Search Scene

Introducing: Vertical Search Works’ Security Integrity Process

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:06:49 -0400

When we first developed VSW FeatureLink™, our semantic ad matching solution, the team immediately began thinking of how to take it one step further. We wanted to complement FeatureLink with a process that verified the highest standards of the online advertising and publishing community were being met.

Today, we announced the establishment of our Security Integrity Process (SIP), which our customers can use to evaluate ad impressions based on site quality and brand appropriateness. SIP is performed for each site that is added to Vertical Search Works’ publisher network and are monitored for content in the following categories: adult content, hate speech, weapons, illegal drugs, tobacco, alcohol, spyware/malware and offensive language. The goal is to allow brands to advertise with more confidence and provide publishers with benchmarks to ensure the quality of inventory.

As part of the SIP verification process, our publishing partners are carefully selected to ensure they meet partner standards. We’ll verify the quality of every single click and we’ll terminate relationships with publishers if the ad impressions are below VSW’s target quality level. If suspicious clicks are detected, they are discarded and the charge is voided.

Similarly, our publishers are protected through SIP as advertisers are carefully selected for placement on our network. Every advert is personally reviewed and analyzed by our semantic engine to make sure it doesn’t carry questionable or malicious content.

We’re proud of our latest development as we believe SIP is a step in the right direction to combat click fraud and ensure traffic quality, which we know are ongoing concerns for both publishers and advertisers.

Our team is hard at work with new announcements to be expected in the coming weeks, so be sure to stay tuned for more!

Tips for Success in Semantic Search

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:32:00 -0400

Reaching online audiences is oftentimes the core focus of a business’ marketing efforts. Web properties, publishers and advertisers must fully take advantage of the new technology to create more seamless experiences for customers in order to execute impactful and lucrative campaigns for themselves. Why waste your efforts creating campaigns that can’t decipher if “java” is referring to what we drink in the morning or the computer programming language? Using semantics to understand the context of content will always be more accurate and more relevant than simply relying on keywords. New innovations in semantic technology allow this to be possible.

So, how can you ensure that your website and online advertising campaigns are equipped for success in the world of semantic advertising?

Here are 6 things to keep in mind:

Develop clear copy. Communicate who you are and what you offer so your ads can be accurately aligned with publisher page content and so prospective consumers know what to expect from your website and brand.
Create Relevant Landing Pages. The success of a paid search campaigns goes beyond the ad creative, landing pages are just as important. Creating landing pages with effective images, call to action and description copy is essential to the success of your campaign, in fact it can influence targeting capabilities. Semantic technology not only scans publisher content, it also scans your landing page content to extract the information to more accurately match your products with publisher content.
Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. Use images in your paid-search ads that will appeal to consumer interests. After all, paid, semantic-search advertising shouldn’t just be about the clicks, it should also be viewed as a chance to build your brand and generate awareness.
Utilize geo-targeting and semantic ad matching. Combining geographic targeting with semantic ad matching gives advertisers an edge by ensuring that ads are targeted to a local market AND on specific content pages that are relevant to your industry and your consumers. This precise targeted experience will inevitably create more time spent with your brand online and can help drive traffic in store when combined with timely promotions.
Be dynamic and flexible. Run a few different campaigns that target different segments or geographical locations of your audience. Don’t be afraid to change things up (image, copy, landing pages and more) if you see that one of your ads is getting a better response than another.
Incorporate social media links on your landing pages. Capturing consumers is all about timing. In today’s socialized world many consumers want to get to know more about you, so instead of filling out a form they may opt join your social community. Giving them the option to join your social pages can be very powerful for future communications and promotions.

By employing these techniques, you can successfully benefit from ad-matching platforms that automatically discover relationships and understand similarities between ad content and publisher web pages – satisfying the demand for additional clicks, increasing brand reach, and ensuring placement next to relevant content. Implementing semantic technology eliminates the need for advertisers to select and manage keywords, which we all know is far too complex and time consuming.

