TMK's Battle of the Bands - VOTE for us!

Friends of TMK,

Our band, Whiskey Weekend, representing The Media Kitchen has made it past the audition to the voting round to perform and compete against other agencies at Advertising Week’s Battle of the Bands on 28 September. To get there we need your vote! Go to the link below to our video and give us the thumbs up. Then send the link to your friends and family, and then the next day (you can vote every day) go vote again, go home sleep, the next day vote, make sure your friends have voted and then vote again and then…well you get the idea.


http://www.videoegg.com/battle-of-the-ad-bands/

Google Instant Search: Advertisers Be Warned! by Justin Terry

All the internets are abuzz with news of Google’s recently unveiled Instant Search. This new feature for their flagship search service streams search results as you type in your search query (http://www.google.com/instant). Just about every letter you type generates an entirely new set of relevant search results and paid search ads. In addition to lightning fast results, Instant Search auto-populates a list of “smart predictions” that change as you type… in real time! The word from the Twitterverse and the rest of the internets in general on this most recent innovation is a resounding “sweet!” It will certainly shave precious milliseconds off your search time (although collectively Google claims that it will save over 3.5 billion seconds a day).

But, as users rejoice, what are the implications for advertisers?

Sadly this innovation serves a dual purpose: to bolster search efficiency for the user and the put the squeeze on advertisers. How so, you might ask? Well, Google now offers users smart search “predictions” based on what’s being entered into the search bar. That’s certainly nice of them to give users options, but the harsh reality for advertisers is that Google is selling them advertising space for every search query someone types into their unassuming little box and Google now has a direct influence of what queries will be “searched” for.

There are some major implications here that advertisers should be aware of.

The number of unique search queries is going to drop… significantly. Since Google’s “smart” predictions will likely prove to be exactly what they claim to be, searches will likely become more concentrated into Google-predicted query silos. Simply put, most people are going to start typing and let Google do the rest: Submit to the hive mind! This will unquestionably lead to increased competition for Google’s most “predicted” search queries. Less queries = more competition. More competition = higher CPCs. Higher CPC = billions of dollars flowing into the already-overflowing Google coffers.

While the immanent drop in the number of unique search queries drives up costs for more Google-predicted queries, at the same time Instant Search expands the marketplace for medium-to-long tail search queries. For example, prior to Instant Search a hypothetical user would have normally typed in “travel to the Caribbean” into the search box and received ads accordingly. Post-Instant Search that same hypothetical users is presented with a list of query predictions from Google including the following longer tail terms: “travel to the Caribbean islands,” “travel to the Caribbean cheap,” “best time to travel to the Caribbean,” and “when to travel to the Caribbean.” The outcome here is that Google with be diverting click traffic to longer tail terms now that they are a visible and highly-relevant option. For advertisers, that means the competition on medium-to-long tail keywords will increase significantly. Advertisers are going to have to reevaluate their account structures, budgeting, and bid optimizations accordingly. This is no small feat for major players in the paid search game. The consequences for smaller advertisers are even greater as competitors with deep pockets will surely begin expanding their search offering into traditionally-niche markets. This may have already begun in certain verticals but the worldwide rollout of Instant Search will certainly accelerate the process.

Speaking of niche-markets, Instant Search further erodes the marketplace for “non -smart” long tail search queries. Seriously, who’s going to keep typing or get inventive when Google’s smart predictions are providing highly-relevant search suggestions in real time? The answer is likely to be very few. For years, savvy advertisers have mined data from search query reports to expand their keyword offering with rarely-searched, less competitive and, needless to say, less expensive keywords. Let’s not even mention the money companies have been saving on misspelled keywords, which are obviously primed for extinction. Simply put, those days are drawing to a close, at least on Google.com. I should mention that the impact is slightly mitigated by changes in search patterns over the last few years. I mean, how often do you actually go to Google.com for searches? More and more people are growing accustomed to simply typing search queries into browser search bars, not to mention mobile and tablet devices.

Alternative methods of search aside, the impact of Google’s Instant Search goes beyond the throttling of unique search queries, expansion of the medium tail, and the erosion of long tail search queries. Instant Search will exponentially increase ad-serving impressions. Let’s take a look at this from Google’s perspective. The primary metric Google uses to judge whether or not you ad is being displayed for relevant search queries is Impression Share. Anyone who has worked with Google knows how much they love to tell advertisers how much Impression Share they’re losing due to Budget, Rank, or Quality Score. Essentially, Impression Share is what Google call’s Share of Voice. Google’s go-to remedy for increasing Impression share: increase budgets! You don’t have to be a Google Engineer to figure out the strategy here. There’s going to be a whole lot more inventory of advertising space for Google to sell. The problem with this inventory is that it’s an inflated inventory of diminishing relevance for advertisers. Let’s see what happens on another tropical-themed search “renting a house in the Caribbean.” Here are the ads I’m served as I type in my search query:

1^st word typed: “Rent”

Ads generating impressions: Rent.com, ForRent.com, RentedSpace.com, various other “general property rental” sites.

2^nd word typed: “Rent a”

Ads generating impressions: Avis.com, expedia.com, dollar.com, various other “car rental” sites.

3^rd word typed: “Rent a house”

Ads generating impressions: Rent.com, ForRent.com, RentedSpace.com, various other “house rental” sites.

4 & 5^th words typed: “Rent a House in the”

Ads generating impressions: hamptonhideaway.com, and various other “house rental in the Hamptons” sites.

Final query: “Rent a House in the Caribbean”

Ads generating impressions: villascaribe.com, and various other “house rental in the caribbean” sites… bingo!

You can see the potential for superfluous impressions, which are damaging to CTR and more importantly to Google’s CPC & Rank-determining Quality Score. Google is trying to minimize these “bad” impressions by not counting impressions unless the person stops typing for at least 3 seconds. It’s hard to imagine that flickering real time results won’t cause curious searchers to take pause, survey the area, and then move on. Not to mention the likelihood of bad impressions that will occur due to outside distractions (dogs barking, kids running through the house, taking a bite of a sandwich, etc). Combine this with the other issues mentioned in this article and it becomes pretty clear that advertisers are going to have much to think about in the coming months.

So while the users rejoice, advertisers should brace themselves for a significant shift to the dynamics of their paid search marketing strategies.