The Evolution of Targeted Advertising

What if you could target your ads to single Catholic women between the ages of 32 and 47 who enjoy hiking and playing poker?

I would be interested to see what kinds of ads you would be producing for this demographic, but the benefits of such precision targeting are staggering. Distributing the same ad to all visitors of your site runs into some obvious complications. High schoolers are not likely to care much about your ad for a financial services company, and John McCain will not benefit greatly from a Huggies campaign (or would he?).

Everyone knows that Facebook collects information from its users using dozens of demographic categories. A lot of people even know about and use Facebook's API to target specific ads to specific demographics that are defined by the Facebook user itself. However, far too many advertisers still fail to recognize the advertising potential this affords.

As many of you know, AdMazing's parent company, FamilyLink.com, is responsible for the "We're Related" Facebook application. This app is rated the 6th most popular Facebook app and boasts 47 million total users, 15 million monthly active users, and 220 million monthly impressions. The numbers alone may seem staggering, but numbers don't tell the whole story.

AdMazing is currently undergoing an effort to collect additional demographic information on all "We're Related" users (rest assured—the data being collected is not attributed to any user and fully complies with Facebook's Terms of Service). With this data, we will be able to use hundreds of different demographic sets to sell to advertisers. This type of targeted advertising enjoys significantly more success than traditional advertising (of course, general websites do not enjoy the plethora of user-specific demographic information that Facebook offers).

As an Internet user myself, I have seen my fair share of banner ads, text ads, and popup ads (as has nearly everyone). I can honestly say it is refreshing to see ads once in a while that I'm actually interested in and that in some way correspond to my interests. The evolution of targeted advertising is not merely about making more money—it involves providing users with a more personalized and comfortable Internet experience.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Real Twitter Insights Gained Through Personal Observation

The Twitter invasion is here. True, Twitter has been here for a while now, but the hype is finally topping the scales. Everybody who's anybody has entered the exciting world of microblogging and is expanding their network. Many are professing to be that expert or guru in order to increase their follower block. Outrageous "get rich quick" schemes are becoming commonplace. Spammers have found a new haven.

Or have they?

True, Twitter is a groundbreaking communication technology that is here to stay. But from personal observation, far too many tweeters are missing the point.

At the turn of the century, many people were so intrigued with the rise of the Internet that they granted it the status of mysterious, almost magical. The possibilities seemed limitless. Open up any kind of online store, become a millionaire. Easily.

And then...the bubble popped.

Don't get me wrong--I believe Twitter definitely has the potential to grow with stability and avoid the bubble-popping madness that followed the rise of the Internet age. But for that to happen, Tweeters must recognize that Twitter has no inherent fairy dust. The same business rules apply that have always applied. Don't just be there to be heard. Interact. Provide real value. Help others (and that entails more than simply mentioning it in your bio).

If you want your brand (either personal or corporate) to have a significant and growing presence on Twitter, send occassional direct messages that aren't automated. Retweet interesting tweets. Thank others for their retweets. Be human, and don't profess to be the all-knowing expert or guru that everyone else is professing to be. And for pete's sake, don't promise people you'll help them earn $20,000 from one tweet or help them double their followers in an hour.

Speaking of increasing followers, don't get caught up in the hype. Most of those 20,000 followers other people have are either spammers or "experts" seeking nothing more than to increase their own pool of followers. You want an audience, not followers. Quality will trump quantity every time. Look for those who have a few hundred followers or less. Those are the people who will actually read and appreciate your tweets and will be much more likely to retweet them.

Just like any successful business practice, a successful Twitter campaign is focused on relationships, reciprocity, and respect. The rules really haven't changed.

Bing: A Warning To Internet Marketers

For the first 6,000 years of human history (or so it seemed), the online world was dominated by one power: Google. Search, video, mail, blogs, news—Google made it all possible with almost no effort. Google was the online giant. It was indestructible.

And then it happened.

Another computer giant arose from the dust to challenge the ruler. Challenges were nothing new for Google—it was accustomed to meeting and conquering opposition with little more than a flick of its mouse. But this was different. This threat was real. We're talking, of course, about Bing.

Before you roll your eyes and click through to Gmail, YouTube, and Blogger just to prove me wrong, please read the following disclaimer:

No, Google is not going under anytime soon.

No, Bing is not the new online superpower.

Yes, that intro was mainly an exaggerated attempt to get you to keep reading. And it looks like it worked, so you might as well finish this off.

The point is this: Bing is here to stay. This is not an “upgrade” from the doomed Windows Live. It is a completely new and improved search experience.

Which is why Microsoft isn't calling it a search engine at all, but rather a “decision engine.” In a nutshell, Bing is actually quite different from Google. Instead of retrieving useful sites that contain the information you are searching for (after which you must click through to the site and locate the information), it takes it a step further by retrieving the actual information itself. This means fewer people will be clicking through to sites that “may” contain the information they are looking for.

Thus, the natural question to be posed in this blog is this: how will Bing affect online marketing? If Bing is never fortunate enough to catch on, marketers have little to worry about. But judging from initial reviews and reactions (which have been much more positive than we expected), Bing does have potential to steal away at least a modest portion of the search engine market. This means less searching and hassle for consumers, but also fewer impressions and lower CTR for marketers.

Bing is not likely to drastically change the online world. At the end of the day, saving users one mouseclick during a search doesn't sound incredibly groundbreaking. But in our opinion, Bing has finally succeeded where other online search startups have failed: it simplifies and streamlines searches, giving users access to more organized useful information with less exposure.

As always, if online marketers aren't prepared to adapt to online trends, they may find themselves on the hunt for a new day job.

Social Media A Lost Cause?

This morning I came across the text of a Q&A session with Andrew Keen that got my attention. For those of you who filter out anti-social-media news (it's hard not to these days), Andrew Keen is a former entrepreneur who has backed off from his enthusiasm of Silicon Valley and even gone so far as to oppose Web 2.0 (gasp!).

Referring to Web 2.0, Keen suggested that "the experiment’s ended. Five years ago there was an optimism that there would be a simple transition from a professionally run media to the idea that anyone could create content and be paid for it. It simply hasn’t happened."

Keen's reasoning includes the observation that YouTube--the third most trafficked site on the Internet--still isn't making money.  Fake Steve Jobs (a popular blogger) also left his blogging experiment in the dust recently when he discovered it simply wasn't going to bring in the dough.

The social media sniper aimed his biggest guns at Facebook, which he describes as "a narcissistic product that devalues the notion of friendship."

It's easy to see why Keen creates controversy.  We just happen to find ourselves at the peak of the social media hype, and everybody who's anybody devotes a good portion of their day (ahem...) to Facebook.  It's much more than just a site for connecting and reconnecting with friends; like it or not, Facebook is becoming a virtual reality for friendships.  A toned-down version of Second Life, perhaps.  But I digress...

Even if Keen is right, the big question is: does it matter?  True, social media is usually not the online-money-making jackpot some make it out to be.  But at its foundation, it was never meant to be about money.  Web 2.0--social media--is about people.  Connecting, participating, authoring, creating.  And when the people are given influence over the way things run, they usually win.

To be fair, Keen does provide one exception to the social media doomsday: Twitter. Surprised? Read his reasoning here.