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Posts Tagged ‘search’
Online Strategies August Issue Now Available!
Monday, August 31st, 2009
Click here to read Online Strategies magazine’s August issue!
Bing One and Bing Two: Double Takes on Microsoft’s New Search Engine
Monday, August 24th, 2009
Microsoft’s new search engine has garnered a lot of media attention as it seeks to directly compete with Google, especially in a time when it seems no one in their right mind seeks to compete with Google.
The giant of the search-engine industry has its fingers in every possible pie, and it’s very rare that it doesn’t come out ahead. So what are Bing’s advantages and disadvantages?
Here’s two ways of gauging its chances of survival:
1. The Product Advantage
Bing is supposed to yield more relevant search results, which may actually sway consumers over to its side. The advantage to advertisers in that relevance is more precise, target marketing, which could change their game plan as well - if, that is, Bing’s searching is in fact superior to Google’s.
The content-driven approach helps sell that relevancy claim, as the system also adds consumer comments and reviews on the search results, e.g. getting customer reviews on a restaurant from services like Yelp.com.
2. The Marketing Advantage
Google has rarely spent money on advertising its own products. Consumers are ready to jump on just about anything that Google puts out, which means that the usual big spenders in a marketing budget are moot - television ads, for example. Microsoft’s Bing may have an advantage here, as the company seems to be willing to pour a near-endless stream of funds into promoting its new product.
It’s not a bad strategy, especially since nothing short of full media saturation is likely to sway loyal Google enthusiasts. Since they have no competition in many of their outlets, it might just give Bing a chance to play with the big boy.
Peter Koeppel is a Wharton MBA and president of Koeppel Direct, a full-service media buying agency based in Dallas.
Microsoft Launches Google Rival “Bing”
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009“Why don’t you Bing it?â€
A year from now, if you hear someone say that — and actually understand what it means — Bill Gates will be a happy billionaire. That is because it will be a sign that Microsoft is finally making progress in its quest to challenge Google in the Internet search business. Bing, the name Microsoft gave to the new search service it unveiled Thursday, is its answer to Google — a noun that once meant little but has become part of the language as a verb that is a synonym for executing a Web search. After months of, uh, searching, Microsoft settled on Bing to replace the all-too-forgettable Live Search, which itself replaced MSN Search. Microsoft invested billions of dollars in those services and failed to slow Google’s rise, so a new name certainly can’t hurt. Microsoft’s marketing gurus hope that Bing will evoke neither a type of cherry nor a strip club on “The Sopranos†but rather a sound — the ringing of a bell that signals the “aha†moment when a search leads to an answer. The name is meant to conjure “the sound of found†as Bing helps people with complex tasks like shopping for a camera, said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online audience business group. And if Bing turns into a verb like, say, Xerox, TiVo or, well, Google, that would be nice too. Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said Thursday that he liked Bing’s potential to “verb up.†Plus, he said, “it works globally, and doesn’t have negative, unusual connotations.†Some branding experts said choosing the name Bing was a good start, but also the easiest part of the challenge facing the company, since most people turn to Google without even thinking about it.
To read the entire New York Times article, click here.
To check out Bing for yourself, click here.
Loading ...Should DRTV Marketers Use Multiple Affiliate Networks?
Monday, December 8th, 2008
Should you be involved with multiple affiliate networks? Why or why not?
If so, how does it work technically—from a tracking, reporting and optimization perspective?
When it comes to affiliate programs, DRTV marketers are looking for more sales with less friction. I’ve complained for years that affiliate programs need a better means to achieve scale (providing marketers with an easier means to drive actions). Scale is Google’s “secret sauce†and responsible for cost-per-click’s (CPC) trouncing cost-per-acquisition (CPA). The CPC model has won that battle…for now.
In seeking out CPA scale (and the increased actions it may bring), DRTV marketers always find their way to the “multiple affiliate network†question—should they or shouldn’t they and what’s involved? Carolyn Tang has been around this block a few times and worked both sides of the fence at affiliates like MyPoints.com and marketers like Orbitz and CollectiblesToday.com (The Bradford Exchange). Today, she works as the client services lead at Chicago-based affiliate network Shareasale.
Simply stated, there are two primary concerns for retailers when swimming in multiple affiliate network ponds. These are:
1. Proper attribution of the sale:
Avoiding duplication of counts or scores among web marketing channels (affiliate, search, e-mail, etc.)
2. Proper payment:
Avoiding duplicate payments to affiliate networks (in scenarios where customers touch multiple affiliate sites or cookies)
Following is an excerpt from my conversation with Tang that gets to the nitty-gritty of what to be concerned with and how to make the decision.
Carolyn Tang: I think in the past, the emphasis has definitely been on duplicate reporting—on having to pay multiple times on a single transaction. Obviously, this is not very cost-effective. Funny thing is the technology has evolved to the point where we have a lot more reporting tools in place, such as Omniture or any third-party dashboard reporting tool. Many times, those tools don’t necessarily track correctly. They will attribute a transaction to a single marketing channel, but because of the way the technology is set up it may or may not attribute it to the correct channel. So I think, whereas before the driving concern was on overpaying on a single transaction, it is now on actually attributing the transaction to the proper channel.
Jeff Molander: So you’re saying that the technology now has improved that? (more…)
