The hottest trend in digital marketing just got a lot more interesting, this time due to a new feature from an established direct marketing channel. Google is rolling out its new Place Search today (Thursday, 10/28), which will give users more instant search information for local businesses, to drive consumers into stores and restaurants. Now, instead of just getting a title and short description for local searches, users will be served more information including a photo, and verbatim snippets from consumer-driven review sites such as Yelp.

So, what does this mean for marketers who are trying to stay on top of all of the localization opportunities? It means that on top of Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places, we should also be claiming Google Place pages and paying attention to the listings and reviews that users see there. The advantage of this new channel is that Google always knows how to help marketers have more influence on their success (if you’re willing to spend some money). We can use their “Boost” ads, which lift your Place page to the top of the results screen, while making them look like the organic results. That’s something worth testing… as long as your business’ reviews are positive!

It also means that local/geolocation channels are maturing to the point where we need to have a real marketing plan just for this area – making sure we are using each appropriate platform to its full potential, and also integrating them all so we aren’t just testing five different ways of reaching local consumers without a wider perspective of what is going to work.

And while public relations and customer service teams are addressing reputation issues in review sites, digital marketing staff are looking at buying localized ads, and social media leaders are trying to manage an ever-expanding footprint across expanding channels — new channels like this force us to all dovetail our efforts to ensure the most effective way of connecting with consumers.

If you’ve got kids, or are fortunate enough to be of an age where you can really remember what it’s like to be a kid, then the phrase “Don’t make me come in there!” voiced in an angry parental tone probably rings a bell. Well, kids, get ready for a little déjà vu all over again, as the Twitter synopsis of the upcoming FTC report on behavioral advertising could well read just that way.

As reported in today’s MediaPost, FTC commission member Julie Brill made some comments this week that previewed the direction of the upcoming report. While the good news, according to Brill, is that the report will not recommend that Congress enact any new laws, the troubling aspect is that she hinted at several areas in which we, as an industry, have fallen short of expectations in protecting consumer privacy; including notification of behavioral tracking and serving, improvements in the type of notices provided, and even support for both an online version of the “Schumer box,” and a Do-Not-Track option for consumers.

Other recent comments have been less guarded. David Vladeck, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, recently said that he was “disappointed” in our industry’s progress on these issues, stating “I urge the industry to get moving quickly … consumers – and the FTC – may lose their patience.”

As we’ve all seen, the government has been reluctant to put its foot down too firmly in regulating the online space (see the FTC “guidelines” for disclosure, and the FDA’s consistent use of reprimand, but lack of official guidance, in online pharma marketing). But these recent comments smack of a diminishing amount of patience with our industry. It sounds like us kids had better start calming down and playing nicely, or the grown ups are going to come into the room and start taking away our toys.

We’re all for self-regulation in this industry, and support the efforts of groups like the IAB and DMA in developing the “Advertising Option Icon.” We understand the benefits of better ad targeting – for both advertisers AND consumers. We also understand and support consumers’ privacy rights, and encourage a system that allows consumers to distance themselves from those potential benefits if that’s what they choose.

For far too long, we’ve let our industry’s good name and the positive potential that we can bring to market through our technologies be sullied by the SPAMmers, phishers and all other sort of cheats that prey on consumers online. Let’s band together, clean up our playroom and show the grown ups in the Fed that we really are big kids and can play all by ourselves.

Authored by Tim

It’s a lesson we all learned on the schoolyard as kids – if there’s only one kid who thought ahead and brought a ball with him, then he gets to decide what game we’re all going to play. Hearing Google’s predictions for the future of display advertising at MIXX last week (http://bit.ly/b5LQLn) makes us feel like that all over again. The difference now, of course, is that we’re not all 12 years old, and if we don’t like the game, we can head over to Dick’s and buy our own ball.

With that in mind, we’d like to point out where we agree and disagree with the big G on their predictions for the state of display by the year 2015:

50% of online ads will have an element of video in them and will be bought on a cost-per-view basis. The part about half of all ads using video could certainly be true, but we hope it isn’t! If it is, then it’s likely going to be a whole bunch of repackaged TV spots that do little, if anything, to create compelling engagement online. Until video production costs come down and/or creatives are given more freedom to unleash their brains on the medium, unique video production for online will remain either cost prohibitive or just plain bland. As for the cost-per-view part… given that they own YouTube, they are unfortunately probably right. Why unfortunately? Because CPV is a really lousy performance metric that is misleading at best (i.e., just because the video ran, does that mean it was actually watched?) and worse, tells the advertiser nothing about impact or effectiveness.

50% of all display advertising targeted to a specific audience will be bought through real-time bidding. Given Google’s continuing, Borg-like creep into display, this is a very real prospect – but it’s also one that we should all welcome. DR buyers will have greater ability to manage return, and brand buyers will be able to more accurately gauge the cost-benefit of reaching audience segments.

