Research Shows Mobile Search Spend Leaps 71 Percent From Last Year

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So far, 2015 is shaping up to be a huge year for the mobile internet. Between Google’s “Mobilepocalypse” and the news that searches from mobile have overtaken desktop search volume, mobile was already on the way to dominance, but a new report from IgnitionOne shows mobile search spend is also growing by leaps and bounds.

According to the recent Q2 Digital Marketing Report, paid search spending has risen 22 percent for tablets last year, and a massive 71 percent for smartphones.

Both mediums showed comparable growth in CPC and CTR (24 and 28 percent for phones, 26 and 17 percent for tablets), but smartphone clicks have outpaced those from tablets by 41 percent. The report also noted smartphone impressions had climbed 8 percent, but tablet impressions have declined by 17 percent.

“Google has incredible dominance on [the mobile] side,” says Will Margiloff, chief executive (CEO) of IgnitionOne. “But they still have, for the most part, a mobile display business and not really a native to phone and tablet business like Facebook. Google’s got their work cut out for them when it comes to mobile native or native display, and the only real player there is Facebook.”

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The report also showed Google’s display growth was down 9 percent year-over-year while Facebook’s is up 48 percent, which gives the social platform 16 percent of the display share. In comparison, Google’s share is at 31 percent, down from 38 percent last year.

After years of debate whether another search engine could ever prove to be a meaningful challenge to Google’s market share dominance, Facebook’s recent gains suggest it may actually be social media that poses the greatest challenge to Google.

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IgnitionOne’s research found programmatic data spend increased 33 percent year-over-year while eCPM rose 35 percent from last year. Impressions, however, have fallen 1 percent.

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News Feed Update Gives Facebook Users The Power To Choose What They See

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Facebook is giving users the ability to choose what they see in their News Feeds, after years of relying almost entirely on its special algorithm to choose what to show its 1.44 billion users.

Of course, Facebook won’t be doing away with its algorithm anytime soon, but it is giving more power to the users to customize what they see in their feed. Essentially the update is a redesign and expansion of the News Feed Preferences feature available since last November, but it also includes some big changes for how you use the biggest social platform on the planet.

You can now prioritize the friends and Pages you want to see first, and posts from these profiles will appear at the top of your feed with a star to signify its importance in the upper-right corner.

The new feature also includes a feature which shows the Pages and friends which have been popping up most often in people’s News Feeds over the past week, so you can easily unfollow overposters or other people you’d rather not see. This also has a page which shows recently unfollowed users if you decide to reverse your decision.

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Similar to SnapChat, the update has a new discover section which displays Pages Facebook thinks you might be interested based on your other likes.

The new features are already available on iOS, and will be available on Android and desktop in the next few weeks.

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Bing Ads Expands Demographic Data To Improve Ad Targeting

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Bing Ads is improving its age and gender targeting by collecting more robust demographic data from users to help advertisers better target consumers.

According to the company’s blog, Bing’s global coverage of demographic data has recently doubled, which the company says will ensure its new targeting capabilities will provide “an increase in click-through rate and conversion rate for targetable users, thus potentially increasing the overall return on investment for all your campaigns.”

Advertisers can now utilize Bing’s new increased targeting features by setting targeting rules in “Advanced Targeting” within their Bing Ads dashboard. From there, they can segment audiences by age range, gender, device, and time, which will cause an automatic lift in bids when targeted audiences are searching.

Along with the announcement, Bing Ads released comScore data on its current audience, showing Bing Ads audiences tend to be more female and are most likely within the age range of 35-44.

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Google Celebrates USA’s FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015 Win

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Today Google is celebrating the United States’ Women’s World Cup win with a Doodle on the homepage of the search engine. The logo appeared last night after the United States team defeated Japan in the final game 5-to-2.

Google received some criticism during the tournament for not devoting space for a special box on search results pages related to the tournament like they have done for all major sports championships. Unlike in the past, only searchers using Android devices saw a special box with scores and game times during the championship.

After last night’s win, however, Google immediately put the team front and center on the search engine with a special Doodle.

Midfielder Carli Lloyd was the breakout star of the championship game, scoring three of the team’s five goals. Her third goal was a stunning kick from just past midfield over the Japanese goalie, giving Lloyd the second hat trick of her career and the earliest hat trick in a Women’s World Cup game in history. Her performance won Lloyd FIFA’s Golden Ball for the most outstanding player in the tournament.

The logo celebrating America’s win is currently showing across the United States, but Google’s Japan homepage also features a slightly modified version of the logo with the prominent U.S. flag removed.

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The U.S. is the first team to win three World Cup titles, with previous wins in 1991 and 1999.

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Facebook Announces Changes To How It Ranks and Charges For Videos

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In the wake of Facebook’s successful video service, the social media giant is making two big changes for advertisers and users. Facebook announced it will be adjusting its new feed algorithm to reflect interactions with videos, as well as changing how it charges advertisers for video views.

The update will be rolling out over the next coming weeks.

While Facebook has already included likes, comments, and shares on videos, the new algorithm will also consider factors such as whether a video was unmuted or viewed in full screen.

Facebook said it believes the new factors are strong indicators that users specifically chose to see a video, and it will use the factors in ranking videos within users’ news feeds in the future. This also means that those who watch a large number of videos on Facebook will likely start seeing even more in the close future and those who do not tend to engage with videos should see fewer in their feed.

While the first change relates to videos shared organically on Facebook, the social media platform is also making changes that will affect promoted videos.