At VSW, our proprietary semantic solutions bring a level of contextual intelligence to our customers’ advertising campaigns and publishers pages by processing information more like the human brain – the technology understands the content on a whole web page rather than a single keyword. By using these tips as a resource, you are now armed with information that will help your products and service to be better aligned with publisher content, which creates a more robust customer experience and elevates your brand even further.

Tips for Creating Impactful Landing Pages

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:30:39 -0400

6 Tips to Help Your Business Get Started On Mobile

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:30:13 -0400

Check out what our clients are saying about us in our latest video!

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:41:57 -0400

Questions from our Clients

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 07:00:26 -0400

Q) Why is it important to look at the value per visit as well as website traffic, CPA/CPL?

A) Simply put, you need to look at the entire picture to understand what is working for you based on your Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). An increase in traffic means more eyeballs and more exposure for your brand. An increase in repeat visits can help you identify interested consumers who are at a peak purchase consideration time. Measuring CPA’s is important to look at in terms of total number of transactions, but you should really be looking at value per visit. PVP (revenues / visit) can help you identify your most valuable pages and visitors. All of these can help create better optimization strategies

4 Essential Tips to Digital Marketing Success

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:00:35 -0400

Must Read Marketing Insights from the Web!

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:00:40 -0400

Search Engine Land:4 Mobile Search Trends Tackled At SMX West 2013

Search Engine Watch: Google AdWords vs. Yahoo Bing Network – A PPC Performance Comparison

Business to Community: Time For An SEO Spring Clean? Five Steps To Better Rankings

What Can You Do to Prepare for a World Dominated By the Mobile Consumer?

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:00:55 -0400

A number of our clients have asked what what they can do to start advertising on mobile. So we’ve put together the following tips to help business owners and marketers better position theirselves for the world powered by mobile consumers:

Location matters – use it & infuse it. Make sure you indicate your location on your website and your entire digital outreach program. Be sure to include both local and regional information to maximize your business appeal.
Create messages that respond to who, what, when, where. This makes the information you present to your consumer “fool proof” by keeping it simple and to the point.
Be descriptive and engaging. Don’t just tell consumers what your product is, make sure you tell them what your product can do for them and outline the benefits.
Showcase recommendations and customer reviews. Showcasing customer feedback on your site is a great way to not only build up your SEO profile but it’s a great way to gain trust from consumers who are considering purchasing your product. If you have a feedback tool already enabled don’t be afraid to showcase it. If not, it’s time to start exploring a mechanism that you can include on your site.
Develop linked user paths through descriptions. Developing a better internal linking strategy does double duty – it keeps users on your site longer and it also can help boost your SEO rankings thus making your business more visible over time.

Questions from Our Clients

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:00:50 -0400

Q) Should I tweak the messaging of my VSWFeatureLink campaign over time?

A) Yes! The mindset of consumers changes over time as does your product offering. Springtime, Mother’s Day and Memorial Day are great opportunities to play off of consumer excitement for this season and the upcoming holidays . Align your products with these holidays and play off of seasonal shopping trends. For example, “Just 1 week left to show your mom you care”. Change up the messaging as it gets closer to the day to play off of consumer guilt and last minute holiday shoppers.

Do you have question? Send it our way – email us.

Why You Should Think Twice Before Pausing Your PPC Campaign

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:01:07 -0400

Digital marketing is constantly evolving, it seems like every day we wake up to new trends, new tactics and new debates regarding which tools are effective and which tools are not. Paid search marketing is often at the crux of these debates. . There are hundreds of case studies and articles that emerge daily all contributing to the “GREAT PAID SEARCH DEBATE”. Take, for example, the following: “Days” or “eBay Says Much Paid Search on Google and Bing Is Ineffective”.

Over the last few weeks the PPC debate spiked with the publication of eBay’s case study claiming that their paid search campaign was ineffective, which was contradicted by Harvard Business Review’s (HBR) “Advertising Analytics 2.0” in which a major consumer products company reported that paid search drove 25 percent of sales while making up only 15 percent of the overall digital marketing budget (note this study took into account placement beyond search engines).

