Twitter: Keyword Targeting in Timelines

On Wednesday, April 17, 2013, Twitter announced the newest feature Keyword Targeting in Timelines. This feature enables advertisers to run their advertisements based on tweets of the reported 500 million total users and over 200 million active users. It is available in the full Twitter Ads UI and through the Ads API. Twitter said that "This new feature enables advertisers to reach users based on the keywords in their recent Tweets and the Tweets with which users recently engaged. This is an important new capability – especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent – because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context."

How it works is for example a user will tweet about enjoying a pair of running shoes recently bought. Through a geotargeted campaign using keywords, the user may see a Promoted Tweet of that brand having a sale nearby - the user may then be able to retweet or share this to interested followers wanting to buy the pair. Of course this not only works for items bought, it also works for craving products and services such as a specific drink or a massage service.

Twitter promised that users won't see any difference on the application and ads are not shown frequently, plus users will have a way of dismissing Promoted Tweets if they find it irrelevant. They collaborated with test partners such as GoPro (@GoPro), a leader in wearable and gear-mountable cameras to ensure that the implementation and API will deliver promising results.

Furthermore, Twitter expressed their excitement as to how advertisers will take advantage of this new feature. It is by the thorough and active use of advertisers that paid ads such as Google Adwords transformed to how it is today. With Twitter's whopping number of over 400 million tweets per day, this is an avenue where advertisers should really consider to be dabbling on - a great option or addition to investing in search and display ads.

Google Person Finder: Google's First Aid in Boston Bombing

April 15, 2013 was a sad day for Boston as two bombs exploded at the annual Boston Marathon, thirteen seconds apart, at 2:49 p.m. EDT on Boylston Street, near the finish line, killing three people and injuring 183 others. As news broke, Google already knew what they can do to help - knowing where they are best at.

Search.

Google's Person Finder activated a search database for those registered, reported and known people in the vicinity of the tragedy. This .org site, which is already deactivated, was able to give users the ability to search the first and last name of a relative or a friend within the vicinity of the accident. As always, Google will give you the best match to your query (absolutely no AdWords here) and will tell you that person is alive, injured or deceased. Google said that the Person Finder was created to help people reconnect with friends and loved ones in the aftermath of natural and humanitarian disasters.

Google also announced that this is a temporary database and informed the public that this is a project together with Red Cross, for them to give direction on how to find or offer help. Searchers are also asked or go to Red Cross Safe & Well if they want to report or register missing persons.

It's just so cool.

http://google.org/personfinder/global/home.html

Negative Keyword List

AdWords has given the digital commerce industry an edge in Google's advertising competition. A company's knowledge in AdWords is like a make or break. Knowing the ROI for all keywords you pay for is key. There are some paid keywords that may not lead to conversion but still generate awareness in a brand, yes, some company's really invest for that. At the end of the day, ROI is what most company's are looking for. I've experienced seeing a keyword set up for a past campaign which each and every keyword is set as broad match, not aware that the management paid $xx,xxx on irrelevant keywords. Sad.

But with enough knowledge to use the negative keywords option and utilizing the keywords report in AdWords, this can give leverage to a company or an SEM professional to take on the web advertising race.

Here are some of the negative keywords I find useful, some came from the web, some I edited. This is my list which I collected through different sources and research. A list I want to share with you.

Click image to view in Google Drive

Adobe® Search&Promote: Business Rules and its Considerations

I drafted this post back in 2012 and never had the chance to publish. These are my thoughts in Adobe Search and Promote and how I came to understand the gems behind this marketing software. So here I am continuing what I started. :)

I had the chance to use Adobe Search and Promote for a value-added direct marketing company some 2 years ago. Adobe® Search&Promote is a cloud-based software that lets online marketers supercharge how visitors find, browse, and promote significant products and content on web and mobile sites. With Adobe® Search&Promote, you can easily push priority items based on company objectives and what visitors are actually looking for. It gives you the option to push promotions and merchandising activities by KPI-based triggers.

As I was working on implementing the front-end business rules, I came to realize just how powerful this tool is. It can push products - via category, brand or SKU. This tool can really be beneficial to especially to an e-commerce business. Imagine having the way to show your "not-so-converting" products to a search term? In one way or another, this will give you a possible plus on conversion for that item. I was able to test and play around the software, pushing products that will give more value to the company. I was in control. This is until I figured out the gem of using a great understanding of SEO best pratices and an in-depth web analytics along with this.

