Top 50 Web Rankings for August

The top 10 online properties, in terms of visitors, remained unchanged in August, albeit the back-to-school season gave a boost to education sites and retail sports/outdoor sites gained traffic in anticipation of fall sports, according to the comScore Media Metrix monthly analysis of activity at top US online properties.

Among other trends noted: August traffic increased to lotto/sweepstakes sites as lottery jackpots reached near record highs, and humor sites gained on the strength of Comedy Central’s spike in traffic.

The data released by comScore:

Top 50 Properties

Among the highlights:

• Yahoo Sites topped the ranking with more than 135 million visitors.
• CBS Corporation experienced a 16% gain, lifting it six spots to number 24.
• Comcast Corporation also experienced a sizable jump, moving up seven positions to number 26 in the ranking with more than 25 million visitors.
• United Online gained four position, drawing more than 26 million unique visitors in August.

Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking

 

Among the highlights:

• Advertising.com remained atop the Ad Focus Ranking, reaching 89% of the more than 181 million Americans online.
• Specific Media and Google both moved up within the top 10, to numbers six and seven, respectively.
• Adconian media group jumped seven spots to number 21, reaching 43% of the US online population, a 7% increase from July.
• Interclick also continued its climb in the rankings, gaining four spots to number 18.
• Amazon.com and Walmart.com entered the ranking in August at positions 37 and 43, respectively.

High-Growth Sites/Categories

High-Growth Catagories:

• The humor category grew 8% in August, reaching more than 30 million Americans. The increase was largely propelled by gains at Comedy Central from its “Indecision2008″ coverage.
• National Lampoon Humor Network led the category with 5.6 million visitors.
• Comedy Central followed with nearly 5 million visitors (up 105%) and Jokeroo Entertainment Inc. with nearly 3 million visitors (up 37%).

High-Growth Sites: 

• Education sites
  • The training and education category grew 15% to more than 12 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category for the month.
  • College resource site Fastweb led the category with 2.5 million visitors (up 13%), followed by The College Board with nearly 1.9 million visitors (up 12%) and Nellnet, Inc., an education planning and financing company, with 1.4 million visitors (up 11%).
  • The education information category increased 8% to more than 63 million visitors, as Dictionary.com Sites led the category with 11.8 million visitors, followed by Answers.com (9.3 million visitors) and Pearson Education (8.6 million visitors).
• Retail sports/outdoors sites
  • With the beginning of fall sports and football season, traffic to retail sports/outdoors sites increased 7%, to more than 29 million visitors.
  • Foot Locker Sites experienced a 15% gain to 4.6 million visitors to lead the category, followed by eBay Sports US with 4 million visitors and DicksSportingGoods.com with 2.6 million visitors.
  • NFL Internet Group, which includes the official NFL team sites, surged 78% to more than 14 million visitors, making it one of top-gaining properties in August.
• Lottery sites
  • Multi-state lotteries Mega Millions and Powerball both reached massive jackpots in August causing lotto/sweepstakes sites to rise 8% to more than 31 million visitors for the month.
  • Powerball.com surged to 2.3 million visitors (up 123%).
  • Megamillions.com traffic swelled to 1.1 million (up 100%).

http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/top-50-web-rankings-for-august-issued-education-retail-sports-sites-gain-1681/?camp=newsletter&src=mc&type=textlink

 

Network Radio Reaches 233 Million Listeners per Week

Arbitron today released preliminary findings from RADAR 94, according to which 96% of adults age 18-49 with a college degree and an annual household income of $50,000 or above tune into radio over the course of a week.

RADAR Network affiliates (which account for over 50% of all radio stations) reach 85% of that coveted demo - as well as 85% of adults 25-54 in households with a college degree and an annual household income of $75,000 or above, Arbitron said.

While the trend in radio has fewer youth listening, network radio reaches the ad-elusive and media multitasker group of teens 12-17: Whereas overall RADAR networks reach 82% of all radio listeners, they reach 85% of listeners ages 12-17, according to Arbitron.

Among other preliminary findings released:

Radio Is Stable

• Radio reaches 233 million listeners over the course of the week, according to the RADAR 94 September 2007 Radio Listening Estimates. That’s consistent from a year ago. The 7,200+ RADAR Network Affiliated stations reach 82% of all radio listeners.
• RADAR Network affiliates have consistent delivery, reaching key young and adult demographics that advertisers target:
  • They reach 84% of adults 18-34 and adults 25-54.
  • They also reach 84% of Adults 18-49.

