Google “City Guide” type searches are being promoted at Google.com.

Searches by city name at Google.com yield SERPs featuring tourism related search refinement options.

Perhaps Google is considering a Google Tourism vertical or a Google Travel vertical.

Presently, a search on a city such as “Chicago” yields a SERP with a featured link to a Google Map of Chicago and six tourism related “refine results for Chicago” options:

Dining guides
Lodging guides
Attractions
Shopping
Suggested itineraries
Tours & day trips



Clicking on one of the six tourism related search refinement options, such as “Dining guides,” yields a SERP for “Chicago more: dining_guides” and additional refinement options.

The “Chicago more: dining_guides” search results are similar to results from searches such as “Chicago dining guides” or “Chicago restaurants.”

The additional refinement options are categorized by tourism headings under 1) Essentials 2) What to do and 3) Planning.

Presently, the Google tourism related refinement options on city searches provide users with easy, pre-formatted “drill-down” city-related search options.

Google “City Guides” search refinement options may signal a future Google Tourism vertical or a Google Travel vertical.

Mobile: Looking Ahead


eMarketer looks at some of the marketing lessons that can be learned from one of the world’s largest mobile companies.


China will soon have more than 500 million mobile phone subscribers. The country's 1.3 billion people provide a fertile base for huge demand, and its robust electronics manufacturing sector is supplying handsets on a mammoth scale.

This massive and growing market is served by a duopoly of mobile carriers: China Mobile and China Unicom. These two companies are the two largest mobile operators on the planet, by far. And the former company is close to twice the size of the latter.



One advantage of a duopoly is the brand-building associated with high name recognition. China Mobile is not only the largest mobile carrier in the world, it's the fourth most valuable brand worldwide, ahead of such also-rans as Google and Citibank, according to a Millward Brown-led study.



Still, new phones and service offerings will require new advertising. The good news for marketers is that advertising gadgetry online has been successful in China, with IT products, PCs and mobiles getting the most browsing activity among respondents to a Shanghai iResearch Co., Ltd. study published in June 2005.



Although advertising online is not an either/or proposition for most marketers, those who eschew online ads should only do so with a strong word-of-mouth campaign, since that method trumps even budget in terms of influencing purchase decisions, according to a GMI poll of online consumers in November 2005.



As for mobile advertising, much of it is done via China Mobile's Monternet and China Unicom's Uni-Info, making the firms some of the country's largest advertisers. There are many SMS-based ads in particular, with paid SMS services, promotions, broadcasting tie-ins, lotteries and the like. Entire SMS-based industries have sprung up. Mobile users in China sent about 300 billion SMS messages last year, or around 700 per user, according to CNET. CNET's Little Red Blog recently detailed the mobile spam problem which has grown along with advertising on Monternet:

"My company has long experience selling: Guns, roofies, eavesdropping devices, fake Taiwanese currency, multiple use keys, assassins and private detectives, tax receipts and fake diplomas. Contact Ah Qiang," read a recent example of Monternet spam.

Part of the spam problem is the relative anonymity of mobile phone accounts in China. One hundred RMB (about $13) in untraceable cash and five minutes is what it takes to become a China Mobile subscriber. Subscribership has grown faster than the MII can regulate, when it comes to things like spam. MII is now moving to require all subscribers register with an identity card.

Some mobile advertisers are allowing opt-outs to fight the problem. China Mobile and Feituo Wuxian Technology Company partnered in March 2006 to allow domestic firms to advertise on mobile phones. Users opt-in (or out) to the ads using through a special channel on Monternet

James Belcher is a senior analyst at eMarketer. This article is drawn from eMarketer's new report, China Mobile.

