Sometimes the “best” TV commercials don’t require million-dollar budgets. Just great stories.
Being able to apologize in business, and to do it well, is paramount to the success of a leader. The art of apologizing, when executed properly, demonstrates intelligence, empathy and compassion. It also oozes humility, making leaders more approachable and I would say more successful. Here’s a great article by Forbes that explores this profound leadership quality.
Today I will be speaking at the user summit on two very different topics…
API usage for moving data to and from Marketo
And Social media tactics you can start doing today
Heres some more info… http://summit.marketo.com/2012/agenda/
Mark Twain famously quipped, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
And in this vein,Eric Jackson for Forbes.com writes, “Here’s Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years.”
Jackson’s article is more than compelling – its nearly dead-on accurate with regards to how technologies evolve faster than companies. So, its difficult for companies that have devoted their resources heading down one path to get up, back track and head down a new path. This is especially difficult in the face of competitors who get a fresh start down a new branch.
Think of a tree. Start with the trunk. That’s the start of technology… And as companies create products based upon this technology they head down a branch, say “ecommerce”. However, as they are heading down that branch, a new one sprouts – “mobile commerce”. The problem is, that branch is very different and has its own barriers to entry and competitive forces. Companies on one branch don’t necessarily have the know-how to hop branches and change courses.
Jackson’s article discusses this by breaking down technology into three phases and grouping the big tech companies into those three phases to articulate his point. It’s very compelling.
However, I do believe that many of these newer companies have the cash to acquire technology through M&A so that they can more easily hop branches. Also, I believe some of them have management that will endeavor as best they can to pivot their giant organizations and adapt to change. But this doesn’t always work, as Jackson points out, like in the case of the once almighty MySpace.
As a Facebook advertiser, I have long seen a substantial discrepancy between what Facebook charges me (the number of clicks) and what my analytics software records as visits to my site.
The obvious issue is whether all clicks of ads result in a “ping” of the analytics code snippet on your site. With the new asynchronous code snippet from Google Analytics and your ability to place the code in the header, fewer visits should result in not being recorded.
The other option is that JavaScript or cookie blocking is in place in the visitor’s browser. However, this is a very limited subset of people who click on advertisements.
However, the gap is substantial – as much as 35% (or even more in some cases) between Facebook’s bill and the analytics program. This begs many customers to ask the question, why is Facebook charging me for clicks that don’t result in a visit to my site?
These clicks provide no value the advertiser. And actually, they don’t provide long term value to Facebook, because it reduces the success of advertising campaigns, turning the advertiser away.
However, Facebook has decided to continue ignoring this issue and raking in huge profits along the way.
Some companies have tried to sue Facebook, with limited success.
At the end of the day, you basically have to bake in this cost (click fraud and invalid clicks) into your campaign as a cost of doing business with Facebook. If, after all is said and billed for, you can still achieve your desired ROI, you’re good to go. Otherwise, I suggest taking your hard earned dollars elsewhere.
I suggest that Facebook up its game in this area and stop billing customers for click-bounces… Clicks that don’t register a hit on the customer’s server. I think a 3-second rule is a good idea – if the visitor isn’t on the advertiser’s site for more than 3 seconds, then they don’t get charged for the ad.
Rosetta Stone (makers of the language software) have been given the go ahead by the appeals courts to move their lawsuit against Google to the next stage of the litigation process – a trial.
Rosetta Stone is asserting that Google is serving up Ads triggered by Rosetta Stone’s trademarks. So, when a user types in “Rosetta Stone”, they are seeing ads for other products, thus confusing the consumer.
I have long advocated to not bid directly on the keyword marks of your competitors. It typically does not generate good conversion results in the B2B area in particularly. It’s also a poor business practice that usually results in the other business countering by bidding on your terms. The end result is a bidding war (and the only entity that wins is Google).
However, this case has further implications on broad match and session match. It’s quite possible that Google will have to block session matching whereby it would normally use your search behavior to serve you ads regardless of what your query is… For instance, if I make three searches about cell phones, and then refine my search to smartphones, I still may see ads triggered by the original “cell phone” key phrase. And broad match may kick in if I type “Nokia smart phone” whereby AdWords matches me to a “Samsung smart phone” ad triggered by the “smart phone” portion of my phrase.
If Google will be required to block all marks except to their owner, there’s a lot of work that will be required. Google will need to build a system to verify ownership of marks to enable advertisers to bid on their own marks; and also build a system that blocks ads from appearing on registered marks in any form (broad, session or otherwise).
One thing is for sure, this case will continue to take its time moving through the legal system. Here are some more details reported by MediaPost.
Dan Soschin 