Dominate Digital Forces Look to Continue Their Growth

As eMarketer projects digital ad spend/revenue for the next few years, Facebook and Google look to hold onto their top ranks. Ad spend in the United States looks to grow by 15.9% equaling $83 billion in revenue. Both Facebook and Google look to increase their ad share percentages by 32.1 percent and 14.8 percent respectively.

Overall, Google wins the gold by owning 40.7 percent of the US digital ad market with Facebook settling for silver with 19.7 percent. However, when that’s broken down by search and display the tables turn just a bit.

Google still takes home the prize when it comes to search with an estimated $28.5 billion in ad revenue for 2017 (77.8%), but Facebook comes in on top when we’re talking about display. Facebook brings in $16.3 billion in US digital display ad dollars making up 39.1 percent of the market. Both Google’s search and Facebook’s display revenues are expected to continue growing through 2019.

When looking at mobile, the two digital powerhouses combined accumulate for 57 percent of mobile spend with Google acquiring 32.4 percent and Facebook earning 24.6 percent.

The below chart shows multiple digital providers and their ad share percentage projections through 2019 while focusing specifically on digital mobile ad revenue.

Snap Inc., the inventors of Snapchat, is expected to see the most dramatic increase over the next few years. However, their share is still small and far from the dominating digital forces.

Other platforms like Twitter, Yahoo, and Yellow Pages are expected to decline in the near future. 

The "Cans" and "Can'ts" of Google Mobile Ads to Look for in 2017

Google has made quite the headlines lately with their new page layout excluding right column ads, their new ad format allowing for more text space, and now their restrictions on landing page ads for mobile coming in 2017.

Greg Sterling reports to Marketing Land regarding these Google changes. Google has chosen to penalize ad ranking if an ad’s landing page includes “intrusive interstitials”. 

These intrusions are anything that includes a pop-up which blocks the content of the page, a standalone interstitial that has to be dismissed before viewing content, or an above the fold layout for an ad with the content below the fold.

However, few intrusions will be allowed including those in responses to legal obligation like cookie usage, age verification, or those top banner ads requesting app downloads.

With all of Google’s changes regarding ad formatting, it’s important to not forget the importance of landing page user experience. In 2017, it’ll be more important than ever. 

AdWords Flips the Script on the Well-Known Ad Specs

“If it’s not broken, why fix it?” might be one of the worst phrases to say to anyone involved in the advertising industry. A more accurate phrase would be, “if you’re early you’re on time, if you’re on time you’re late, if you’re late you’re running”. Well, that’s what my high school softball coach used to tell me, but hey, it applies to advertising as well.

In this case, Google AdWords would be running several laps for being so late to the game.

Anyone familiar with the traditional 25-35-35 character rule for AdWords has probably already taken note of this recent change. If you’re also late to the game, here’s the 4-1-1: Google has traded in its 15 year old design for a new and improved model. This new model lets advertisers have two headlines of 30 characters each followed by one description line of 80 characters.

This facelift allows for more prominent headlines, longer description line, and a relevant display URL that is automatically extracted from the final URL of the ad.

So what do we do with all the added real estate? Google suggests that advertisers focus on the headline saying, “big blue headlines are more prominent than your description text” which drive clicks and increase performance. Google also suggests that the second headline be cohesive with the rest of the ad. Use this space to deliver a call to action that previously was placed in the description like, “Attend Today’s Event” or “Sign up Here”.

So, why the sudden change after fifteen years? Well, Google announced that through their tests, “some advertisers have reported increases in click-through rates of up to 20 percent”.

The change might be hard though… especially for folks like Kirk who suddenly feels like he’s on an island in the middle of the ocean with no outside contact, that’s rough Kirk, real rough.

Google and Bing: Search Engine Giants Banning Risky Ads for Customer Safety

Google, the giant of all giant search engines, has decided that losing $34.5 million in desktop ad revenue (roughly .05% of all ad revenue) is worth helping customers avoid potentially harmful situations. Myself, and many other respondents of this action, agree.

Google announced that as of July 13, 2016, “we will no longer allow ads for loans where the repayment is due within 60 days of the date of issue. In the U.S. we are also banning ads for loans with an APR of 36% or higher.” Google has deemed these products as “deceptive” and “harmful” and wishes to protect their customers as best they can.

However, Google is not the first to take this stance. In August 2005, Facebook put a ban on ads for payday loans. Google is also not the only company taking a stance. Microsoft’s Bing will no longer accept ads from third-party tech support services. Bing claims that these ads often tend to look like they come from tech companies themselves, but are really third-parties that often lead to scams.

Both Google and Bing aim to direct searchers away from harm, deceit, scams, and fraud. Google does still allow for third-party tech support service advertisements and Bing does allow payday loan ads. It would not be a surprise to see the companies jumping on board with each other’s bans as well.

