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Live-Twitting the Search Insider Summit

Written By Drupad Sil | May 19, 2008 | Share This |

Search Insider Summit

Our very own Brooklahn, aka Reprise Media Director of Marketing Anthony Iaffaldano, is attending the Search Insider Summit, held at lovely Captiva Island till Wednesday. With attendees from across the industry, the summit provides some great debate and discussion on search marketing. Follow all the action from Anthony’s twitter feed or get the digested session notes here.

The Value of Persistence

Written By Drupad Sil | May 15, 2008 | Share This |

MediaPost

How many times have you seen a seasonal-ad on TV, forgotten about it for a few days (or weeks) and then gone to research it on the Internet only to find that, well, it’s impossible to find? There’s a perception among many marketers that once a campaign’s objectives have been met, it’s time to dial back the presence until they have another benchmark to hit, missing out on a chunk of their potential customers who search for their products during this downtime.

Reprise Media’s own Joshua Stylman, Managing Partner, extols the Value of Persistence in search advertising in this article at MediaPost:

“The solution is maintaining a persistent search presence, sometimes referred to as an evergreen campaign. There’s little risk associated with maintaining this type of campaign: After all, you only pay when a qualified prospect clicks through to your site. It’s efficient and effective, allowing marketers to continually stay top of mind with their potential customers.

Furthermore, search engines reward campaigns for running over a long period of time. Performance history is a key factor in determining an ad’s Quality Score – the algorithm that Google and other engines use to set minimum bids for their keyword auctions. Consistent campaign performance can often lower your bid prices over time, making it even more economical to keep those campaigns active.”

Get the rest of the article.

What Are the Right Keywords? Anyone? Anyone?

Written By Drupad Sil | April 30, 2008 | Share This |

MediaPost

Knowing your customer and knowing your brand are two keys to effective marketing. For online advertising, this means not just knowing what you call your product, but how customers refer to them – frequently, they turn out to be very different, and that difference makes a significant difference in traffic volume. It’s a situation we at Reprise Media have seen play out over and over again.

MediaPost has posted an article by Managing Partner Peter Hershberg on the importance of understanding how your customer searches for your products. More from Peter:

“In paid search marketing, buying keywords that no one searches for can be a huge misstep, causing marketers to miss out on valuable traffic and reduce the impact of their campaign. In search engine optimization (SEO), creating website copy and title tags (the words that show up on the top bar of the browser only) that don’t resonate with searchers means the site is less likely to come up when it’s most relevant to the audience.

Instead, marketers should learn from the mistake of brands like Wachovia, which includes a page for vehicle loans on its site. Though it’s an accurate umbrella term for what Wachovia offers, the phrase ‘vehicle loan’ just doesn’t have the same volume as ‘car loan’. Again, while this may be how Wachovia defines its services, it’s not what customers look for.”

Read the rest.

AdWords Displaying Ad Scores on Domestic Searches

Written By Drupad Sil | April 29, 2008 | Share This |

Google

Some interesting happenings on Google. Earlier today, SearchEngineRoundtable reported on a forum thread started when one advertiser noticed Google displaying three scores under a Google Netherlands ad. The scores listed are Pscore, mCPC, and thresh. The article goes on to suggest that mCPC is minimum cost-per-click, while Barry Schwartz at SearchEngineLand guesses that thresh may refer to a threshold score for the ad display while the Pscore may be a quality score metric related to PageRank.

Contrary to other reports, it’s not just for international searches, however. At Reprise, we noticed the numbers appearing under domestic searches. In the screenshot below, a search at 11:35 EST for “grand theft auto” pulled up two sponsored links, with the scores displayed between them (boxed in red).

 

Strange Google

 

Strangely, subsequent searches were unable to replicate the result, and as of noon EST it seems the scores are gone from international searches as well. We’ll be keeping an eye out for any Google updates on the issue.

Send in the ‘Clouds’

Written By Drupad Sil | April 28, 2008 | Share This |

MediaPost

Everywhere we turn, it seems that Google has established a foothold in another product or service. From iGoogle to Google Docs, YouTube to Maps, Google has stepped beyond the mere label of search engine to offer a suite of services that makes it resemble a true web portal. Why is it doing this? As the engine with the lion’s share of the market, is this what’s next for search?

Reprise Media Managing Partner Peter Hershberg offers his thoughts with this article on Mediaweek:

“In less than a decade, search engine marketing has grown from a little understood and even derided concept (“who would ever want to pay to be in search results?”) into the single biggest sector in online advertising. With all that change and upheaval, it’s only natural for advertisers to start asking: What’s next for search?