Our summary on the debate is like a good fitness program. The time it takes to reach optimal performance and the results you get will vary, but you have to put in the effort to see the results.

In short, here are a few reasons why you can’t afford to stop your PPC/CPM efforts:

1. Brand Awareness

Any brand, whether large or small, knows that they must continue to generate brand awareness to become, and stay, relevant. To generate awareness you need to go beyond search engine results pages and opt for ad placements on the sites your consumers know and trust.

For example, a health and beauty advertiser with spring specials should opt for a solution like VSW FeatureLink™ that can place them on relevant spring fashion and beauty articles on sites like Divine Caroline. This type of placement helps create stronger brand associations and awareness with consumers.

Bottom line, your ad(s) needs to be positioned for discovery at the pinnacle point of content consumption whether your consumers are online or on mobile.

2. Ad Assists

Would you cut cardio out of your spring training program? No, because cardio is essential to any fitness regimen. The same applies to paid search marketing. The HBR article previously mentioned states that, “analytics reveal that ad assists from online banners and ppc ad placements show a 12 percent jump in search related activity”. A savvy retailer knows the value of “ad assists”, in that all aspects of a digital marketing program are intertwined. Ad assists can be an essential part of moving consumers down the purchase funnel as discussed in Winning the Zero Moment of Truth, that states, “Shoppers use an average of 10.7 different sources in their decision-making process, conducting online research even for small purchases like mascara and cough syrup”.

Bottom line, your PPC campaigns have a ripple effect. Your ads do not live in a silo and they can have a big impact on your business when viewed in conjunction with all your marketing efforts.

3. Real-time Messaging

An effective fitness routine requires that you change it up in order to drive results. An effective marketing campaign must be equipped with tools that allow retailers to switch up their promotional message in an instant.

Bottom line, there is no better tool than paid search advertising which gives marketers the ability to change images, ad copy and adjustments for optimization in real-time. Print, TV and even display are incapable of doing this as efficiently.

Summary

The above are just a few reasons why you should think twice before stalling your paid search program. It isn’t a silver bullet but, used effectively and in conjunction with other marketing strategies, the value of paid search is undeniable.

For more tips on how to make your paid search campaigns call us at 212.967.9502 or email us at customerservice@vswks.com. We are always happy to help!

Written by: Kerstin Recker, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Vertical Search Works

Discover 5 Ways that Semantic Ad Matching can Positively Impact Your Business

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:32:00 -0400

Discover 5 Ways that Semantic Ad Matching can Positively Impact Your Business:

Does your PPC campaign need a little sprucing up? Check out...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:37:00 -0400

Does your PPC campaign need a little sprucing up? Check out these 12 PPC spring cleaning tips that can help get you headed in the right direction.

How Does Mobile Search Impact Day to Day Marketing? Part 2

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Targeting- the key to a good campaign

As new ways to reach consumers emerge through new technologies there is a lot that Madison Avenue must grapple with and adapt to. Solely following the rules above and throwing all of your eggs into the online basket will not quite be enough. The advertising industry still has a business that is worth approximately $200 billion - spanning print, TV, magazines, radio, and outdoor media. Online display, meanwhile, is currently only worth about $15 billion. Most organizations will simply follow the money, and so campaigns for “old” media still take up the bulk of time spent in devising a marketing strategy.

However, as marketing dollars continue to shift to online and more effective ways to reach consumers through online channels emerge, Madison Avenue will shift their focus accordingly. Throughout history there has always been a group of unreasonable individuals that challenged where things are and where they are going. For example: many people said the car wouldn’t replace the horse or that TV couldn’t have advertising every ten minutes or that people wouldn’t need the ability t o speak to each other on the go.

The pundits will continue to exercise their views regarding new products that lead to new experiences. Hindsight tells us that pundits are often exactly the ones that get it wrong- but in the end, it’s not about wrong or right. Success in the new search will be about marketers’ and ad technology providers’ ability to continue to evolve. Like any new medium, things are not perfect when they first hit the market; they evolve and mature over time.

