Day 2 Of AdTech Chicago 2009

Posted on 2 September 2009 by Patrick Flanagan No Comments

(4.00 out of 5)

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So here are the tidbits that stuck in my mind from ad:tech Chicago 2009 day #2:

Overall Digital Advertising / Marketing

• The total of all non-search digital advertising in 2009 is roughly only $10 billion dollars
• Basic measurement of audience size by services like Nielsen NetRatings have some fundamental flaws. For example, MLB.com reported total monthly page views in July of 2009 of close to 14 billion, while Nielsen NetRatings only reported 900 million.  This huge error factor is one of the core reasons that spending online is being held back, as offline channels have trusted and fairly accurate measurement techniques and audience audit companies.  One of the challenges is to the fundamental approach that Nielsen takes, which is panel based and not an audit based
• One idea taken from the movie studios that digital content owners should at least consider is the following: A consumer that goes to a movie theater pays for a ticket to see the film.  That same consumer has to pay again if they want to, at a later point, watch the same movie at home via a DVD rental.  The issue is some publishers that charge are adopting a model that is a pay once for global access across all mediums / content access points.  This go directly against the model that the movie studios operate under where consumers must pay each time for each unique content consumption session
• On a successful paid content site such as MLB.com, only 5% of all users that visit this site convert to becoming a paid content subscriber.  95% of users come and only consume the free content on the site.  Also mentioned that just because you have great content, it does not mean you will get consumers to pay. You have to have still have a great user experience. Also have to offer a free route (think WSJ here) and show these free users what they are missing out on (and the flip side, for those who do pay you need to show the added value of all the things that they are only able to get)
• Some panel experts where predicting a 13% drop within traditional advertising in 2009, but digital growing at around 10%
• Don Hamblen, the CMO at Sears Roebuck, Co. had these thoughts:
  • To measure ROBO impacts, market mix modeling
  • Really sees the power of combining both search AND display
  • Search is the “new” circular for the purposes of customer acquisition and outreach
• The balance or mix percentage is not clear yet, but there seems to be an underlying agreement that there needs to be some split of advertising dollars across both integrated marketing AND traditional buying space & time (eg ad inventory)
• Technology is accelerating faster then one can keep up with. The goal instead of trying to run this rat race is to elevate above.  The analogy given was the classic Wayne Gretzsky where the saying goes, “Don’t skate to where the puck is.  Skate to where the puck will be.”

Social Media

• Around 40% – 45% of all internet users use at least one social site
• Twitter users only account for 11% of the overall Internet audience, or roughly 18 million people
• 50% of social users interact with social media on a daily basis
• The total ad dollars spent on social media in 2009 is just about $1 billion, which is just about 5% of the total advertising spend overall

Video

• The internet receives the largest share of time spent of any type of media during the generally agreed upon 8 hours media consumption day , at 29% (TV gets 27% for a reference point)
• Video equates to nearly a third (29%) of all time spent on the internet
• Nearly 2 in 5 broadband users have watched video online in the past 24 hours
• B2B audiences are not typically looking for nor motivated by online video
• Online video remains largely sold via CPM pricing, and is more expensive due to the scarcity and limited nature (when compared to network television)

Widget / Apps / Facebook Connect

• Social applications (sites within sites such as a Fan Page within Facebook) are best for mass reach. Also often times excel at the amount of engagement that these type of deployments can create
• Widgets are great for pushing content out and driving users back to a centralized location
• Facebook connect is best for bringing in bits social content into an existing web site experience
• The Three (3) B’s Of Widgets: Be there.  Be relevant. Be useful.
• A ‘fan’ is more valuable than an email.  Emails don’t multiple or amplify.  Fans do
• A Twitter follower of Facebook fan should be thought about as a social CRM database and not an audience to blast messages to
• Standards are being set across the industry.  Facebook is solely driven this.  A “fan” is now a standard measure of ROI for social, just like an email address. A fan can be re-marketed to for example, much like an email
• There is NOT however a standard set of value that can be assigned to many of the social interactions.  For example, what is one complete video view worth?  $0.25?  $1.00?  One suggestion was to try and relate these type of social metrics back to the easily understandable costs of either Google CPC rates or display CPMs
• Suggestions to at least always share with client, other newer metrics that show a complete cost overview as it relates to the core KPI goal of the campaign / medium: Cost Per View, Cost Per Upload, Cost Per Install, Cost Per User
• One big issue is when a social campaign ends.  What to do with the widget now?  How to continue engaging your new Facebook fans?
• Brands should start thinking of their content as a web service that delivers that content across any platform or sites. This delivery engine of a brands content / messaging then reduces the risk of any one platform failing
• Stand alone gaming web sites are re-surging among the younger crowd
• App click thrus are higher than ads within Facebook.  Example: 0.2% – 0.3% average click thru rates on RockYou apps which are higher than Facebook ads

