More businesses advertising online than in print

Yet another indication of how industries can be transformed by technology comes from the US where the Kelsey Group reports there are now more small and medium businesses in the US advertising online than in traditional media.

Specifically 77% of US businesses use online advertising in August 2009 compared to 69% using traditional media. Last year the figures were about even.

However, the spending profile is different. Business is still putting more of their budget towards traditional media (nearly two thirds) although during the last year the share of online has increased from 22% to 37%.

That is a significant growth in an environment when overall advertising spending is down. ie while business cut back advertising they invested more in online. Perhaps this was largely driven by better proof points around return on investment or alternatively the relatively small amount of money needed to reach a wider audience.

In Australia these figures are likely to be much lower although the same trend over time is likely to apply. Business already spends $1.8bn advertising online.

60,000 people pay for 'quack' medical information

This news item reminds me of the big change in consumer behaviour occurring with the availability of the Internet.

Not only are people willing to trust information on the internet about health conditions and treatment but they are prepared to spend money to gain access to that information if it looks credible.

You would think it is relatively easy to spot a scam in Australia if you know that doctors aren't allowed to advertise before and after photos. Nevertheless tens of thousands of people were sufficiently interested in that type of information (desperate?) and the promises made to go to the effort to pay to obtain it.

This is a niche that can be exploited by unscrupulous parties who use these new forms of media effectively. Looked at the other way it is also an opportunity to educate the information seeking public that is not being effectively used.

Online advertising up 18.5% in Australia

It seems the trend is continuing a pace as an increasingly large share of advertising dollars are spend online and a 18.5% increase in online advertising to $1.8bn in Australia.

Search and directories accounted for 49% of total advertising expenditure, with general display accounting for 27% and classifieds 24%. Search and directories grew by 25%, general display grew 19.6% and classifieds by 6%

Finance, computers and communications and motor vehicles were the most dominant sections using general display advertising, and account for 45.5% of general display spend. The largest subcategory was motor vehicles - manufacturers, and comprised 9.8% of general display spending for the second quarter of 2009.

No breakout of medical spend but it wouldn't be surprising to see the same trend (off a lower base) in the medical industry.

It is unclear what sites would be included in some of these categories. Presumably Google and Yellow Pages are both included in the search and directories category where spending is growing at 25%. I doubt many medical advertisers (apart from pharamaceutical companies) would use display advertising or online classifieds to a large degree.

The original article on the Interactive Advertising Bureau Australia website.

Promoting your medical services online

For those who missed it I have another article published in Pulse IT's May edition titled Promoting your medical services online on pages 32-35 following on from the previous article A doctor's website - a growing necessity? which has now also been republished on the Australian Federation of Medical Women website.

The article begins as follows:

This article is the second in a two part series devoted to websites for medical practices. The first article outlined the reasons doctors might establish an online presence, such as attracting new patients or providing information to existing patients. In this article we will look at the options available to build your reputation online and monitor the effectiveness of your online presence.

Building a reputation online is a multi-faceted process as people seek information using a variety of methods for a variety of purposes: a potential patient will typically go to a directory to find someone with relevant experience when they already know they need those services. However, where they are seeking information about a condition or treatment they may ask their friends, read books or hopefully consult a medical practitioner.

As shown in Table 1, all online promotion methods have parallels to traditional advertising and promotion methods.

Read the rest of Promoting your medical services online or in the May printed edition.

Feel free to comment or discuss the contents of either article on this blog. 

More to come: Over the coming weeks I plan to revisit the topic of creating a website and introduce a few ways that have come to my attention to get a web presence. I plan to profile both HealthEngine and YourHealth but if you are aware of any other services or one you have found useful please point it out so I can profile them. 

Services and Tools Google offers Advertisers

For those that are new to the online medium or those that have been online for some time you might find it instructive to look at the array of tools and services that Google has lined up behind its efforts to infiltrate the online advertising medium. What started as a side project to Google's main business of search is now the engine room that funds Google's ambitions.

• It has tools to help you define your strategy, create your ads, execute your ad campaign (buy and place ads) and monitor it.
  
• It can place ads online, on mobile phones and even on TV.
  

