Online Real Estate Technology

Social media and search advertising are projected to be the most popular advertising tools this year, each cited by 24% of respondents to a PointRoll survey [pdf] of US marketing professionals, conducted by Kelton Research and released in March 2012. Display advertising followed closely, chosen by 22% of respondents. There was then a significant drop-off to online video (11%), mobile or tablet ads (7%), and mobile or tablet apps (6%). Just 1% chose email, text/SMS, or social gaming. Search advertising is more popular among respondents at director level or above, compared to those in supervisory or managerial positions (30% vs. 19%).

Most Will Increase Spend on Digital Channels

In fact, a majority of respondents are planning to up their spend on a variety of digital channels, a position that traditional channels are not slated to share. Among digital channels, the largest proportion say they will increase their spending on social media marketing or ads (79%), closely followed by those who will increase their budgets for mobile marketing or ads (75%). A comparatively fewer 55% say they will increase spending on search advertising, though this compares favorably to just 7% who will either decrease spending (3%) or not use this tool (4%).

Conversely, out-of-home marketing or ads will get an increase from just 16% of marketing professionals, on par with the proportion who will decrease spending in this area. And while 15% will budget more for traditional marketing or ads, 21% will scale back their budgets. Even so, traditional marketing channels still get a big chunk of budgets: 57% of marketing and advertising executives in organizations with revenues of $10 million or more said that most of their spending in 2011 went to traditional efforts.

Audience Targeting Proves Exciting

Meanwhile, audience targeting (49%) tops the list of industry trends that respondents are excited about, ahead of other movements including cross-screen media (40%), web TV (30%), Facebook marketing (37%), social gaming (22%) and digital out-of-home marketing or ads (19%). Excitement about audience targeting is higher at the directorial level and above than at the supervisory or managerial level (56% vs. 44%).

Some of that excitement may be related to necessity: 17% of respondents said that identifying the right audience has been holding them back from doing their job more successfully. According to March 2012 survey results from Acxiom and Loyalty 360, just 49% of company executives agree that they know who their most loyal customers are, and the best way to reach out to them and get them to engage with their brand. In fact, just 10% of respondents strongly agreed with the statement, while about one-third were neutral and roughly 1 in 5 disagreed.

Marketers Using Numerous Tools and Partners

Data from PointRoll’s “Marketing Tools Study 2012? indicates that 28% of marketing and advertising professionals use at least 7 tools during a single campaign to reach their target market, while 62% use between 3 and 6 tools. To help with their efforts, roughly 3 in 10 respondents call on at least 10 partners to help them during a campaign. Even so, this sometimes has the opposite effect than intended: about one-third say that managing multiple vendors typically prevents them from doing their job better, and 1 in 10 say that working more efficiently with vendors is their biggest goal this year.

Other Findings:

• Marketing professionals would pay a company an average of $107,500 to manage an integrated digital campaign.
• Increasing sales (31%) and ROI (28%) are the goals most commonly cited as marketers’ most important for this year.
• Slightly more than half of respondents say that inefficient ROI tracking and measurement has hindered their success at work.
• Almost all respondents predict they will use online video this year. The most popular formats are in-banner (60%), in-stream (49%) and dynamic or customized video ads (42%).
• Roughly 2 in 5 respondents believe that they are behind the curve when it comes to digital marketing.

About the Data: The PointRoll data is based on a survey of more than 250 marketing professionals from across the US at supervisor level and above, conducted in January 2012.

Story source: www.mikeandrewconsulting.com/blog

Google has been accused of bypassing the privacy settings of users of the Safari web-browser.

The Wall Street Journal said Google and other companies had worked around privacy settings designed to restrict cookies.

Cookies are small text files stored by browsers which can record information about online activity, and help some online services work.

However Google says the story "mischaracterises" what happened.

Advertisers can use cookies to track online behaviour, helping them to target the commercials they show to internet users.

Some think this use of cookies erodes online privacy. In May, European Union laws are due to come into force which will restrict the use of advertising cookies.

