SEARCH CLINIC

UK advertising  watchdog ASA is to extend it’s powers to include internet websites next year.The digital remit of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is to be extended significantly to deliver more comprehensive consumer protection online.

The ASA’s present remit online includes ads in paid-for space and sales promotions wherever they appear. But from next year, the rules in the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (the CAP Code) will apply in full to marketing communications online, including the rules relating to misleading advertising, social responsibility and the protection of children.

The remit will apply to all sectors and all businesses and organisations regardless of size.

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), the body responsible for writing the CAP Code, has decided to extend the digital remit of the ASA in response to a formal recommendation from a wide cross-section of UK industry.

CAP yesterday published a document detailing the new remit and sanctions.  The new remit will ensure the same high standards as in other media and will cover:

* Advertisers‟ own marketing communications on their own websites and;
* Marketing communications in other non-paid-for space under their control, such as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Journalistic and editorial content and material related to causes and ideas – except those that are direct solicitations of donations for fund-raising – are excluded from the remit.

In addition to the ASA‟s present sanctions, which already achieve a high level of compliance, CAP member bodies have agreed new sanctions to apply to the extended remit such as:

* Removal of paid-for search advertising – ads that link to the page hosting the non-compliant marketing communication may be removed with the agreement of the search engines.
* ASA paid-for search advertisements – the ASA could place advertisements online highlighting an advertiser‟s continued non-compliance.

The industry has agreed to apply the standard 0.1% levy on paid-for advertisements appearing on internet search engines through media and search agencies. This is an extension of the existing funding mechanism in other media that pays for the ASA and it will be supplemented initially with seed capital from Google.

The remit will come into force on 1 March 2011 after a six month period of grace to allow the ASA and CAP to conduct training work to raise awareness and educate business on the requirements of the CAP Code, particularly amongst those who may not previously have been subject to ASA regulation.

Website owners and agencies are urged to sign up to CAP Services to receive guidance and training to help ensure their sites comply with the new rules before 1 March 2011.

ASA Chairman Lord Chris Smith said, “This significant extension of the ASA‟s remit has the protection of children and consumers at its heart. We have received over 4,500 complaints since 2008 about marketing communications on websites that we couldn‟t deal with, but from 1 March anyone who has a concern about a marketing communication online will be able to turn to the ASA.”

CAP Chairman Andrew Brown said, “Extending the online remit of the ASA has been a top priority for UK industry over the last couple of years. Our aim has been to extend further in the online world the principles that are already well established in our system, namely those of effective consumer protection and fair competition.”

Dr Search wonders whether this is a sledgehammer to crack a nut over a few websites or a genuine plan for UK websites to lead reputable online marketing.

Eitherway it breaks the UK coalition goverment’s promise to reduce red tape on UK companies.

This video explains how to maximise your Pay Per Click (PPC) ROI with examples of Google’s AdWords PPC matching requirements to target your budget effectively- broad, exact and negative keyword bidding phrases are the key to saving your wallet from taking a battering. I have saved one client 93% of his Adwords budget- and he’s still getting the same amount of traffic. The only loser is Google.

This is the seventh part of 11 videos on how to promote your website using the most cost effective elements of the marketing mix.

This video series was made from the lecture Simon Dye Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic’s made at the University of Gloucestershire on online marketing to to businesses, professionals including Members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Chartered Managers and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and students at the 5th annual Gloucestershire Professionals conference in June 2009.

More than 300 people attended the conference with over 60 attending Dr Search’s lecture on Online Marketing Tips, Strategies and how to use the most cost effective tools for your online marketing business.

Of the 12 seminars during the day Dr Search received the top rating with 93% of the attendees saying that he was relevant to their needs and 86% of attendees rated the content as highly rated.

Please have a look at the other videos as they become live on the Search Clinic YouTube Channel

Please let me know what you think of the video. Have you found it useful? Was there anything else that you would like to learn about? Please contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

The Times newspaper has begun charging readers to access its online content by introducing a paywall due to falling advertising income
From now on, access to the Times and Sunday Times website will cost £1 per day, or £2 a week if readers sign up to a subscription.

News International, which owns the papers, announced plans to impose charges earlier this year in response to falling advertising income.

Currently the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal are the only major papers to have similar paywalls.

All other national papers offer free access to their sites, but are likely to watch the launch of the Times paywall closely.

Falling readership numbers and advertising revenues have put significant pressure on newspapers in recent years, and devising the best way to make money from content is seen as a major challenge for the industry.
Continue reading the main story

Other papers including the Guardian have vowed to keep content free, pinning their hopes on a recovery in advertising revenues.

Although the Times risks losing readers as a result of the new charges, News International hopes the charge will be low enough to attract sufficient readers.

Robin Goad from Experian Hitwise, which monitors web traffic, told BBC Radio 5 live’s Wake Up To Money programme that traffic to the Times website had fallen “significantly”.

“Since the registration wall has gone live before the full paywall, we’ve seen about a 60% drop in traffic over the last couple of weeks,” he said.