Common Misconceptions About Web Widgets

Posted on 8 January 2009 by Patrick Flanagan No Comments

(4.50 out of 5)

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So there are no dumb questions.  I believe this fully.  So here are some common misconceptions that keep coming up over and over again as ShopLocal engages clients around the widget | gadget space that I’d like to set straight.

1. Web widgets can be downloaded.  This is FALSE for the most part.  By the very definition of what a web widget is, they are NOT downloadable, but rather snagable, grabbable or embeddable (all of these are synonyms in this context).  Basically users just copy and place the widget onto or within another web page or site.  No actual file is being downloaded from the internet and being installed on your local machine. This is the beauty of what makes a web widget’s unique and powerful.  Whenever a user visits a web site or web application that they have placed (or embedded) a web widget, that exact web widget is available anywhere, regardless if they are accessing that specific web page from their own personal computer or not.  It’s just like web email (eg Gmail, Hotmail, etc).  The emails are not downloaded to your local machine.  All of your messages remain within the email web site so that you can access your mail anywhere at anytime.  Web widgets are no different.
2. Web widgets require something to be downloaded first, like a platform or run time environment.  This is FALSE for the most part.  Again, the whole point to wrapping up a small micro-application or piece of content into a web widget is to avoid putting up any barriers of adoption or use.  Out comes the web email example.  To access Gmail or Hotmail, no user has to install anything.  It’s as easy as logging in.  Yes, some of the early platform specific widgets like Yahoo! Widgets required a base platform be installed, but these type of widgets are a dying breed that are not going to survive.
3. Web widgets are able to be placed on one’s desktop (or WebTop as this blurred line is being called). This is FALSE for the most part. Web widgets live within or on web pages, not a single specific user’s desktop of their personal computer.  To create something that does this, a specific desktop application needs to be created, typically within (or using) Adobe’s AIR platform (which is now being bundled with all Flash Player installations / upgrades).  This is a very different and unique type of applications that in all honesty is much more powerful and immersive than a web widget, but does require a much more motivated and trusting user to download and install one’s desktop application.
4. Web widgets are able to be placed or installed on one’s iPhone / iTouch. This is once again FALSE for the most part.  What this describes is an iPhone application which is a very different than a web widget.  iPhone applications are written in an Apple specific language (xCode) and are typically deployed through the iTunes App store.  There is a very unique set of rules, interactions and set of possibilities that come along with creating and releasing an iPhone application.  All of which are 180 degree different than a web widget.

Web widgets are their own unique type of applications that however many similar qualities they may share with other types of applications, they have their own standard of identity.

So let’s recap quickly:

• Web widgets are NOT downloadable or for that matter every downloaded
• Web widgets do NOT require that anything be installed on a user’s local machine
• Web widgets are NOT the same as desktop apps
• Web widgets are NOT the same as iPhone apps

Yes, there are exceptions to each of these rules (which is where most of the confusion stems) due to some 3rd party widget providers (such as Clearspring, Gigya and Widgetbox) offering some ‘out-of-the-box’ support for some of these type of non-standard options on a hit or miss basis.  But in a general, pure academic sense of what is entailed within a web widget (or as I have referenced previously as an universal widget) these four conceptions and mis-use of terminology are just plain FALSE.