But cookies are also essential to some web services like those Google offers.

Cookie control

The Safari browser is produced by Apple, and is the browser used by the iPhone.

By default Safari only allows cookies to be stored by the web page a user is visiting, not from third parties such as advertisers.

However, Stanford University researcher Jonathan Mayer found that advertisers were still able to store cookies on the computers of internet users browsing with Safari.

It was his discovery that formed the basis of the Wall Street Journal’s story.

Many Google services use cookies, for example to remember when someone is signed in to a service, but they are also used by the firm to help personalise advertising.

It was when Google attempted to find a way to enable some of its services and personalised advertising to work on Safari that, Google says, it inadvertently stored cookies.

Side-stepping Safari

In a statement, senior vice president Rachel Whetstone said that last year the company had decided to "enable features for signed-in Google users on Safari who had opted to see personalised ads and other content".

She added: "To enable these features, we created a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google’s servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google, and had opted for this type of personalisation."

Ms Whetsone said the company had created new systems to make sure the information it collected was anonymous, but this had led to unintended consequences:

"The Safari browser contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser.

"We didn’t anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers. It’s important to stress that, just as on other browsers, these advertising cookies do not collect personal information."

The Wall Street Journal reported that Google "disabled the code after being contacted by the paper".

Google declined to provide further comment to the BBC.

Privacy warning

Online privacy advocates were highly critical of Google’s actions.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote: "It’s time for Google to acknowledge that it can do a better job of respecting the privacy of web users."

Although much of the criticism has been directed at the search giant, the Wall Street Journal said that in addition to Google, a number of advertising companies had been using the work-around which had been known about for some time.

An Apple spokesman said in a statement: "We are aware that some third parties are circumventing Safari’s privacy features and we are working to put a stop to it."

Story source: www.bbc.co.uk

Although roughly 3 in 4 SMBs use email marketing tactics such as organic list growth and web-based sign-up forms to generate leads, just 41% include a sign-up form on their Facebook fan pages, according to a survey released in February 2012 by GetResponse. And while a majority optimize their newsletters with clear, recognizable, branded from field names and addresses, less than half include social sharing icons in their newsletters.
SMBs appear to be behind the curve in this regard: according to a survey released in February 2012 by Econsultancy, in partnership with the Email Experience Council of the DMA, 69% of US organizations are including social sharing icons in their emails, while a further 13% have a plan in place to do so.

Segmentation Also Not Widespread

Data from GetResponse’s “The State of Email Marketing in SMBs” indicates that only 42% of the SMBs surveyed segment their lists based on either subscriber personal data or subscriber actions, such as opens and clicks. List hygiene is poor, too: just 38% report removing inactive contacts, and only 36% try to re-engage them through re-activation campaigns. SMBs also seem to be ignoring the risks posed by bad addresses: only 53% use mailing systems that automatically process soft and hard bounces and take appropriate actions to the addresses.

Legal Compliance Better, Though

72% of respondents indicate that they use a confirmed opt-in email model, and 71% provide unsubscribe links in their emails. Overall, the marketers surveyed cited an average deliverability rate of about 97%, with the vast majority reporting no problems with delivery to most major client inboxes.

Largest SMBs Not as Socially Integrated

SMBs with more than 500 employees tended to report higher adoption of various list building and sign-up form optimization strategies, such as using sign-up forms to grow lists, collecting contacts offline using paper sign-up forms, and telling subscribers specifically what they will receive. However, these larger companies were far less likely than companies with 11-250 employees to run a Facebook page with a newsletter sign-up form (57% vs. 82%), indicating that they may be underestimating the power of social media integration. Similarly, they were less likely than companies with 11-250 employees or 251-500 employees to use social sharing icons.

Other Findings:

• Most SMBs have adopted measures such as regular mailings (70%), personalization (58%), compelling subject line (68%), and stats analysis (61%).
• 69% of respondents indicated that they have a complaint ratio below 0.2%.

For more on email and social integration, visit MarketingVox.

