Internet Marketing Articles July, 2003

 

July 30, 2003

Google to Release New, More Robust Version of AdWords Functionality

As competition in the search engine arena gets fierce, Google has revamped the user interface of AdWords, its pay-per-click Internet advertising solution.

The new beta version is scheduled to debut within the next couple of weeks and includes marked improvements such as increased ease of use, better ROI metrics and reporting as well as optimized campaign management. Users will also able to search for information across all campaigns in the system.

The upgrade of AdWords comes at a critical time in the pay-per-performance advertising market. Just last week, Google's arch rival Overture agreed to be acquired by Yahoo! for $1.6 billion.

On the heels of this news, Overture also announced it had beat out Google for a major account deal with publishing giant Knight Ridder's digital media arm. Under the 1-year agreement Overture will supply search results and contextual advertising to Knight Ridder's 32 web sites.

Not to be outdone, Google mentioned last week it had won a similar deal with the Sympatico portal network and won several strategic deals for AdSense, the company's contextual advertising program.

[Complete Story at Netimperative.com: Google makes AdWords 'foolproof' in classifieds push ]

 

July 29, 2003

FTC Slams Work at Home Scam Operator

Darrell Richmond of South Carolina agreed last week to a settlement which bans him from operating in the work at home and business opportunity consumer markets. The FTC claims Richmond used numerous deceptive business practices tied to an envelope stuffing scheme that he marketed Online.

The deal struck with the FTC means Richmond's assets will be sold, with the proceeds to be used as reparations for duped consumers. He may also be slapped with a civil liability suit in the amount of $782,668 if it is discovered he misrepresented his financial disclosures.

According to the FTC, Richmond misrepresented that he would supply all of the materials to perform the work at home envelope stuffing opportunity. He also misrepresented the earnings claims associated with the opportunity.

How it Worked

It's alleged that Richmond advertised that home workers were needed to stuff envelopes with sales circulars promoting a wholesale and retail line of merchandise. Richmond allegedly offered to pay home workers $2 per stuffed envelope and claimed home worker earnings of $100 to $1,000 plus per week.

Richmond operated his envelope stuffing scheme under the veil of several trade names and web domains:

• Bargain Shoppers Network Direct!

• BSN Direct! - www.bsndirect.com

• Speciality Merchandising Wholesale Direct!

• SMW Direct!

• Apex Direct Marketing Group

• Apex Enterprises

• www.homemailerteam.com

• www.homemailergroup.com.
  
  

[Complete Story at Internetnews.com: FTC Stuffs Another Online Scam ]

 

July 28, 2003

It's Getting Tougher for Google

With all of the mergers and acquisitions going on in the search engine world, it's becoming a daily chore to keep up with the breakneck pace of change in this industry.

The corporate landscape of the "search engine services" market is changing so rapidly that Google must be concerned about holding it's current market share, let alone increasing it.

Over the last three months, acquisitions by Overture and portal giant Yahoo! may significantly alter the balance of power.

Each week, it seems another big player in this market space is taking a shot at Google. If I were at Google, I would be very concerned and probably look to bring an IPO (initial public stock offering) and some acquisitions to the table to fight off the fierce competition.

If you didn't know already, Overture and Yahoo! are Google's arch rivals.

In addition to recent acquisitions creating pressure on Google, Overture is making good progress with its corporate search and paid inclusion programs. For example, Overture recently beat out Google in a bid for Knight Ridder Digital's Search and Ad Services program, a one-year pilot. Knight Ridder Digital is the Internet services division of newspaper publishing giant Knight Ridder, Inc.

During the course of the one-year pilot, Overture will supply its full suite of services (paid-placement advertising, contextual advertising and Web search results) to Knight Ridder Digital.

Overture and Yahoo! are not the only firms applying pressure to Google.

Now MSN claims it's jumping into the search engine game and says it is creating its own multi-purposed search engine platform. Website owners may have already noticed the MSN bot in their server reports. Of course it will be many months before MSN's search engine is ready.

According to key members of MSN's search engine group, this is a long-term project to provide better search results for users and create autonomy for MSN in the area of search results and paid listings.

