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Google wants the world to know that it's not only about search ads anymore. The company is in the midst of a campaign called "Watch This Space" to let advertisers and investors know that it is also in the display ad business, erecting an interactive digital billboard in the center of Manhattan to get the message out. Display ads take many forms online including ads of different sizes that combine images, text, audio, video and animation. (Google also includes text ads that appear on Web sites other than search results pages as display ads.)

With it's share value down a reported 17% this year, the company is trying to convince investors that the ever more competitive search ad market is not it's only revenue generator. “One of the ways we could express our confidence in the space is to run what is primarily a display advertising campaign around our investment in the business and what our potential is,” said Neal Mohan, the vice president of product management responsible for Google’s display advertising products.

Source: NY Times

Canadian Businesses Not Using Webs Marketing Potential To It's Fullest

When it comes to online advertising Canadian businesses are lagging their counterparts in the developed world according to Google's number 4 man. "It's not as competitive a business market, which basically suggests that there's not as many businesses online because they're not competing for more share amongst each other or there are not enough businesses competing in certain areas," said Nikesh Arora, Google's president of global sales operations and business development. Arora added "Based on the technological savvy of the market, [Canada] should be in the top quartile." He's probably right, but then again Google is in the online advertising business and, according to his title, Mr. Arora is getting paid to sell us on the virtues of online advertising.

Source: CBC

Massive And Electronic Arts Ink Longterm Deal For Ingame Ads

Microsoft subsidiary, Massive Inc., will announce today the signing of a multi year deal with Electronics Arts Inc. to sell rotating ad space in EA's online games. According to the Globe and Mail, "Massive's technology allows marketers to stream current and constantly updated ads directly into video games played online, either on the Xbox 360 console or a PC." The game company builds blank spaces within it's product for Massive to populate with rotating streaming ads via the Internet. The market for in-game console advertising was estimated to be worth about $12-million (U.S.) in North America in 2007, but that number is expected to balloon to nearly $650-million by 2010. “You're going to see a huge growth rate in console advertising because it's growing from nothing,” said market analyst Billy Pidgeon. “It's more nascent, but it will be important.” What surprises me is that this market is not larger than $12-million already! With the popularity of gaming on the rise and the prevalence of connected consoles, I would have thought that more money was changing hands here already...

Online Video Advertising To Grow... Cautiously!

The Globe and Mail has an interesting article about the raise of online video advertising and the unique experiences being offered to online video consumers as opposed to television viewers. According to research firm eMarketer, projections say that spending on online video advertising will be tripling to $4.3 billion in 2011. This represents a big increase but still falls well short of television advertising. “It's emotive, rich. It grabs your heart,” said Suranga Chandratillake, founder of Blinkx PLC. “It combines all that is great about TV advertising with all that is great with online advertising” Google and Microsoft are both working hard to find ways to serve up ads in online video while not sending viewers running from what they hate about television. It's getting interesting and the simple fact that the Internet has interactivity on it's side will no doubt push creativity to new levels.

From the wtf department!!!

I really like this... but wtf Microsoft?


Thanks to TechCrunch for this one.

Online advertising to double by 2011?

Research firm eMarketer is forecasting that online advertising will surpass $21-Billion this year and will double to $42-Billion by 2011. The Globe and Mail says "In the coming years, paid search will remain the biggest form of online advertising, accounting for about 40 per cent of spending annually through 2011. Display ads like banners will generate about 20 per cent of Internet ad revenues, while classified ads will contribute about 17 per cent, the report said." The question is where will all this extra cash come from? Assume tougher times ahead for Print and Television ad departments!

Facebook marketing to your friends

Yesterday "Facebook began selling ads that display people’s profile photos next to commercial messages that are shown to their friends about items they purchased or registered an opinion about" according to this NY Times article. The idea is to inform your friends of your purchases via a Facebook broadcast, with your permission of course. “Nothing influences a person more than a recommendation from a trusted friend,” Mark Zuckerberg said of the program Facebook is calling "social advertising". Participation could mean "joining a fan club for a brand, recommending a product or sharing information about their purchases from external Web sites." Be fore warned, your friends will have no choice but to view the ads so you may find your friend list beginning to shrink if you are the source of a lot of spam!

Click fraud on the raise, botnets said to be the cause

Warning: Although I did not intend for it to happen, this post has turned into a bit of a rant.

Acknowledgment: I acknowledge that the blogosphere has differing opinions regarding advertising and blogs, you have your beliefs and I have mine. Neither is necessarily right or wrong, they are just different.

And now for the post...

Cnet is reporting on one of their news blogs that statistics are showing a rise in the number of fraudulent clicks on advertising networks such as Google's AdSense. The overall industry fraud rate is estimated at 15.8% for the second quarter of this year, up from 14.1% a year ago, and the numbers are worse for the big advertising networks like AdSense and Yahoo! Publisher Network, where their rate is estimated at 25.6 percent, up from 21.9 percent for the previous quarter. The increase is being blamed on the rise in the number of botnets which are designed to take over unsuspecting PCs for nefarious reasons, in this case systematically clicking repetitively on ads on websites. The botnet developer either benefits from the revenue generated by the clicks or in many cases, the attack is meant to burn through the advertising budgets of the advertiser without producing any results.

As a blogger who, obviously, is a member of such an advertising network, this is not good news! By no means am I getting rich from the revenue generated by this, in fact it falls somewhere in the "beer money" category, covering the cost of domain registration, and I shutter to think what the remainder translates to on an hourly basis. I'm obviously not in this purely for the money, but it would be great if there was some sort of compensation that fairly rewarded me and the throngs of other bloggers for our time and effort. The ad networks provide some monetary promise and as they say "the cream will raise to the top", meaning those who do a good job of attracting visitors may find themselves in the enviable position of making decent coin from writing about their passions, being comical, insightful, or whatever it is that makes their blog an interesting read. The numbers above are staggering and one would assume that advertisers must be seriously considering whether or not the conversion rate is worth the extra expense brought on by these fraudulent clicks. We all consume advertisements throughout our day via radio, television, print media, and telemarketing, and whether we chose to believe it or not it does have an affect on our purchasing decisions. I'd like to encourage readers of this or any blog to consider having a glance at the ads, don't just dismiss them as noise pollution. If something catches your eye click on it, and read the advertiser's message. With this small gesture you will be compensating the author of the site and creating more meaningful click through rates, maintaining the viability of these services. It only works however if you consume the message of the advertiser, randomly clicking just to serve the interest of the writer further dilutes the value of the click and jeopardizes the system. Advertisers are not expecting that every click results in an immediate sale, although they might like that, they just want to be considered when you make your purchase decision. Likewise I am not expecting that every visit results in an AdSense click, I would like to think that if you visit the site and like what you see both in terms of content and occasionally advertising, that you would click through and read an ad from time to time. In this way all parties benefit. Oh, and keep your security software up to date! If these botnets have no place to reside the process works better anyway.