Dylan Hunter

(Image Courtesy of Valleywag, cropped to <500 px for blog use)

From ReachStudents.co.uk:

“Facebook is the website du jour, but in Reach Students’ experience it delivers appalling ad clickthroughs.

“We’ve run four targeted campaigns this year using its flyer ads, and each time the results have been disappointing.

“Our most recent campaign saw 1.4 million page impressions delivered at specific universities - and only a 0.04% clickthrough rate. Ouch.”

…..

“Until solved, I think we’ll stick to PR initiatives through the site - such as our work for Avenue Q that generated over ¼ million mini-feed messages through user profiles. And on a budget significantly smaller than it costs to buy the same number of Facebook clickthroughs.

In fact, at least $199,000 smaller!”

Further Discussion on Valleywag

From eMarketer, (they’ll lock it up soon, but out of fairness, here’s the link until they do):

Search Engines Help Small Businesses

MAY 22, 2007

Small businesses depend more on search engine traffic than larger firms, according to a study conducted by Hitwise in early 2007.

The firm measured the percentage of average monthly traffic companies in the Internet Retailer “Top 500 Guide” received from search engines in 2005 and 2006. Half of the businesses ranked from the 400th to the 500th positions depended on search engines for 50% or more of their total site traffic.

By comparison, none of the top 100 retailers generated more than 40% of their site traffic from search engines, and half had between 20.1% and 30% of their traffic come from search engines.

Web-only merchants averaged 64% their of monthly site traffic from search engines.

Chain retailers and consumer brand manufacturers averaged 28% and 27% of their site traffic from search engines, respectively.

Dropping in the “useful” folder…. Will also have to check out some of the blogs listed…

“Lime, a green health and lifestyle Web publisher, has launched an ad network that aggregates inventory across environmentally-focused sites and blogs.

“Included is the green-tech focused EcoGeek.org and the beauty/cosmetics-oriented The Beauty Brains. Additional sites in the new Lime Ad Network include Mongabay.com, an environmental science site; the organic foods-oriented SavvyVegetarian.com; and Eco-chick.com, a blog that covers environmental issues from a female point of view.”

….

“According to LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability Organization), consumer spending for this segment is estimated at $230 billion, and Lime estimates that 139 million Americans are interested or active in the green market.”

(Might help if I actually included the link…)

• …for every $1 dollar spent online the average search-user spends $2.56 offline.
• …those who search up to 10 times annually spend an average of $1,789 online while those who searched 31+ times spent an average of $2,943 online. Similarly in off-line transactions, those who search 10 or fewer times spend an average of $2,219 through retail locations, while those who search 31+ times spend an average of $3,839.
• …Search influences 20-30% of purchases made at retail locations
• …among general populace, 49% of money spent online & 42% spent at retail locations are the result of Search

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Actually, what I find most interesting here is why MLB’s streams / streamer are so low in comparison to the others. Is it a format issue, (length of stream)? Integration / focus? Too tight a concentration on a single content type? Can’t be that it’s avail on TV, as that would affect Time Warner, as well. Well, since I’ve never gone to the MLB site, s’pose I’ll have to go check it out…

Source: comScore Media Metrix

Contrary to popular belief that gamers are primarily teenage boys, results of the study indicate that video games have much broader appeal. On average, gamers are 41 years of age with an average annual income of $55,000. Further, females account for 52 percent of the gaming audience. The average gamer has been online for nine years and 84 percent have broadband access at home.

….When asked about their primary reason for purchasing their last game, the two most prevalent responses among gamers centered on previous gaming experiences, regardless of gaming device used. More then one-quarter of those using each type of device stated that they purchased their last game because they had played it before and enjoyed the experience. Game sequels also drove gamers to purchase their last game. The next most popular responses included “I heard good things about it,” and “A friend recommended it,” indicating the importance of word-of-mouth recommendations in influencing purchase behavior.

….nearly four out of ten heavy games (37 percent) agreed that featuring actual products or companies in games make the games feel more realistic, while 27 percent of light/ medium gamers agreed. Moreover, half of heavy gamers believe that advergaming “is inevitable and will be in all or most games in the future,” compared to 42 percent of light/medium gamers.