Click on the Google advertising worm below to expand the image and see the different tools and resources Google has assembled or see the whole of the Google Advertisers minisite for a more indepth exploration.

One point you should particularly draw from the site which is a bit hidden by all the neat graphical examples for the pet stick advertising example is where you should focus your effort:

Always on the business end of the marketing equation towards optimisation which are high impact. That is not to say strategy, creative or media play no part - they are important but you should spend more time optimising than the strategy or creative. Results talk and are the only real measure of effectiveness no matter how clever a strategy or innovative a creative campaign is.

Why would Google and Yahoo offer free online advertising?

Here are the reasons:

1. They want you to try their services so are prepared to give you an inducement to give it a go.
   
2. Advertising revenue is falling worldwide so they are keen to bolster their revenues from new users.
   
3. They believe once you have tried the service you will see the value; while it has some short term pain for them they are hoping it has a long term return.
4. There is very little real cost.

Let's dwell on point 4 in more detail. 

What is the cost of running these campaigns?

Let's look at Google first. So you get a special advertising code that you enter into the Google Adwords site and hey presto you don't have to pay for the first $75 of Adwords ads you place. Google give up $75 and off you go happy. Not quite. 

What are they really giving up for $75? The chance to bill you for the equivalent of $75 of ads you place through Google Adwords. They don't even pay for the ads. But they may well recoup this from others as by your advertising you have increased competition for the keywords you bid on. (Remember they effectively run an auction system where the highest bidder wins). Effectively all they have done is make it nearly $75 more expensive for existing advertisers on those keywords - particularly if you choose high bids because you are inexperienced and want to immediately appear on page 1 for some obvious keywords.

There was an interesting article in the Australian which discusses this concept in more detail.

$75 doesn't last long on Adwords particularly if you could be a serious advertiser.

In the case of Yahoo there seem to be some real costs involved as the process is not automated. The cost of supporting a separate lead gathering process, a phone call to the new advertiser, time and effort on the part of a 3rd party who will construct a campaign. Someone is paying these bills. 

On top of this the apparent value is higher ($150) meaning the campaign may indeed take longer so the costs are likely incurred over more than one month. 

Of course in both offers the real value is determined by unit prices you pay for clicks. If the "cost" of an ad on Yahoo is twice as high as Google for the same work then the actual value will be the same despite the apparent $75/$150 difference. 

PS. I've taken the first step and signed up for the Yahoo Search Marketing deal. It turns out that the company doing all the work is Advantate a joint venture between Melbourne IT and Fairfax Digital that focuses on search engine optimisation and search engine marketing (including both Yahoo and Google). As part of their deal you get a monthly/3 monthly report (it wasn't clear) but you don't seem to get direct access to the Yahoo search marketing interface.

Try Google and Yahoo Online Advertising for free $75 and $150 coupon (Australia only)

Good news for those who haven't yet taken the plunge and tried pay per click advertising. Here are two free offers to let you dip your toe in the water without risk and see if your business has anything to gain: 

Google "Stimulus" offer 

A $75 free Google Adwords coupon for new Google Advertisers. Expires 30/6/2009.

Yahoo "Big Bang" offer

The lesser of $150 or 3 months free advertising on NineMSN and Yahoo7 for new Yahoo advertisers. Expires 31/7/2009.

Why not give it a go and see how you find it? I'm interested in how easy you find it. I'm even going to finally try Yahoo advertising. What have I got to lose?

Click fraud or just a poor Adwords campaign?

Here is a specific example of a campaign I have been struggling with for a few months. It relates to a specific condition (endometriosis) that afflicts a significant part of the female population. 

The suspicion has been that this is an example of where competitors or website owners are deliberately clicking on the high value ads. Why would they do that?

Competitors may do it to increase my costs or turn me off advertising for that keyword. It simply becomes hard to justify the return on investment for that keyword. Site owners who place Adwords ads on their site have an incentive to have visitors click as many ads as possible as they get paid for each click. It should be pointed out that both of these practices are certainly unethical and are likely to also be illegal and may lead to a site owner or advertiser being banned from using Adwords.

Detecting click fraud

Actually identifying click fraud can be difficult. This issue generates a lot of angst amongst all the big online ad distributors and has also lead to substantial payouts to advertisers where it is detected. 

