Left and right brain marketing is nothing new but this handy infographic from Marketo really helps when you need to visual to match skill sets to marketing channels. It can really help you understand and get the most from your sales and marketing teams by looking at how left or right brain thinking influences;

TV Advertising Approach

Magazine and Print Approach

Online Advertising Approach

The next, logical step, given the scope and breadth of the online marketing would be a dig deep into left and right brain influence on;

SEO

PPC

Display

Email

Social Media

A blog post for the near future!

Below is an adaption from my Econsultancy post on ’11 things you won’t get for Christmas’

1. The death of SEO

I’ve seen how some of the UK’s biggest SEO companies have adapted to the challenges that, let’s face it, Google sets continuously.

Advances in technology, SEO tools and opportunities created by the end of Yahoo! Site Explorer have actually breathed new life into the SEO blood stream. In 2012, clients will see more value from great SEO but it will be a different type of SEO – a social type of SEO

Read – Google Instant and SEO

2. More keyword data from Google

The numbers seem to be rising; now an estimated 20% of keyword referral data is not reported. This is a problem when looking at site statistics and analytics. It hurts the US and will roll out to EMEA in the next month or so into 2012.

Google says this is a privacy issue and is down to retargeting of sites, plus secure search on SSL. However, if you use Google Adwords you can have the data. Google say it is for security. Bad news if you want to use data for site analytics if you’re not using Adwords services.

In 2012 we will really see if Google is moving to keep all user referral data away from SEOs, killing off rival retargeting companies and competitive ad networks at the same time.

Read - SSL and the experts view

3. A reduction in Google Market share

We all know Google’s not going to go away. Google’s expansion into other avenues such as display and social (with Google+) is a sure fire sign of its ability to flex muscles and make market decisions that have a very subtle, but detrimental, effect to what they consider low revenue stream channels.

Bing initially grabbed some market share, but recent figures suggest that Google grew to 65.6% of US market share with Yahoo! at 15.2% and Bing at 14.8%.

Read - 2012 trends that everyone should be aware of

4. The year of mobile

It is already upon us as the diffusion of mobile marketing innovation spreads at a rapid pace. The smartphone has enabled mobile marketing to move from concept to deployment.

According to Google, 79% of smartphone owners use their mobiles to assist with shopping and 74% make a purchase as a result. 2012 will see some of the coolest innovations in digital coming from the mobile technology sector.

Read - 2011 the year of mobile commerce

5. An end to digital media fragmentation

2011 was the year of fragmentation in digital marketing, from fragmentation of media in the search and display space through to the overcrowding and confusion in the social media world. 2012 will see further fragmentation in other sectors such as the SEO tool/vendor space and a revision of the specialist versus generalist debate.

Read - Digital fragmentation and specialists

6. An end to talent wars

Digital has always suffered from a lack of talent due to the immaturity of the market. However, as the market matures, people with diverse skill sets become more in demand.

As media and organisations integrate having just one core of specialism does not necessarily guarantee maximum return.

In some technical disciplines a degree of specialism is required. However, as search, social, mobile and display campaigns are often run in tandem, people really need to develop their skill sets in all areas of digital to remain top of the talent pool.

Read - The digital talent time bomb

7. An accurate measurement of social media

There have been some great advances in the measurement and attribution of social media in 2011. Huge strides are being taken to measure and show the value of interaction, particularly within Facebook.

Social media attribution places a value on any engagement using cluster based technologies that track ‘Likes’, purchases and such. From this you can attempt to measure both the viral nature of actions and conversions, while highlighting the key influencers.

However, social media by its very nature and its viral causality means it is difficult to truly measure its immense impact all of the time.

Read - Social media attribution

8. An end to cookie compliance issues

Last week the the ICO released its updated guidance for UK website owners. Although this is a comprehensive document that can be seen as a step in the right direction, it still does not address the underlining issue of educating users.

Until people truly understand the value of cookie tracking and remarketing, marketers will continue to face tough challenges in 2012.

Read - Cookie compliance

9. A truly integrated digital organisation

As marketers get their heads around multichannel attribution, 2012 will see a seismic shift in the integration of online marketing teams.

To do this organisations will need to adapt, restructure and manage talent across a number of different disciplines. The role of a digital marketing agency has changed and simply saying you have SEO, search, display, social media, email, and affiliate departments working with your offline and PR teams does not always mean you are good at integrating your market efforts.

In 2012 I hope clients can go to agencies and see SEO people sat with creative and social teams, PPC and display experts sat in ‘biddable media’ departments. Hot desks should be everywhere as people need to share knowledge and data across the whole organisation (on and offline). It’s human capital, almost a physical thing.

