Marketing Pilgrim

In July, Google’s arrangement with Twitter to index all tweets, make them searchable in realtime and have a REAL historical search database of tweets that goes back further than the recent past (a trick that Twitter itself can’t seem to figure out) came to an end. It was a blow to both parties because Google lost a valuable piece of the social graph for its index which limits its abilities to take real social cues for search results and Twitter lost 65% of the US search market and even larger chunks of that market internationally.

Now some would say that Twitter should be fine because it still has an arrangement with Bing and Yahoo to do the same with its search results. That sounds nice but it’s the same as saying rather than drinking Coca-Cola you are only allowed to drink the grocery store version of a cola instead. Sure, you can say its cola but it ain’t the real thing.

About a month ago, we wrote about the introduction of Google Wallet.

The video below comes from the Google Mobile blog. The point is to show Google Wallet in action and the general reaction to the service. There are plenty of smiling faces and strong reactions. What it not so clear is whether the reaction is to the Google Wallet functionality (which is pretty cool) or the fact that Google was making these purchases for these people. Let’ assume there was a fair mix of both . Take a look at the video though because this technology (which is only available on the Google Nexus S 4G from Sprint currently).

What’s important to note is that Google Wallet also manages discounts and loyalty rewards for the merchants that are currently involved in the program.

No one in the US thinks twice about buying a book or DVD online, but when it comes to groceries, that’s a whole different mind set.

According to Nielsen’s 2011 Global Online Survey, only 20% of Americans said they were likely to try online grocery shopping. Compare that to Asia where 77% of the respondents said they were happy to have their dinner ingredients delivered. The numbers were also pretty high for the Middle East/Africa (48%) and Latin America (51%) all saying they were likely to shop for groceries online for home delivery.

A few weeks ago, I went to Best Buy to purchase a new printer. We got it down to two options and wanted to compare the specs but a lot of the information was missing from the shelf tag.

Next best thing, ask the salesman, who politely suggested we could find that information online. Good idea, except that my favorite electronics retailer doesn’t offer free in-store WiFi and 3G connection within their walls is spotty and highly reliant on standing in exactly the right spot.

How sad is it when technology retailer can’t get the tech right?

Enter Sears, America’s die-hard, age-old, retail institution. This holiday season, they’ll not only be offering free WiFi at many of their locations, they’ll be encouraging shoppers to go online while shopping in their stores.

Can you believe that I now have to get permission from Frank to tell you about Trackur news. Something about integrity and transparency….

Well, after promising to disclose that I am the CEO of Trackur (as well as the publisher of Marketing Pilgrim), he agreed to let me tell you about Trackur’s big news. 

Google+ monitoring has now been added to all paid plans. Yeah, you heard that right. All paid plans! That means you can get Google+ monitoring for just $18 a month!

Like you, we have our fingers crossed that Google+ has a longer shelf-life than Google Buzz did, because it takes some work to add a new source each time.

When you think about paid search advertising on a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo do you care about how much is being spent there in total or are you focusing on your conversions?

Most marketers will say conversions rule the day for obvious reasons. That’s why a recent study from IgnitionOne is interesting in that it shows a Q3 trend of increased spend on paid search by the retail sector in particular but a significant decline in conversion rates. This is good news for the engines on increased revenue but will that be sustained if conversions are not taking place? Here are the numbers from the report (AOV is average order size).