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New York - Internet advertising revenue rose 37% in the first half of 2006, compared with the same period a year ago, to $7.9 billion, according to a report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Revenues for the second quarter of 2006 also eclipsed $4 billion for the first time — a 5.5% increase over the first quarter — and represented the seventh consecutive quarter of growth for the online ad market. While search ads sold by firms like Google maintained their 40% share of the market from last year, “displays” like banner ads and rich media ads dipped slightly from 34% to 31% of the market, and online classifieds were up a bit, from 18% in the first half of 2005, to 20% in the first six months of 2006. “While search advertising remains the largest format in terms of revenues, we expect to see new formats like video ads to continue to emerge as advertisers seek to leverage the branding opportunities afforded by the growing installed base of broadband users,” said David Silverman, a partner in the entertainment and media practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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According to the PQ Media Global Product Placement Forecast 2006, global paid product placement spending surged 42.2% to $2.21 billion in 2005 with double-digit growth expected to continue in 2006 and beyond. Product placement spending in TV, film and other media is expected to climb another 38.8% to $3.07 billion in 2006, driven by the continued shift toward a paid placement structure from a barter and added-value model….

The US is by far the world’s largest paid product placement market at $1.50 billion in 2005, up 48.7%. Additionally, in 2005:

* Brazil ranks second with paid placement spending at $285.3 million
* Australia at $104.3 million
* France ranks fourth
* Japan, fifth

PQ Media forecasts that global paid product placement spending will grow at a compound annual rate of 27.9% in the 2005-2010 period to $7.55 billion, as product placement growth continues to significantly outpace that of traditional advertising and marketing. The overall value of the worldwide product placement market, says the report, including the barter/exposure value of non-paid placements, will increase 18.4% compounded annually to $13.96 billion in 2010.

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Some very good info as to the effects of brand terms, query phrase complexity, (i.e. how many words are in a query) and number of ad clicks on conversions, from PPC ad copy through on-site copy. Looking forward to reading the full report at some point. Some highlights:

• The highest conversion rate (9.30%) resulted when the user’s first click and last click on a marketer’s paid search ad were both brand terms
• When the first click is on a non-brand term and the last click is on a brand term, the conversion rate is almost as high (8.73%)….These conversion rates are seven times higher than when there are only non-brand terms.
• Conversions also rise as consumers enter more unique keywords. Consumers entering multiple unique keywords accounted for 8.39% of the sample studied, but they accounted for 19.2 % of transactions
• Searchers who clicked on two unique keyword ads are more than two times more likely to purchase than searchers with only one keyword exposure.

“…advertising spending on user-generated online media - blogs, podcasts and RSS - did not begin until 2002, but this combined spending has grown to $20.4 million by the end or 2005, a 198.4% increase over the 2004 level. Spending on blog, podcast and RSS advertising is projected to climb another 144.9% in 2006 to $49.8 million.

“… - Total spending on user-generated online media is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 106.1% from 2005 to 2010, reaching $757.0 million in 2010.

“… - Blog advertising accounted for 81.4%, or $16.6 million, of total spending on user-generated online media in 2005, but blog ads will comprise only 39.7%, or $300.4 million, of overall spending in 2010

“…. - Podcast advertising totaled only $3.1 million in 2005, but is projected to reach $327.0 million in 2010, when it will account for 43.2% of all user-generated media advertising.” More

Mobile TV and video usage is growing slowly, but is attracting a higher proportion of the young adult and male demographic, reports Telephia, the leading provider of performance measurement information to the mobile industry. According to Telephia, 1.5 percent or roughly three million wireless subscribers in the U.S. streamed TV or played video content on their mobile devices in Q4 2005 (see Table 1). Historical data from early 2005 show penetration of 1.4 percent.

Younger mobile subscribers, age 18-24 have the highest penetration for mobile TV and video usage, securing a 3.3 percent rate, doubling since the beginning of 2005. Overall, men are more likely to stream TV and play video content on their wireless devices than women, showing a penetration rate of 1.8 percent or more than 3.5 million wireless subscribers during Q4 2005. Female mobile subscribers who accessed mobile TV and video content over their handsets had a rate of 1.2 percent in Q4 2005, equaling 2.5 million consumers, according to Telephia.

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According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project as summarized by Senior Research Fellow Deborah Fallows, the internet is increasingly a place where Americans just hang out. Some 30% of internet users go online on any given day for no particular reason, just for fun or to pass the time.