MSN currently uses Overture and Inktomi for search results and sponsored listings. However, it has no plans to dump Overture's paid search listings service as of yet and has no immediate plans to cancel its agreement with Inktomi for MSN Search results.

The decision to become an independent search engine provider for MSN was simple: MSN is feeling significant market pressures and must protect its interests since Inktomi is now owned by Yahoo! and Overture will soon be owned by Yahoo! (when the acquisition is finalized).

 

July 25, 2003

New Study Shows Teen and Young Adults Prefer Surfing over TV

A new study sponsored by Yahoo! and media firm Carat Interactive shows a critical linkage between online media and teens and young adults.

The study, which surveyed 2,618 respondents varying in ages 13-34, occurred in June and was modeled after the U.S. Census for gathering a representative demographic sample.

The major finding in the study: Internet usage has surpassed television viewing for teens and young adults up to age 34.

Quick Facts Uncovered by the Study...

Teens and young adults spend:

• 16.7 hours online per week (not including email use)
• 13.6 hours weekly watching TV
• 12 hours listening to the radio
• 7.7 hours talking on the telephone
• 6 hours spent reading books and magazines (for pleasure)
• 82% of consumers ages 13-18 owned or used computers
• 89% of consumers ages 19-34 owned or used computers

The study concludes that teens and young adults are critical for most company brands. The U.S. has 47 million people ages 13-34, who make up $149 billion in spending yearly. Fifteen percent of that spending occurs Online.

Any company ignoring this trend, by not including the Internet as a significant component of their marketing and media mix, is hurting their brand and their chances for tapping into this important market segment.

The study was conducted by Harris Interactive and Teenage Research Unlimited. The research, dubbed "Born to be Wired: The Role of New Media for a Digital Generation", was unveiled at a recent marketing conference sponsored by Yahoo!.

[Complete Story at DMnews.com: Internet Overtakes TV As Preferred Medium For Under-34 Crowd ]

 

July 24, 2003

US Internet Statistics for June

Average Internet activity report measuring web usage at home and at work for June 2003.

Average Web Usage, U.S., June 2003
                                      Home    Work

Number of Sessions/Visits Per Month    30      63

Number of Domains Visited Per Month    52      95

Time Spent Browsing Per Month      25:25:07  74:26:35

Time Spent During Web Visit        00:32:24  00:33:32

Duration of a Web Page Viewed      00:00:54  00:00:57

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings

 

July 23, 2003

Internet Tax Moratorium May Become Permanent

The current Internet Tax ban in the US may become permanent in the not-so-distant future.

Currently, taxes on Internet access, multiple state taxation of products purchased Online and discriminatory taxes on Internet purchases are banned by a moratorium which is set to expire in November of this year.

The original three year moratorium on Internet taxes was approved in 1998 by the House Judiciary under the Internet Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 49) bill. In 2001, the bill was extended for another two years and once again is due to expire in November 2003.

This week, permanent tax ban legislation was submitted to the US Congress and is expected to reach a floor vote as early as next week.

Reasons cited by Congress for the permanent tax ban include:

• The need to eliminate tax discrimination against Internet users
• Internet users and ebusiness are fueling the e-conomy
• Ecommerce is a real growth industry and imposing multi-state taxes could negatively effect growth of this important component of the US economy.

** An important note here is that the above tax bans should not be confused with "sales tax" requirements currently on the books with regards to Internet purchases.

According to Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona:

"In fact, many people even today seem to think that the Internet tax moratorium...is a ban on sales taxes on e-commerce transactions. It is not."

Currently, sales and use taxes are owed on all online transactions, but states are prohibited from requiring remote sellers to collect and remit those levies. According to a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision, states can only mandate sellers that have a physical presence in the same state as the consumer to collect use taxes.

So, technically you only have to pay sales tax in the state in which your pysical business resides and only when you sell to someone or some business in that same state.

If a permanent tax moratorium is passed by Congress, it would most likely not apply to the growing state political movement of enforcing sales taxes on the Internet.

