Instagram Launches Video Ads For a Select Few

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After Facebook’s success with video ads, it was only a matter of time before Instagram rolled out their own video ad options. According to Ad Week, you can expect that to start today as the Facebook-owned social image and video platform finally launches their own video ad platform. The only catch is the service is reserved for only five major brands: Disney, Activision, Lancome, Banana Republic, and the CW network.

Instagram’s ad platform is still relatively young, and it has been very cautious about how they go about serving ads to the public. Under the current system, CEO Kevin Systrom has said that he personally reviews every ad before it is allowed to run on the platform so that they don’t come off as aggressive or poor advertising.

The caution payed off as initial skepticism and criticism of ads on Instagram quickly died down when image ads first began appearing. It sounds like the method may also pay off for the video ad service. The Ad Week article says Instagram has reported positive brand awareness and ad recall from testing and that all launch advertisers were striving to be perceived as innovators.

“It wasn’t a hard decision for us,” Brian Chang, assistant vp of media at Lancome USA, told Ad Week. “We, as a brand, wanted to take advantage of being first to market.”

The video ads will begin appearing today and roll out more extensively in the next few weeks, and each ad will have a 15-second maximum length similar to the restrictions placed on Instagram users. Videos will also be muted unless users tap the volume control.

Banana Republic’s ad, embedded below, used Facebook’s Hyperlapse app to create the video. You can view other ads at Ad Week.

 

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Facebook May Start Hosting Content On Their Site, Could Be Bad News For Content Marketers

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Facebook has long been the favorite social media platform for sharing content, but if a report from the New York Times is any indication content creators may soon be looking for a new platform to share their content while still attracting users to their own websites.

According to the report, Facebook may be considering hosting linked content directly on its own site, and serving ads on that content, rather than linking directly to content creators’ sites. Not only does this mean a drop in traffic from Facebook users, the change could outright cause the site owners to lose revenue from declining traffic and ads on their own site.

The change is supposedly going to be limited to mobile devices, but it has already stirred up quite a controversy with content creators and marketers.

Facebook seems to believe the change could be more convenient to users, but those who create content see it more closely in line with content syndication or even content theft. No matter the convenience to users, many content creators depend on revenue from page views and ads which would be significantly impacted if Facebook does end up hosting content.

In the wake of the controversy, Facebook has even opened a discussion on the possibility of sharing revenue to websites that own the content being hosted. In the New York Times article, Facebook explained its profit sharing proposal:

Facebook hopes it has a fix for all that. The company has been on something of a listening tour with publishers, discussing better ways to collaborate. The social network has been eager to help publishers do a better job of servicing readers in the News Feed, including improving their approach to mobile in a variety of ways. One possibility it mentioned was for publishers to simply send pages to Facebook that would live inside the social network’s mobile app and be hosted by its servers; that way, they would load quickly with ads that Facebook sells. The revenue would be shared.

That kind of wholesale transfer of content sends a cold, dark chill down the collective spine of publishers, both traditional and digital insurgents alike. If Facebook’s mobile app hosted publishers’ pages, the relationship with customers, most of the data about what they did and the reading experience would all belong to the platform. Media companies would essentially be serfs in a kingdom that Facebook owns.

The real question appears to be if there will be an opt-out option available. There has been no mention of an opt-out or the potential for the hosting of content to be optional. Even if it is up to the publisher, the change could still negatively impact content creators who choose to host their own content on their page, as content which is hosted on the social platform is likely to look more attractive and convenient.

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How To Succeed With e-Commerce This Halloween [Infographic]

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Man people across the country are scrambling to get a last minute Halloween costumes as the holiday grows closer, and that means marketers are making their final Halloween ad push. This is especially true for e-commerce sites who make up are hoping to get their own chunk of the nearly $7 billion spent annually on Halloween costumes.

Thankfully, your e-commerce site can still reap its own piece of the pie, so long as you move fast and know what customers are looking for in the final days before ghosts and vampires wander the street for a night.

Nextopia investigated online Halloween purchasing behavior and shared their findings in a convenient, easy to understand infographic (seen below). So long as you know when and where people are spending the money, e-commerce can be a hugely successful market this time of year.

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Ranking First Matters on Mobile According to seoClarity Study

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Those who have been following search trends in the past couple years have likely heard that being the first result on the search engine results pages (SERPs) is not nearly as important these days, mostly because the results we see are now customized based on location and user habits.

