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%.

Pinterest Holds a Plethora of Possibility

Personally, I feel as if there are three types of people in the world. Avid Pinterest Pinners, people who draw a blank when Pinterest is mentioned, and men who roll their eyes at how much time their female counterpart spends browsing Pinterest. I happen to be the first type of person. Pinterest is, by far, my favorite social network.

Pinterest is a website that allows you to share, collect, store, and organize ideas that you find online. Users can scroll through their news feed to see Pins (or ideas) that their friends have saved as well as Pins “picked for you” based off interests and “promoted pins” paid for by advertisers. From there a Pinner can save a Pin themselves onto Boards that they control and organize. Think of boards as online folders where users save ideas like recipes, outfits, vacation ideas, wedding plans, home décor, and so much more.

Now that you’ve got the gist of the Pinterest world, let’s take a look at some fascinating statistics:

• According to DMR Digital Statistics, there are 176 million registered Pinterest users, 85% of those users are female.
• Of all US social media users, 30% use Pinterest.
• Sixty-seven percent of Pinterest users are under the age of 40.
• While the male population is small on Pinterest, in 2015 the representation of male users grew 120%.
• Sixty-six percent of users say they use Pinterest to inspire them.
• The percentage of millennial users on Pinterest is 67%.
• Seventy-nine percent of millennials use Pinterest to teach them to do things, 84% of millennials use Pinterest to discover things related to health and fitness, and 80% of millennials use Pinterest to help them find things to buy.
• According to USA Today, 80% of users access the network via mobile device

If you’re an advertiser, you’re probably eager to reach this specific and captive audience. Well, lucky for you, now you can! Pinterest has recently unrolled their advertising platform to small and medium sized businesses allowing the “mom and pop” shops of the world to reach Pinners.

Pinterest has many advantages to advertising on their social network.

1. According to Social Marketing Writing, the half-life of a Pin is 3.5 months which is 1,680 times longer than a Facebook post!
2. The audience on Pinterest is actively seeking ideas, information, creativity, advice, etc. Personally, I go to Pinterest just as often, if not more, than Google when searching for a product to help me complete the task at hand.
3. Promoted Pins look nearly identical to organic Pins so users don’t see them as intrusive or annoying.
4. Pinterest allows “cinematic” Pins on mobile which play with video advertising and are highly eye catching for mobile users. 
5. Pinterest is growing and growing and growing

What more could you need? It’s time to start Pinning, reaching your audience, and raising that ROI.

The Possibilities of a Simple Cinemagraph

The (unofficial) definition of cinemagraph is, “a still photograph in which a minor and repeated movement occurs” according to Wikipedia. The art of meshing photography and videography together was pioneered by photographers Kevin Burg and Jaime Beck in 2011 who invented the term cinemagraph.

Images with looping movement are eye catching, interesting, and noticeable. From my personal experience, I have not seen many cinemagraphs used in the advertising world, but I think it’s a huge possibility.

Michael Aaron Flicker authored an article on AdvertisingAge stating ways that he believes advertisers can use cinemagraphs to tell a story to their viewers. First, keep the cinemagraph “short, sweet, and meaningful”. A pouring drink, a flickering fireplace, or a breeze blowing through a model’s hair would all be appropriate.

Second, tell a story with the movement. Take a typical photograph of a vacationer lounging on the beach; now add movement in the waves to make the viewer actually feel as if they are at the beach. A small movement goes a long way.

One significant benefit for advertisers is that the cost is likely to be lower than that of a video advertisement. Cinemagraphs are essentially an animated GIF.

With that, I would love to see more cinemagraph’s in the future as I scroll through my web browser. Maybe one day cinemagraph will even get an official definition!

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.