Marketing Pilgrim

I’m not going to add any context to this quote from a Google employee–it would totally ruin the buzz you’ll feel for the rest of the day!

I can assure you that the last thing we want is for the business who hires the best SEO to win a better slot. But, the SEOs are, unfortunately, pretty good at what they do, and so sometimes they out smart us.

And that, my friend, is something you should send to the next prospective client that asks, “can you really figure out Google’s algorithm?”

P.S. If you want context, head here.

Divas drive the dollars.

That’s according to a new report from ComScore called Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet. The study shows that women spend 20% more time on retail websites overall than men. Not surprisingly, they lead in sales in every category except Computer Hardware/Software, Electronics, Sports/Outdoor and Music to a smaller extent. Movies is near even but when it comes to shopping for clothing online it’s women by a large margin.

Though women have been known to enjoy window shopping, in most cases they are actually spending. The ComScore report states:

“In February 2010, [women] accounted for 49.8 percent of the U.S. online population, but made up 57.9 percent of all non-travel buyers, made 61.1 percent of online purchases and accounted for 58.2 percent of online dollars.”

If Google were to put itself in to the geo-location game right now there may be some real howling about Google and world domination. Well, leave it to Google not to be completely out of any game. In the case of the check-in craze that is being pioneered by foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt and others, Google has found a way in without having their own ‘product’. How you ask? Google tells us at the Geo Developers blog

We have been delighted with the enthusiasm we have seen for the Places API, and the innovative ways in which developers would like to use it. We have seen applications that offer check-in to places and need to identify an individual place at which a user is currently located, applications looking to show a user Places around them, and applications looking to offer a search and browse experience for Places similar to that offered on Google Maps.

While Google struggles with a lot of issues because of their high profile involvement in just about everything, they are still the king of the search mountain by a country mile. This is obviously not news but how that domination extends into the mobile search world is still a bit stunning. According to Pingdom, based on global stats with the help of Stat Counter, Google currently owns 98% of the mobile search market. Yup ……. 98%. The picture below will add to the ‘wow factor’ of that number.

While most sources are predicting a rise in ad dollars for the rest of this year, Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente is lowering his estimate from 5.5% to only a 5% growth. That may not sound like much but these days, even .5% really counts.

In an article at MediaMemo, Peter Kafka says that it’s print (including phone book advertising) and radio that are skewing the numbers as they continue to have poor ad sales. The web and TV networks are seeing an uptick but when you average it together it’s not a pretty picture.

Kafka goes a step further, noting that things were so bad last year that even a 5% hike isn’t bringing ad dollars back to what they once were. He says we’ll know more when the big media companies turn in their Q2 reports next week but he’s not hopeful.

Back in in 2008, my good friend Lee Odden asked:

What’s a better term: “social media monitoring” or “social media measurement”?

As someone that provides social media monitoring/measurement tools, I wanted to get a check on whether our feelings have changed towards the use of social media monitoring versus social media measurement.

To me, it means the same thing. After all, why would you monitor social media, if you don’t plan to actually measure social media in some way? Still, I can tell you that, based on Google Analytics, social media monitoring is by far and away the most commonly searched-for keyword.

That’s backed up by Google’s Insights for Search too! As you can see, social media monitoring is far more searched for than social media measurement. Here’s the chart to prove it!

So, I’ve asked on Twitter:

What are the latest trends in mobile marketing?

Millennial Media just released their SMART (Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting) report for June and it provides insight on the habits of mobile advertisers.

First, we learn that Retail and Restaurants are making a move to attract more mobile customers–with location based coupons and seasonal campaigns.

Next, we discover that mobile marketers are not just getting cell phone users to click through to a web site. They’re actually getting them to engage when they get there!

35% submitted a form, 26% downloaded an application and 29% where even convinced to use their smart phone to…wait for it…place a call!

The last chart demonstrates that mobile marketers are moving away from broad, generic campaigns. 41% targeted their mobile audience in some way, with more than half doing so by using GEO targeted campaigns.

How are you enjoying that free Android software that powers your iPhone-competing smart phone?

I hope you like it enough to reimburse Google $10 a year, because that’s what Google CEO Eric Schmidt is hoping to get out of each Android user:

“If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can’t make money from that?” Schmidt asked rhetorically. All it would take, he said, is $10 per user per year.

Did you just feel a small pain in your wallet?

OK, relax.

Google doesn’t want you to actually hand over ten bucks a year to use Android, but that’s the nominal amount it says it needs to earn from each user, in order to add a nice supplement to its search engine revenue. That could come from any kind of distribution deal or premium apps that you might pay for.