Radio is Appealing

The diversity of formats in radio attracts advertiser-coveted demographics such as Black Non-Hispanic as well as Hispanic persons:

• 94% of Black Non-Hispanic persons and 95% of Hispanic persons, age 12 and older, tune in to radio over the course of a week.
• Radio reaches 96% of Black Non-Hispanics and Hispanics age 25-54 over the course of a week.

Radio Reaches Educated, Affluent

Radio reaches 94% of college grads age 18+, and 96% of adults 18-49 with a college degree and an annual income of $75,000 or more tune into radio over the course of a week.

'Old Media' Still Resonate

How do different generations use media? That was the question of a study released last week by Deloitte & Touche's Technology, Media and Telecommunica-
tions practice.

Drawn from a Harrison Group survey of 2,200 consumers 13 to 75 years old, the topline findings of the "State of the Media Democracy" offered hope for traditional media and yielded some fresh insights into new-media trends, according to Ed Moran, director of product innovation in Deloitte's New York office.

For example, consistent across all generational segments—millennials (13-24), Gen Xers (25-41), boomers, (42-60) and matures (61-75)—nearly three-quarters of consumers said they enjoy magazines even though they acknowledge being able to read the same publications online.

Despite their widespread embrace of new media platforms and a "trickle up" effect on older consumers, that tendency was even prevalent (71 percent) among the millennials, Moran said.
Moran said he was also impressed with "the real popularity of user generated content," particularly in terms of its widespread demand. The survey shows that over half (51 percent) of all Internet users consume user generated content across generations.

Even so, what Moran called the "resilience of old media" remains a prominent feature of the landscape. "And one of the main activities online is going to a television Web site," he said. The survey found that 46 percent of consumers do that regularly, including over half (52 percent) of all Gen Xers.
"Television is still a core activity," Moran said. "Even though we see the expected amounts of online, text messaging, cellphone use [and] games—consumers are doing more things, but still watching television. It is always on."

For advertisers, this could be "both troubling and reassuring," he said, predicting that "participatory TV," with some level of interactivity, will become more prevalent, especially as the millennial generation grows up.

Moran said there was also an unexpected result regarding digital video recording devices such as TiVo. "It's the Xers and boomers that rely on DVRs for television use," he said. "But the number-one use for DVR is not commercial skipping."

In fact, the time shifting and the "season ticket" functions (the latter refers to being able to record an entire season of a show) rate highest, he said. The ability to fast-forward through commercials came in third. (The study showed that women like DVRs slightly more than men, and that men are more likely to watch commercials than women.)

Other findings:
--More than a quarter of consumers would pay for online content in exchange for not being exposed to advertising.
--Overall there was more receptivity to print ads than to Internet advertising.
--60 percent of consumers visit 10 or more Web sites a week.
--More than a quarter of leading edge millennials (26 percent) plan to shop online in the coming year.
--Search engines were rivaled by word-of-mouth in driving Internet traffic. Although search was No. 1 at 84 percent, 82 percent of respondents visited a Web site because of a personal recommendation. Ads on television (65 percent), Web site ads (55 percent) and e-mail campaigns (54 percent) followed in influence.

By Gregory Solman

http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003625365

Traps to Avoid When Joining a New Company

The biggest mistakes I see executives make when hired in from the outside are (1) trying to recreate the organizations they left behind and (2) overestimating their change mandates. Both set up vicious cycles that can end in outright derailment for the new leader. And you can usually see these problems start during the recruiting process.

The temptation to try to clone a business model or system that you’ve had success with elsewhere is great. You understand it deeply, struggled hard to make it work, and achieved great things. In fact, your success in making something wonderful happen at your old company is likely a major factor in why your new company wanted to hire you. During the recruiting process you may have been explicitly encouraged to “bring the great ideas you have to us.” So it’s natural to want to try and replicate your previous success.

But efforts to do so all too often go astray. Sometimes it’s because the mode or system simply doesn’t translate well to the new organization. Sometimes it’s because the new organization has a powerful immune system that rejects outside ideas (and people) even though they would in fact contribute to improved performance. But regardless of whether the new leader fails to customize or socialize her ideas, the result is the same. The effort misfires and the new leader loses credibility.

