If you are an advertiser who wants to drive large volumes of traffic to your site, there are two important things you are probably looking for:  reach and ease of implementing your campaign.  Facebook meets these qualifications.  It is currently the third largest site online with 125MM visitors in September and it is quickly approaching parity with the #1 and #2 publishers, Google and Yahoo.

Continue reading “Dicing into Facebook Ads” »

Digital 180, Compete’s online “TV” series, spoke with Marta Kagan, who leads Espresso’s growing Boston office.   As the outspoken voice behind The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius, Marta writes and speaks frequently about branding and advertising in the digital channel.  Her viral hit What the F**k is Social Media? has been translated into seven languages.

Continue reading “Digital 180 Speaks with Espresso’s Managing Director Marta Kagan” »

When you take a look at online display ads today, it is usually automotive or entertainment companies that have splashy eye-catching ads.  But leave it to Apple to pave the way for more exciting ads that standout in the Tech category.  Apple has made headlines before with creative video ads aimed at attacking its rival Microsoft on the front pages of top news sites like Wall Street Journal and New York Times.  These ads first appeared almost two years ago and have since ran several more times.

Continue reading “Apple Having a Little Fun” »

It’s time to get a little bit tactical. On the Compete blog, we talk about data all the time, but very rarely do we actually “show” and not just “tell.” I get pretty fired up about Compete PRO, and the latest enhancements to Search Analytics provide a great excuse to devote an entire post to my favorite Compete PRO report: Keyword Destination.

Call it shameless self-promotion, but as far as I’m concerned, no online marketer can live without Keyword Destination, which sheds light on where people go downstream after searching for specific keywords.

Continue reading “Getting The Most Out Of Compete PRO : Keyword Destination Reports” »

Is online advertising a good vehicle for reaching brand advertising goals?  Judged by their actions, more and more advertisers are voting “yes.”  During the past several months, we’ve observed a gradual but decisive stride from an ambivalent stance toward a full embrace of online media as a branding tool.

This past week, we witnessed a Ford display campaign that to us represented a noteworthy waypoint in the development of online ads designed for branding objectives: ads that reject the click. 

Continue reading “Ads That Reject The Click” »

Apparently all the kiddos heading back to school are not turning to search engines to do their homework. Overall September web search activity remained at seasonal lows with no strong indication of recovery. In September, online users submitted 200MM less queries than they did in August. The majority of this decline came from Yahoo! (serving 100 MM less queries in September than August or an 8% decline).

Continue reading “September Search Share: The Bing train keeps rolling but not at Google’s expense” »