A simple way of doing it is to look for dramatic changes in performance of your ads over time. This requires you to actively monitor your Adwords performance and factor out the effect of any specific campaigns or recent changes you have made. Look for:

1. An abnormal number of clicks from the same IP address.
   
2. Keyword performance - a sudden increase in CTR (often with higher bounce rates or lower average time on the site).
   
3. Decline in the number of conversions or rate of conversion.
   
4. An increase in the number of visitors who leave your site quickly
   
5. A large number of impressions, without the accompanying click on your ad - this may be an attempt by a competitor to artificially lower your CTR and as a result your quality score (so you may pay more for a page 1 listing or not appear at all).
   
6. Abnormally high clicks and impressions on affiliate websites
   
7. A large number of clicks coming from countries outside of your normal market

Our Case

Endometriosis is a fairly well searched term (the cost per ad is high in Adwords which is another indicator of advertiser interest), it is in the top 20 pages of the OGCG website that generates traffic from Google and a few local competitors advertise heavily on the term. So, with my knowledge and skill I should be able to turn it into a productive term.

Well, no. I've had to turn off advertising for the keyword "endometriosis". 

You can see from statistics below that it has a low click through rate (CTR) and a high cost per conversion. It simply doesn't justify the expenditure. In our case I'd be loathe to call it click fraud but the results are just not what one would expect for such a prevalent condition. This is the second time around I've tried to identify a productive niche. Perhaps I need to accept the keyword isn't as specific of an intent to seek treatment as I believed.

(Click to Enlarge)

You can find out more about click fraud on wikipedia.

Online Directories - Necessary Evil or Just Evil?

We've had another doctor join the practice this month. As a result I've been scrambling to update all the web copy and in particular online directories in which OGCG is listed. Here is my critique of the online directory business in general (or perhaps more of a rant):

1. Directories that don't provide you with a method of updating  - what's with that? You can submit your details for free through a web form but if they change it involves lengthy correspondence or worse - forces you to pay. There are some very well known culprits here. Those who use your directory are just going to have to live with inaccurate details and your credibility will suffer. I did try.
   
   
2. Free directories that require a reciprocal link - sounds innocuous but they often get more out of the deal than you do. Why do they ask for a link from your website back to theirs? So their PageRank goes up so they can say their directory is more value and charge people for premium listings (see point 4 below)! Hey, sometimes your entry on their directory will list higher than your website. Now that is irritating - you've just pushed your website further down the search results!
   
   
3. Claiming large number of visitors/users that don't ever end up visiting your site. I wonder how many of those hits are really the website owners themselves checking their own listing is still there. If your listed on an online directory but nobody sees it are you really there? If you haven't heard of the online directory before chances are no one else has either. Are potential visitors really using that directory as their speed dial to the Internet?
   
   
4. Charging for premium listing - most online directories bring negligible traffic. Yes, you heard it correctly! Looking over the logs for the last eight months I can say that the best performing directory, the veritable YellowPages, brought in one visitor every 2 days to the website.  There is a list of shame that brought in less than one visitor a month. It consists of most directories (only 3 escaped). How can a business keep charging for listings and expect people to pay: good sales pitches, naivety of buyers and very few people are willing to talk about how they were hoodwinked. Perhaps people just don't check. However, with an online directory you can check and really should.
   
   
5. Listing increases your PageRank so don't worry about the lack of traffic - this is an argument I often see advanced by people in the marketing industry. But hang on, even if the directory has a high PageRank (eg one of 5), the page on which your Johny-come-lately site is listed is likely to be way back in the pack, indeed I'm willing to bet it is on a page with a PageRank of 0. So it will pass you a big fat PageRank of 0.
   
   
6. Low barriers to entry - like many markets with low barriers to entry you have a proliferation of options. I suspect somewhere out there there is software you can buy for about $1,000 (or perhaps a pirate or shareware program) that allows you to instantly set up a directory business online and if it is automated then all you do is set it up and let it run. Soon all the bunnies will be sending you cheques to be included. Be very wary before paying someone to list you in directories or buying a piece of software that does it for you. 

