Bing Ads Lists The Most Searched For Ad Campaigns and Brands of 2013

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OldSpice BabyEvery brand wants their commercials to go viral, but how do you connect with viewers on the internet? It might seem like common knowledge, but the best way to get users searching for your commercial is comedy. At least, according to Bing Ads’ list of most searched for ad campaigns it is.

Just as with their recent list of 2013 search trends, Bing Ads has put together the most searched for ad campaigns of the last year, as well as the most popular brand searches on Bing in 2013. Perhaps unsurprisingly Old Spice took top billing with its “Baby” as starring Terry Crews, as well as their more surreal “Watermelon” ad, viewable below.

http://youtu.be/hfiiWGWhB9g

Despite mostly dominating the top 10, humor wasn’t the only thing internet viewers looked for in commercials. The third most popular commercial was from Skype’s “Stay Together” campaign, and GoPro’s “Fireman Saves Kitten” also closed out the list. Notably, two of the ads – Chrysler Ram Truck’s ad and GoDaddy’s “The Kiss” – originally appeared during this year’s Super Bowl.

Bing Ad’s Most Searched Advertising Campaigns of 2013

  1. ‘Baby’ and ‘Watermelon’ – OldSpice
  2. Baby & Me – Evian
  3. Stay Together – Skype
  4. Show Your Joe – Kmart
  5. Hump Day – Geico
  6. The Kiss: Bar Rafaeli’s Perfect Match! – GoDaddy
  7. ‘Grandma’ and ‘Werewolf’ – AT&T
  8. Test Drive – Pepsi MAX
  9. The Year of the Farmer – Chrysler Ram Truck
  10. Fireman Saves Kitten – GoPro

Bing didn’t stop with just the most popular ad campaigns though. They also collected the most searched for brands of the year, organized by their market. Ebay was the most popular shopping network, followed by Amazon, while Ford came out the winner for automobiles. You can see the rest below:

Most Searched For Brands 2013

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Google Launches Social Media Ads Called +Post Across Their Whole Network

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Paid ads on social media are becoming more and more prevalent, to the extent that Facebook finally admitted recently that businesses will be practically forced to pay for brand outreach on their platform. Which makes it so surprising that Google+ had, until recently, strayed away from paid advertising. But, the search engine giant may have had an ace up their sleeve this entire time as they have recently unveiled their form of promoted posts, called “+Post” and it is a doozy.

Most aspects of +Post are extactly what you have come to expect from paid advertising on social networks. A brand pays for priumium placement of a post, and more users are shown the ad. It is a simple model which has worked for numerous other social media platforms. What makes +Post different is where the ads will be shown.

The majority of social media networks are only able to show promoted posts on their social media platform. Facebook promoted posts show up in your Newsfeed, “Promoted Pins” will be appearing on Pinterest soon, and Instagram is rolling out their own curated form of promoted posting to ensure ads fit their market and the style of Instagram. But, Google+ is connected to something much larger: all of Google’s network and products. So, +Post will have a massively larger reach than other social networks’ forms of paid advertising.

As Google explains:

+Post ads amplify your brand’s content by easily turning Google+ posts into display ads that run across the web. The live, social ad format allows you to go beyond clicks to live conversations with your audience. People can join a Hangout On Air, add a comment, follow your brand or give a +1, right from an ad.

+Post Screenshot

This is an incredibly smart move for the search engine, as Google+ is still struggling to find a larger active user base, and the advertising model may drive more users to their social platform. The +Post ads act like regular posts in Google+ no matter where they are displayed, which effectively bleeds Google+ into all other aspects of Google (more so than before).

In Google’s own words:

Ads become more relevant with social context. Comments, +1s, and shares from friends can move people to engage with your ad. Social actions on ads and Google+ add up together, showing the full picture of engagement with your content. +Post ads expand in a lightbox to bring full screen social creatives across the web.

Jessica Lee from Search Engine Watch reports a few brands have gotten to try out +Post before the announcement, specifically Toyota who was used for Google’s promo video:

http://youtu.be/4yCUgx7H2zo

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Android May Sell More Smartphones, But Apple Users Engage More Ads

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Mobile Ad Impressions

Android phones may be outselling the iPhone, but proof that iOS users are more engaged with their devices just keeps coming. The latest confirmation that iPhone users are on their devices more often with more engaged usage comes from a third-quarter “Global AdMetrics” report from mobile DSP and ad buying platform Adfonic. Their study claims that in Q3, on a global basis, Android and Apple devices accounted for 95 percent of all add impressions on mobile devices.