However, “that is probably a little bit less of a drop than a lot of people expected… so this is quite a positive [figure],” he added.

Under an introductory offer, registered readers will be able to access the site for £1 for the first month.

The site has already been restricted to registered users for the last 30 days.

Given Rupert Murdoch’s determination to charge for his content, Dr Search expects that the new regime will continue until at least September or October.

Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing is often quick, lazy and expensive. This video shows you Google’s quality score requirements, explaining you how to maximise your online marketing budget and the importance of long term profits.

This is the sixth part of 11 videos on how to promote your website using the most cost effective elements of the marketing mix.

This video series was made from the lecture Simon Dye Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic’s made at the University of Gloucestershire on online marketing to to businesses, professionals including Members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Chartered Managers and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and students at the 5th annual Gloucestershire Professionals conference in June 2009.

More than 300 people attended the conference with over 60 attending Dr Search’s lecture on Online Marketing Tips, Strategies and how to use the most cost effective tools for your online marketing business.

Of the 12 seminars during the day Dr Search received the top rating with 93% of the attendees saying that he was relevant to their needs and 86% of attendees rated the content as highly rated.

Please have a look at the other videos as they become live on the Search Clinic YouTube Channel

Please let me know what you think of the video. Have you found it useful? Was there anything else that you would like to learn about? Please contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

BP is accused of trying to manipulate the search results on search engines like Google and Yahoo, as it attempts to salvage its battered image following the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.BP is purchasing Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine keyword terms such as “oil spill”, “Deepwater Horizon” and “Gulf of Mexico”, so that when a searcher types these kewywords into search engines, the results prominently feature a “sponsored link” to BP’s official page on its response to the oil spill.

Critics have described BP’s move as unethical. Maureen Mackey, a writer on the Fiscal Times, an online news site, said: “What it effectively does is that it bumps down other legitimate news and opinion pieces that are addressing the spill… and BP are paying big money for that.”

The criticism comes as President Obama expressed unease at the amount of money the company was spending to counter the negative attention the company has received following the oil spill.

BP has confirmed that its digital teams based in Houston and London, together with the company’s marketing executives, are currently engaged in buying search terms.

The company sought to downplay the strategy, saying that it was aimed at helping those most affected by the spill, by providing accurate information on the correct forms to fill in and key people to contact.

Groups can bid pennies or thousands of pounds for a PPC search term, but the highest bid does not necessarily win. Google demands that adverts are “relevant” for Google’s “Quality Score”, that the link is proven useful as many people have clicked on it.

BP have not revealed how much buying search terms such as “oil slick” has cost the firm. Companies are charged “per click”, meaning the more people click on the adverts, the more it will cost the firm.

Other analysts say that the move is a legitimate tactic that has been used successfully by other organisations in crises.

As the importance of the internet has grown, companies have increasingly tried to control their public image through buying advertising on search engines.

Political parties across the world, include the Conservative Party during this years general election, have bought key search terms to ensure their messages are at the top of search engine results.

As more marketing and communications professionals use social media channels for UK brands, new research by McCann Erickson shows that many agencies and consultants are not providing enough guidance to help their clients with social media.Almost half of those surveyed (48%) said they still don’t feel they have adequate knowledge on how best to use social media channels effectively for marketing purposes.

Although this is down by over 16% from 64% last year the figure is still surprisingly high.

Nearly a quarter of respondents (23.4%) admitted that advances in social media are difficult to keep up with and almost the same proportion (22.4%) said they would like to understand social media more but that it is not easy to find genuine ‘experts’ in the field.

Interestingly, in just 12 months since the last survey there has been a marked increase in general social media usage for communications activities.

On average, usage for each of the main social networks (facebook, twitter and LinkedIn) is up by around 22% from last year. Twitter has shown the most increased usage (+28.2% since 2009) with 61% of those surveyed now saying that Twitter is regularly used as a way of distributing news stories.

It seems that IT departments are now more willing to let their marketing teams have access to social networks at work.

Last year’s results showed that 46% of respondents were unable to get access at work and although this figure has come down to 24.3% it still shows that nearly a quarter of UK marketers and communications practitioners are not granted workplace access to social networks, making monitoring and campaign execution impossible.

Social media monitoring for brands is now a key area for marketers who need to demonstrate effectiveness of activity, ROI and target audience usage of social networks. By far the most popular way of brand monitoring online is through Google Alerts with 45.5% using this free tool.

Radian 6 has emerged as the most widely used paid-for tool with 14.3% usage followed by PR Newswire’s monitoring tool Social Media Metrics at 10.4%. 11% of those surveyed said they relied on their retained PR agency to monitor social media brand activity and 37% said they conducted ‘ad hoc’ monitoring in house.

Asked where they think the responsibility for social media communications should reside, 50% said it came under a combination of disciplines; 23% said it was best managed by public relations professionals and 11% said it should sit with digital experts.