If you are concerned about the movement to impose and collect multi-state sales taxes, please contact your state senator and voice your opinions:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

[Complete Story at Internetnews.com: Internet Tax Ban Hits Congressional Fast Track ]

 

July 22, 2003

Yahoo's Collaboration with Media Ratings Giant ACNielsen Bolsters Its Competitive Positioning

ACNielsen, the world's leading media monitoring and ratings service, announced this week a joint venture with Yahoo! to provide Online marketing and media channels for Consumer Goods companies.

The partnership brings together the strengths of both companies in an effort to create market synergies and improved ROI for participating marketers.

The new service, called Yahoo! Consumer Direct, will allow CPG (Consumer Package Goods) companies to market directly to consumers and track campaign results. The idea is to allow these companies to reach their target markets more efficiently and then directly measure the effects of such efforts on their offline sales.

Studying and improving on the relationships between Online marketing and resultant offline sales is a big priority among top consumer goods companies. The conventional wisdom that Online marketing is not an effective promotion tool for consumer goods companies is now considered inaccurate by companies like Kraft and Nestle Purina, who are experiencing good results with initial tests of the Yahoo! Consumer Direct.

How It Works

An ACNielsen "Homescan consumer panel" (consisting of the 61,500 households that agreed to participate) allows their offline purchasing behaviors to be analyzed in relation to their activities within the Yahoo! environment.

It's sort of the online equivalent of ACNielsen's "TV program ratings box" for television sets that are placed within the households that agree to participate.

The resultant data and information collected about offline consumer behavior is analyzed for trends and then matched against the demographics of Yahoo!'s various user communities in an effort to create strategic marketing initiatives for participating CPG companies.

Various media and advertising metrics are used to measure performance areas such as retail sales and brand loyalty.

Note: A competitive benefit of this new partnership is that it creates additional market strengths and better positioning for Yahoo in its ongoing battles with search engines like Google and MSN.

[Complete Story at Technologymarketing.com: ACNielsen, Yahoo! Launch Online Marketing Service ]

 

July 18, 2003

Yahoo's Acquisition of Overture Seen as Defensive Move

After Yahoo's announcement this week that it was purchasing Overture, Inc., the world's leading pay-per-click search engine, speculation and opinions about the move are zipping through the Internet media channels.

Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo!'s chief operating officer, insists the move was a proactive one to capture additional opportunities in the search industry. Indeed Yahoo!'s acquisition of Overture is an affront to competitive internet portals, particularly MSN which is struggling to gain traction and popularity.

However, most industry analysts believe Yahoo!'s main objective to be defensive and aimed at keeping search engine Google in its place. Yahoo views Google as an imminent threat to it's popularity as a search destination. Yahoo currently enjoys the status of being the most popular Online destination and it wants to keep it that way.

Yahoo! is also retrenching its business model to remove or marginalize it's dependencies.

For example, Overture accounted for about 20% of Yahoo!'s revenues thus far in 2003 and Yahoo! currently depends on a partnership with Google for delivering search results (not sponsored links) to its users. Clearly, Yahoo! feels exposed because of these dependencies.

Additionally, Google's move into to pay-per-click arena had to be dealt with by Yahoo! In early 2003, it purchased Inktomi, a search engine index that could replace Google for search results listings.

Yahoo! plans to integrate Overture's paid search infrastructure into other areas of it's portal including news articles and yellow pages among others.

The current pay-per-click search market commands revenue of approximately $2 billion a year and is experiencing serious growth each business quarter.

[Complete Story at Economist.com: Yahoo!'s latest acquisition shows where online marketing is going ]

 

July 16, 2003

Phoney PayPal Site Scam

According to security specialists at Internet Storm Center (ISC), an alert was issued last week about a phoney PayPal site using a valid SSL to trick users into entering their personal information into an imposter web page.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is an Internet protocol that allows Web sites to securely and confidentially obtain personal information, like social security numbers, phone numbers and credit card numbers. Using legitimate SSL certificates to fool users is just one of many new tricks being used by scammers to steal personal information.

