The Week in Review

5 Important Excel Tips for PPC Managers

In response to its readers’ requests, this writer shares her five favorite Excel tricks: 1) the VLOOKUP function, 2) find and replace, 3) concatenate, 4) character case conversion tricks, and 5) conditional formatting. (PPC Hero)

How Social Media Affects Paid Search

With Google +1, the search giant "is starting to monetize not just what you do, but who you are." This thorough post touches on the 100:10:1 rule, primary vs. secondary products, how Google monetizes relationships and social extensions in paid search. According to a Google representative, +1 won’t change how Google calculate Quality Score; advertisers who want to opt out have to fill out a form for review; Google is examining how +1 can add user value to different types of ads; +1 shares on landing pages won’t impact the landing page component of Quality Score; and +1 votes on products/landing pages won’t impact the bidding algorithm for products they rely on prediction of conversion rate. (Search Engine Watch)

Google Adds User Feedback Signal to its Algorithm

In its continual efforts to improve the quality of its index, Google is rolling out its "high-quality sites algorithm" across the globe. The search engine will also incorporate "new user feedback signals to help people find better search results. In some high-confidence situations, we are beginning to incorporate data about the sites that users block into our algorithms. In addition, this change also goes deeper into the ‘long tail’ of low-quality websites to return higher-quality results where the algorithm might not have been able to make an assessment before." Publishers’ toes must be hurting. (Econsultancy)

Social Media Marketing Campaigns Run Circles Around Banner Ads

According to this case study, social media marketing campaigns outperformed banner ads about 6.5 to 10 times in terms of cost per visitor. Also, the "quality of the visitors coming from social media marketing was also higher in terms of pages/visit, time on site and bounce rate." (Ignite Social Media)

Ad-Supported Kindle Hints at Something Bigger

While Amazon’s introduction of a cheaper, ad-supported Kindle is getting a lot of buzz, people who stop there are missing the forest for the trees. "I wonder if this is Amazon’s first baby steps into developing its own ad network for its future mobile devices that it is probably working on," this writer ruminates. "I firmly believe Amazon is about to disrupt the mobile space by entering into the mobile space with a tablet device, and take Apple on directly. An ad network would be another piece of the ecosystem to go head-to-head with Cupertino." (ZDNet)

Google Acquires PushLife: Why?

Google acquired PushLife, a mobile music application that allowed users to sync music on their desktop computers with their mobile phones. This curious deal comes ahead of Google’s expected launch of Google Music. "But if Google Music is so close to launch, after having been in development for over a year, why is Google just now buying the technology of a small-time competitor in this space? What hole does PushLife fill?" Whatever the reason, it’s apparent Google is trying to build an iTunes competitor. (ReadWriteWeb)

How Changes to Ad Units Impact AdSense Earnings

When you make changes to your AdSense ad units, you need to have them live on your site for at least a week or two before determining if the change has actually affected your earnings. Lo and behold, Google’s AdSense team is working on a new feature that will help publishers with this task. (Digital Inspiration)

What Increased Competition in Search Means for Mobile Marketers

Two things should be closely monitored by mobile marketers: the Bing-Yahoo search partnership and the increased use of mobile search. (Mobile Marketer)

Debate: Ad Tracking

Two PCWorld editors go head-to-head in a debate over the right of Web advertisers to track online browsing behavior. The editor arguing against the "Do Not Track" bill brings up the idea that this isn’t about the privacy most consumers are worried about. The editor arguing for the bill calls this a very narrow view of the issue. (PCWorld)

6 Reasons Why Local Data Will Rule in 2011

"As the use of mobile and social platforms soars, the importance of local data escalates, regardless of business size." If you allow others to determine what data is "correct" about your business, you risk getting less return on your information. Accurate data is a foundational need, data can make or break lead generation, and nothing is worse than a data surprise — these are some of the six reasons why local data will be crucial in 2011. (Search Engine Land)

3 White Hat-Ways to Optimize Google Suggest Results

Google Suggest can turn up some pretty damaging phrases for brands. Using offline ads (especially radio ads), news and partnerships are some white-hat tactics to use if you want to optimize Google Suggest Results. (Search Engine Land)

Using Mobile Web to Maximize Reach and Sales

The adoption of smartphones continues to rise and HTML5 opens up the possibilities of the mobile Web for savvy marketers who want to maximize their brand’s reach and drive sales in multiple ways. After launching a mobile-optimized website featuring device detection, social sites, SMS and location-based marketing all come into play. The key remains focusing on the audience and not the device. (Mobile Marketer)

Amnesty Ad on iPads

This interesting Amnesty International ad for the iPad shows one way the medium can act as a conduit to creative ads on tablets. (Adweek)

Google Can’t Threaten People into Being Social

Google is tying its social efforts with 25 percent of their employees’ annual bonuses – a risky proposition that could turn them against their employer. This further highlights the contrast between Facebook and Google when it comes to their “socialness.” (GigaOM)

