The New York Times read between the lines of Facebook’s IPO prospectus. As chief mergers and acquisitions reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin figures like 845 million monthly active users “should have an asterisk next to them.” Facebook counts among those 845 million monthly active users, and daily active users of 483 million, anyone who visits it’s Web or mobile site; but also, anyone who uses a Facebook “Like” or “Recommend” button in third-party sites, to share activity with Facebook friends.
How significant is that? Practically all significant online properties, including CNN.com, MSNBC.com, TheSmokingGun.com (pictured below) and ESPN.GO.com, include a “Like” or “Recommend” button alongside stories. So an “active user” may never leave the ESPN or CNN sites; theoretically, an active user may never visit Facebook, or see its featured ads.
Also counted among those active users: those click on the Facebook logo within a “Follow Us” bar, which typically includes an RSS feed logo, Twitter, Digg and email logos, among others.
The numbers climb. If the third-party site uses a Facebook ID for log-in (HuffingtonPost.com is one such site, and the feature is called “Facebook Connect”), and the user leaves a comment on a story in that site, he or she is counted as actively using Facebook. So, opined the CEO for equity research of Fusion IQ, those visitors “cannot be marketed to, they do not see advertising,” they simply used the extensive Facebook infrastructure.
However optimistic the unique-visitor figures, they are considerable anyway; and Facebook ads offer considerable cost-per-click savings of up to 45%, by some estimates. And a publicly-traded Facebook, with plans to become a news outlet as well, will necessarily become meticulously transparent in its traffic figures.
Research: Three Formats Dominate Online Ad Spend
While the U.S. online ad spend will approach $40 billion in 2012, just three formats will dominate that spend, forecasts eMarketer: search, banners, and video adverts. Those three formats will capture 80% of the online ad spending through 2016.
Search will dominate, hovering just below 50% for the next five years, though it will lose some ground to online video; that format will see the highest persistent growth in spending, and will nearly double in percent of total spend from 7.9% in 2012 to 15% in 2016. Banners will retain their #2 status, with 23.4% share of total spend in 2012, and 20.5% in 2016, also losing ground to video ads.
Video ads are expected to grow by 55% in spending this year, after a healthy growth of 42.1% in 2011. That growth (the highest in a single year through 2012) is fueled in part by the 2012 election and summer Olympic Games. (Consider the PAC and campaign ads you’ve seen already.)
Each of these three formats fits nicely into the mobile format, and mobile display ads (chiefly banner and video) are expected to grow by 93.5% to $861.7 in 2016.
eMarketer has projected that U.S. online ad spending will grow 23.3% in 2012 to nearly $40 billion, and nearly $53 billion in 2013. This will make 2012 the first year in which online ad spends will surpass the total spent on print ads, with $39.5 billion online versus $33.8 billion in magazines and newspapers.
Research: 70% Of Tablet Owners Want to Buy through Digital Magazine Ads
Fully 70% of tablet computer owners want to be able to buy items by clicking on digital magazine ads, reports GfK MRI. Another 70% say they like electronic ads that are personalized to their interests. GfK MRI is the consumer-centric market research firm, which regularly polls its iPanel, composed exclusively of tablet computer and eReader owners.
GfK MRI polled tablet owners who read a magazine on their devices in the last 30 days with several digital-magazine related topics. Additional findings include:
- Nearly three-quarters (72%) of tablet owners who would prefer all digital magazines to be formatted in the same way
- A majority of tablet magazine readers (67%) say that, if available, they would rather read an electronic version of a magazine than a paper version
- Still, 65% say it's more satisfying to read a magazine the traditional way
- Almost half (48%) of tablet magazine readers say electronic magazines take too long to download, 46% say that videos in digital versions of magazines are "just a gimmick" and 43% claim they find it hard to search for magazines they want to read on their tablets
So tablet makers have a few obstacles to overcome before digital magazines offer a fully-satisfying experience, and thus, an entirely effective ad platform. "Although magazine publishers are experimenting with different formats in order to differentiate their digital brands, this is not necessarily resonating with digital readers adopting the new tablet technology," said Risa Becker, SVP Research at GfK MRI.
Still—with a full 70% of digital magazine readers wanting to buy through the format, advertisers have an opportunity to reach some attractive demographics (see chart for tablet/eReader ownership by age).
Digital Ads: Affluent Buyers Highly Mobile, Digital, But Penny Wise
“Affluents” with a minimum $100,000 in yearly household income spend far more time online than the general population, reports eMarketer. They spend 26.2 hours online per week, versus 21.7 for the population overall. But they watch far less television, at 17.6 hours per week versus the 34 for the average American.
Affluents number 58.5 million, and 33% owns smartphones. Research suggests that the digital ads that reach affluents are—
- Opt-in email ads
- Sponsored websites from search results
- Targeted ads, relevant to what the affluent is doing or searching in the moment
- Ads tied to demographics (e.g., local restaurants, gyms, grocery stores).
On the downside, affluents have money because they don’t throw it away. “The vast majority…do not regard themselves as rich, however, and don’t spend as if they were,” said eMarketer Analyst Mark Dolliver. Of those 58.5 million, only 11% has a household income of more than $250,000. Affluents are in fact cutting back. So, ads for luxury goods and destinations are less likely to reach the affluent than ads for consumer goods and deals on dining and entertainment.
Digital Top 10 Food Sites: Visitors Seek Recipes, Apps
Dining continues to be a powerful web driver, reports Access Intelligence, which has just released data for October/November 2011 traffic to food-oriented websites. Food sites expect a bump surrounding Thanksgiving and Christmas, but the bump this year meant a gain of 1.7 million unique visits to epicurious.com.