Compared to other online pursuits, the act of surfing for fun now stands only behind 52% of internet users sending or receiving email on a typical day, 38% using a search engine, and is in a virtual tie for third with 31% getting news online. About 25 million people went online in 2004 on any given day just to browse for fun. In the Pew Internet Project survey in December, 2005, that number had risen to about 40 million people…

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Hmm… Surprised that the current auto segment is so tiny, (if you exclude eBay @ ~5M uniques, the rest of the top 10 are all hovering around 1M).  Luckily, there’s something we can do about that!

A quick blurb on the newspaper industry and how to deal with the Internet. A nice stat to put in the queue:
“….”But on-line media produce 20 to 100 times less revenue per reader than newspapers do, he said. To put it another way, for every print reader lost, newspapers have to replace them with between 20 and 100 website readers to gain the same revenue….”

—–

(BTW - Congrats to MediaPost for finally getting their URL posting straightened out, so that I don’t have to cut and paste the full text anymore - yeah! )

U.S. consumer spending for online entertainment, including on-demand gaming, music, and video services, will grow by 260% in the next five years, according to Digital Lifestyles: 2006 Outlook, a new study from Parks Associates. Driven by broadband usage and innovations in digital entertainment platforms and content services, revenues will grow from $2.4 billion in 2006 to nearly $9 billion in 2010.

* The number of worldwide consumer broadband subscribers will grow from 184 million in 2005 to more than 360 million in 2010;
* The number of households worldwide using data networking equipment will grow from approximately 82 million in 2005 to more than 135 million in 2010; and
* Worldwide subscribers to IP multichannel video services (IPTV) will grow from approximately five million in 2005 to nearly 70 million in 2010.

More.

Retailers must quickly change the way they think about older consumers to better capture some of the $1.7 trillion people over 50 years of age spend on goods and services, consulting firm Deloitte & Touche USA said on Sunday.

One-third of consumers in the range of 55- to 61-years-old prefer to shop online, Conroy said, citing results of a survey that Deloitte plans to release in coming days. And survey respondents said they own an average of 5.9 high-tech gadgets such as iPod music players or digital cameras.

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For the first time in the 18-month history of IDC FutureScan, all the indicators have lined up to depict an expectation of 5% growth in U.S. IT spending this year. More

Nice!

It has announced plans to allow people to use Yahoo e-mail, messaging and other services on mobile phones and via the TV.

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Hmm - didn’t know that Cable TV advertising was that hot. Other than that, certainly more confirmation of good news in the Internet sector.

The recent issue of the Universal McCann Insider’s Report presented highlights of Robert J. Coen’s 2006 advertising predictions delivered at the December UBS Global Media Conference. Coen prefaced his presentation by noting that in 2005 the U.S. economy expanded a little more than had been expected, but advertising growth has failed to outpace 2005’s nominal GDP growth of 6.3%.

In 2005, the article reports, national marketers continued to be overly cautious despite the relative improvement in economic conditions. Because company stock prices remained below previous highs all expenses, including those for advertising, were firmly controlled in 2005. Strong resentment of recent high media price increases was widespread and, as ad demand slowed in the year following the Summer Olympics and Presidential election. The pressure for measurable evidence of the return on advertising investments grew. These and other forces combined to interrupt the expected renewal of strong advertising competition and the expansion in advertising spending. The projection for total national advertising in 2005 is now $177,147,000,000 for a gain of 6.0% over 2004. When final Fourth Quarter revenue numbers for the broadcast TV Networks are in, it is expected that the full-year gain will be at best about one percent.

2005 Budgets Of National Advertisers

% Change

Over 2004

2005 Projections

($000,000)

4 Tv Networks

+1.0%

$16,880

Spot Tv

-7.5

10,517

Cable Tv

+ 15.0

18,888

Syndication Tv

+ 3.3

3,792

Radio

+ 1.5

4,441

Magazines

+ 5.0

12,859

Newspapers

+ 1.5

7,743

Consumer Media Sub-Total

+ 3.7

75,120

Direct Mail

+ 8.5

56,627

Yellow Pages

+ 1.5

2,142

Internet

+ 15.0

7,881

Other National Media

+ 5.6

35,377

Total National

+ 6.0%

$177,147

Source: Universal McCann, December 2005

The changes in national marketers’ advertising spending in many of the traditional mass media have been modest in 2005 but one exception has been mail advertising.