About the Data: The GetResponse data was collected from November 14-28, 2011 from approximately 600 respondents classified in 4 groups based on the business unit size.

In case you missed all the news on the proposed bill to Stop On Line Piracy, or SOPA as it has become known, is a bill that was introduced into the  US house of representatives in October last year. 

The bill, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.^[2] Presented to the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the PROTECT IP Act.

The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.

In an update of this story, below is a article from the Los Angeles Times:

“Three co-sponsors of the SOPA and PIPA antipiracy bills have publicly withdrawn their support as Wikipedia and thousands of other websites blacked out their pages Wednesday to protest the legislation.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) withdrew as a co-sponsor of the Protect IP Act in the Senate, while Reps. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) said they were pulling their names from the companion House bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Opponents of the legislation, led by large Internet companies, say its broad definitions could lead to censorship of online content and force some websites to shut down.

In a posting on his Facebook page, Rubio noted that after the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed its bill last year, he has "heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government’s power to impact the Internet."

"Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences," Rubio said in announcing he was withdrawing his support. While he’s committed to stopping online piracy, Rubio called for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to back off plans to hold a key procedural vote on the bill on Tuesday.

Rubio’s withdrawal will reduce the number of co-sponsors to 39. Last week, two other co-sponsors, Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), joined four other Senate Republicans in a letter to Reid also urging him delay the vote. But Grassley and Hatch have not withdrawn their support.

Terry and Quayle were among the 31 sponsors of the House legislation before they withdrew their support Tuesday.

Quayle still strongly supports the goal of the House bill to crack down on foreign websites that traffic in pirated movies, music, medicine and other goods.

"The bill could have some unintended consequences that need to be addressed," said Quayle spokesman Zach Howell. "Basically it needs more work before he can support it."

Terry said that he also had problems with the House bill in its current form and would no longer support it.

Wikipedia, Reddit and about 10,000 other websites blacked out their pages Wednesday with messages warning of the dangers of the legislation and urging people to contact their congressional representatives. Howell said Quayle’s office had not seen a major increase in calls or emails Wednesday, but that the piracy bills have been the main issue in recent weeks for people contacting the office.

There has been a "manageable increase" in visits to House member websites Wednesday, said Dan Weiser, a spokesman for the House office of the chief administrative officer.

"It’s possible some users will see a short delay or slow loading of a member’s web page," he said.”

Original story from The Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/

If you would like to read more on how this bill, if passed, would affect how you use and research on the Internet, please read this link to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act.

Anything we can do to stop this bill becoming law, lets do it now, and protest what is essentially an act of total censorship.

B2B Marketers Struggle With Compelling Content

41% of B2B marketers say that producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers is their biggest content marketing challenge, representing a 14% increase from 36% of respondents in 2010, according to [download page] a December 2011 study by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute. Data from “B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends” indicates that respondents are also grappling with two challenges that go hand in hand: producing enough content (20%), and having the budget to produce enough content (18%). A lack of buy-in from higher-ups in the company (12%), producing a variety of content (7%), and having the budget to license content (1%) are primary challenges to relatively fewer B2B marketers.

Budgets Are a Challenge, But Spending to Increase

Although 1 in 5 B2B marketers cite having sufficient content marketing budgets as their primary challenge, data from the study indicates that content marketing spending is on the rise. Although roughly 26% of marketers’ total budgets are allocated to content marketing efforts this year, the same as in 2010, this year 60% of respondents indicate they will increase spending on content marketing in 2012, compared to just 3% that say they will decrease their spending levels.

The average amount of budget spent on content marketing appears to vary significantly by company size, with a negative correlation between size and budget share. For example, companies with fewer than 10 employees spend 34% of their budgets on content marketing, whereas companies with more than 1000 employees allocate 20% of their budgets.

Meanwhile, outsourcing also appears to be on the rise: whereas in 2010 only 55% of marketers used outsourcing in some capacity, this year that proportion has risen to 62%. When seeking out the right vendors to support content marketing, marketers use a variety of resources, with the biggest increase from last year seen in the use of consultants (32% vs. 27%) and the biggest decrease found in the use of trade shows as a venue to find support (20% vs. 26%).