It's simple to identify a secure site by looking at your browser tray, which is located on the bottom most area of the window. You will see a graphic of a "closed padlock". Another characteristic of SSL (secure sites) is that they always start https: instead of http:.

Usually, scam sites are easily identified because they are not using SSL. The common trick used to overcome this is to "oversize" the browser window, thus pushing the browser tray off the screen so surfers won't see the unsecure open padlock.

Now, scams like the fake PayPal site are raising the bar in terms of masking deception. Identifying a scammer using legitimate SSL is a bit trickier than with sites not using SSL.

How It Works

The scammers send Spam email to people in the hopes that they will click-through to their imposter site. The advertised URL will often look very similar to the domain name of the site being faked, but it is different. It's designed to look valid.

Once someone clicks through, they are asked to confirm their billing information or some other type of personal information.

Once collected, the information is either sold or used by the thieves themselves to perpetrate credit card fraud or identity theft.

Protecting Yourself

Before entering any personal information into a secure (or unsecure) Web site, be sure you look for suspicious characteristics in the site's URL. Usually it will be a very long domain, may contain the "@" symbol and may have what looks like 2 TLD's (Top Level Domains i.e .com, .net, etc.)

Example: https:paypal.com:ds-kasdf@jhapsifh984yhtfn.com

[Complete Story at Internetnews.com: PayPal Scam Site Using Legit SSL ]

 

July 15, 2003

Yahoo to Acquire Overture

Yesterday we lost another big player to "search engine market consolidation". You can now add Overture to the list of search companies "bought out" by larger companies seeking to diversify their holdings and make further inroads into the dog-eat-dog search engine and online advertising markets.

So why is Yahoo! acquiring Overture? Yahoo! claims because "search" is a big aspect of the Yahoo! user experience and a major component of its business strategy, acquiring Overture advances Yahoo's corporate charter to provide its advertisers with a "comprehensive and diversified marketing services portfolio comprising all forms of online advertising."

With the acquisition, Yahoo claims it will be able to better provide advertisers with a comprehensive and diversified suite of integrated marketing solutions. These solutions include paid placement, graphical ads, sponsored links, branding and contextual ad targeting.

As a wholly owned subsidiary of Yahoo!, Overture claims its partner network will continue to provide advertisers effective solutions to market your business online.

But, if you had to give an honest one sentence reason to explain Yahoo's acquisition of Overture it would be this:

"To unseat Google from the throne of search engine dominance."

Because this acquisition will take months to finalize, Yahoo! will keep operations separate from Overture until sometime in Q4 of this year, when an integration project is expected to begin.

So what does this mean for advertisers and marketers??

Well first off, current advertisers using Overture don't need to do anything. Accounts will continue to operate as normal.

Secondly, once the deal is finalized, expect to see Yahoo! do a system integration of some kind, create a combined product offering and execute lots of co-branding and advertising campaigns.

Thirdly, Yahoo!'s acquisition of Overture (which itself bought FAST Search & AltaVista only a few short months ago!) means only a handful of big players in the search engine market are left now. In business, fewer players is usually not a good thing for consumers.

It could translate into higher prices for advertisers, which is typical of quasi-monopolistic markets.

Hopefully, we'll see the opposite effect. Maybe Yahoo will go for Google's throat and force ad costs down rather than up.

This acquisition is expected to be a big competitive advantage and part of a Yahoo!'s full-court press to go head-to-head with Google.

Who knows, if we're really lucky, maybe Yahoo will test the idea of lowering minimum bids to 5 cents again, just like Google did!

Ah yes, wishful thinking. :-)

 

July 11, 2003

Tips for Legitimate Email Marketers!

Today it seems you can't escape the multitude of news articles about Spam. And rightly so, it's become a major problem in the U.S.

Last week, Internetnews.com reported that over 50% of all incoming email is Spam. For personal users (vs. business users), the percentage is closer to 80-90%. It's enough to make you puke.

I agree with the recent efforts of Congress and the FTC to control Spam, however I feel effective legislation at this point in time is just wishful thinking. Why you ask?? Because most of the Spam that enters U.S. email inbaskets every day comes from other countries outside the scope of U.S. Law.