Leaders who overestimate their change mandates during onboarding suffer similar fates, albeit for different reasons. During the recruiting process they are either led to believe, or fool themselves into believing, that they have more scope to make change happen than they do. They enter their new organizations thinking they have a mandate to do significant surgery, only to find out that the support is not there. They fail to check and recheck with key stakeholders, not realizing that understandings that are reached during the hiring process are unlikely to be the full story, and may in fact reflect some wishful thinking on both sides.

Here, too, the outcome is predictably bad. The new leader creates a lot of discomfort. Key stakeholders begin to complain about, organize in opposition to, and even actively plot the downfall of the interloper. If the onboarded executive is lucky enough to have a boss who is willing to run interference or to counsel on how better to move things forward, the outcome need not be dire. But absent that sort of support, the new leader becomes radioactive.

In both these cases of going overboard during onboarding, new leaders fail to recognize an eternal truth: recruiting is like romance and employment is like marriage. During the courtship rituals of recruiting, the hiring company is trying to secure great talent and so has incentives to cast the situation in the most attractive possible light. They need not, and usually do not, engage in outright misrepresentation. It’s more like the puffery and wishful thinking that happens during any mating dance. So it’s inevitable that some of the understanding reached during the courtship phase of joining a new company will not hold up in the cold hard light of cohabitation.

Have you seen leaders coming in from the outside get themselves into trouble in these or other ways? Please share your experiences with other readers.

By Michael Watkins on July 30, 2007 11:22 AM

Harvard Business Online

Search and Display Work Well Together?

Using both sponsored search ads and display advertising produces a better conversion rate than using either channel by itself, according to a study from digital marketing firm Atlas, a subsidiary of aQuantive.

The report, issued last year, studied a month’s worth of online advertising by 11 marketers, analyzing more than 10.8 million impressions and 2.5 million paid clicks from 1.8 million users.

Atlas Institute analyst Esco Strong told an audience at ad;tech Chicago that the study grew out of a realization that search and display advertising are mostly treated separately by advertisers, with very little cross-platform measurement to see how they interact, Strong told the audience. “But the question of interaction of these two channels has recently become a hot topic among our clients, who want to know the right mix between the two media,” he said. “We wanted to find out if there really is the synergy that a lot of folks have assumed, and to find out if it’s quantifiable.”

The resulting report took a look at 11 Atlas clients who used both display online advertising and pay-per-click search ads during the month of April 2006. Those clients’ online conversions were calculated, and ad users/viewers were classified into three groups: those who clicked on display ads from an advertiser but not search ads; those who clicked on search ads but had no display views or clicks for the same advertiser; and those who clicked on sponsored search listings and also had one or more display impressions or clicks from the same advertiser. That last group was large enough to be statistically significant: 44% of users studied both clicked on a PPC ad and saw or clicked on a display ad from the same marketer.

Atlas found that on average, users who clicked on a search ad without seeing a display ad converted more than three times as often as those who saw a display ad but didn’t click on a PPC ad. But the group that was exposed to both display and search advertising converted at a rate four times higher than the display-only group and 22% higher than those who saw search ads alone.

He added that lift values differed greatly for the advertisers involved in the study, indicating that synergies for the search and display channels should be measured by each specific advertiser for each campaign. Of the 11 advertisers tracked in a range of unspecified industries, four saw a much greater conversion increase among two-channel users compared to search-only users than the 22% average. In fact, one saw conversions run more than 60% higher using both search and display ads, Strong said; another saw a lift of more than 40%.

“On the other hand, three advertisers saw essentially zero lift using both search and display ads,” he said. These flat results could be explained by ineffective buys in either the search or display channels; on the other hand, the advertisers could have been spending on offline marketing campaigns that raised conversion rates both for search-only and search-and-display users, cancelling out any lift effects.

“The synergistic effect has been theorized for a long time, but it’s never been quantified,” Strong said. “This research tells us that it definitely exists.”

Advertisers who carefully measure the effects of their own online cross-media ad efforts may gain a strategic advantage by optimizing that synergy, he said. By supplementing search marketing with well-chosen display ads on sites and against terms that are appropriate for their offerings, marketers may get a lift in conversions that enables them in turn to spend more on search marketing, bidding against more expensive keywords or bidding their search positions higher without trashing their return on investment.