Summary

So before you go and spend a whole lot of time listing on directories or pay someone to list your site on 100, 650 or 1,700 High Ranking directories think about whether you really want to lend credence to a scam. The return on investment from most directories is non existent. Search engines won the battle for the hearts and minds of Internet users and directories lost. The traffic figures prove it.

It may be my hard-nosed attitude to benefits outweighing the costs is holding me back from directory success. If you have had a good experience with a directory feel free to point it out below. 

PS. Welcome to the practice Dr Natalia Khomko and apologies about the slovenly update of your details. Sometimes the web does not live up to its promise of instant gratification but no one is really using them anyway so don't worry.

How to make you Google Adwords ad stand out from the crowd

Here are three ways to visually enhance a Google Adwords entry to make it stand out from the crowd. Two of these techniques give you an advantage through an additional line in your ad copy.

1. Keyword Highlighting

Set up your Google Adwords campaign so that the ads that display when someone types in a keyword trigger an ad that uses that search term. Every instance of that term will be highlighted when someone searches for it.

The figure opposite shows the search dentist sydney which shows up a number of ads highlighting the occurrence of either word: in the title, in the copy and even in the display URL.

If I had searched for the literal "dentist sydney" ie requiring both words to be used together then only the 2nd and 4th ads would have had their title highlighted as both words occur in the ad. Similarly if I had searched for "sydney dentist" then the URL of the 5th ad would have been highlighted.

2. Additional line for regionally targetted ad

When you are setting up an Ad you can geographically restrict it to display to certain users eg choose to display your ad in Sydney only or in Australia or the US etc. This obviously restricts the audience that will see your ad but perhaps that is a sensible trade off to make if they are really the only people likely to visit a bricks and mortar store.

In the example opposite only two advertisers have taken advantage of this and they get the benefit of an extra line for their ad that highlights that they service that area.

How does Google do this? When a user enters a search term that is obviously geographically related or the IP address (a part of information that is sent when you do a search) of the computer performing the search indicates the user is located in a particular geographical location your ad would be triggered. See more about it here.

3. Additional line and call to action with Google Checkout button

If you have a product or service you can sell using Google Checkout (Google's equivalent to PayPal) then you can achieve the effect  shown on the right - a nifty little call to action button with Google branding that asks your customers to check out.

Google says these help attract new customers and include a testimonial from a customer claiming a 23% lift in click through rate as a result.

Google checkout is a beast in itself and you should ascertain whether you are really ready to take credit card information over the internet.

Conclusion

These are all ways of getting a very visually differentiated Ad.  Will this make your ad more effective? Probably. Other methods to increase the effectiveness of your ad include paying attention to the wording of your ad. Are you using words that draw the potential customer in?  Is your Ad copy evoking an emotional response? Below is the kind of tips typically suggested to do just that. I can't see someone using the words 'humiliate' or 'fatal' in a medically related ad though!

Google Telstra/Sensis deal on Yellow Pages advertising

As a Yellow Pages advertiser I read with some interest the press announcement regarding the search and online advertising deal between Google and Sensis deal. eg this ZdNet article.

Putting aside the usual uninformed comments there is little analysis of the real impact this partnership will have on the Australian search scene. From the terms of the deal that have been made public it is clear that the Yellow Pages business (a multi-billion dollar business in its own right) will continue to exist but will increasingly use Google technology for search but also to deliver advertisements to visitors to some Telstra sites (presumably under some kind of revenue sharing deal). There are clearly benefits to both organisations from the deal both strategic and financial.

But what benefit will this have for those who already advertise with Yellow Pages? Is there more or less of a reason to advertise with Yellow Pages as a result of the deal? It would appear that the previous deal between TrueLocal and Google has been superseded and come early next year you will be able to search for a term and have Google Maps results from Yellow Pages. This appears to be of benefit for Yellow Pages advertisers. My previous tip about getting your way to the top of the Google Maps listing (and onto page 1 of the search results) may not remain valid for long so use it soon!

Time will tell what other benefits there will be but on the face of it getting increased exposure for the same price seems like a win.

Now if only I could work out which Organic Google searches were from Google Maps we could see what benefit Google gets out of the deal. Everyone assumes the benefit is all one way but looking at how often ads are displayed on Google Maps I'd say Google would be pretty pleased to increase visitors to Google Maps.