TV Is Changing And TV Companies Better Follow

Facts and figures were prevalent in this ad"tech Chicago 2006 TV 2.0 panel with Denuo SVP Tim Hanlon and Points North Partners Founder Peter Storck. Both spoke of the dramatic changes TV is undergoing right now and where they thought it was heading. Storck began with a numbers-heavy presentation that revealed many insights from various studies about the use of TV and the DVR:

1. 33 percent want TV-like features of their PCs
2. 15 percent want them on their cell phone
3. 46 percent use their DVRs to skip commercials
4. 58 percent use their DVR to record programming
5. 35 percent use their DVR to pause live TV
6. 49 percent use their DVR every day
7. 63 percent use it once a week
8. 55 percent fast forward through commercials
9. Interestingly, 15 percent use thir DVRs to rewind and watch commecials
10. 42 percent use free video on demand
11. 59 percent use the DVR to access free local information

Storck then shifted to video ono the web and saif 32 percent watch news videos and 31 percent watch movie previews. In terms of video on mobile phones 32 percent say the screen is too small and 30 percent the content isn't worth watching.

While programming certainly is shifting towards a more on-demand, paid model, 62 percent of people would still rather watch ad-supported content than pay for d-free content. Of those who would pay, 17 percent would pay $1.99 per show.

While Storck believes people are behind the industry in terms of shifting to newer viewing models, Denuo's Hanlon believes the consumer is ahead of the industry. While listening to Hanlon's very vibrant and intellectual presentation, I felt like I had to bring up the thesaurus to aid in my interpretation of his use of several "fancy" words. That aside, Hanlon share the inter-relationship bewteen small and large audiences and the cost models used to price reach to those audiences. The accompanying chart will show how those relationships change as the audience size changes.

Hanlon asserted people want content to be malleable, flexible and viewed on their own terms. Because of the change in viewing habits, he claims metrics such as Nielsen television rating are woefully out of date and do not adequately capture the use of the medium.

He gave a couple examples of companies that are accommodating this shift in consumption citing TiVo's telescoping ads which let viewers dig deeper into advertising content without missing any programming. He also told the audience to, when in a Starbucks, dial 510-653-6473 and hold the phone up to the music. It's the Grace Notes services that provides song information. He says there's no reason this or similar technology couldn't be harnessed to provide a channel to offer people more information on ads of any kind.

People want flexibility in how they access content and Hanlon says "tough shit" to old content companies who are clinging to old models becasue there won't be much to cling to for much longer. As the quantity of content increases and more control is ceded to the viewer, the need for guidance and navigation ill become necessary giving rise to a whole new category of company whose sole purpose is to present choices in an easy to navigate fashion.

While Hanlon does not believe mass media will die, he does believe it will become the exception to the rule. In terms of ad-free, paid content, Hanlon does belive that will continue to increase but not necessarily at the expense of ad-supported media because there's a limit to how much anyone will pay before it starts to hurt.

Source: Ad Watch

Analyzing the Google AdWords Landing Page Algorithm

By Jennifer Slegg
July 25, 2006

Google's pricing for AdWords includes a component that looks at the content of landing pages, and a recent change that has caused price increases is proving controversial in the search marketing community.


The landing page algorithm by Google AdWords has caused quite a bit of controversy amongst advertisers since it first arrived in advertiser's AdWords accounts in December 2005. Since it launched, Google updated the landing page algorithm again in May 2006, often referred to as the April bid hike. However the latest July 10th update by Google has created quite a stir in the forums and the blogosphere for many reasons, particularly how it could impact advertisers making money through click arbitrage.

Before the landing page algorithm was launched, Google used to use click through rate (CTR) as a way to determine not only how quality the ad was, but also how good the overall experience for the visitor was. Unfortunately, advertisers who provided a poor user experiences on the landing page could also write a high quality ad—or a misleading one—to promote it, resulting in an ad with a high CTR but poor user experience.

So what exactly makes for a poor user experience on a landing page? Google seems to be targeting a range of things including such things as excessive advertising or landing pages with little or nothing else but advertising. But when I talked to Nick Fox, Senior Business Product Manager from Google on the new landing page controversy, it isn't just the click arbitragers who are being targeted. He also specifically referred to market areas as well, including scams, work from home ads, and things that are "free but not really free." So not only are they targeting the overall user experience on the landing page, but specifically the actual content on the landing page as well as how it relates to the ad itself.