The report also found a strong correlation between display ad frequency and higher conversions among advertisers who used both media. Users who saw three or more display impressions in conjunction with at least one search-ad click had better conversion rates and click-to-conversion rates than those who only saw one or two display ads.

But advertisers must watch for a point of diminishing returns at which increased display frequency leads to wasted ad spending, the report pointed out.

And the report’s conclusions about synergy underline the importance of tracking all media centrally Strong said, to be able to compare their effects on a level basis. “If you’re using different silos or different technologies to track search and display ads, this type of analysis is impossible,” he said. “Tracking all online media centrally is the starting point for opening up the strategic opportunities of both search and display.”

http://directmag.com/searchline/8-01-07-Display-SEM/

Communications Spend to Reach $1 Trillion in ‘08; Internet to Surpass All Ad Segments in 2011

Total communications spending increased 6.8% to a record $885.2 billion in 2006, having expanded at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9% from 2001 to 2006 (and exceeding GDP growth in both periods), according to exclusive data released today by Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS).

Communications spending growth accelerated in 2006, outpacing nominal GDP for the fourth time in five years, while consumer media usage declined following two consecutive years of decelerating growth, according to the VSS Communications Industry Forecast 2007-2011.

The VSS forecast tracks, analyzes and forecasts spending, usage and trends in all 19 segments and more than 100 sub-segments of the US media industry, including alternative advertising and marketing data licensed exclusively from PQ Media.

According to the VSS data and forecast:

• The communications industry is on pace to grow 6.4% in 2007 and post a CAGR of 6.7% in the 2006-2011 period, making it the third-fastest-growing sector of the US economy.
• Communications spending will top $1 trillion for the first time in 2008, with growth driven by strong gains in the alternative media and institutional end-user sectors.
• Total communications spending is forecast reach $1.222 trillion in 2011.
• In what would be a watershed moment in communications history, internet advertising - including pure-play websites and digital extensions of traditional media - will replace newspapers as the largest ad medium in 2011.
• For the first time since 1997, consumers spent less time with media in 2006 than they did the previous year:
  • Media usage per person declined 0.5% to 3,530 hours, due to changing consumer behaviors and digital media efficiencies.
  • The drop in consumer media usage was driven by the continued migration of consumers to digital alternatives for news, information and entertainment, which require less time investment than their traditional media counterparts.
  • Consumer media usage to stabilize in 2007 and increase at a CAGR of 0.5% from 2006 to 2011, compared with 0.8% in the previous five-year period.
• Consumers are also migrating away from advertising-supported media, such as broadcast TV and newspapers, to consumer-supported platforms, such as cable TV and videogames:
  • Time spent with consumer-supported media grew at a CAGR of 19.8% from 2001 to 2006
  • Time spent with ad-supported media declined 6.3% in that period.
• However, media usage by institutional end-users grew 3.2%, to 260 hours per employee, in 2006, according to the first-ever analysis of business and government media usage included in this year’s VSS Forecast:
  • Institutional media usage climbed at a CAGR of 3.3% in the 2001-2006 period, driven by the continued integration and increased use of online and digital platforms to enhance business performance and workflow.
  • Institutional media usage will continue to grow from 2007 to 2011, although growth will decelerate slightly as the forecast period progresses.
• The fastest-growing media segments in the 2001-2006 period were outsourced custom publishing, branded entertainment; cable, satellite and RBOC TV services; and pure-play internet and mobile services, all of which posted double-digit growth.

“We are in the midst of a major shift in the media landscape that is being fueled by changes in technology, end-user behaviors and the response by brand marketers and communications companies,” said James Rutherfurd, EVP and managing director at VSS.

“We expect these shifts to continue over the next five years, as time and place shifting accelerate while consumers and businesses utilize more digital media alternatives, strengthening the new media pull model at the expense of the traditional media push model.”

More data from the VSS forecast (via MediaPost):

• Internet ad spending will reach $61.98 billion in 2011, when it will surpass newspapers to become the largest ad medium.
• Consumers spent, on average, 1,631 hours in 2006 with consumer-supported media (e.g., web, videogames), up 19.8% from 2001.
• Time spent with ad-supported media (e.g., broadcast television, magazines) was down 6.3% from 2001, averaging 1,899 hours per person in 2006.
• Ad spending on pure-play internet sites totaled $15.1 billion in 2006; spending is forecast to grow at a 2006-2011 CAGR of 18.2%, reaching $34.78 billion in 2011.
• Ad spend on traditional-media internet sites will growth at a 25.79% CAGR, growing from $8.585 billion in 2006 to $27.2 billion in 2011.