This is absolutely still the case for desktop searching, but a new click-through ranking study conducted by seoClarity suggests the difference between first and second in mobile search results may be the difference between success and failure. Their findings show such a large drop-off between the first and second rankings that there was no notable difference between the second listing and those that followed.

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In the graph of mobile click through rates, you can see the first result receives nearly three times the number of clicks compared to the second ranking, while desktop rankings continue to show a more gradual slope following the first result.

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To conduct the study, seoClarity examined over 2 billion impressions from Google Webmaster Tools data over a 90 day period between June and August. You can download and view the full report here.

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Snapchat’s First Paid Ad Appears To Have Been a Success

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Snapchat, the popular social image sharing app, recently ran the first ad on their platform since its inception. If Universal Pictures, the movie studio who bought the ad, is to be believed, the results are already showing the advertising exercise was a great success.

It is hard to tell how the format will work for smaller brands, but Universal vice president of digital marketing Doug Neil said “millions” of viewers have seen the 20-second trailer for the horror movie “Ouija”.

However there has been some fallout from the ad tests, especially on Twitter. Some users were surprised by the ads or confused by their disappearance after playing. For big marketing ventures like “Ouija” this isn’t much of a problem, especially as the platform perfectly attracts their demographic, but it could be an issue with more niche or localized brands if Snapchat ever expands the ad platform.

Snapchat’s ad medium does offer one unique benefit from the plethora of other monetizing social media platforms. While Facebook’s videos autoplay for anyone who happens to scroll by, Snapchat’s ads have an incredibly wide reach while only playing for those who actively engage the ads. While a huge range of people were shown the ad’s presence, only those who wanted to view it actually watched.

“It was a lean-in experience,” Neil said. “The people who watched the ad were ones that pressed to play so they were focused on actually viewing the content. As it turns out there were a number of people who screen captured it and it’s actually moved beyond the Snapchat window. But our goal was to get exposure in Snapchat and that was accomplished.”

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More Ad Conversions are Happening on Mobile According to New Report

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As Google rolls out more mobile ad formats and targeting measures for marketers, the customers seeing the ads appear to be more readily engaging advertisements from their smartphones and tablets.

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A new study from Marin Software shows that consumers are starting to use mobile ads to complete purchases, but desktop is still the dominant platform for conversions. Other interesting facts from Q3 of 2014 included in Marin’s report are:

  • Mobile devices comprised 31% of paid search impressions and 38% of search ad clicks on Google.
  • Mobile accounted for 30% of ad conversions with mobile conversions increasing 2.4% quarter-over-quarter and nearly 11% year-over-year.

Facebook:

  • 1 out of every 3 ad conversions on Facebook took place on a mobile device with mobile ad conversions increasing 16% quarter-over-quarter.
  • Mobile ads on Facebook accounted for 52% of ad impressions and 63% of clicks.

The findings also make it clear that Search ads are performing miles better than Display or Social ads. More-so, while smartphones may not be the most prominent medium for conversions, they consistently gain the highest rate of clicks.

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Marin says the large difference between Search CTE and Social or Display CTR can be attributed to intent. Searchers tend to be actively looking for something, meaning ads will be more tightly focused. On the other hand, those on social sites or Display ads which appear while users are already engaged with something else are less attention getting.

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Local Ranking Factors In Search Have Largely Stayed The Same This Year

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Every year, Moz details the local ranking factors they can identify in Google’s algorithm to help small businesses get a foot up in the listings. Earlier this week they announced the release of this year’s findings and everything seems… surprisingly the same.

Analysts have only found a few notable changes, but the findings are largely the same as last year’s. However, David Mihm did highlight a few important things to notice in the findings, including:

  1.  Behavioral signals such as click through rate, are more of a factor this year that others.
  2. With Pigeon‘s release, experts are saying Domain authority is more of a signal today.
  3. Google may have tuned up the proximity to searcher factor as well.

You can see the charts from the study below, or you can get more details from the results over at Moz.

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Tulsa Is Recognized By Google As Oklahoma’s eCity for 2014

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Google Ecity Tulsa

To those who have never been here, Tulsa might not seem like the most technologically innovative city, but anyone who has lived in Tulsa knows otherwise. Tulsa’s companies leverage the internet to grow their businesses in inventive and practical ways every day, and the city is finally getting some recognition for their efforts.