In many ways, when you ask that question, you can’t help but focus on the industry’s largest player. With Google commanding 70 percent of the market, all eyes are on the biggest kid in class in order to figure out where we’re heading next. So what is Google doing?”

Read the rest here.

Rules of Engagement: Time Spent and New Metrics

Written By Drupad Sil | April 17, 2008 | Share This |

MediaPost

Web site metrics are an indispensable asset to any online marketing campaign, but there is hardly a standardized method for their use. This is due partly to disagreement over the relative importance of certain metrics, and also to inaccurate measurement techniques. Furthermore, the constant evolution of online advertising forces the creation of new metrics to accurately capture their effectiveness.

Reprise Media’s Managing Partner Peter Hershberg weighs in on the metrics debate with an article on MediaPost:

“As the online experience becomes richer, it’s also becoming difficult to define meaningful interactions, and even more difficult for analytics tools to aggregate all this data. Very soon, those tools will need to measure feed subscribers, Twitter followers, and the number of Facebook wall posts alongside more traditional site statistics such as unique visitors, page views and time spent. The challenge marketers face is making sense of all that data and applying that information to the way they buy ads now (currently page views and impressions–although this will change soon, too), both online and across their broader marketing mix.”

Get the rest of the article

Welcoming Ansible to the IPG Futures Marketing Group

Interpublic_Group_logo

We’re very excited to welcome Ansible as the newest addition to the Interpublic group of companies. This week, Ansible joined Reprise Media, Facebook, Spotrunner, Spongecell and the IPG Emerging Media Lab in the Futures Marketing Group of IPG. Ansible will operate as a stand-alone mobile marketing agency in a joint venture with leading mobile technology partner Velti, and will provide marketing solutions to Interpublic agencies and clients.

When Reprise Media first joined IPG and the vision for the Futures Marketing Group was laid out, we recognized that mobile technology would be a lynchpin to the the FMG strategy. We’re extremely pleased to see mobile marketing finally finding a place in the Future’s Marketing Group and look forward to future collaborations between Ansible and our own search and social media services.

(more…)

History Lesson for Mahalo

Written By Peter Hershberg | May 31, 2007 | Share This |

mahalo.gif

Jason Calcanis officially launched his “people-powered search engine,” Mahalo, yesterday.

“Mahalo is the world’s first human-powered search engine powered by an enthusiastic and energetic group of Guides. Our Guides spend their days searching, filtering out spam, and hand-crafting the best search results possible. If they haven’t yet built a search result, you can request that search result. You can also suggest links for any of our search results.”

Mahalo’s press release features a Q&A section, wherein it outlines the differences between the company’s business model/processes and those of some other “comparable” companies, including About.com, DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, and Wikipedia. Interestingly enough, there’s no mention of the company that, in my mind, most closely resembles Mahalo – Ask Jeeves.

I worked at AJ from 1998-2002, during which time we employed over 100 human editors. Those editors – who, btw, were all well-versed in their assigned vertical categories – were responsible for hand-selecting the best answers to the site’s most frequently asked questions on an ongoing basis. The thought was that 80% of the people asked the same 20% questions all the time. By using humans to direct users to sites that most effectively answered each question, we’d be able to ensure the web’s most relevant search experience.

Needless to say, Jeeves’ original business model failed for a variety of reasons and I suspect that, based on Mahalo’s processes as they exist today, the new engine will likely suffer a similar fate. Here’s why:

Calcanis understands Mahalo’s scalability issues and has decided to backfill long-tail searches with results from Google. This certainly provides a better overall user experience, but once again history would suggest that it won’t go far enough. Ask Jeeves tried backfilling results from engines including About.com, AltaVista, Excite, Infoseek, and Webcrawler, Direct Hit, and finally Teoma. The problem was, backfilled results were always treated secondary to any possible human-edited match, which meant that the most relevant answers were often buried in the back pages of search engine results.

Not long after acquiring Teoma, Ask dropped its “human” element and decided instead to feature only algorithmic search results. If Mahalo continues to lean heavily on the human-powered model, I predict it will eventually come to the same realization that Ask made in 2002. Especially with the emergence of image, video, audio, and user-generated content, Mahalo will have an extremely hard time maintaining relevancy. Though Mahalo might reach a balancing point between ad revenue and operational costs, I predict that it will never generate a loyal user base that extends far beyond Calcanis’ circle of friends.

The Next Chapter for Reprise Media

interpublic-group.gif

We are proud to announce that as of Wednesday, April 11, 2007, Reprise Media has officially joined the Interpublic group of companies.