• National internet advertising - search, display, sponsorships, etc. - is projected to grow from $16.9 billion in 2006 to $38.9 billion in 2011, or a CAGR of 18.2%.

• Blog, podcast and RSS ad spend is projected to reach $1.14 billion in 2011, from $0.78 billion in 2006 - accounting for the highest CAGR: 70.9%.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/communications-spend-to-reach-1-trillion-in-08-internet-to-surpass-all-ad-segments-in-2011-1206/?camp=newsletter&src=mc&type=textlink

The Power of Negative Keywords, eight (8) tips

Many people wait too long before really delving into Negative Keyword research for their Google AdWords campaigns. This is a mistake!

Negative Keywords have more of an impact than most people realize.

Not only do Negative Keywords save you money by minimizing clicks from visitors who really are not interested in your product or service, but they increase your Clickthrough Rate (CTR) and Quality Score! This decrease in 'bad' impression will automatically give you higher quality clicks that can have a real impact on your conversion rate.

Negative Keywords can be hard to find, but the search is worth it.

Here are eight tips and tricks to getting the most out of your Negative Keyword research:

1. Run a keyword report for all keywords within your account. Sort the report by impressions and focus your research on the keywords receiving the highest impressions.

2. Use the Negative Keyword tab of the Google Keyword Tool

3. Use a keyword database tools such as Trellian or Wordtracker.

4. See what comes up organically for your high impression keywords. Maybe there is a restaurant or a famous book name with your keyword in it? Add it as a negative!

5. Use a thesaurus! Since Google's Broad Match can match you on "highly relevant keywords, including synonyms and related phrases" it's important to research these synonyms.

6. Do some industry research. You may find many people are looking for courses or books on your product and not your actual product.

7. If you have Google Analytics or any other Web Analytics reports study your organic keyword reports for new negatives.

8. Install the handy Keyword Tracking Script Michael Harrison (my coworker :-) ) created. It allows you to see exactly what people are typing in before they see your PPC ad within Google Analytics. He has installed this on many of my client accounts, and now I can't live without it!

So Negative Keyword research can be tedious and tiring. You may only find 5 new negatives and might think your hard labor wasn't worth it. Rest assured, your efforts will pay off!

I have seen impressions decrease by 30% within a client account and conversions conversely increase by 2% with just a handful of negatives.

By Page Christenbury, PPC Specialist

ROI Revolution

Newspaper Online Ad Expenditures Up 19%, Print Ads Down 10%

Advertising expenditures for newspaper websites increased 19.3%, to $796 million, in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, according to preliminary estimates from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

The increase is the 13th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth for online newspaper advertising since NAA started reporting online ad spending in 2004.

Newspaper website advertising in 2Q07 accounted for 7% of total newspaper ad spending, compared with 5.4% in 2Q06, according to the NAA data.

“Newspaper websites continue to have a positive impact on the industry’s revenue stream during a time of transition,” said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm. “As newspapers transform themselves into multimedia platforms offering a diverse portfolio of print and digital products, publishers continue to deliver…content that makes newspapers the most trusted source of news and information.”

“Advertisers know that newspaper websites are ideal for reaching online users with the most attractive demographics,” he added.

Total advertising expenditures at newspaper companies were $11.3 billion in the second quarter - an 8.6% decrease from 2Q06. Spending for print ads in newspapers totaled $10.5 billion, down 10.2% from the year-earlier period.

Sturm chalked up the print-ad revenue decreases to “cyclical swings in the US economy, as well as structural changes in the businesses of major advertisers.”

Among the major print components in the second quarter, classified advertising fell 16.4% to $3.4 billion. Retail declined 6.4% to $5.2 billion, and national was down 7.9%, coming in at $1.8 billion.

Within the classified print category in the second quarter, real estate advertising fell 20.7% to $966.8 million. Recruitment dropped 18.5% to $995.4 million. Automotive was down 19.3% to $756.3 million. All other classifieds were down 1.8% to $716.1 million.

Quarterly and annual ad spending numbers in their entirety are available at the NAA site.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/print/newspaper-online-ad-expenditures-up-19-print-ads-down-10-1471/?camp=newsletter&src=mc&type=textlink