Marketing Pilgrim

In case you’re new around here (meaning the Internet), let me just tell you: sometimes, comment boards usually devolve into vile gross-out fests attacking the content of the page, other commenters, or random political officials. (Not here, of course [meaning Marketing Pilgrim]—here our wonderful commentators always add value, and we love you for it. Comment today!)

YouTube, however, is fairly typical. It seems like the average video there receives approximately 2% of its comments on the actual content, 48% calling it various levels of ‘awesome’ and 57% questioning the parentage, politics and/or brainpower of the video’s creators, stars and/or anyone else who has ever lived. (And yes, that’s 107%—the comments are also largely illogical.) But today, YouTube is introducing a new page layout to try to change all that.

.Fox, Fox International Channels’ global online ad network, commissioned comScore to study the effectiveness of video ads on brand engagement in the UK last year. Four industries, four campaigns and 300 million impressions later, the results are in: video ads provide “significant uplift” to visitor numbers and advertiser search queries, as MediaPost reports.

And by “significant,” we mean significant. Over a four-week period, the average uplift for the four campaigns after users viewed a video ad was a seven-fold increase in site visitors. Consumers were also three times as likely to search on brand terms or relevant generic terms after viewing a video ad.

In the press release, comScore said:

With the introduction of the iPad to the marketplace on April 3rd there has been some strong activity from advertisers looking to get a spot on many publishers’ iPad apps. This kind of activity is a testament to the power of Apple and its ability to create a stir with its new products.

The New York Times Reports:

Getting ready for the April 3 iPad introduction, FedEx has bought advertising space on the iPad applications from Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. Chase Sapphire, a credit card for the high-end market, has bought out The New York Times’s iPad advertising units for 60 days after the introduction.

Spring is the time of year where everything changes. New life begins. It used to be the time of year when new homes were sold. It apparently is also the time of year for market research to blossom in the online marketing space. Everyone and their brother is coming out with something that proves something else to someone. If you are a regular reader here you know that I am a high skeptic on these things.

So not to be outdone, SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) has released findings from research conducted with Econsultancy in its “SEMPO’s State of Search Engine Marketing Report 2010”. The report ((this link is for a purchase of the report. Please note: MP gets no compensation related to its sale and SEMPO members and report participants get the report for free) looks at last year’s ‘real’ numbers as compared to 2010’s predictions for search and social media spends and trends etc. Respondents represent agencies and client side Internet marketers alike. Here is the methodology used for the findings

We all know that mainstream media is trying to figure out how to exist in a world of web impressions and not “in your hand” subscribers, but are they getting greedy?

That’s what Compete is suggesting, after discovering a disturbing practice that appears to inflate impression counts–which obviously leads to greater revenues for the media site in question. How does it work?

Take the often used “slideshow” that mainstream news sites are using these days. When you click on the “next” image, the page loads a new image, but also loads a new ad impression–even if that ad happens to be exactly the same.

Here’s how it looks:

OK, so far not to shady, right? Except Compete warns that some sites are automatically triggering the next image, even if the page is not the active browser tab!

Remember when Twitter caused a stir among the development community, when it suggested you may never want to use a third-party app again?

Well, co-founder went CNBC and appeared to reveal just a little information about Twitter’s monetization model. When asked if Twitter was receiving a cut of the ads shown by third-party Twitter apps, Biz said “no” then went on to say:

We’re going to roll out something we think appropriate not just for Twitter users but also for the ecosystem when we develop this monetization platform, it’s not going to be just for us, it’s going to extend to all these apps that are out there that everyone is using.

Now, Silicon Alley Insider took this to mean that Twitter would create a model devoid of those annoying ads that are inserted into your tweet stream, but I’m not so sure.