Is the Facebook vs Google PPC Face-Off Coming?

A recent report on Brand Republic announces that "Social network Facebook has overtaken search giant Google to become the most visited website in the US for the week ending 13 March".

Now we usually expect new developments in the US to soon make their way over here (housing market crash, credit crunch, bank failures etc.) so it will be interesting to see how long it will be before Facebook possibly overtakes Google for usage in the UK.

New Online Media and Advertising Rules on the Way

How up to speed are you about the forthcoming new rules about how businesses promote themselves online?

Last week the Advertising Association submitted recommendations to the Committee of Advertising Practice to extend the non-broadcast code to company websites and even branded Pages on social networking websites like Facebook.

It's been suggested that a refreshed version of the Code will come out in Autumn and will be enforced by the Advertising Standards Association, who already enforce the Non-broadcast Code (CAP Code) which already covers paid for online advertising.

My guess is that like most of us, this has one has crept up unawares, especially on smaller businesses. So I'll be reviewing both the current code and the new proposals shortly and will report back on the implications for websites, socil networking and online advertising.

Facebook Ads - Not so Bad After All

Sometimes you have to learn when to admit you were wrong. So, sorry Facebook.

I always thought the Facebook advertising program was rubbish - a poorly conceived attempt to monetise your impressive site traffic retrospectively, and no substitute for the mighty Google Adwords.

This impression was reinforced by the focus groups we did amongst social networking users at the back end of last year, for the www.kent.co.uk project. After all when a teenager told me 'why do I want to see adverts for mortgages on Facebook - I'm only 14!', I kind of had to agree with him.

But I now stand corrected. We have just started running a PPC campaign on Facebook for, ironically enough, another social networking site and it really is working. CTR is low, but I'm not too worried because we've plenty of volume of impressions to work with, and our conversion rates are very nice indeed.

I also particularly like the targeting options when you create your campaign - you can target users by their ages, with nicely refined age breaks amongst younger users, and most importantly their town/city, within a chosen radius.

This opens up a whole world of opportunities for regional and local marketing for clients targeting a younger audience, especially as I've always found geo-targeting to be imperfect on Google Adwords. I suspect Facebook geo-targeting is going to be far more accurate, as its based on the data provided by users when they sign up, not on Google's best guess based on IP address.

Now, the advert manager interface isn't perfect. The help guide is sketchy to say the least, and its very much a single user application, without any easy ways to share access with colleagues. But it's still not as bad as Yahoo Search Marketing so I can live with that.

So to conclude, I have now realised that my negative judgment on Facebook ads in the past really wasn't Facebook's fault - it was down to those bozo advertisers using the program poorly and clumsily. Just like the majority of Adwords advertisers who do PPC badly.

Marketing Through a Downturn - Tip 1

'Target those customers and market segments which you think will be most recession proof, at the expense of those that you think will suffer the most'

Now I'd been thinking a lot about this one recently, for my own online marketing consultancy business. I'd been trying to think of industries and market segments which might do well out of an economic downturn, especially with PPC.

I thought of the debt sector, which I have done work on in the past, but I know I'd have to be incredibly selective about who I work with as I really wouldn't want to profit from other people's misfortune.

Then I thought about the addiction and rehab sector - another market I've worked on which spends big on PPC. But a contact of mine from this area, said this market could in fact be hit at the upper end by city exec's getting their health insurance slashed, preventing them from checking in for a detox.

It eventually took someone else to point out the obvious. I was discussing my relief at the recent article I'd seen about online ad spend being up with Anna, who works with me part time on SEO. I backed this up with some evidence of old small business leads getting back in touch with me after a few years.

She pointed out that maybe I should forget industry sectors and look at products instead - which led us to think that clients might not be so likely to engage people like ourselves on an ongoing consultancy basis, but instead small businesses might be more keen to pay for training in Adwords and SEO so they can do the work themselves.

I really like this idea, as I've always been realistic and comfortable about people trying to implement our advice themselves if they don't have a large budget, and I think training sessions will really appeal to small businesses who know they should be doing something online but don't know how (or what).

So that's what we are now working on alongside regular consultancy work - a programme of seo and ppc training courses starting off for small businesses in Kent. I'll keep you posted!

Online Ad Spend up 21% - What a Relief!

Phew, that was a relief.

It had all gone a bit quiet there for a while with regards to how the online advertising sector was coping. As an Adwords consultant that was a bit worrying.

Now it turns out online advertising (and let's face it, that means Google Adwords) is up 21% whilst 'conventional' advertising is down, according to a report on Brand Republic.

This reinforces the hunch I'd had that businesses won't cut back on online marketing, and in fact more will start to use this method because of the benefits it provides in measurability, immediacy and cost effectiveness.

So with a bit luck, the current career path might just hold up. Doubles all round!