However, Apple and Android weren’t as close as you would normally think. Apple claimed nearly two-thirds of all mobile ad impressions, while Android only received 32 percent, a 6 percent decline from the previous quarter. This wouldn’t be so interesting, except Android has a huge advantage over Apple in the global market share. According to Greg Sterling at Marketing Land, around 80 percent of all global smartphone shipments in Q3 were Android devices.

Previous reports have shown that iPhone users are more likely to purchase, spend more time with their devices, and are more engaged with their device when using it. It is obvious that there is a large difference between the types of people purchasing mobile devices, and their needs certainly aren’t uniform. Android may have the lead on sales, but it can be assumed that many of their customers simply choose an Android phone without the intention to utilize all of its capabilities, while iPhone users are more likely to desire a phone they can rely on for all of their mobile and online needs.

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Bing Reveals The Most Searched Terms for 2013

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Beyonce in Montreal 2013

Source: WikiCommons

It’s that time of year yet again! Time for all the lists reflecting and analyzing the past year! This year Bing is one of the first sites to begin looking back at the past year, as it has released its most popular searches for 2013 lists. If you want to know who the most searched for sports stars, entertainment systems, or public personalities are, Bing has got you covered.

The big stand out this year is Beyoncé who topped two lists, winning the No. 1 position for most searched person of 2013 as well as the most searched musician. As usual, females dominated the list for most searched person, with the top five spots all going to women. The only men to make it onto the list were Justin Bieber (6) and President Barack Obama (10).

The more interesting information for marketers comes from the lists for the most searched for social media sites, most searched streaming sites, and the most searched entertainment electronics.

Facebook still has a strong grasp on the top spot on the most searched social media sites, but Pinterest has raised its profile considerably this year, making its debut on the Bing list in second place. The rest is as you would expect, with Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram rounding out the top five. For social media marketers, this gives insight to where you should focus your energy, but remember that your marketing approach should always cater to the social platform you are engaging.

It is also notable that while the new iPhone has faced significant public criticism, it still came in second on the list for most searched entertainment electronics, falling behind the Xbox. Android was close behind, coming in third.

There are many more lists from Bing to look through, including the most searched for memes, foods, and travel destinations of the past year. While some of the lists are more anecdotally interesting than useful, you are sure to gain some insight into the public’s concerns and needs.

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Paid Ads Perform Better When Combined With Social Ads

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Marketing has become a holistic practice. You can’t just focus on one channel and expect to have the impact that those who are using every method to connect with the public are getting. For online marketing this means you can’t rely on just SEO or PPC to get the visibility you want. A new study from the digital marketing tech company Kenshoo proves this point by showing that marketers using social advertising and paid ads together see better conversion rates than those who only use a single channel.

In what Search Engine Watch reports to be the first study of its kind, Kenshoo discovered that when a person was exposed to both a brand’s Facebook ads and paid search ads, there was a 30 percent more return on advertising spending than when a person was only exposed to paid search ads exclusively.

“The fact that Facebook advertising on its own during this study was declared a successful initiative and had such a strong impact on paid search is indicative of the power of the platform,” Kenshoo said in its report.

Kenshoo PPC and Social Ads Report

“If marketers only had one Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to compare media channels, the metric of choice would be ROAS [return on ad spend], which is calculated as Revenue/Cost. For example, if an advertiser spent $20 and generated $100 in sales it had a 5x ROAS. Even media with different conversion goals can be easily evaluated based on how much it returned versus how much it spent.”

Kenshoo also noted that click-through rate improved along with returns on ad spending. Paid ads saw a 7 percent increase in CTRs when a person had seen both Facebook and PPC ads, “indicating that social advertising was able to positively impact consumer awareness and perception of the brand.”

When combined, search and social advertising also resulted in 4.5 percent lower cost per acquisition, according to Kenshoo.

“On the surface, 4.5 percent may not seem significant when compared to some of the other high numbers reported in this study,” Kenshoo said, “yet ask any advertiser if they could lower their costs to bring in orders by this amount and they would all jump at the opportunity.”

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Google AdWords Bid Simulator Now Offers Metrics for Conversions

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googleadwordsYou may have noticed earlier this month that the AdWords Bid Simulator tool has a new feature which offers estimates for conversions in addition to impressions and clicks to show how bid changes may affect conversion volume and values.