Despite the millions of dollars of ad revenue forfeited by these search engine companies, I (as a search engine user) greatly appreciate their dedication to providing the best service with the least room for unwanted activity for their customers.

Continually, this ban should provide marketers with a greater sense of security and authenticity. Customers now know that potentially dangerous ads are blocked by these search sites and that ads not blocked are welcomed and safe. 

Yahoo Looks to Drop in Ad Revenue

Have you ever heard someone say, “Yahoo it”? No? Me either. However, “Google it” is a phrase heard frequently. Google has morphed itself into a “noun” and has benefited greatly; Yahoo tells a different story.

Speaking in terms of ad revenue, eMarketer expects Yahoo to drop significantly in 2016 while Google continues to grow. Yahoo’s search ad revenue is expected to decline by 12.7% to $1.41 billion while Google looks to increase their revenue by 8.2% landing at $47.57 billion this year.

On the other side of digital ad revenue, Yahoo also expects their display ad revenues to drop. The graph below shows worldwide display ad revenues:

Currently, Facebook holds the number one spot with $22.37 projected display ad revenues in 2016 with Google coming in second with about half of that. Yahoo is the only company projected to decline in display ad dollars in 2016 with an expected dip of 15.1%. Meanwhile, companies like Alibaba, Baidu, Twitter, and Facebook are expected to increase their revenues by over 30%.

Google's Changing, Are You?

Recently, Google has launched a changed page view for its search results. Taking a look at the changes, three things are catching my eye, The Good, The Bad, and The (not so) Ugly.

The Good

According to Alistair Dent’s article, What Google’s New Layout Means for Search Marketers”, iProspect UK has found that top banner ads receive a click-through rate that is 14 times that of the CTR received from Google’s right column ads. This leads to wasted impressions on the right hand column which leads to low quality scores for those ads which lead to less impressions all together. In a gist, more banner ads equal more clicks.

The Bad

Google is reducing the number of ads per page to seven down from the previous 11. For advertisers this can be seen as a bad change due to a typical supply and demand equation; with the supply going down and the demand remaining the same (or even increasing) the price will likely go up. However, another way to look at it is to notice that there will now be more top-of-page ads which give a higher availability to those ads.

The (not so) Ugly

For this one, let’s look at an example snapshot from Dent’s article of what a search result page will now look like:

Not a ton has changed except for the fact that there is only one organic search above the fold in this scenario. Because of this, the balance between SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click) is now increasingly important. The new look is likely to be uglier for the SEO ads that are fighting for that top above the fold result whereas PPC ads have a prettier view as they have a chance of better chance of being placed before the organic results.

Anyone in the industry will tell you that advertising is ever-changing and to keep up with the pace, advertisers must be ever-adapting. As side ads become a thing of the past, advertisers can expect to set a higher bid for their ads, strive for a placement in the expanded top ad section, eliminate ineffective impressions, and adjust their PPC and SEO campaigns accordingly. 

SEO of The Future

Just when marketers begin to really understand Search Engine Optimization, it changes. Not a huge surprise as it is one of the leading tools in digital marketing, an ever changing apparatus.

Christine Birkner reports for Marketing News on the six new rules for SEO in 2016. Birkner sites the director of audience development at Moz, Cyrus Shepard, as he discusses the declining importance of simply getting a click on an ad. Shepard notes that advertisers are now able to track a viewer’s activity after a click, making the activity following the click more important than the click itself. Marketers must have a clear intention of what they desire from users to be able to track success more closely.

Next, is the diminishing importance of keywords for a SEO campaign. As Google’s technology improves, the ability to decipher between quality matches and flukes is becoming simpler. Today, instead of having to put a keyword multiple times within your ad/article/website, Google is able to better determine the relevance to a consumers’ search query. With that, search queries are typically (75%) between three and five words long which can help marketers know what to include in their content.

User experience is becoming more and more important as the amount of information in the digital world continues to expand. Original content is far better than re-used content. It’s as if the consumer is a self-centered teenager who believes the world revolves around them; the more marketers can make a user’s experience precise and tailored to their liking, the better.

In the same way that original content is superior, unique images are preferred by users as well.

Martin Laetsch (director of online marketing at Act-One Software Inc.) has discovered that there has been a significant difference in the size of articles that are successful as of late.  Two or three years ago, a 300 word page was a pretty common length. Now, Laetsch is noticing the popularity of 1,200 to 1,500 words performing better in search.

Optimizing for mobile might be an obvious rule of SEO, but it is a very important one. With users consistently utilizing mobile devices, marketers are required to adjust.

Birkner quotes Shepard saying, “In the past, it [SEO] was about marketers trying to promote what they wanted people to see. Today it’s about delivering what people actually want to see…” SEO is fitting in with other forms of marketing by encompassing the attitude that it’s all about the audience. Laetsch puts it well when he says, “It doesn’t matter how high you rank if your target audience goes to your site and they’re not happy.”

While clicks are great, it’s what happens after the click that truly matters.