“Mobile will be the first screen that consumer engage with brands across.” This was an interesting moment of intentional vagary. The quote was as mentioned, but the slide read “mobile the number 1 screen.” What it felt like was that the G crew knew they needed to include mobile somehow, and yet weren’t really confident in what the claim should be:
“How about ‘number one in spend?’ ”
“No, too bold.“
“Number one in impressions?”
“Nah, that might scare people away from our desktop products.”
“OK, we’ll just say ‘first for consumers and let them think we know audiences better than them!”
While our answer, regardless, is still “doubtful!” it’s tough to argue with the glittering generality.

Five new metrics will emerge as more important than the click. This feels like fodder for Amy Poehler’s next “Really!?!” guest return to SNL. The great part here is the quote that immediately followed the slide: “some of them actually exist already today!” Yes, of course they do, and if you’re not using them, then shame on you. Our prediction is that if it’s only five, then our industry is in trouble.

75% of ads will become socially enabled. The real question here is: were they catering to Facebook and trying not to rile the competition, or setting themselves up for their inevitable next foray into creating a Google social network. Either way, we’d be shocked if this did not come true, and we welcome the opportunity to have brand advocates share compelling and engaging ad content with their friends and fellow buyers.

50% of brand campaigns will utilize rich media. The eye opening part here was Google’s sharing that just six percent of brand campaigns were using rich media last year! We certainly hope more people are using rich media display by 2015 – the creative and engagement opportunities are so tremendous. The hurdle has always been the added incremental cost of implementation. If Google can use its muscle to impact pricing in this arena, we’ll all be better served.

Authored by Tim

The news that Facebook has ended its beta trial of conversion tracking – with no plans to ever launch full scale (http://bit.ly/di4c06) – distresses us greatly. While we all know that by pontificating about the granular tracking abilities of online we dug a huge whole for ourselves in the early 2000’s, those abilities nonetheless still serve as the foundation of campaign success. So, why is the current 800lb gorilla of online backing away from quantifying its success potential?

Agency media folks will always have a multitude of conversion tracking options available; and at best, Facebook’s conversion tracking served merely as a reality check against other analytics tools for the agency media exec. But to the mom and pop retailer, or neighborhood restaurant, Facebook’s conversion tracking might have been the only way they could determine if they were making a return on their Facebook investment.

So why pull the plug? In our view, Facebook got scared. We in the business know that the platform leaves a lot to be desired from an advertiser’s standpoint; so how do you think the average Joe trying to run a business felt about it? We’re guessing that Facebook feared a lack of demonstrable return to the non-media savvy, and so they moved away from quantifying ad dollars to instead push for “socialization” metrics as justification.

Some in our world would claim that this is a boon for agencies, as advertisers will be forced to continue to rely on us for rich ROI analyses. This is not the case, and the evidence lies in search. Google made it simple for any and everyone to tap into and exploit AdWords, and the result was not a migration away from agencies. Rather, it pushed major advertisers – the ones with significant media budgets – to rely more deeply on agencies, who could further assist them in an increasingly complex and competitive environment.

Facebook’s move was wimpy and shortsighted, and it’s one that will stifle growth in social advertising. More distressing, it buys Facebook more time to drag their feet in improving their platform and allow media execs to drive even greater success in the channel for clients.

Since the rollout of Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, and @earlybird Specials earlier this year, a number of marketers have jumped in and started using paid Twitter advertising to gain a wider reach for their postings. While brands such as Best Buy, Starbucks, and Red Bull have all had success with this type of placement, a great deal of the inventory has been bought by the entertainment industry, to promote movies and television shows, because of the strong viral awareness effect through re-tweets.

Now, Twitter is saying that they will start including video ads into the new “detail pane” that will enable increased engagement opportunities (http://bit.ly/bM01ky). While Twitter may never end up having “traditional” banner opportunities, we are seeing that for some campaigns, paid Twitter efforts should definitely be incorporated into the mix.

We have all been waiting to see just how all of the billions of page views, photo uploads, and app engagement through social networks like Facebook are going to further impact search engines and the way they work.

Well, that might be coming sooner now if Microsoft’s Bing talks with Facebook (http://bit.ly/dcQqZa) result in anonymized comments and “likes” being integrated into search results outside of Facebook. Not only could this sway search engine results – by adding a massive amount of user data that isn’t currently being included – but it would almost certainly provide greater insight for marketers into understanding what target audience segments “like” both on and off Facebook; especially given the thousands of major sites that have jumped on the open graph bandwagon.

Not to be left out, Google is close to a new deal with MySpace (http://bit.ly/9giwrn) – though their choice of a declining partner such as MySpace is a bit concerning.