In the first half of calendar year 2005, the number of pieces of mail sent at the regular standard mail rate, used for most advertising, increased nearly 5%. This trend has been influenced by the telemarketing restrictions; but it is also another indication that marketers have, in recent years, focused their marketing resources on more immediate measurable short-term responses. Coen expects that many of these programs will be continued and even expanded in 2006 despite higher postal rates and higher paper, printing, and handling costs.

Trend In Mail Advertising Pieces

1st Half Of Year

Millions Of Pieces

%Change

Change In Pieces (000,000)

2000

36,800

+ 7.1

+ 2,400

2001

37,200

+ 1.1

+ 400

2002

35,300

-5.1

-1,900

2003

36,500

+ 3.5

+ 1,200

2004

39,600

+ 8.3

+ 3,100

2005

41,540

+ 4.9

+ 1,940

Source: Universal McCann, December 2005

Total National Advertising in 2006 is expected to increase at a slightly faster pace than it did in 2005. The rate of gain in spending by National Marketers for broadcast network television ads next year will be helped by the Winter Olympics and easy comparisons with 2005. Heavy Spot TV advertising gains are anticipated next year because of the intense political contests that are due to occur in 2006.

The Outlook For 2006 National Advertising

% Change Over 2005

2006 Projections ($X000,000)

4 TV Networks

+ 6.5%

$17,977

Spot TV

+ 8.5

11,411

Cable TV

+ 7.0

20,210

Syndication TV

+ 4.5

3,963

Radio

+ 4.0

4,619

Magazines

+ 5.5

13,566

Newspapers

+ 3.5

8,014

Consumer Media

Sub-Total

+ 6.2

79,760

Direct Mail

+ 7.5

$60,874

Yellow Pages

+ 3.0

2,206

Internet

+ 10.0

8,669

Other National Media

+ 6.4

37,650

Total National

+ 6.8%

$189,159

Source: Universal McCann, December 2005

In 2006 National Advertising growth should again outpace general economic growth, but ad spending by Local Marketers is not expected to improve much in 2006. The extra demand due to political spending will put some extra pressure on local media prices next year.

The combined spending for advertising next year by National and Local Marketers is now projected for a total of $292.0 billion, a gain of 5.8% over 2005. Next year we expect U.S. advertising to approximately match the growth in the economy, but advertising as a percent of GDP will probably remain at the stalled 2005 levels.

The Outlook For Total Advertising 2006

% Change Over 2005

2006 Projections ($X000,000)

Local Newspapers

+ 3.0%

$41,360

Local TV

+ 4.5

14,705

Local Radio

+ 4.0

16,129

Local Yellow Pages

+ 3.0

12,494

Other Local Media

+ 6.8

18,158

Total Local

+ 4.0

102,846

Total National

+ 6.8

189,159

Grand Total

+ 5.8%

$292,005

Source: Universal McCann, December 2005

To read the complete article, including summary charts of 2005 estimates for various categories of advertisers, please visit the McCann report.

About 21 million, or 87% of kids ages 12-17, use the Internet. According to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, half of all teens and 57% of teens who use the Internet have created a blog or webpage, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations. The study considers them "Content Creators."

The results highlight that this is a generation of teens eager to share their thoughts, experiences, and creations with the wider Internet population.

Some key findings of the study include:

* 33% of online teens share their own creative content online, such as artwork, photos, stories or videos
* 32% say that they have created or worked on web pages or blogs for others, including friends or school assignments
* 22% report keeping their own personal webpage
* 19% of online teens keep a blog, and 38% of online teens read blogs
* 19% of internet-using teens say they remix content they find online into their own artistic creations.

Teens are often much more enthusiastic authors and readers of blogs than their adult counterparts. Teen bloggers, led by older girls, are a major part of this tech-savvy cohort. "For American teens, blogs are about self-expression, building relationships, and carving out a presence online," said Amanda Lenhart, co-author of the report entitled, "Teen Content Creators and Consumers."

51% of online teens report downloading music, compared to just 18% of adults who report similar behavior. Mary Madden, a Research Specialist at the Project and co-author of the report, said "At a time when social norms around digital content don’t always appear to conform with the letter of the law, many teens are aware of the restrictions on copyrighted material, but believe it’s still permissible to share some content for free." 75% agree with the statement that, "Music downloading and file-sharing is so easy to do, it’s unrealistic to expect people not to do it."

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