advertising

Facebook Privacy: Advertisers Get More Power

I read a post by Inside Facebook announcing that Facebook is testing new advertisements that target users based on status updates and wall post content. This form of targeting is similar to the content targeting method used by other advertising networks like Google Adwords.

From an advertiser’s perspective, this may help improve the conversion rate of Facebook ads because ads can be configured to reach only users who are “talking” about a topic related to the ad.

From a Facebook user’s perspective, it’s a mixed bag. Some users may see it as a positive, thinking to themselves, “Since it is inevitable that ads will be displayed on Facebook, I’d rather see ads which are more relevant to me”.

Other users may see it as a negative and a gross invasion of privacy. Since status updates and wall posts on a personal profile are in a private environment, allowing advertisers to target based on this content is like allowing Facebook and advertisers to tap into these personal conversations.

If Facebook were to launch this new targeting method, it undoubtedly needs to have an opt-out option for users. Better yet (but highly unlikely), it should be an opt-in option.

Whether you are wearing the advertisers’ hat or the Facebook users’ hat, it’s important to be aware of the ever changing online and social media environment.

Victor

Photo Credit: mjmonty

Tags: advertising, facebook, privacy

Facebook Advertising

Facebook Advertising is relatively low cost and low risk. So what’s stopping you from trying it to promote your company? But before you take the plunge, here are some considerations to think about. Facebook advertising is better suited for some products over others. The advertising campaign’s objective and your target audience is also important to consider.

Each time a Facebook ad is shown to a user, it counts as 1 impression. Advertisers can choose between 2 payment options. The first is to pay a certain amount for every 1000 impressions the ad receives (advertisers are charged even if no one clicks on the ad). The other payment option is to pay for every click the ad receives.

Unlike Google search ads, Facebook ads are randomly shown to users. This means users may not have the intention to find more information or take action on an ad when they see it. As a result, Facebook ads generally have lower conversion rates and click through rates than Google search ads.

Type of Products

Facebook ads are better suited for consumer facing products. If you consider a Facebook user’s mindset while on Facebook (messaging friends and seeing what they’re up to), these users are more likely to respond to social event ads over business solution ads.

Advertising Objective

Similarly, some advertising objectives are better suited for a Facebook user’s mindset while they are on Facebook. User are more likely to convert on a call to action that is easily digestible and have a lower barrier to convert. For example, users are more likely to “Like”, share or interact with something rather than to submit their credit card info to purchase a $500 product.

An analogy I like to use is to compare a Facebook user’s behavior to shoppers lining up at the check out counter at a grocery store. You have probably noticed all the candy bars, magazines, etc. that line the check out aisles. These are “impulse buy” products that entice shoppers to pick one up even though they originally had no intention to purchase it. Facebook ads are good for messages that call for impulse reactions.

Target Audience

Facebook has a set of targeting options to help advertising show ads to a particular audience. The targeting options include:

• Location – target users by country, state/province, and city.
• Age – target users in an age range
• Gender – target users by gender
• Likes & Interests – target users by their Likes & Interests specified on the users’ profiles
• Connections on Facebook – target users and friends of users who are/are not connected to Pages, Groups, Events or Apps that your own.
• Birthday – target users on their birthdays
• Interested In – target users who are interested in men or women
• Relationship – target users by marital status
• Language – target users by language
• Education – target users who are in High School, in College or a College Grad
• Workplaces – target users who work for a specific company or organization

Using these options to narrow down your target audience will help increase the campaign’s click through rate since ads are only shown to users who are interested in your message.

It may be worth it for your company to try advertising for a month and review the results to measure the return on advertising.

Newsflash: Facebook just announced a new ad unit called Sponsored Stories. It basically turns users’ activities into an ad. Read more about it on Mashables.

Victor

Tags: ads, advertising, audience, facebook, impressions, targeting

LinkedIn DirectAds Advertising

Here’s the scenario. You have a business and you may or may not have a Google Adwords campaign. You’re now thinking about investing in LinkedIn ads and questioning whether or not you should run a LinkedIn DirectAds campaign to promote your business. Here are some things to consider.

Target Audience

Does your target audience include business professionals?

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. Its website highlights that there are 90 million LinkedIn members World wide with 32 million members from the United States.

Advertising Budget

How much capital have you budgeted for online advertising?

LinkedIn campaigns can be created and disabled at any time.
However, there is a minimum $10.00 daily budget and a minimum bid amount ($2.00 for the cost per click payment model and $3.00 for the cost per thousand impressions payment model).

Depending on your ROI on LinkedIn compared to your other advertising programs, LinkedIn may or may not be cost effective for you.

Audience Targeting Options

LinkedIn allows advertisers to target LinkedIn members with the following categories:

• Company size
• Job Function
• Industry
• Seniority
• Gender
• Age
• Geography

Use these settings to ensure you are speaking only to people who may be interested in your business.

