Google today released findings of a smartphone-user study that the company did with Ipsos OTX at the end of 2010. The sample consisted of 5,000 US adults who owned a smartphone and accessed the mobile internet. Most of the findings reinforce other studies that show how widely people now rely on smartphones across a spectrum […]
Search ad spending among tech and electronics companies is way up so far in 2011, so much so that Q1 spending surpassed Q4 levels for the first time. That’s the word from Covario’s Global Search Advertising Spend Analysis, which tracks about $400 million in annual spending around the world. Covario says Q1 spending was up […]
Yesterday SEMPO and Econsultancy released the 2011 “State of Search Marketing Report” featuring attitudes and spending behaviors of 920 survey respondents (agencies, advertisers) from more than 60 countries. The full report is over 130 pages. The report came out on the same day that the IAB released its full-year 2010 online ad revenue figures. Interestingly, […]
Tech consulting firm IDC has predicted that Google’s mobile operating system will become the dominant mobile platform this year, achieving a global market share of 39.5 percent. The next in line would be former global leader Nokia with 20.9 percent. Apple comes in at 15.7 percent. Windows Phones to Overtake Apple (via Nokia) These figures […]
GetJar released data from a “global survey” about mobile apps and user behavior that offers positive news for the Android platform, which reportedly beats the iPhone in terms of “next phone” purchase demand by more than 2 to 1. The survey was sent to 25 million users in 190 countries. However there were only 2,500 […]
Among major brands, those in the automobile, finance, and food service industries attracted the most complaint-related searches in 2010. That’s according to a new study from the marketing agency Web Liquid Group. The 2011 Customer Complaint Index measures search activity in the Google Keyword Research Tool involving complaints (i.e., broad match results for “(brand name) […]
comScore has released “The 2010 Mobile Year in Review,” which compiles data the company has mostly already released in various forms from the previous year. However it’s nice to have it all in one place. The report covers the US, EU and Japanese markets at a high level. It largely depicts the growth of smartphones […]
Google has had its share of negative press coverage over the past year. And one of the questions that reporters always ask is: how will this scandal or that investigation impact the perception or usage of Google in the market? In other words, does something like the WiFi privacy scandal in Europe or the antitrust […]
The Pew Internet Project published findings from a recent survey about usage of “location-based services” (LBS). According to the Pew data, 7 percent of mobile Internet users are on location-based services and 4 percent of all internet-using adults “use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends […]
This is a good time to be a digital marketer. Despite several years of economic struggles around the world — or perhaps because of it — the demand for online marketing services is on the rise. That’s according to the 2010 SEO Industry Survey that’s just been released by SEOmoz. The survey attracted responses from […]
U.S. adults are going online more frequently to search for information about products and services. According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, 58% of Americans conduct such research online “at least occasionally.” That’s up from 49% who said the same thing in 2004. When applied strictly to the Internet-using population in the […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Search Results Dominated By One Domain Is it a test? Is it a bug? Is it a permanent change to Google’s search results? No one knows, and Google hasn’t answered […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Q&A: comScore’s New “Core Search” & “Explicit Core Search” Figures Today, comScore is releasing an additional set of search market share metrics designed to better reflect “core” search activity, something that’s […]
Is going global too expensive or too complicated for small businesses -- or is the opportunity just the same for them as huge conglomerates? Indeed, is it possible that the opportunity is relatively-speaking even greater for mom and pop than for Mr. Big Corporation?
At this point is there anyone who questions that the “mobile internet” has arrived? While marketers and many search marketers in particular are still “experimenting” with mobile, consumers are checking in, accessing social networks and searching on their handsets in stores. A trio of new reports released in the past two days confirm the growing […]
Last September Google launched “Internet Stats” in the UK. Now Google is “launching” it in the US or perhaps, more precisely, exposing it again. The site aims to be a repository for data points, organized by broad categories, market sectors and verticals. Data come from various sources, but mostly trade groups and market research firms […]
On Wednesday we reported on Hitwise data showing Google’s search share declining for the “fourth straight month.” However the firm has always shown Google with the greatest share vs. rival metrics firms (comScore, Nielsen, Compete). Yesterday comScore published its March search numbers to clients and they were subsequently released in the financial analyst notes that […]
Because this column, PPC Academy, is a one-year search advertising course, it made sense to spend the first few months on research. In the real world of tight deadlines and downsizing, it can be easy to want to do everything quickly, but deep research can yield tremendous dividends for your account so it’s important not […]
Here are some tools that aren't specifically related to paid search, but are nonetheless valuable additions to your your search marketing research toolset.
