Photo Credit: Chris Willis

Different content environments generates different consumer perceptions and responsiveness to the content and advertisers.

A recent research A Sense of Place: Why Environments Matter” conducted by Harris Interactive showed some interesting findings on how consumers perceive content in different online environments, and whether these perceptions impact advertising receptivity and consumer response.

The study assessed perceptions and responses in three key online environments:

• Media properties (e.g., NYTimes.com)
• Portal channels (e.g., Yahoo Sports)
• Social networks (e.g. Facebook).

the key findings are:

• Consumers are more likely to trust content on media sites (72%) than portal channels (60%) and social media (23%)
• Audiences on media sites are significantly more likely to believe these sites’ advertisers are high quality and reputable (24%), compared to portal channels (20%) and social media (8%)
• People who recall purchasing from a site’s advertisers are significantly more likely to do so from media sites (8%) than portal channels (5%) or social media (3%)
• Those loyal to media sites are more likely to purchase from advertisers on these sites (15%) than portal loyalists or social media loyalists (8% and 4% respectively)

Now you know you should treat different content sites differently when it comes to deploying your content strategies.

Also read:Who is the Most Popular Social Networking Website in Singapore

We didn’t actually overspend our budget. The allocation simply fell short of our expenditure.

Keith Davis quotes

Now companies are more serious about all dollars spent on advertising including online display. A smarter move is to do day-part targeting and allocate more budgets to the part of day when people are more likely to pay attention to your ads. So, when are they more likely to pay attention?

A survey by Lightspeed Research and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK asked internet users when they believed they were most receptive to online advertising messages, and the best way to get their attention on the web.

The research shows that consumers believe they are most likely to pay attention to ads from the early evening onwards. While the early evening was the best time of the day for all age groups, for younger audiences there was likely to be a steady increase in their attention to adverts as the day progressed. The older age groups had peaks between 9-12pm and 2-6pm.

The research also found out,

• the best time to reach them with ads is during e-commerce activity, whether researching the best deals or shopping online.
• younger respondents prefer entertaining ads
• people prefer not to be interrupted when they are enjoying an activity that requires their full attention such as watching catch-up TV or movie clips. So be careful the next time when you want to opt-in YouTube as part of your content network for online advertising.
• The majority of respondents say they are likely to pay attention to online ads when engaged in a range of activities, from using a search engine, to downloading entertainment files, reading the news, catching up on sports results and playing games online. Social networking in particular has a high level of receptivity – this may be because brands are becoming more involved with them. It seems you may want to experiment with ads on Facebook.

Source: IAB UK

Also read:How To Design Effective Online Display Image Ads

Stumbled upon this HP PC display ad on lifehacker the other day and I took a screenshot so that I can share with you.

This ad is truly interactive and engaging for HP TOUCHSMART PC. And, it is really cool! It gives viewers an actual feeling of this PC model.

Also read:When Could You Run Online Display Campaigns Most Effectively?

Search Engine Marketing

• Google XML Sitemaps : Essential FAQ [Search Engine Journal]
• Plotting the Effects of your PPC Changes [Apple Pie & Custard]
  Imagine you could plot the effects of every single change to your PPC campaign on a graph. You’d be able to view instantly whether that bid your raised on Friday evening before leaving the office has paid off
• Google AdWords Insertion Tag List [Search Engine Roundtable]
• Landing page load time now affects keywords’ Quality Scores [Google]
  “Keywords with landing pages that load slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids.”
• Google Leads in Mobile Search [Marketing Charts]
  “Google leads in mobile internet search provider share (61% in the first quarter of 2008), followed by Yahoo (18%) and MSN (5%), according to Nielsen Mobile, which also released data on commerce conducted via mobile devices.”

Social Media Marketing / WOM / Viral Marketing

• The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II by Dave Balter [via How To Change the World]
  FREE PDF version
• Measuring social media – a minefield without metrics [E-Consultancy]
  “Marketers need to establish industry-wide best practices first and understand what they want to achieve, before tying down the metrics. “
• Growing Experiment in Interactive TV Advertising [NT Times]
  The test offers viewers programs — and ads — they can respond to by using remote controls to click on icons they see on their screens.
• 100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media [ChrisBrogan]

Email Marketing

• ABCs of Email Rendering [MediaPost]

Display Advertising

• Interactive Banner Advertising Converts to Leads [Zac Johnson]
  “The concept of this banner was to have the visitor answer a question (check box) from within the banner, then walk them through a couple extra questions, while the offers would pop open in a new browser. “

Marketing Research

• Online Travel Query Content is Changing [Hitwise]
  “The largest chunk of branded searches were searches for inventory owners, such as airlines and hotels, and map websites, such as MapQuest and Google Maps.”
• 1.2 Billion Mobile Subscribers! [eMarketer]
  eMarketer estimates that BRIC will account for nearly 1.2 billion mobile phone subscribers this year.
• Internet marketing boosts traditional routes [BizReport]
  Thirty-three percent of consumers surveyed by the DMA were found to respond positively to email and 44% expressed similar feelings about direct mail marketing.

China Internet

• Chinese Bloggers Really Are Edgy [WSJ]
  “Western journalists often write about the ability of Chinese bloggers to challenge authority and provide an alternative voice to the propaganda that often fills China’s official news media. How accurate is that description across China’s vast blogosphere?”
• 160 million Online Video Users in China [China Web2.0]
  According to the report, there are already 160 million online video users in China by the end of 2007.

Also read:Digital Marketing: Must Read for Week July-21

1.6 billion messages are sent out from instant messengers monthly, as Singaporeans spend hours online at work and at home. Does it mean you should advertise on IM?

Came across a piece of news from Straits Times:

Microsoft, which released these figures last week, said that there are 1.3 million users of the free service in Singapore, and they are online for an average of 12 hours a day.

Though there are six million mobile phone accounts here, just one billion text messages were sent each month last year.

The message Microsoft wants to deliver is: MSN messenger is very popular media in Singapore and even more popular than SMS. It seems to me that Microsoft wants more money from display advertising on MSN messengers. However, is it a more effective media? More targeted? I don’t think so. Simply blasting out the message is NOT targeted or effective. If your product suits 15-34 age group, it might be worth trying as the bulk of IM users are in the 15-34 age group.

Also read:Is Online Video Marketing Right for Singapore Marketers?

Eyes not only draw attention but also guide attention.

People notice people. For lots of reasons, we are built to do that. As such, the presence (or not) of people in images can change how we look at, move through, interact with, and interpret a painting, a magazine, or even content on an individual page.

Very interesting finding from Human Factors, who conducted eye tracking study on Sunsilk’s display ad. The eye tracking results are also conveyed in in heatmap overlaid on the original image. The red hotspots define where people looked most often:

When the woman looks at you, you tend to look at the woman and the tagline. The product is ignored. When the woman looks at the product, you tend to look at the woman, the tag line and the product.

Lesson: for image ads to be effective online, an image needs to draw people and drive them to look towards the thing being touted.

Also read:When Could You Run Online Display Campaigns Most Effectively?