Brand Awareness, Customer Acquisition Lead All Goals

Brand awareness and customer acquisition are content marketers’ top goals, cited by 68% of survey respondents. Lead generation (66%) and customer retention/loyalty (61%) follow closely, with website traffic (56%), engagement (55%), and thought leadership (55%) also goals for a majority of marketers. Almost half cite sales as a goal, while just 39% report using content marketing for lead management/nurturing.

Content marketing goals appear to be fairly unrelated to overall digital marketing goals: according to a November report from Webmarketing 123, lead generation (46.4%) is by far the most important objective of digital programs for B2B marketers, outstripping sales generation (22.2%), brand awareness development (15.3%), and site traffic generation (11.1%).

Web Traffic Top Success Indicator

Although web traffic is not a top goal among content marketers, it is the leading indicator of success, cited by 58% of respondents. Sales lead quality (49%) follows, while direct sales, sales lead quantity, qualitative feedback from customers, and SEO ranking are measurement criteria to roughly 4 in 10. The least popular indicator of success is inbound links, cited by 30% of marketers.

According to the November Webmarketing123 study, the vast majority (73.9%) of B2B digital marketers use web traffic as a measurement of campaign success, ahead of lead generation (69.2%) website click-through rate (64.7%), and sales (62.5%).

Mobile Marketers Most Interested in Apps, Barcodes

Mobile apps (43%) and mobile barcodes (41%) rank highest as mobile marketing strategies companies would be interested in deploying in the next 12 months, according to [pdf] a December 2011 survey from AT&T. Data from the survey indicates that banner ads (40%) follow closely as a potential strategy, with mobile web (35%) and SMS messages (34%) not far behind and digital signage (17%) appearing the least desired.

According to a November 2011 study from the e-tailing group, sponsored by Bronto, SMS marketing tactics are far less likely to be used by marketers than other mobile capabilities such as mobile commerce sites and mobile applications. Just 14% of marketers currently collect SMS opt-in from customers in all channels, while only 7% text to send out marketing messages, and 6% text to send out transactional support messages such as confirmations and order status. Between one-quarter and one-third of respondents plan to employ these capabilities in the next 12 months.

By contrast, 29% of respondents said they currently use a mobile commerce site, with a further 42% planning to employ one in the next year. 19% reported currently employing a mobile application, with 27% more planning use in the next year.

Mobile Programs To Increase

88% of respondents to the AT&T survey expect their mobile marketing program to increase in the next 12 months, while 52% reporting use of mobile marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy. Of those who do not currently have a mobile marketing strategy, more than half plan to implement one in 2012. Meanwhile, of those who do use a strategy, 51% say they are still trialing mobile marketing, while 46% say it is an integral aspect of select marketing initiatives.

Consumer Demand Will Determine Barcode Adoption

87% of marketers say that consumer demand is an important or very important criterion for them to increase their use of mobile barcodes, followed closely by the proportion who cite cost structure (84%) and security (83%). Perhaps marketers should look to mothers first for demand: according to a November 2011 joint study between BabyCenter and comScore, just 4% of mothers say they would not use a QR code, compared to 19% of the general population.

Overall, two-thirds of marketers responding to the AT&T survey agree that mobile barcodes will drive innovation in mobile marketing in the next year. 44% of respondents believe barcodes can help brands engage with customers, while one-third believe they can increase awareness of products and services.

Facebook has officially started rolling out its new Timeline feature that will enable users to show off the most important moments of their lives on their profile page.

The new feature, which was unveiled in early September, will first be introduced in New Zealand before it is rolled out to other countries, the company revealed on its Facebook blog today.

Facebook said Timeline would keep important life events on profile pages while less-important posts would drop off .

"Now you can share photos of what you did last weekend, and updates about how you feel today," the company said in a previous blog post.

"But since the focus is on the most recent things you posted, more important stuff slips off the page. The photos of your graduation get replaced by updates about what you had for breakfast."