A final point to be aware of. LinkedIn ads are display ads which appear to members based on the ad targeting options selected. Display ads typically have a lower click through rate than search ads. Search ads, for example on Google, are displayed to users who search for a specific topic. Display ads may be good for increasing awareness for a business in general, but may have a lower conversion rate than search ads because people who are searching for a topic already have an intention to find information.

LinkedIn may be a good advertising solution for your business. It all depends on your overall online strategy and how this piece of the puzzle fits into the overall plan.

Victor

Photo Credit: Coletivo Mambembe

Tags: advertising, budget, LinkedIn, PPC, Social Media, target audience

Using Google Analytics to Track Online Campaigns

Google Analytics is a website analytics tool that allows you to track the visitors on your website. It is an invaluable tool to help you measure the success of your online marketing plans and strategies. It’s free too.

Do you have Google Analytics installed on your website? If not, you should.

For more advanced users, Google Analytics can be used to measure the performance of advertising campaigns. If you have a Google Adwords campaign, Google automatically tracks your campaign’s performance if you link the two accounts together. (Instructions on how to link Google Analytics and Google Adword accounts).

However, if you want to track the traffic on your website that is coming from Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, links in email campaigns or third-party website banner ads, you’ll need to take a couple extra steps to make sure Google Analytics is tracking the traffic correctly.

Lets use an example to illustrate how to track an online campaign.

For example, I want to advertise on LinkedIn. I want people who click on the LinkedIn ad to go to www.mywebsite.com.

First, I need to create a custom link (with information attached to it) that tells Google Analytics how to categorize visitors that come from this specific ad.

Here’s how to create the link:

1. Go to Google’s URL Builder
2. Enter the website URL you want visitors to land on when they click the link. In this case, www.mywebsite.com.
3. Enter the field information in Step 2. In this case, I would enter:
   Campaign Source: linkedin
   Campaign Medium: banner
   Campaign Content: ad1
   Campaign Name: product
   If you are creating multiple custom URLs, make sure the field information is distinct for each URL you create.
4. Click the Generate URL button.
5. Copy and save the custom URL. It should look something like, http://www.mywebsite.com/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=ad1&
   utm_campaign=product

With the custom URL, I can now go to https://www.linkedin.com/ads/ and create my ad. In whichever platform you’re advertising on, paste the custom URL you generated in the field that asks where the ad should link to.

Once the ad campaign has launched, go to the Traffic Sources section of Google Analytics to see how traffic from this campaign is interacting on your website.

This information can be used to judge the quality of the traffic and whether it is providing a good return on investment.

Victor
eMarketing Strategist.

Tags: advertising, Google Analytics, strategy, tracking, url builder, url parameters

Privacy Online: Possible?

This post was inspired by an article entitled Social Media Privacy is an Oxymoron. It sparked some thoughts for me around how one can achieve at least *some* privacy online; assuming this is important to you because for a surprising number of people, it isn’t.

First off – Facebook.  Many informative posts have been written about controlling your privacy or removing yourself from Facebook altogether.   Some high-profile Facebook users are taking a stand against recent changes on Facebook affecting privacy. And you may have heard by now that “Quit Facebook Day” is scheduled for May 31, 2010. Before you quit, you may want to first determine what amount of your private info on Facebook is exposed. This application, as well as this one can help you do that.

But while all the attention and heat is on Facebook, what about everything else? Among, what is undoubtedly, a myriad of vulnerabilities on the big old web, here are just a few ideas that may help you stay a little more private.

To prevent the tracking of my every click, I like to use CoolPreviews. This is a tool that allows me to see what’s behind a link without having to click on it. I like to use this a lot when logged into LinkedIn or Twitter, as the tracking of where and what you click can be scrutinized. For example, if you notice a tweet was posted via Hootsuite, and the link provided is an OWLY link, your click will be counted. Not a huge deal perhaps as your click, in this case anyway, is in no way connected to your account. (At least, not that I’m aware of.)  On LinkedIn however, if you are logged in and you check out someone’s profile, your “click” as it were, *is* linked to your profile. This enables this cool-but -creepy feature.

There is a long list of ways to add more privacy to your browsing habits. Many browsers like Safari and Firefox now offer ‘Private Browsing‘ ensuring you that no website you open will be kept on record. Anywhere. There are also many types of ‘scramblers’ you can use that mask your IP address. These are called proxy servers. This can help prevent data collection on where you are in this universe, what browser you’re using, what kind of computer you’re using, among other things. Want to know what your IP reveals about you? Go here.

Google Analytics and Quantcast, as two examples, are now offering “opt out” options. Google Analytics, for one, is allowing people to opt out of being monitored for receiving targeted ads.
Quantcast, an American based service that measures audience statistics for websites, is offering something similar.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for ways of preserving privacy online. The questions I have are:

Is it too little too late?

Is it time to redefine what online privacy means?

Should we care this much? Everyone is up in arms over the privacy principle, but is the privacy practice (the way our private info is being used) really that offensive and/or scary?

I’d love to hear what you think.

Tags: advertising, facebook, Google Analytics, LinkedIn, opt out, privacy, proxy servers, Quantcast, Twitter