Top 1,000 Sites

Good reference from Ad Planner:
http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/

The Emergence of Mobile Marketing

Great research again from Center For Media Research on the potential of mobile marketing and adoption rates due too the built in base.

Gotta love this bit:

Mobile marketing is set to reach dominant penetration levels faster than any medium before it, thanks to an existing installed base of cell phones (80% of the population) rapidly being exchanged for smart phones (currently about 31% of the population and growing). By contrast, when the Internet was born as a commercial medium in the mid-1990s, only 8% of households had a modem-enabled computer.

After radio, the first electronic new medium, aired the first commercial in 1922, it took 30 years, then 28, then 15 for the next new medium to arrive, from TV advertising in the early 1950s to cable advertising in the late 1970s to the Internet in the mid-1990s.

The study sees fundamentals in place for mobile that will boost its trajectory over the next five years beyond what broadcast TV reached in the 1950s and the Internet reached in the late 1990s.

Marketers Use + Measurement of Emerging Channels

Some interesting stats below from Omniture research on how marketers as a whole are using and measuring ROI across various emerging channels.

Everyone wants to figure it out, but no one is really there yet.

I.e. Take heart – everyone is struggling with the same issues/obstacles/opportunities. :)


According to the results of the 2010 Omniture Online Analytics Benchmark Survey about marketers' use of emerging channels

such as mobile, social media and video, 55% of respondents cannot effectively measure marketing ROI, and only 14% of respondents utilize video, mobile and social media in their marketing mix. Matt Langie, director of product marketing, Omniture Business Unit, observes that "...a significant opportunity exists for marketers to implement measurement and optimization strategies for mobile, social media and video... sound strategies for these emerging channels can be a significant competitive advantage to drive revenue growth." Highlights from the survey include the following: ROI
80% believe ROI from online marketing activities is important to measure, but only 31% of marketers can effectively measure it
Conversion
86% of respondents think conversion rate from online marketing activities is important to measure, but 25% cannot effectively measure it
Social Media
69.1% of respondents are using social media in their marketing efforts
41% of those using social media lack a mechanism to measure social media conversion
Mobile
77.3% of respondents, are not currently using mobile in their marketing efforts
Of the 22.7% that are using mobile, 73% can measure if website visitors are coming from a mobile device, but only 30% are able to measure their mobile app conversions
Video
42.9% of all respondents are using online video in their overall marketing efforts
Of those using online video, 59% feel that post-video conversion is one of the most important video metrics, yet 70% are unable to measure post-video conversion
40% of respondents who are using online video lack a mechanism to measure video starts

Inspiring Stuff

Best Non-TV Campaigns of the Decade:
http://adage.com/article?article_id=141011

Top 20 Digital Campaigns of past 20 years
http://www.shots.net/shots_20th_digital.asp

SEO/SEM Paying Off

Nice Center For Media Research article on how SEO and SEM have been paying off for advertisers. Good sound bytes:

28.0% of merchants report more than 25% of their site traffic stems from paid search advertisements, while 51.5% say more than a quarter of their traffic comes from natural search

37.7% of respondents spent more than 50% of their online marketing budget, 11.9% spent 61% to 75%, and 20.8% spent more than 75%, according to the Internet Retailer survey of IRNewsLink e-newsletter readers conducted with e-mail marketing and survey firm Vovici Corp.

27.0% report more than 50% of their online sales are attributable to search engine marketing

The Evolution of Facebook and Threat to Google

Really interesting perspective from Mashable via CNN on the power of Facebook Like, and the site's potential as a search engine and ad network:

Google dominated the web in the era of interlinked Web pages. Every link from one Web site to another counted as a vote, determining the most relevant pages for any search term. The result: An unbeatable search engine.
Except that links between Web pages are no longer the most abundant source of relevant recommendations -- instead, people are sharing links with friends on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Now Google is paying those sites for access to public updates, but it lacks key data that would allow true personalization of search results. Google doesn't have a complete list of your friends, combined with a list of their interests. Facebook does.
Facebook is in a position to build the world's best search engine: One that delivers results based on your friendships and interests. The launch of the "Like" button, meanwhile, means that Facebook will know more about your individual preferences than ever before.

Oh, and I stumbled across this article because someone in my Facebook network "Recommended" it and it appeared on my CNN homepage. Good stuff.

McD's to Use Facebook Location Based Reward System

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143742

Interesting but lame that they are using a Facebook location based app vs. Four Square. And lame that McDonalds is doing it – the purpose of Four Square is for you to be deemed cool for going to a place frequently, and going to McD’s frequently does not have that connotation, you know? I think this could backfire...