The new feature will allow users to choose which life events, such as birthdays or weddings, are permanently illustrated on their profile.

Timeline raised privacy concerns in its development stage, after it was revealed it would be visible on the Timeline when you "unfriended" certain people, social media website Mashable reports.

Facebook said this was a glitch that had since been corrected.

Story: www.ninemsn.com.au

More than a quarter of Australian employers use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook before hiring staff, according to new research.

Telstra’s Cyber-Safety survey found that almost half of those employers who admit to checking candidates’ social profiles have turned down applicants based on something unfavourable they’ve seen online.

The research also revealed over a third have hired staff based on a positive experience stalking someone online.

The findings serve as a reminder to Australians to consider their ‘Cyber CV’, said Telstra’s Officer of Internet Trust Safety Darren Kane.

‘According to the findings some of the biggest Cyber CV faux pas candidates make include posting inappropriate pictures (with 31 per cent of employers saying this counts against applicants) and posting discriminatory comments (37 per cent),’ Mr Kane said.

‘Given the impressions comments and images can create, Telstra recommends job seekers think twice before posting, tagging and uploading pictures and status updates this Christmas.’

He has advised job applicants to ensure any content on Facebook or Twitter that is able to be publically viewed is ‘positive and professional’.

Bloggers comment on brands and post to social media, expanding reach

Bloggers, from hobbyists to professionals, often write about brands, and their growing influence should make brand representatives continually evaluate the relationships they have with these bloggers.

Most bloggers write about brands in some way or another. According to the “State of the Blogosphere 2011” report from blog directory website Technorati, 38% of all bloggers post about brands that they love or hate and 34% write product or service reviews. Professional full-time bloggers or part-time professional bloggers who write as a way to supplement their income are more likely to blog about brands than their hobbyist, corporate or entrepreneur counterparts.

Bloggers are increasing in their influence over readers and other bloggers. Last year’s Technorati “State of the Blogosphere” reported that 29% of bloggers are influenced by other blogs they read. This year, that number jumped to 68%.

As bloggers gain influence and write about brands, the relationships between blog writers and brand representatives are important for companies to focus on. Most bloggers have a good relationship with brand representatives. Nearly half of all bloggers (49%) characterized their interactions with such representatives as somewhat or very favorable. Only 3% said their interactions were not at all favorable. However, 40% of all bloggers said they didn’t know how to characterize their interactions with brand representatives.

This large group of unsure respondents could have mixed feelings about the communications they receive from these brand representatives, affecting their relationships with the reps and their brands. Of all bloggers, 17% said brand representatives had asked for things that would compromise the credibility or content standards of the blog. This is roughly the same percentage of those that said the representatives were knowledgeable about their blogs and content (14%), are genuinely interested in building a relationship (16%) and provide information that has value for readers (23%).

As bloggers continue to grow in influence, their coverage of brands and their interactions with brands’ products, services and employees will be of greater interest to companies. Brand representatives who connect with bloggers must be sure to work with these writers to keep the relationships thriving.

Before you launch your next big social media campaign, you may want to ask: Is anybody really listening?

A new TNS report reveals that as many as half of all social media marketing campaigns are going unnoticed.

Matthew Froggatt, the company’s chief development officer, says in a press release that 57 percent of consumers in developed markets do not want to engage with brands in the social sphere. The number is as high as 60 percent in the U.S., while 61 percent in the U.K.

TNS’s Digital Life study drew on findings from 72,000 consumers in 60 countries. It also revealed that 54 percent of people admit that social networks are a good place to learn about products.

Fear not—there’s hope for us yet.

Froggatt has advice for social media marketers:

“The key is to understand your target audience and what they want from your brand — social networks aren’t always the right approach. If consumers in one market don’t want to be talked to, can you use an alternative online method — creating owned digital media platforms, targeted sponsorship or search campaigns — to engage in an appropriate way that will achieve business results without adding to the digital waste pile?”

Story source: www.prdaily.com