For example, many U.S. Spammers set up agreements with rogue IT companies in China, Korea, the Phillipines, etc. Any attempts to enforce U.S. legislation and it's associated penalties for Spammers is near impossible since they are shielded by foreign companies.

Unless of course the U.S. threatens the governments of these countries with pulling foreign aid, but that will never happen. We haven't even pulled foreign aid to certain countries that still harbor terrorists (Bahrain, Yemen & Sudan for example), let alone pull aid from countries harboring Spammers!

So, Spam is going to be a problem for some time to come.

That said, here is a quick list of tips for legitimate email marketers that don't want to inadvertently end up in the Spam heap:

• Think about using text email versus HTML email - many of the HTML formatted mails are being trapped in Spam filters. Case in point: I'm an opt-in subscriber for Search Engine Watch, but ALL of their emails to me get trapped by Yahoo's Spam filter!
  
  
• Adopt a simple branding strategy - You need to remind your subscribers that they have signed up for your ezine or newsletter. For example, create a simple text logo or text banner uniquely associated with your newsletter or company and place it at the top. Include a statement that calls attention to the fact that the reader has signed up willingly (opted in).
  
  
• Be careful with Email list rentals & guaranteed signups - There are plenty of companies that will sell you harvested email addresses and claim they are opt-ins. You need to go to a trusted source for these types of services. (Feel free to email us for suggestions)
  
  
• Don't include heavy sales pitches in your emails - That's what Spammers do.
  
  
• Avoid using stop words - words such as "FREE", "credit", "mortgage", etc. Instead use fr*ee or fr~ee to get your point acrossed.
  
  
• Always respond to complaints - If you don't, you have not defended your position and could end up getting dropped by your ISP.

 

More tips coming soon!

 

July 10, 2003

Spammers Get Savvy With Email

As government and societal presures continue to mount against unsolicited commercial email, many Spammers are adapting to the new landscape.

For example, Spammers have caught on to the fact that ISP filtering software is often triggered by words like Free, Money, mortgage, credit, etc. Many have now modified their outbound emails with text like Fr~ee, mo~rtgage, Make m~oney, etc. to avoid tripping any alarms at the ISP.

Another area where Spammers have made significant change is with email subject lines.

Many have moved away from the stock subject lines like "Grow your ***** 4 inches" to more inviting ones, such as "Re: your request about how to...". Others will ask a general question in the subject line in an attempt to pique the readers interest or may advise the user of a bogus Microsoft windows update.

These days, it's extremely important to be careful opening Spam since it is estimated that nearly 70% of all viruses are now being spread through it. We suggest deactivating "email preview" features in browsers like Microsoft Outlook and others.

These preview features can allow viruses, worms and trojan horses to get through any protection you may have. Once your computer is infected, your private information is at risk and you are likely to pass on the virus to other unsuspecting users.

[Complete Story at Personal Computer World: Top spam subject lines exposed ]

 

July 9, 2003

Top 10 Affiliate Programs for June, 2003

As ranked by referit.com, a media & analysis unit of Internet.com focused on the affiliate industry. Ranking is determined by the monthly total # of clickthroughs each program receives from refer-it's site.

1. Herbal Sensations Viagra Alternative
2. DreamMates
3. Niche Marketing Research Center
4. iSyndicate
5. E-Commerce Exchange
6. Kiss.com
7. ClubMom
8. General Vitamin Corporation
9. Amazon.com-Books
10. HotelQuest

Source: Refer-It

 

July 8, 2003

Arial Software Adds Spam Check Feature

Arial Software, a leader in permission-based email marketing software has expanded the feauture list of its Campaign Enterprise suite.

A new "Spam test" function protects e-marketers from accidentally sending email messages that might trigger email filters to designate it as Spam. All outgoing emails can be quickly checked before you send them. The software runs the mails through a set of filters that look for obvious and not-so-obvious Spam attributes (like bogus sender addresses, words like FREE, etc.).

Expect to see this trend continue as more solution providers look to help legitimate marketers avoid perceived Spam problems.