Additional results at a glance:
• 59.8% respondents said that social media communications is now part of their day jobs
• 29% think there are now too many social media networks
• 12.1% think social media networks are becoming too commercial
• 16.8% said they are interested in using social media more within their daily role but do not
currently use it

Dr Search reviewed the research from: McCann Erickson Social Media Index 2010

Search Clinic on YouTube talks about the most cost effective way of online marketing

Simon Dye, Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic gave a lecture to businesses, professionals and students at the University of Gloucestershire for the 5th annual Gloucestershire Professionals conference in June 2009.More than 300 people attended the conference with over 60 attending Dr Search’s lecture on Online Marketing Tips, Strategies and plan the most cost effective tools for online marketing business.

Of the 12 seminars during the day Dr Search received the top rating with 93% of the attendees saying that he was relevant to their needs and 86% of attendees rated the content as highly rated.

This is the first of 11 videos on how to promote your website using the most cost effective elements of the marketing mix.

He compared search engine optimisation, pay per click, affiliate marketing, PR, outdoor, direct mail, magazines, newspapers, radio and television elements of the marketing mix.

Dr Search also looks at the search engines and changes that have effected their success on the past decade.

Please let me know what you think of the video. Have you found it useful? Was there anything else that you would like to learn about? Please contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

Please have a look at the other videos as they become live on Dr Search’s Search Clinic YouTube channel.

Yell’s long running chief executive and finance director both announced their departure after it reported a 26 per cent fall in annual underlying earnings.

Yell, the publisher of Yellow Pages, has been battling fierce competition from advertising on websites such as Google and eBay as well as the effects of the recession. It bought a directories group in Spain just before that country’s economy collapsed. Late last year it raised £559 million in a share issue to bring down some of its debt.

Dr Search has been helping a number of clients who were Yell and Yellow Pages advertisers improve thier marketing investments by switching their budgets into search engine optimisation.

The results can be remarkable.

Andy Turvey stopped his four figure yellow pages budget and let me optimise his main website instead.

The result? “I’m now getting all of my new business from my website now being found at the top of the search engines ahead of millions of my competitors”.

Do you fancy some of that for your business? If so, please just contact the Search Clinic.

Yell’s annual results showed that the company made a profit of £46.8 million against losses last year of £1.03 billion. Sales dropped by 11.5 per cent to £2.1 billion, though, which left left underlying earnings down 26 per cent at £620 million.

The company predicted that revenues would fall by a further 11 per cent in the three months to the end of June and then would continue to drop at about 15 per cent until the end of September.

Net debt had been cut from £4.2 billion at the end of March last year to £3.1 billion to the end of March this year.

An increase in online advertising helped profits at Yahoo almost treble in the three months to the end of March.

Net profit rose to £200m from £79m in the same period a year ago.

The company’s takings were helped by its search and advertising partnership with Microsoft and sake of the Zimbra email service.

But after subtracting commissions paid to its advertising partners, Yahoo’s revenue slipped slightly to £750 million.

This was below analyst’s estimates – pushing Yahoo shares about 3% lower in after hours trading.

The firm’s chief financial officer, Tim Morse, said that its search advertising business “just didn’t seem to grow at the pace they had previously”.

However its display advertising business was strong, growing 20% year on year.

“High quality advertisers are coming back,” Mr Morse said. “We are still in the very early innings of this turnaround.”

Earlier this year, Microsoft’s plans to buy Yahoo’s internet search and search advertising businesses were been cleared by both European and US regulators.

The European Commission ruled that the deal “would not significantly impede effective competition”.

Under the deal, Yahoo’s website uses a Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and the two firms share the revenues.

Google has reported double digit gains in first quarter profit and sales, indicating that it is an early beneficiary of the rebound in online advertising.

The company posted net profits of £1.31 billion, or £4.04 a share, an improvement of 38 per cent on the same period last year. The performance exceeded analysts’ expectations.

The company, which controls around two thirds of the US search engine market, said that revenue in the first quarter totalled £4.51 billion, up 23 per cent from last year.

Net revenue, which excludes sums paid to partners, stood at $5.06 billion, up 2.2 per cent from the seasonally strong fourth quarter and above analysts’ average estimates of $4.95 billion.

Patrick Pichette, Google’s chief financial officer, said that an improving economy and a return of large advertisers helped the company to a “very positive” start to the year.

Mr Pichette said the company expected to hire aggressively through the year. In the last quarter it had increased its workforce by nearly 800 employees, the biggest growth since the first quarter of 2008.

Despite the results Google shares slid 3.1 per cent to $576.92 in after-hours trading last night, reversing a 1.1 per cent gain notched up earlier in the day and reflecting continuing uncertainty over the company’s acquisition of the mobile-advertising company AdMob, as well as concerns over its censorship dispute with China and its ability to add revenue from new formats or platforms.

The company’s shares have fallen by nearly 5 per cent this year, against a 10 per cent rise in the Nasdaq index.

Mr Pichette said last night that the company was still working on the AdMob deal, despite a review of the acquisition by the Federal Trade Commission.