Read - Is the digital agency dead

10. The mega return for VCs

Digital has indeed held its own in the recession. 2011 saw a large number of acquisitions and a lot of consolidation, especially in the display area. VCs have seen this as a time to reinvest.

The key challenge for companies with funding is differentiation in crowded spaces. Mergers and acquisitions that consolidate digital channels may bear more fruit in the short term, and some VCs may have to be extra patient to see return on their investment.

Read - The Acqhire

The full Econsultancy article is here

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8562-11-things-santa-won-t-bring-you-this-year

Below is just a tiny snapshot of comments, quotes and changes you may have witnessed over the last year.

• The PPC v SEO debate is subsiding as PPC margins diminish
• The value of SEO becomes more measurable
• PPC compliments SEO now more than SEO complimenting PPC
• SEO is a large part of PR
• PR is a large part of SEO
• Affiliate marketing is no longer the standalone channel that is once was
• PPC, SEO and social media tactics are being used in tandem
• Facebook advertising is driving display growth
• Display marketing techniques are begin to use search marketing techniques with real-time bidding
• Display and search approaches are now working together rather than acting in discord
• Mobile has become to be a massive part of the search acquisition channel

• Video and rich media form part of PPC, SEO, social and mobile strategies
• ECRM and Social CRM refine and revitalize email marketing and marketing optimization techniques
• Cross channel attribution management and measurement has become essential to all marketers
• Technology has become the enabler of marketing creativity driven by people

All of the above points highlight that our online marketing environment is constantly shifting and changing in numerous guises.

Hence, to integrate and optimize marketing channels you need to integrate and optimize your people, talent, and processes.

Read more here on State of Search

How good was the quality of the SEO data that you used in the pitch?

All too often the analysis feeds back to where you went wrong regarding the mechanics of the pitch.

Was it the Powerpoint, the pitch team, pricing, the company offering, the company structure, a conflict of interest with client or a lack of testimonials?.

It is only natural to focus your attention on the business development process and there are thousands of blog posts out there which can tell you the ‘do’s and ‘don’ts of pitch management.

Here is an alternative way of looking at it;

http://www.stateofsearch.com/business-development-and-seo-data-winning-that-pitch/

I have always been a fan of attribution regardless of the media channel and social media is no different. Whilst I fully understand that social media is a very unique channel and it is impossible to measure all its value. Infact – if you tried to write about all the value that social media has to offer then you will have a very long blog post on your hands. There are many such posts out there and i dare not add to them.

In my Econsultancy post I tried to explain how social media fits in attribution type sequences and how ‘value and influence’ are becoming attribution like metrics.

The full artice

Social Media Friend or Foe?

According to Coolbrands it is Aston Martin

We all love Bond !

Full story from Brand Republic below

http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletin/brandrepublicnewsbulletin/article/1095643/aston-martin-fends-off-apple-named-coolest-brand-2011/

I am still not sure it really takes into account channels outside of Twitter.

Netherless – still nice

The new media age Peer Index Top 100 is a league table of the UK digital media and marketing industry’s top 100 most influential people on social media. The list is open to anyone from the UK industry to enter or nominate by using the hastag #nmaPITop100 on Twitter.

The initial point of entry to the list is via Twitter but it is judged on users’ wider social media profiles, on Facebook and LinkedIn for example, if they have logged into Peer Index and given permission for this. For more information about the methodology see the bottom of this page or visit the Peer Index website (http://www.peerindex.com/help/scores).

However, as media formats collide, a balanced and, sometimes, holistic approach is needed.

Here – I try and argue the case for both

Digital fragmentation: sub-specialist silos and the ‘special ones’ from Econsultancy

Fragmentation of media across all digital disciplines such as display, search, social, mobile and video is changing the way that people view, purchase and manage their media budgets.

This has positive and negative ramifications for buyers, suppliers, agencies and specialists in field. It also sparks an age old specialist v generalist debate on how we select media and technology vendors and utilise human capital within digital organisations.

For those of you who are familiar with the Lumascape infographic/visuals of the digital landscapes it is clear that all digital markets are becoming increasingly more crowded and increasingly more complex.

The Lumascapes started by highlighting one of the most complex markets of all: display. More have been added for search, social, mobile and video. All highlight the fact that the journey from advertiser to audience is getting longer.

read the full article here

The full article is here

According to the recent IAB and PwC study, in 2010 display grew by 27% and search by 8%. If you have been following the growth of display and the rise of DSPs (demand-side platforms) you are no doubt aware that growth has been fuelled by RTB (real-time bidding).