Among the winners: Time Inc. Lifestyle Group’s MyRecipes.com, which gathers recipes from the group's line of magazine sites, alongside new content. MyRecipes.com enjoyed 62% year-over-year (YOY) growth in the fourth quarter.
Some, but not all of the top 10 gainers were digital editions of magazines, including Saveur, and not all are entirely food-oriented; GoodHousekeeping.com was third in unique-visitor gains YOY, for a total gain of 1,242,636 visits.
Not all unique visitors looked for recipes. FineCooking.com gained 47.03% YOY, driven in part by its iPad MenuMaker app, which it claims has been downloaded 42,000 times, and has a 4.5 star rating from Apple App store customers.
Nielsen’s Top Online Video Destinations for December: Rich Ad Opportunities
Nielsen has released its tally of unique U.S. video viewers for December 2012. All told, 164.3 million viewers streamed more than 22 billion videos, and spend more than 5 hours each watching online video.
YouTube as ahead at more than 131 million unique viewers; but, Nielsen offered no insights as to how many viewers watched ad-sponsored content. Second-place VEVO, with 39.7 million unique viewers, is entirely ad supported.
A fairly untapped ad outlet is the CollegeHumor Network clocked 19,261 unique users. CollegeHumor is one of four CH Media properties, and touts itself as “The best way to reach the male 18-49 demographic.” Its strongest advertiser in January is Comedy Central, with tower ads for its Tosh 2.0 series.
ANA Survey: Mobile, Social Media Key to Growth in Integrated Marketing
Marketers can better justify their Google, Android and Facebook ad spends. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has revealed its findings that integrated marketing communications (IMC) programs are on the rise; and that mobile marketing and social media are especially significant in those communications.
ANA surveyed a cross-panel of its membership on integrated marketing, a topic it studied in 2003, 2006 and 2008. Of those sruveyed, more than half are currently developing and executing IMC programs, aimed at creating a unified message to all stakeholders (including consumers, employees, retailers, stockholders, etc.) and across all media. Since 2006, the percent of marketers developing and executing integrated marketing programs for all brands/products/services has steadily grown:
- 2011: 51%
- 2008: 33%
- 2006: 19%
Also true, 42% rated the effectiveness of IMC as excellent or very good, up from 25% in 2008.ANA attributes that perceived effectievness to the greater availability and use of newer media platforms, such as mobile platforms, which enable better targeting and enhanced metrics.
The period 2008 to 2011 saw a significant leap in the percentage of marketers rating mobile marketing and social media as "important" or "very important" to their efforts. Because of their relative insignificance at the time, neither mobile marketing nor social media were measured in the 2003 or 2006 studies.
Finally, 74% measured IMC success by sales growth, and 61% by brand tracking (e.g., awareness, usage, purchase intent).
Digital Advertising Alliance Framing Self-Reg Guidelines on Mobile Targeting
However effective behaviorally-targeted mobile advertising is, the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) believes the practice needs to be more principled. DAA’s Managing Director Peter Kosmala told ClickZ that “Efforts are underway to transition existing principles,” written for behavioral advertising, to the mobile space. DAA plans to issue a set of principles by the close of 2012, which include an “opt-out” icon to prevent behavioral targeting.
Both the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) are formulating their own guidelines about collecting behavioral data from mobile devices, but DAA is planning to create an enforceable code of conduct, like the one it created for desktop-based behavioral marketing. DAA’s technology working group will present a technical solution for a single-button opt-out, versus the more complex cookie-based method it developed for desktop machines.
In parallel to DAA efforts, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is debating an industry-enforceable do-not-track mechanism to inhibit any data collection. FTC is particularly distrustful of cookies, so any such ruling would invalidate DAA’s current desktop guidelines.
Google Display Ads Reach $5 Billion, Double from 2010
Google CEO Larry Page in a Thursday analyst call reported that its display ad business has doubled since 2010. Display ads include network and YouTube ads, which has reached a $5 billion per year business. The ramification according to AdAge is that Google is becoming less dependent on search advertising alone.
Google went on to report that its DoubleClick ad exchange had reached year-over-year (YOY) 130% growth, driven in part by its precise category targeting (e.g., hybrid car buyers and adventure travelers). Brand advertisers are flocking to YouTube’s TrueView format, which emulates the pay-per-click model of AdWords AdSense. Three of those brand advertisers are Ford, GM and L’Oreal.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek observes that Google’s expansion into new markets and onto mobile devices, where it charges less per click, contributed to an 8% drop in its average pay-per-click.
Google AdWords Enhances Lost Impression Metrics, Greater Detailing Causes
Google on its Inside AdWords blog has announced enhancements to AdWords metrics. The metrics surround impression share, a measure of the value of AdWords service.
Google has introduced the changes in response to advertiser requests. The aim is to give advertisers a better understanding of what return on investment (ROI) they are gaining, as well as what impressions they are losing, and why. For example, an advertiser may be at or near budget, and so loses impressions until the budget is restored. An ad may have a lesser ad rank and and position because of poorly chosen keywords, and loses more impressions.
Over the next few weeks, Google will add three new columns to its ad groups tab to quantify those lost impressions, which include:
1. Impr. Share, the percentage of impressions received/estimated number advertiser is eligible to receive
2. Lost IS (Rank), being the share of impressions lost due to the advertiser’s Ad Rank
3. Exact Match IS (Search Network only), the percentage of impressions an advertiser received based on exact keyword matches, versus those the advertiser was eligible to receive.
On top of those metrics, Google will update its algorithms to provide more detailed impression-share metrics, and before January 30th. It will provide refined campaign-level statistics retroactively, dating back to May 2011. And, it will provide once-a-day updates, at noon PST. Google is advising advertisers to download an impression share data report before January 30, for advertisers who wish to maintain a snapshot of existing reports to compare to the new more-detailed reports.