needs to be tested carefully, to avoid alienating users and continuing to provide useful data services on the go while maintaining profitability through delivery of relevant ads. Measuring the effectiveness of this medium will be the most crucial aspect.

Google Mobile Japan for instance, currently displays ads on the top and bottom of their search results. Only time will tell if this is the most effective placement strategy for them. Mobile search marketers need to realize that a) the real estate is not the same as 800×600 for instance and b) the message has to be entirely different. The call to action is framed differently on a mobile device. Because of this, traditional electronic means will need to be altered, tweaked, tested and evaluated before marketers flock to a platform that works. And they will. In the online world, imitation is the mantra of all that occurs on the Wild wild web.

So the question is are you willing to go along for the ride? or do you want to build your own vehicle? The potential is as ripe as ever for a market segment that has yet to reach anything close to critical mass.