They also seem to be targeting advertisers who are advertising something similar or identical to other advertisers. This could get into a dangerous game of Google being the one to determine which competitor is the best and which will be required to pay more in order for their ads to continue running. In a discussion on DigitalPoint, a member posts that he asked for a landing page review, and the response from Google seems to imply that not only are they judging based upon his landing page, but also based upon what makes his service different from other site's serivces, effectively picking and choosing the ones who get increased bids, and those who do not.

The AdWords team responded in part with "Thank you for calling in today. You wanted to know the status of your site quality review. I wanted to let you know that our specialist team concluded their review, and maintained the current status of your site. They explained that there are currently a number of people providing free, unfettered instant access to MLS listings. Our goal is to provide a user with the best possible results, and it is not clear from your site what makes your solution one of the best options for the end user". However, the advertiser notes that Google obviously did not read his accompanying advertisement very well, since that was not what he was advertising. His advertisement was:


Anytown MLS Listings
Our Realtors Send Daily Customized
MLS Listings For Anytown, USA

Before Google launched the latest incarnation of the landing page algorithm, Google had human evaluations of ads and their landing pages, to determine what people thought was a good user experience, and what made for a poor one. I asked Michael Mayzel from Google on how this tied in with the end result of the current landing page algorithm. "We first start with human evaluators and end user feedback to determine a sample of landing pages that provide a low quality user experience. We then build computer algorithms to accurately detect similar types of pages, verify the accuracy, and then deploy those algorithms to evaluate all advertiser pages," Mayzel said.

From a business perspective, it obviously makes sense to determine the quality of a landing page by an algorithm than by a human review, especially when dealing with the number of advertisements that Google has in their ad inventory. But an algorithm is never as good as a personal human review, so there is definitely a question of just how many advertisers really are being unfairly penalized by this new change. And unfortunately for affected advertisers, being penalized means they now have their ads disabled or are forced to pay $10 a click in order to keep their ads running. And all this when their landing page could have perfectly acceptable to a human reviewer.

Prior to the new landing page algorithm change, the Inside AdWords blog did state that the number of affected publishers would be small. And Fox reiterated what that blog said and that only a small number of advertisers were being affected by this change. He also said there has been a very low number of "false positives", meaning that very few advertisers tripped this new landing page algorithm that really shouldn't have. When it comes to landing page quality, Fox said it is "pretty black and white."

Fox also stated that while the number of impacted advertisers were low, they also were a group of advertisers that tended to get a lot of impressions and spend a lot of money. It is an interesting business decision to target those advertisers who spend a lot of money, because there had been speculation that perhaps the landing page algorithm would only affect those advertisers who spend under a certain dollar figure per month. But this seems to not be the case, as I asked Fox if spending a certain dollar figure a month would result in an advertiser not being targeted with this new landing page algorithm, and the answer was no. All advertisers and their ads are being affected by this change the same, regardless of whether that advertisers is large or not.

There also is a review system in place for advertisers who feel they have been unfairly impacted with the new algorithm, but success seems to have been limited, at least when viewing advertiser feedback in various forums. Many have asked for reviews, only to be told that they need to improve. Of course, AdWords is not being very specific at what the landing page algorithm is looking for to determine quality.

When I asked for specifics on what could improve landing page quality or what exactly on the landing page was being evaluated, Fox was reluctant to answer. But landing pages are re-evaluated regularly (although Fox would not state just how regularly that is) so there is hope for those who want to make changes in an attempt to drop down their minimum bid prices.

Plenty of speculation abounds at what could be parts of the landing page equation that equals a quality landing page. A thread at WebmasterWorld had some interesting suggestions that an advertiser was given by an AdWords rep after the previous landing page algorithm update in May. The suggestions included an increased amount of content, a separate privacy policy page, a contact page, as well as quality links to external sites.