It is true that at the end of the day, "sales", "revenue" or "conversions" are important to many business above anything else. But how about user satisfaction, usability and customer impression? How would you feel that you are looking for let's say an optical mouse and you're getting the Bluetooth ones as first group results? Yeah probably you will refine your search but how about getting the same thing? Here are some points I realized and sharing with you:

• Website or internal search should be formatted in such a way like how Google does in their SERPs. Business rules and triggers need to balance your organization's objective and user intent. 

• Optimize Adobe® Search&Promote's feature of setting up categories and pricing to help users refine their searches. This will need proper implementation - a back-end team to make sure it works. Facilitate on the testing and be mindful of the bugs. With proper categories setup, users can easily navigate through your site considering their budget and brands they want. Again, give them what they want.

• If you need to push something - an old stock probably that needed to be converted, use the banners feature rather than giving it in the results list. Banners are not intrusive and users are aware that these are optional aspect of the site. If they are interested, they will click on it. Of course you can still sell your keywords to brand managers for banners ;)

• Respect top internal search terms and top landing pages. People are coming to your site looking for something. Understand your internal searches, what users clicked on, and where they bounce. This will give you a clear insight on where you are doing right, and wrong. 

I can attest that this software is powerful if implemented correctly. Through its wide range of customization including regular expressions, your triggers and business rules can make your business requirements far from impossible.

Remember, in any website reaching out to customers - may it be e-commerce or services, web usability should always be practiced and this can mean more returning visitors and loyal clients to your organization. Customer usability consideration is imperative in digital marketing success.

Google Apps Down And Back Online Within A Few Hours

Earlier this morning, April 17, 2013 until approx. 9:30 EST, Google Apps is down for many businesses. Gmail, Google Docs, Google Chat and other products were inaccessible. It has grown complains from enterprise users and small business. Most of us are using email as a primary tool for work - so disruptions like these can greatly affect an employee or a company's progress. Hours lost can mean hundreds, thousands or million dollars worth. This is not the first time for Google Apps gone offline, but still they are a leader in their services. Glitches like these should be treated as normal - occasional difficulties and should not be used to generalize Google as having a bad service. It happens to all and yes I am using Google Apps for Business.

Google Webmaster's "x-default hreflang" for International Landing Pages

Today, Google Webmaster Blog introduced a new rel-alternate-hreflang annotation that webmasters can use to specify homepages supported by Google and Yandex.

We can annotate this in the sitemaps or by using HTML tags like as follows:

It basically tells Google algorithms that the page containing the new "x-default hreflang attribute" is not targeting any specific locale or language thus making it as a default page as the best pick.

So is your website targeting global or multiple countries? Then you might find this very helpful. Try it now! :)

Vine: The next big thing in Social Media

Instagram was previously known as Burbn an HTML5 development by Kevin Systrom and Brazilian Michel "Mike" Kriegeon on mobile photography in 2010. On April 12, 2012, Instagram was acquired by Facebook for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock. It has been almost 3 years as a development that most of us are using for editing and sharing our photos in the social media channel. Thus come Vine - the new age of social media sharing.

Vine is a mobile app by Twitter that enables its users to create and post short video clips. Imagine having to share a location through video clips - like having a GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) for your followers and friends to see.

Let's say you'll go to cafe and meet with your friends and would like to share that. You can take a video clip of yourself of the awesome outfit you will be wearing, take another clip on the ride going to cafe, take another clip laughing with friends and a clip of what you will having to drink. Think of all those clips compile into one tweet, share, or post in Facebook. A growing number of Hollywood celebrities are using Vine to keep their fans both entertained and updated. The Philippines, which follows most western trends may soon come to discover this amazing app. 

I personally think the development came from like how Instagram saw the opportunity and emerged in the social media space. As part opportunist, I find this quite smart.  Here's to the newest way of sharing and getting your friends to see how awesome - or bad your day went. =)

Vine can be downloaded for iTunes and Android. Visit their site for more information. 

Extract HyperLinks in Excel

It's been a while since my last post - I know. :))

Here's a quick macros and function I find very helpful and would like to share with you.

Copy and paste the following macros function for your sheet in Excel:


Function HyperLinkText(pRange As Range) As String

   Dim ST1 As String
   Dim ST2 As String
   
   If pRange.Hyperlinks.Count = 0 Then
      Exit Function
   End If
   
   ST1 = pRange.Hyperlinks(1).Address
   ST2 = pRange.Hyperlinks(1).SubAddress
   
   If ST2 <> "" Then
      ST1 = "[" & ST1 & "]" & ST2
   End If
   
   HyperLinkText = ST1
   
End Function


After that, you can easily extract by keying in a new function. Let's say column A is where your Hyper Links are:

=HyperLinkText(A1)

Copy and paste the above new function in column B and viola! :)

Hope this helps!