If you don't use Arial's Campaign Enterprise (or can't afford it) here's an excellent FREE Spam Checker you can use.

[Complete Story at Opt-in News: Email Marketing Software Hammers Spam ]

July 2, 2003

The SBA and eBay Join Forces to Help Small Biz

The US Small Business Association has joined forces with Online auction giant eBay in an effort to work together for the benefit of small businesses.

The charter of the collaborative relationship will consist of providing training, education and information to entrepreneurs. The focus will be on management issues, financial assistance, government contracting and international trade. The collaboration announcement came last week in Orlando, Florida at eBay Live!, eBay's annual conference.

The new services eBay users will soon have access to include: SBA financing programs, venture capital and and consulting from SBA's SCORE team (retired executives specializing in small businesses and new business start-ups).

[Complete Story at Intermnet news.com: eBay, SBA Team Up ]

 

July 1, 2003

'Google Dance' Confuses Many

If you're involved with any type of search engine promotion, you've undoubtedly heard the term "Google Dance" bandied about the Internet. This pet name refers to the 'index update' of the Google search engine each month.

Having read numerous forum posts dedicated Google topics, I have concluded that most people don't really understand the mechanics of a Google Dance. This summary will quickly outline some of the key activities and procedures of this indexing ritual.

Fast Facts about the Google Dance:

• The Google index update usually occurs once per month.

• Google uses a distributed index across approximately 10,000 Linux servers at 8 data centers.

• These servers are updated in phases, not all at once like many people perceive to be the case.

• It can take several days to more than a week for all data centers and servers to be updated.

• During the update, both Pagerank and search engine ranking positions) can vary.

• The reason for the above-mentioned variances is due to Google's use of alternating old & new indexes during the update process (This explains why many webmasters see their listings at one moment in time and at another they have changed positions or may have disappeared completely).

• When a data center is completely updated and shows search results from the new index, it won't switch back to the old one.
• The index at one data center never exactly equals the index at the others (explains why search results are different in different areas of the country).
• The index update at each data center "appears" to update all at once; in reality the old index is used until all servers have been updated.

• Google uses DNS (Domain Name System) to resolve it's updates and communicate to data centers, servers and users.

• During the dance, Google cannot control which index is used to respond to queries (it's automated).

• During the Google Dance, you can track the progress by querying Google's Data Center IP Adresses:

  www-ex.google.com - 216.239.33.100
  www-sj.google.com - 216.239.35.100
  www-va.google.com - 216.239.37.100
  www-dc.google.com - 216.239.39.100
  www-ab.google.com - 216.239.51.100
  www-in.google.com - 216.239.53.100
  www-zu.google.com - 216.239.55.100
  www-cw.google.com - 216.239.57.100
  www-fi.google.com - 216.239.41.100

• The index update is considered finished after all data centers are "using" the new index.
• During the Google Dance, you can preview your updated SERPS before they are live at all data centers by querying on:

www2.google.com &

www3.google.com

* These are test domains for the new Google index.

[Complete White Paper at eFactory.com: Google Dance - The Index Update of the Google Search Engine ]

July 1, 2003

Studies Show 'User Loyalty' Leads to Higher Sales

A new study by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) has concluded that the effectiveness of web site advertising is directly related to the level of personal loyalty or attachment that web site users
feel about content of specific sites.

The study, called "The Impact of Audience Affinity on Advertising Performance," further validates previous research findings claiming the relationship between 'web site user affinity' and advertising performance.

The study was performed on several OPA member sites including Weather.com, ESPN.com, About.com and New York Times Digital among several others.

In a separate but related study, consumers were asked "How likely are you to purchase this brand in the next three months?" The study found that consumers were 38% more likely to purchase a product after being exposed to an ad on a Web site to which they already have trust or affinity for (compared to 32% 'willingness to buy' for low and medium affinity consumers).

The bottom line: Develop good content for your web sites and reap the financial rewards from increased user trust and confidence.

[Complete Story at AdAge.com: How Content Quality Impacts Web Site Advertising ]