Source: Search Engine Watch

Next Time Your Cell Rings, It Could Save You a Buck

As Redemption Rates Jump, Major Marketers, Retailers Try Mobile Couponing

SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- You've heard the example before: You're walking past a Starbucks on a steamy afternoon when a $1-off coupon for the retailer's iced Frappuccino hits your cellphone. But after years of being a hypothetical, mobile place-based couponing is here.
Mobile suppliers said Target, Best Buy and other mass marketers are likely to use cellphone-targeted coupons in for the 2006 holiday season.

Many consider couponing via cellphone the ultimate scenario for tapping into the estimated $15 billion retail-promotion market. And in the next few weeks, a number of major marketers and retailers -- including Hollywood Video, 1-800-Flowers.com, TGI Friday's and Bath & Body Works -- will try it for the first time.

"Mobile couponing has arrived," said Brent Dusing, CEO of Moonstorm, a mobile-marketing-solution provider.

Downloading a coupon wallet Mr. Dusing said the marketers are using Moonstone's Cellfire program, in which a consumer downloads a virtual coupon "wallet" to a mobile phone and shows the phone with the coupon code to a store clerk. The coupons may be worth a free movie rental or $5 off dinner and are being promoted through shelf-talkers, click-to-call offers on web pages and through other advertising offers.

Mobile suppliers said Target, Best Buy and other mass marketers are likely to jump in for the 2006 holiday season.

Mr. Dusing said Cellfire's coupon redemption rates are in the "mid-teens to 23%" and others in the mobile-marketing space report similarly high conversion rates. Nihal Mehta, founder of Ipsh, now part of Omnicom Group, said a mobile-coupon promotion involving Capitol Records artist Chingy and retailer Sam Goody resulted in a 10% redemption rate -- more than 10 times the industry average for paper coupons.

In 2005, 278 billion conventional coupons were distributed and only 3 billion of them were redeemed, according to coupon clearing agent Valassis' NCH Marketing Services unit. The value of those redeemed coupons was less than $3 billion, and that total has been dropping by about 5% per year, said Charles Brown, VP-marketing at NCH.

That's in part because consumers balk at higher-value coupons that require them to purchase multiple products and may not, all things considered, provide the best value to the consumer. Last year the average coupon face value was $1.09, while the average redemption is 83 cents, he said. Retailers training sales force A number of the nation's top retailers are training their sales forces to work with the new cellphone-based coupons, Ipsh's Mr. Mehta said. Pharmaceutical marketers are also beginning to look at the mobile phone as a vehicle for discounts, loyalty marketing programs and free-trial offers.

The ability to deliver coupons at the right moment -- just as someone's nearing a particular retailer or restaurant -- is key and requires a marketer to detect the location of a person's phone at any given time. Some 200 million Americans have mobile phones with locating devices; Sprint, for one, has a searchable local directory that can recommend nearby restaurants, clubs or bars, and almost all Verizon Wireless phones soon will have similar capabilities.

But as that technology emerges, so do privacy concerns. Beth Givens, director of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer-advocacy group in San Diego, said mobile coupons must be something the individual opts into. For marketers, it would be a "terrible mistake to transmit location-targeted advertising to someone who has not consented" to receiving the message. She said her phone has the ability to turn off functions that reveal her location.

Privacy invasion Jay Stanley, public education director, technology, for the American Civil Liberties Union, said cellphone location data is a "honey pot for privacy invasion" and new laws are needed to make sure information gathered for one reason is not used for another. He said mobile phone location information for emergency 911 purposes, for example, should not be not used for marketing. "Our technology is 2006 and our laws are 1936," he said.

Other obstacles exist, especially the need to train sales forces; a perhaps bigger expense would include purchasing new point-of-sale registers and equipment.

Mr. Mehta, however, said mobile coupons are a "killer application. The reason it hasn't taken off is that brands don't know how to capitalize on it. It's just a matter of time."

Not all mobile-marketing experts agree coupons are the holy grail of mobile marketing, especially right now. For one thing, the coupon offered "better be pretty valuable or it's going to be perceived as spam," said David LaPlante, CEO of Twelve Horses, a relationship-marketing and messaging-management company. "As soon as people complain, it's bad news for everyone."