Google, ITA and Data Mining Tools

The U.S. Justice Department approved Google’s $700 million acquisition of ITA, a flight search software maker. There were conditions imposed, however, which opens the door to antitrust scrutiny of Google’s activities. Needlebase, a side project by ITA engineers, is a wonderful point-and-click data extraction tool. Google shouldn’t kill it. (NYTimes.com, ReadWriteWeb)

Android Will Own Half of the Global Smartphone OS Market by 2012

According to the latest numbers from Gartner, by the end of 2010, Android will account for 49.2 percent of the worldwide mobile device OS market. In 2010, Android had 22.7 percent of the market, and by the end of 2011, it’s expected to have 38.5 percent. Gartner expects Apple iOS to see its global market share steadily decline from 16 percent in 2010, to 13.4 percent in 2011, and to 12.6 percent in 2012. Microsoft, on the other hand, is expected to see its market share rise. (Gartner)

Google +1: What it Means for Search Marketing

Don’t be fooled by Google’s past failures (a la Buzz and Wave), and ignore the naysayers who brush this off as a Facebook "like" imitator. Google +1, unlike Facebook, benefits from a broad, open social graph made up of many users generating and interacting with loads of content. Facebook is a closed system, which limits the number of people and amount of content it gets. "And that’s the bottom line: even if the Google +1 button lacks the history, the familiarity and the functionality of the Facebook Like button, even with slow adoption it won’t be long before Google’s social graph data exceeds what Facebook is sitting on. Add that to a vastly superior interface for advertisers, and it’s a winning proposition." (Search Engine Watch)

The Affiliate Apocalypse in the U.S.

"If you’re an affiliate in the United States, there’s a good chance you’re not sleeping very well these days." Companies like FatWallet, Amazon and Overstock are being slammed by states, forcing them to cut ties with their affiliates. Relocation is getting more difficult, and if California follows Illinois’ footsteps, watch out. Affiliates could start seeing their cash streams going to customers, which is what Overstock is doing. (Econsultancy)

How Google’s Panda/Farmer Update Could Affect Email Marketing

Could email marketing be as affected by Google’s most recent updates as publishing platforms have been? Follow the thread, from article publishers, to engineers, to spam reports, to ISPs and beyond. (Search Engine Journal)

How to Track Your Social Media Strategy

Google +1 and recent data showing Facebook sharing correlates with rankings only emphasizes the impatc social media has for SEO. Here’s a thorough list of the different ways you can track your social media strategy, from the relatively simple (third-party tools, Google Docs) to the more involved (Google scripts to call APIs). (SEOmoz)

Social-Activity Advertising Outperforms Static Display Ads by 11 Times

According to appssavvy, a platform that helps to connect consumers and brands via social activity, recently unveiled in its Social Activity Index that "social activity ads across online and mobile perform 11 times better than static display ads and two times better than rich-media ads." The research factored in engagement, conversion rates and cost. (Mobile Marketer)

The IAB Seal of Approval

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has launched their Ad Network & Exchange Quality Assurance Certification program after months of talk about setting self-policing rules for digital marketers. "Ad networks who agree to follow a published set of guidelines will receive what they refer to as ‘the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for digital marketing.’" The IAB is hoping this program will instill confidence in consumers and enough fear in wayward to compel them to change their ways. (Marketing Pilgrim)

SEO vs. SEM

Among all the acronyms toss around when discussing marketing practices for websites, SEO and SEM are two biggies. "SEO is to apples as SEM is to a fruit salad. Apples are part of a fruit salad but a fruit salad is not part of apples." This post runs down the basics of SEO ("an automobile tune up") and why it’s important; selection of hosting; what SEM is; link building; paid inclusion; PPC; and planning a successful SEM campaign. (ISEdb.com)

The SEO Industry Needs Reputation Management

SEO has a bad name — just try typing in "SEO is" into Google and see what the autocomplete suggestions are. There are tons of SEO horror stories out there, but social media consulting is being tainted lately, too. Education and publicizing the positive aspects of SEO are keys to improving the reputation of SEO. (Search Engine Watch)

The Affiliate Divide: A Problem for Advertisers?

Advertisers want two things from their affiliate programs: 1) "that the largest possible proportion of their affiliate base is active in driving sales revenue" and 2) "that there be a constant feed of good quality new affiliates coming onto the programme to actively promote them." There is, however, an affiliate divide between the top-performing affiliates (those that drive 90 percent of the program’s sales) and a sizable long-tail of affiliates (those that either bring in very few/infrequent sales or are sometimes totally inactive). "Even if the emergence of a two-tier affiliate programme is a natural evolution, how does the way programmes are usually managed entrench the divide between, on one hand, large, established, affiliates which receive all the advertiser’s attention, and a long tail of small revenue drivers or entirely inactive affiliates on the other? More widely, what can it tell us about the state of the affiliate industry, and how it has developed over time?" (Econsultancy)