For each bid option that appears in the tool, the bid simulator gives the number of conversions and conversion values if assigned or set. As Ginny Marvin explains, conversion estimates display how many clicks you would likely result in a conversion in one day, based on a “recent 7 day period.” Notably, Google does not say their estimates will be based on the most recent 7 days.

Google says the estimates will be more accurate if you have more conversion history and conversion volume in your account, so you will want to have conversion tracking set up and stable for a couple weeks before you start trying to use the bid simulator conversion estimates.

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Seventy Percent of Advertisers Plan To Spend More On Social Media Marketing in 2014

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Stacks of MoneySocial media has become a part of our lives whether we like it or not, and don’t expect that to change in the next year. In fact, if marketing trends are to be believed, 2014 could be the biggest year yet for social media marketing. Erik Sass reports a new study found that seven out of ten marketers expect to increase their spending on social media in the next year. The survey of 328 marketing professionals was conducted by Decipher on behalf of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association.

While 70 percent said they plan to increase their spending on social media marketing, only 53 percent expect to do the same for their email marketing, and print, product sampling, and TV advertising were all in much worse shape with less than 20 percent planning to increase their ad spending for each category.

But, just because social media marketing is growing doesn’t mean all is well. The same survey found that 79 percent of marketing professionals struggled with measuring online social media and demonstrating return on investment. It seems that we know social media is an important part for establishing your brand online, but many are still having trouble actually measuring how effective it is.

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AdWords Updates The Opportunities Tab With New Opportunity Types

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The Opportunities Tab in AdWords is getting a face-lift. It was relaunched today with several new types of features combined and displayed in one view. The tool was originally launched in 2009, intended to be “your personal AdWords assistant, surfacing insights to help you improve your performance.”

The new types give advertisers more ways to improve their performance by showing them where they should invest their energies. For example, campaign suggestions include where to add sitelinks and where to raise bids to show your ads more often than your competitors. Google even gives you suggestions for breaking out ad groups to display more relevant ads, and highlights when bids can be safely lowered to stay within your budget without losing clicks.

The opportunities tab is based on an account’s performance from the last seven days, and Google says they will be adding more opportunities to the tab in the future.

The Opportunities Tab

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Google Adds Click-to-Call to Estimated Total Conversions

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Click-to-Call Ads

Source: Search Engine Watch

Google announced advertisers will find that phone calls from mobile click-to-call ads are now listed in the regular Conversion columns of AdWords, as of Tuesday. This is one of the first steps since Google made their October 1st statement that they would make it easier for advertisers to optimize their bidding strategy for click to call. They are working to make phone calls an important conversion type within AdWords.

With the new update calls made by customers from an AdWords ad, for both mobile and desktop searchers, will be reported in a new column within Estimated Total Conversions.

Before now, click-to-call ads were found under a “Phone Call Conversions” column, but now advertisers will be able to integrate many free automated bidding tools from AdWords to optimize their bidding campaigns and improve performance.

This is a great move for advertisers as 70 percent of mobile searchers call businesses directly from the search results. Google estimates over 40 million phone calls are made every month from Google search ads to advertisers.

At the moment, the new click-to-call conversions are available in countries where Google has forwarding numbers available. This includes the U.S., UK, Germany, and France.

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Widespread Reports of CTR Dropping in Google AdSense

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Google AdSenseIt seems something odd is happening over at Google AdSense. While there is always a pretty much constant stream of complaints coming in about drops in CTRs (click through rates), they are usually isolated cases. Most often, an individual is simply experiencing a problem and their issues are easily resolved.

But, over the past week there has been an unusually large number of people complaining at both the Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld forums that their CTR have declined significantly in the past weeks. As Barry Schwartz noticed, not only is the number of threads enough to raise an eye, but there are some who are saying this is having a big impact on their earnings. Clearly something is afoot.

Some quotes from commenters include:

My blog traffic still increasing but adsense earnings dropped from three days. I have a message from adsense help as “Your earnings were 76% below our forecast”.

and

At the risk of getting screamed at for asking this question (yet again). My ctr went down the last 3 days (Sunday,Monday, Today) a whopping 75%!

Not everyone is experiencing the drop in CTR (Schwartz himself has seen an increase), but this appears to be a widespread enough issue to cause some alarm. The world isn’t ending, but you should probably check out your own CTR to make sure everything is alright.

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