Its growth and similarities are closely aligned to ‘traditional’ search bid management techniques. This is great news for the display industry and highlights great opportunities for the search marketer.

However, are search marketers grasping this opportunity, and do marketers and agencies really understand the new display environment?

Technology has been a huge driver of display growth. However, technology alone does not guarantee success. Currently there is a huge knowledge gap that needs to be addressed urgently in order for display growth to flourish at it should.

Whilst search and display marketers argue about who should own this growth area, the forward thinking companies are forming biddable media departments, educating themselves and clients on the new display ecosystem, and aligning the technical and human capital assets in unison.

In my last article I highlighted key drivers of growth relating to data, inventory, scalability and data insight.

Today I feel the need to focus on factors that will fuel display adoption.

Attribution

Attribution data is the glue that helps piece together the search, display and digital marketing jigsaw.

How you analyse, use and attribute data value is key to managing and optimising display and digital spend. What’s more, how you use your data and understand the user is pivotal for audience targeting, retargeting, and search optimisation success.

What data you factor in as past media performance, as well as audience intent data, allows you to better understand campaign results and return on ad spend. This enables real insight into behaviour and allows the retargeting of users across a multitude of platforms.

How you attribute display’s role in the purchase cycle and allocate credit to multiple touch points is crucial. However, it’s just as important to understand and attribute value to the display data that you have.

Understanding the consumer journey on and offsite and assigning value to different segments of data is essential.

Knowledge and understanding

According to IAB and IASH research in 2010, nearly half of UK agencies (42.5%) will be spending more on DSPs, while 54.2% will spend more on ad exchanges.

The same research by the IAB and IASH in 2010 also revealed that for more than 35% of agencies, a lack of understanding of technology around ad exchanges and DSPs is a major challenge.

Maybe I am being a little creative with the research and figures but… 82.4% of agencies plan to spend more on display via DSPs but admit knowledge is a major challenge. Hopefully you get my point…

As more and more agencies and advertisers trend towards purchasing an optimising their media rather than third party ad networks it is vital that they firstly understand the display environment. Experience is essential.

It takes a lot of time and experience to understand how each network works, audience buying, and multiple exchanges like SSPs, DSPs, DSPPs: acronym city.

Read more here at Econsultancy

Full article here – The New Attribution by R.Barnette on SEW

Search marketing is growing up. We’ve been saying this for some time, but growth and maturity continues in our industry. It’s gratifying to see.

It’s always useful to look at what the smart marketers are doing to see where the industry is heading. Based on what we’re seeing, the  industry is heading in the right direction.

In the early days the smart marketers recognized paid search marketing as a performance marketing goldmine and put a few quant geeks in a back room and let them work their magic.As search marketing became more mainstream and competition increased, the smart marketers began to utilize technology to optimize their bids, expand their keyword lists, and manage their landing page and creative ads.Most recently, smart marketers have understood that user behavior is changing and that there is a purchase cycle that happens entirely online.

Enter the Buzzword “Attribution”

While this is unfortunately still in the aspirational stage for most marketers, understanding how paid search works within the entire customer purchase process is good for paid search and for digital marketing as a whole.Smart marketers use attribution to optimize performance-based digital marketing holistically — knowing that within this landscape search marketing plays the largest role. The smartest marketers today understand that to optimizetheir digital marketing efforts they need to deliver the right message at the right time to their potential customers whether through media or messages on their web site.

Customers browse. They search. They go to your website. They see display ads.They search again. They ask their friend about your product on Facebook. They go back to your website. Only then do they purchase.

If you’re spending incredible amounts of time and resources buying digital media and optimizing the creative your customers see, why aren’t you treating your web site — and the message your potential customers seethere — as part of the creative optimization process?

Attribution, in reality, goes further than just cross channel, measurement, and allocation of digital spend. Conversion optimization should be part of the mix as well. The same technology that delivers the right advertisement to a potential customer is also very well suited to deliver the right message on your website.

Optimization Goes Way Beyond Search

Many a marketer forgets this. To deliver optimal value to your digital marketing campaigns it is essential that the traffic you bring to site is optimized and converted.

Smart marketers will only spend more money if they see consistently increasing revenue and ROI on media they purchase.

This can happen in two ways:

Delivering a more qualified audience to your website.
Getting them to convert more often when they get to your site.

These two goals may seem like different efforts, but theyare very intertwined. In the past, many search marketers have blamed the site, the user experience, the failure of the website owner, or onsite optimizationfor not converting enough “quality traffic.”

It’s vital for the search marketers to understand and embrace the online purchase funnel and work closely with onsite teams to ensure that you take an “attribution” like approach to onsite optimization. As always, keep a close eye on your cross channel data and attribution models.