Google named Tulsa as Oklahoma’s eCity for 2014, recognizing the city for having the strongest online business community in the state and celebrates those who have embraced the internet and its multitude of ways to connect with new and existing customers alike.

“Our eCity Awards recognize the new ‘digital capitals’ of America,” said Dave Barr, Google’s hardware operations manager for the Oklahoma data center. “We’re proud to recognize this growing entrepreneurial spirit—and the role that it plays in both creating jobs and sustaining local economies. With 97 percent of Internet users looking for products and services online, it’s clear that success is about being connected.”

“Tulsa is honored to be named the Google eCity of Oklahoma, the digital capital of our state,” said Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr. “This award speaks to the strength of Tulsa’s online business community, as organizations are embracing the power of the Internet to find new customers, connect with existing clients, and create twice as many jobs with their online presence.”

“Already recognized by Forbes as the nation’s top city for young entrepreneurs, Tulsa has quietly become a nationally-recognized hub of innovation — a place where fresh ideas thrive and businesses find success in embracing the future,” said Mike Neal, president and CEO, Tulsa Regional Chamber. “Tulsa’s new distinction as Oklahoma’s ‘digital capital’ is further proof that its enterprising small business community has set the standard for how to grow business in a new era.”

Not only have Tulsa’s startups and young entrepreneurs been using the internet to expand their businesses and reach out to where customers are, we are using the internet in new ways never previously imagined to connect with audiences in more meaningful ways than ever before.

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More Than Half of Search Marketers Aren’t Tracking Phone Call Conversions

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Tulsa Marketing Online has always believed tracking data is one of the most essential steps to running an informed marketing campaign, but apparently many search marketers are opting out of comprehensive tracking when it comes to phone conversions from search campaigns.

A new survey from Invoca has found that just 36 percent of respondents reported using call extensions or click-to-call ads in their search campaigns. Of course, call conversions aren’t a major metric for some campaigns, but the survey shows that isn’t the whole story. The results also show that 63 percent of those surveyed said phone leads are equally or more valuable than web conversions.

It is surprising that such only a relatively small percentage of marketers may not be tracking phone call conversion data, especially in light of the wealth of studies showing the value of phone calls to search marketers. Google’s numbers say that 70 percent of mobile searchers have called a business directly from the search results page and BIA/Kelsey estimates inbound calls from mobile search is going to almost double between now and 2016.

The only real explanation is that a fair portion of marketers simply aren’t considering the value of call conversions and how search marketing may be driving calls.

Without data on call conversions, it is hard to get the full picture of how campaigns and marketing strategies are performing and budgets may be getting misplaced or outright wasted. When you have all that information at your fingertips, it is easier to make truly informed decisions about your future strategies and ensure that marketing budgets are being used to their full potential.

You can read Invoca’s full report here and see their related infographic below.

Call Tracking Infographic

 

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Are You Optimizing For Pinterest?

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SEO and social media marketing have been interconnected for several years, but they are also typically treated like separate efforts that influence and benefit from each other rather than being entirely coupled. That is why one of the most neglected features of Pinterest is Guided Search.

It is no secret that Pinterest is quickly becoming an upper tier player in social media and marketing because it touches on our aspirations and desires. To paraphrase Tailwind CEO Daniel Maloney during SMX East this week, Pinterest is about who you want to be.

Pinterest_Sticker_Icon1“When you look at what people are pinning, it’s more about who they want to be in the future,” Maloney said, “which from a marketer’s perspective is a dream come true.”

That made the social media platform ripe for harvest then when they introduced Guided Search early this year, but surprisingly few marketers took advantage of the opportunity to optimize their presence on the site.

Was Guided Search forgotten because it wasn’t high enough on the list of marketing priorities or because it slipped through a crack directly on the line between SEO and social media marketing? It is hard to tell, but Anna Majkowska, a software manager on Pinterest’s search team, has been encouraging brands to optimize for the platform so that they are able to get their content in front of the more than 50 million users who frequent the site.

Majkowska shared tips for optimizing your site on Search Engine Land, but the important thing is to not be intimidated. Pinterest SEO isn’t near as complicated as trying to optimize for Google, so the learning curve is notably less steep.

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