Anyone familiar with Reprise Media knows that we’ve always been proud of our independence and our entrepreneurial spirit. Despite a flurry of recent investment and acquisition activity among our competitors, we’ve remained entirely self-funded and bootstrapped until now. So for some, news of this transaction may come as a bit of a surprise.

To-date, our reluctance to head down the investment road can be attributed to one simple issue: control. By remaining independent and never taking an outside dime, we have had complete control over our destiny (to the extent that any company can). We’re very happy to say that under the terms of this deal, we’re giving up very little of that control. Our entire team will remain in place, and Interpublic has afforded us the latitude to continue to do our best work in our own way. After all, that’s why they wanted to bring us on board in the first place.

As such, we want to recognize this deal for what it is: This isn’t part of some quick-exit strategy - it’s really a new beginning for Reprise Media and ourselves as co-founders. We’ve spent the last four years building up our capabilities, technology and reputation in a way that would allow us to scale and continue to innovate on our vision. We’re both confident in what we’ve built and the strategic plans we’ve laid out. We’re excited about what Interpublic brings to the table, and how it will help us grow our practice. It’s time to take Reprise Media to the next level.

While we’re expecting to field a lot of questions over the next couple of weeks, the one we’re expecting to hear most often is: Why Interpublic?

It’s a question we’ve thought long and hard about over the months leading up to this announcement. While the control issue was a big factor in our decision, it wasn’t the only one. After speaking to a wide range of potential partners and carefully considering our options we believe Interpublic is the right fit for us for a variety of reasons:

At some point during the roller-coaster ride of the past few weeks, we had a chance to take a deep breath and reflect on everything we’ve accomplished over the past four years. What started as a little “lifestyle business” in our living rooms has evolved into something more - something we’re both very proud of. Of course, we never would have made it to this point were it not for two incredibly important groups.

First, our amazing clients - many of whom have been with us since our earliest days - thank you for trusting us with your brands, giving us the freedom to push the envelope and helping us to grow in so many different ways.

Most important is our staff. You’re truly the best in the industry, and you’ve all worked incredibly hard to build the thriving business we enjoy today. We had the initial vision for Reprise Media, but you have helped us take it farther than we ever imagined we could go. We can’t wait to begin our new journey together as part of Interpublic! Thank you!!

Here’s to the next chapter,

Josh and Peter

Google Conducts Study of Advertising across Traditional Media

Written By Kate Zimmermann | February 27, 2007 | Share This |

google-dollar.gif

Reprise Media was recently invited to participate in Google’s “Study of Advertising across Traditional Media”, a 15 minute survey asking questions like, “Do you use the same advertising/marketing agency across all advertising channels?”, “What is the average cost per ad of running your ads in each of the following channels?” and “How does your company (or client) measure and evaluate the effectiveness of TV, Newspaper, and Radio advertising?”

At one point, the survey poses a number of theoretical Google products and asks for an assessment of interest. They propose,

  • “A service [that] would connect advertisers to traditional offline media outlets (Newspapers, TV & radio stations) through Google’s online automated process. Advertisers will be able to bid in auction and to make offers for specific media. This technology seeks to simplify the process of selecting, buying, scheduling, delivery and reporting of traditional offline advertising”
  • “An online Creative Marketplace (where advertisers can specify the type of ads they want to be created, and then creative agencies can bid on the project)”
  • “Online Ad-Creation Tools that lets you create and customize your ads yourself”



AdAge reports that Google is “laying the groundwork” for TV advertising, and has already appealed to the Television Bureau of Advertising to build a platform that would “automate the archaic business of buying local airtime.” If this survey indicates anything, however, it’s that Google intends to build an advertising platform for all media channels. This would certainly follow Eric Schmidt’s dream, to “walk up to you and you give us, say, $10 million and we’ll completely allocate it for you’ across different media and ad types.” Though I expect nothing less from Google, at the same time, I wonder if there’s room in traditional media markets for anything more. ZDNet analyst Donna Bogatin has her own thoughts,

“Google has done numerous print advertising tests with newspapers and magazines, has made a $100 million plus acquisition of dMarc Broadcasting radio technology firm and has invested in radio ad sales infrastructure and personnel.

“Internet advertising powerhouse Google nevertheless remains unable to crack offline advertising. Why?

“Google’s difficulties in penetrating into radio advertising illustrate why Google is not destined to dominate all the world’s advertising, despite its grandiose ambitions…Google created its own advertising market and it dominates it, to its $150 billion market cap advantage. Google can not readily enter legacy advertising markets offline, however, and disrupt long standing market dynamics by imposing its Google centric pricing schemes.”

Worth the Read

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