A greater shift to online advertising requires more advanced capabilities from digital and mobile ads. An elevated level of creative that embraces interactivity and adaptive design will emerge that will appeal to consumer’s desires to access more information via their smart devices and the advertisements they encounter. Most mobile content is viewed now not only through the mobile browser, but also through apps. Free content isn’t free- the price for users comes in the shape of ad-supported content. With publisher-specific and user-customized news apps finding new traction, getting onto those apps’ ad rolls will be key for

advertisers as users shift from keyboard and mouse to touch and swipe. Importantly, the ads presented in these apps must have relevance to the apps’ content, or the user will become fed up with both the app developer AND the advertiser. And when the user is fed up, it leads to the worst possible outcome for all involved- they delete the app.

Putting it all together

At present, the mobile search market is completely limitless. But rules are starting to round into shape. The winners will be chosen from firms that can provide compelling, well -targeted content, target users who use touch screens for the majority of their time on the Web, and those who understand how to mix their campaigns across many different mediums.

Advertising Q&A

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:00:38 -0400

Q) What is the best way that I can utilize social media to complement my paid search efforts?

A) Social and paid search are great stand alone marketing tools but when used together they can be very powerful. The trick is to ensure that efforts on each of the platforms complement each other. For example, you could use your existing paid search campaign to support a promotion you are having for your Facebook fans. This allows you to achieve a number of objectives: Drive “Likes” to your Facebook page, advertise your promotion, expose your brand and create a fan base.

If you are having a special promotion that is only available on your site you can use all your channels to promote the same message which means you create one consistent message on Facebook, Twitter, and paid search. Each of these efforts should drive customers to the promotion in order to achieve maximum results. How you leverage paid search and social will depend on the unique marketing goals of your company.

Do you have a question for our digital media experts? Why not Tweet us?

5 Tips for Marketing On Mobile: So how can you best incorporate...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:01:00 -0400

5 Tips for Marketing On Mobile:

So how can you best incorporate the lessons of those ads? The following five rules will help companies navigate the new landscape of the mobile Web, to best position themselves to attract consumers that have vastly different expectations than desktop users and traditional search applications:

Location matters – use it & infuse it. Make sure you indicate your location on your website and your entire digital outreach program. Be sure to include both local and regional information to maximize your appeal.

Create messages that respond to who, what, when, where. Clear and concise messaging makesv the information you present to your consumer “fool proof” by keeping it simple and to the point.

Be descriptive and engaging. Don’t just tell consumers what your product is. Make sure you tell them what your product can do for them, and outline the benefits.

Showcase recommendationsv & customer reviews. Showcasing consumer feedback on your site is not only a great way to build up your SEO profile, but it’s also a great way to gain trust from consumers who are considering purchasing your product. If you have a feedback tool already enabled don’t be afraid to showcase it. If not, it’s time to start exploring a feedback mechanism that you can include on your site.

Develop linked user paths through descriptions. Developing a better internal linking strategy does double duty – it keeps users on your site longer and it can also help boost your SEO rankings thus making you more visible over time.

How Does Mobile Search Impact Day to Day Marketing? Part 1

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:37:00 -0400

Smaller Screens Require Specialized Answers

While desktop search is dominated by one company, Google, mobile search is currently a “Wild West” with plenty of undiscovered territory and a different set of user behaviors to be decoded. For advertisers and publishers in this new mobile frontier, the question of traffic retention requires a different answer. The search of the future - both in engines and ads - needs to be more anticipatory, better integrated; and must deliver compelling, useful on-demand results for the user to remain on your page or app.

The current state of play

The Web search game has been decided, and the decision for most users is one of convenience. At the beginning of the year, according to Search Engine Watch, Google accounted for 66.2 percent (up from 65.9 percent in December 2011) of all searches, with Bing and Yahoo well behind.

For Google, the war was won with distribution. As a recent study by comScore shows, browsers and default engines narrowed the search gap. By winning the race to be the default browser engine, Google stormed the search market before any competitors really had a chance to get going. But user patterns are currently undergoing a massive sea change. At the moment 50 percent of Americans own at least one mobile device that can access the Web. Over the next decade, 4 to 6 billion people will use a tablet, smartphone, or other mobile device as their primary access point to the Internet.