Starting today, Facebook says it will charge advertisers only if a video is watched for 10 seconds or longer. In the past, Facebook charged advertisers based on video impressions, which meant advertisers were charged the second the video started played.

Advertisers who prefer to be charged based on impressions can do so if they wish, but the new system provides a better guarantee users purposefully watched the ad you were charged for. The new option is like the result of many advertisers’ complaints that they were being charged for video views only because they started autoplaying as users scrolled past them.

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Google Makes Changes To Reduce “Fat Finger” Ad Clicks

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Tell me if this has ever happened to you. As you’re browsing a website, your thumb accidentally hits an ad as you try to scroll past it, launching a new page. You close it out, and try to scroll down again only to accidentally tap the ad on the page yet again, leaving you in a loop of trying to close the page and move past it but repeatedly wind up tapping an ill-placed ad that you have no interest in.

Not only is this scenario a bad experience for the user, but it is also a nightmare for advertisers who are wasting money on valueless clicks.

This has been a growing issue for the online advertising industry as mobile browsing increases, but sites have struggled to optimize their sites (and their advertising) for mobile viewers and errant taps. Now, Google is finally making changes to hopefully solve the so-called “fat finger” ad clicks problem.

  1. First, taps close to the edge of an image ad won’t be considered clicks. Google says it has identified the border area particularly prone to accidental clicks during scrolling.
  2. Second, for in-app install ads interstitial ads like the one on the right above users won’t be able to click on the app icon because the close button is overlayed on that image. Users will need to click the call-to-action button.
  3. Finally, ads will only become clickable after they’ve been onscreen for “a short period of time”. How long that period actually is isn’t clear, but Google says the delay is to give users “enough time to examine the content of an ad”.

While most of these changes are relatively common sense (why on earth was the app icon ever considered a click?), but they are still welcomed by the advertising community who have been complaining about “fat fingers” since display ads came to mobile.

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Google My Business Is Helping Businesses Update Their Listings For Summer

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As schools close and the temperatures soar across the country, it isn’t unusual for businesses to change their hours for the summer. It is especially common in tourist areas where shops often stay open longer to accommodate the longer days and increased store traffic.

If your business has special summer hours, now is the time to guarantee your business listing on Google shows your adjusted seasonal hours.

Today, Google launched a new initiative at gybo.com/summer to help businesses quickly check how their Google My Business listing is displaying, including whether they are currently open or closed.

Google says a recent survey of small businesses found 25% change their operating hours during summer, but only 1 percent of the businesses also adjusted their hours on Google My Business.

Considering recent studies have shown over half of all consumers use search to look for business hours, and even higher numbers use search to plan local purchases, having the wrong hours listed can be quite a big problem.

If you have special summer hours but haven’t updated your listing yet, be sure to update the listing in Google My Business. Be sure to set a reminder while you are at is so you remember to change the hours back again when fall arrives.

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The Basics of SEO [Infographic]

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If you’re a business owner who has decided to get serious about your company’s online presence and marketing, you’ve almost certainly heard about search engine optimization. Unfortunately to the uninitiated, SEO can seem impenetrable with its endless technical jargon and conflicting opinions from experts about exactly how to get the best online visibility. It can feel a lot like jumping in the deep end without learning how to swim first.

Search Engine Optimization doesn’t have to seem so intimidating however. There may be a lot to learn before you are an expert, but with just a few basic ideas you can drastically improve your business’s online profile.

This infographic from SEOHalt will help guide you through the basics of SEO and give you the vocabulary you need to really get an understanding of what search engine optimization is and how it affects online marketing efforts. Once you’ve got these ideas under your wing, you’ll be ready to dive into the deeper waters of SEO without having to worry you’ll drown.

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Emojis Vanish From Google Search Result Listings

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It was fun while it lasted, but Google has followed through on their promise to remove emojis from titles in search results.

In April, Expedia became the first major brand to start experimenting using emojis in search results titles. For example, a search listing for beach rentals may have included a wave emoji on Expedia listings.

It wasn’t long until many other major brands followed suit, but Google ultimately decided the trend was not something they wanted to promote. During a Google Hangout in early May, John Mueller, a webmaster trends analyst for Google, announced the search giant would be removing the emojis.

True to Mueller’s word, emojis disappeared from search results early this morning, as first noticed by Jennifer Slegg at The SEM Post.

Notably, Google has only seemed to remove the emojis from titles. Norwegian Airlines, known for creating the very first emoji URL, appears to be unaffected.

While the hearts, waves, and smiley faces are gone from Google, emojis are still currently appearing in Bing searches. Microsoft’s search engine started showing emojis in title tags shortly after they began appearing in Google, but there’s no word if they intend to follow Google in phasing them out now.

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Google Maps Gives Local Businesses Even More Reason To Update Their Business Hours

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Local business owners have more incentive than ever to make sure their Google listings are correct. As first reported by Android Police, Google Maps has recently added a feature that tells users to turn around and go home if they are using Google Maps to navigate to a specific place if that location will be closed by the time they are expected to arrive.

The warning reads simply, “your destination may be closed by the time you arrive.”

If you keep up with making sure your local listings are always up-to-date and accurate, this shouldn’t be much of a worry to you, however if your business has incorrect hours listed the new feature could wreak havoc on your store traffic.

With the new feature, having the wrong time listed is almost like forgetting to turn the sign from closed to open at the start of the day.

Here is an example of the new warning:

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