And as for the oft-repeated Starbucks example? Well, said Mark Donovan, VP-senior analyst at M:Metrics, "if you've noticed, coupons are not part of Starbucks' brand strategy." At least not yet.

Marketers not sure if dot-mobi domain clicks

What’s in a name? That’s what the mobile marketing community has been addressing ever since Microsoft, Google, Nokia and a host of other brands joined forces to bet more than a million dollars on the name “mobi.”

But while marketers, the mobile industry and anyone else standing to benefit from the expansion of mobile web are backing dot-mobi—a mobile-specific domain address similar to dot-com that allows people to surf the internet via cellphones, smart phones and other mobile devices—others think the well-ingrained dot-com address works just fine, and keeping it will mean not having to spend money educating consumers about what the heck dot-mobi is in the first place.

“I don’t think it’s strategic in the long term,” said Jean Berberich, head of mobile consumer strategies for Procter & Gamble Co. With dot-mobi, marketers would likely need to add text to their ad copy that instructs consumers to use dot-com for PC and dot-mobi for mobile surfing.

Source: Adage.com

Google targets mobile future

If you use Google, the chances are that you search its index via the internet.
But the company's ambitions do not begin and end with its online presence. For some time now, it has been establishing ways for people to use its roster of services via mobile devices.
Mobiles are part of everyday lifeIf you use Google, the chances are that you search its index via the internet.
But the company's ambitions do not begin and end with its online presence. For some time now, it has been establishing ways for people to use its roster of services via mobile devices.

The man in charge of the Google mobile mission is Dipchand "Deep" Nishar. He believes that when people are out and about, they want very different answers from Google than they would if they were sat in front of a PC.
For instance, he said, the first result that comes up after typing "film" into a PC browser is the Internet Movie Database. "But type 'films' into a mobile browser and you are most likely going to see a movie," he told the BBC News website.

Handy helper
"The same search query, because of the context, means very different search results," said Mr Nishar. "Search on mobiles is about finding not browsing. "It's a smaller form factor and you are not going to sit at it for three hours. Most people in the developed world are within 20 or 30 minutes of broadband and a screen, and that's when they will browse. "On a mobile it's important that you find it right away." This means that Google has to slice its huge corpus of data differently for mobile users and tailor results to where people are sitting or standing when they make the query.

What is also important to realise about mobile devices, said Mr Nishar, is that they are far more personal than a home computer.

"A PC is much more of a shared device," he said. "But a mobile is not something I share with anyone." So far the bits of Google you can reach via your mobile are fairly limited.
You can use a browser on your phone to send queries to the search site as you would on a PC. You can also search for images or just search those sites created just for mobile phones.
It is also possible to read your GMail account via a mobile and, in the UK, you can search Google via text messages. In California it is possible to get Google maps on your handset to help if you are looking for a particular place. Using many of these services requires a web browser on a phone but, said Mr Nishar, only about 50% of the world's phones are powerful enough to run that software.

Culture shock Google does not make all its mobile services available in all locations because different cultures make very different uses of their phone. For instance, said Mr Nishar, text messaging is huge in Europe and China. By contrast, almost no-one in Japan uses it. But the Japanese do make very heavy use of e-mail on mobile devices. They also do a huge amount of net surfing via handsets.

In many nations outside the West phones are also hugely important ways of going online largely because they are so much cheaper than a desktop computer. In China, said Mr Nishar, there are three times as many mobiles as PCs. In nations like Nigeria, people prefer mobiles because power supply problems in running a computer. "There are many emerging markets where people do not have a PC and will never have one," he said.

Add in the moves towards using net phone services via wi-fi and you can understand why Google is dedicating a lot of time and resources to mobile developments. Eventually, the thinking goes, most people will be accessing Google most of the time via a mobile device. "It's going to get better, faster, cheaper thanks to Moore's Law and become a better experience in the long run," said Mr Nishar. "It's going to be a very important channel."

Source: BBC News