It’s important to keep a well-stocked search marketing toolbox. Third party technology vendors offer a wide variety of discovery and management tools and are absolutely vital in the research phase. A few weeks ago we took a look at some tools that allow you to upload and then track keywords on major search engines to […]
Having just returned from SMX West, I found my brain teeming with topic snippets related to online search marketing. SEO, trademark usage, display and search ad combo campaigns, the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal, mobile ads, and so many more. While the range of topics was vast, all of them fell within the spectrum of online marketing. And […]
Last week, a post on the Predictably Irrational blog described the differences in what boyfriends and girlfriends were looking for their beloveds to do based on Google Suggest. Google Suggest can provide hours of fun. Just spend some time at Autocomplete Me or QuestionSuggestions. But can it provide useful audience analysis for understanding our customers, […]
A Citibank/GFK Roper survey of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees has found very few small businesses in the U.S. have adopted social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter for business uses. The findings include: Three-quarters of the small business owners surveyed say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter […]
Somewhat quietly, last week Kayak posted a new feature that opens up access to their search data using Kayak Trends. A key feature of Kayak Trend data is the KAYAK Travel Index™, an a statistical model that provides a measure of travel demand from analysis of searches on KAYAK sites, and aligns that with average […]
Forget about your SEO investment. Disregard your PPC budget. B2B marketers should be asking themselves, “Am I getting all I can from search engines... for free?” Consider this: searching is the second most popular online activity today — second only to email. In fact, comScore (August 2009) estimates that Google alone handles 304 million searches […]
It appears Google has pulled together a bunch of statistics throughout the web and created a small landing page named Google Internet Stats on the Google UK front. The page explains that this service “brings together the latest industry facts and insights together in one place.” Google collected this data from many third party vendors, […]
Each year, Marketing Sherpa compiles an exhaustive look at the state of search marketing. Each year, these reports grow more comprehensive, reflecting the continuous change and evolution of our industry as it grows up. This year’s report is no exception. The Marketing Sherpa 2009-10 Search Marketing Benchmark Report is 213 pages, and is divided into […]
Trade magazine AdWeek and pollster Harris Interactive conducted a survey in early June among 2,521 US adults. People were asked what types of ads they found most “helpful” and what types of ads they ignored. Below are the top-line results as well as the age and geographically segmented data. Most helpful in making purchase decisions: […]
Google has released a new tool for AdWords advertisers, focused on international (not US based) advertising. The tool is named Google Export Advisor and aims at helping businesses “reach new markets and grow internationally.” The tool combines the Google Keyword Tool, Google Translator and Google Traffic Estimator to come up with a neat way of […]
SEMPO formally released data on the state of search engine marketing, its annual survey of agencies and marketers. This year’s survey consisted of 800 respondents from all over the globle. However 68 percent of respondents were from the US, with 20 percent coming from a range of countries. Seven percent of respondents were from Canada […]
Nielsen released some UK mobile usage data yesterday that are very interesting on a number of fronts. The highest-level findings reflect that in the UK the mobile internet is growing much faster than the PC internet (8x) and that the average age of mobile users is younger than online. There are now more than 7 […]
If you want to get a snapshot of a specific era in American society, I’d suggest the Yellow Pages industry is a good place to take that picture. The companies and headings listed can provide a footprint in time for people’s needs and interests of the day. In the 130-year history of the Yellow Pages, […]
Yahoo, perhaps more than any other entity online, has been a tireless producer of consumer and advertiser research. The efforts have broadly been intended to communicate how important the Internet is in consumer purchase behavior and decision making. Last week I was given new findings from a set of Yahoo research studies, conducted earlier this […]
Almost five months after its debut as an invite-only beta, Google Ad Planner is now available to all Google account holders and has a few new features, too, according to Google’s announcement Monday. Ad Planner is a tool that lets advertisers identify web sites that might be good places to advertise — even web sites […]
It’s an understatement to say that we live in uncertain times, and that any data that can help us strategize, plan or even to some extent predict what’s ahead is worth its weight in… well, let’s just say this kind of information is invaluable. That makes the Marketing Sherpa 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide very […]
To use a variation on a familiar phrase, the iPhone changes everything. Indeed it has; and everything you ever wanted to know about iPhone adoption and usage is contained in a new report from comScore (“All about the iPhone“). The headline on the press release is about lower-income groups adopting the device for a broad […]
An internal Truveo study conducted during the past month found that Truveo has a more comprehensive video search coverage than its top competitors. According to Truveo it undertook the study itself because “there is no major testing organization, publication or consulting firm publicly conducting ongoing quality studies of video search engines.” Included in the study […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about landing pages lately. Last time, I talked about getting multivariate landing page testing straight. Today, I’ll look at a specialized offer technique that employs what I’ll call a Pain Reliever Page (PRP). A PRP is problem-based (or pain-specific). It addresses a specific consumer issue and attempts to alleviate a […]
Google has launched Google Ad Planner as an invite-only beta. It’s designed to allow advertisers to identify sites with demographics they’re interested in — even sites that aren’t part of Google’s advertising network.
With the latest search popularity stats now in from Hitwise, Nielsen, comScore, and Compete, it’s time to pit them against each other and see what they agree — and don’t agree — about in terms of search engine popularity.