Applying the lessons of the Web to the Phone

Aside from the long-term explosion of number of devices owned, search volume will be rapidly migrating to mobile over the next five years. According to a recent BIA/Kelsey report, 30 percent of all searches could nclude a location-based comment, thus making the GPS-enabled smartphone the clear “weapon of choice”for most users moving forward.

The first phase of the online advertising world was viewed through the lens of the desktop. Since then, access to the Web has been continually evolving as new devices emerge and change the way we access and interact with the Web. In the very near future smartphones will have 3 to 4 times the number of desktop users worldwide. The number of users who access the Web will multiply by the same fold.

Where two paths diverge

Of course, as the audience splits, the user expectations for Web and Mobile are vastly different. Mobile, in its infancy, has traditionally reflected a complimentary experience to the desktop, but this is quickly transforming to meet the shift in on demand, on-the-go user behavior. The sit back and browse experience won’t cut it for users on the move; adaption of the Web on mobile will become highly infused with location-based filters coupled with highly interactive and adaptive features, from “swipe and scroll” interfaces, to the next evolution of voice-acted responses.

Developing ads for the new search reality

Like any emerging medium, there are flaws that can arise. Think about the evolution of TV ads. There is a noticeable difference from the ads of the 1950’s to what we see today. The history of advertising on traditional platforms tells us there are good and bad campaigns. For earlier age. But the reality is, like many things, the advertisements get more robust over time.

There have been a number of great recent campaigns in the marketplace. Two that especially stand out are interactive video ads, such as the “Skittles Touch” ad:

USA Network | White Collar | HTML5 Gamified Banner Ad on the iPad from Glow Interactive on Vimeo.

foodnetwork: Recipe of the Day: Bobby Flay’s Easy Fish Tacos

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:14:40 -0400

foodnetwork:

Recipe of the Day: Bobby Flay’s Easy Fish Tacos

Video

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 16:53:59 -0400

Who is Benefiting from Facebook’s Graph Search?

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:00:00 -0500

It is a well known fact that search ads convert better than display ads. When a user searches for something, he indicates his immediate interest much better than by simply looking at a particular page.

Facebook collects tons of data on people’s interests, likes and relationships. Until recently, the only way to monetize this content was to display ads next to a person’s page on Facebook.

Enter: Graph Search. At first glance, it seems that Graph Search might be an excellent vehicle to monetize Facebook’s content. Graph Search can qualify a user better than ever since it stands at the intersection between a user’s current intent (the search terms) and his connections interests (the graph).

A number of applications can benefit greatly from Graph Search. One example is recruitment, where a recruiter may find potential candidates by narrowing down occupation, location and specific interests. Unfortunately, Facebook is not perceived as “The” professional networking tools. Its competitor, LinkedIn, is the preferred platform to manage your professional career and relations. The fact is that receiving a business requests to connect on Facebook feels like meeting your boss in your favorite bar: it’s awkward.

Another application for Facebook Graph Search is product marketing. It can be a great tool to learn more about the consumers who use your product. Finding what consumers have in common will help develop micro-marketing campaigns to cater to a specific demographic.

Those applications and many others will depend on how much data users decide to share. Facebook has an interest in sharing your personal data with other parties, but Facebookers may not like the result. How would you like your name to be the top in a result list about “people who like to get drunk”? You can find some embarrassing questions and results on Actual Graph Search Results on Tumblr. In the end, users may choose to make more data private to avoid being cast in undesirable ways.

As a new capability, Graph Search is bound to get bashed in the early stages. As it matures and we find genuine applications for this new way to search, we will add it to the toolset we use to explore the digital world around us. As more people use it, and more revenue are associated with it, one problem will eventually arise: search results rigging. Once companies understand how Graph Search is used, they will develop SEO strategies and find ways to make their results move to the top of the list. The usefulness of the results may be greatly reduced once this happens.

Written by: Gerald Burnand, CTO at Vertical Search Works `