It’s not the proudest moment in the life of any marketer or brand when they have to start buying likes on Facebook or followers on Twitter in order to make their page more appealing. However, it is not uncommon for this to happen each day, making for a sort of unfair advantage for those who do the buying. Now, though, Facebook will be leveling the playing field, so that all the marketing that takes place on the network is absolutely genuine. Of course, they can only put so much effort into the removal of these phony Likes, which brings to question whether they will ever be able to stop the problem completely.

From their post on August 31st;

A Like that doesn’t come from someone truly interested in connecting with a Page benefits no one. Real identity, for both users and brands on Facebook, is important to not only Facebook’s mission of helping the world share, but also the need for people and customers to authentically connect to the Pages they care about. When a Page and fan connect on Facebook, we want to ensure that connection involves a real person interested in hearing from a specific Page and engaging with that brand’s content. As such, we have recently increased our automated efforts to remove Likes on Pages that may have been gained by means that violate our Facebook Terms.

It is a bit strange that something has not already been done about the issue in the past. These fake Likes have been around since the beginning of Facebook marketing, and Facebook knew that just as well as anyone else did. They assure us in their blog that they have never permitted the use of these purchased Likes, but they have not paid much attention to them until now. It seems a bit strange that Facebook has decided to act now, rather than much earlier.

Regardless, Facebook is now doing something about it, and so the fall back of buying Facebook Likes is now gone. It is absolutely a good thing too, because as Facebook said, these Likes are not very beneficial to anyone. For most Facebook users, the number of Likes is not quite as important as who has Liked the page. People are interested in their friends’ genuine Likes, or at least those that are clearly real.

They end the post noting the way that Facebook should be used in the future;

Facebook was built on the principle of real identity and we want this same authenticity to extend to Pages. We undoubtedly expect that this will be a positive change for anyone using Facebook, and we look forward to helping even more people share and connect with the friends and brands they care about.

The post offers some advice to those who think their pages’ security may be compromised, telling them to visit a page that can help with hacked accounts. Also, they advise that marketers should “vet” businesses that offer assistance with Facebook marketing, to ensure that they are genuine, legal business.

Just one of the countless ways that Google helps marketers in their daily tasks is with Google Analytics. Google’s online analytic software has given marketers a valuable tool in researching reports and results that affect their most important decisions day in and day out. The problem that many marketers have with it however is the confusion of navigating various reports and data in a timely, organized manner. It is something that Google Analytics has never really been exceptional with, which is why they have announced the release of what they are calling Shortcuts. This feature is a new addition to Google Analytics that will make it a bit more user friendly.

In their blog post, Google describes Shortcuts by stating:

We’re pleased to announce the addition of Shortcuts to Google Analytics. Shortcuts help you get to the exact view you want of your data in GA in record time. Rather than having to go through the “find report, add segment, change, sort” process daily, with Shortcuts you can do it once, save it, and come back to it in a single click.

It will ultimately allow marketers to better navigate GA, making the entire experience a bit less annoying and more helpful. The idea is that marketers can now label those reports, be they standard or custom, which are most important to them, creating Shortcuts to them. Certainly the improvement is not a huge one, but it will definitely improve upon the way marketers feel about using Google Analytics. They will save time, and better organize GA use.

The new Shortcuts addition will serve markers by saving a lot of information within a single Shortcut, as Google explains:

The following information is saved as part of a Shortcut:

• Standard or custom report for context
• Currently viewed tab on the report
• Sort order
• Advanced segments
• Graphed metric

Notably not saved is the date range and sample size. This is because they are very dependent on the data you are looking at.

Most will say that they really have not had problems with Google Analytics in the past, and it is probably true. Google is improving upon their software so that it can perform much better for the marketer, tying up any loose seams that they found within GA.

Analytic software is absolutely essential in the marketing world, so it is prudent that it not be too confusing or time consuming. Marketers need to find out what they need to know as quickly as possible, as timing and organization are everything in marketing. Shortcuts will allow for much more precise and timely research, which will ultimately improve upon marketing results.

In their blog post, Google details exactly how shortcuts can be used. They explain the step by step process to creating and using these shortcuts. They also note a few more important facts:

• Shortcuts can be emailed and exported like any other standard report.
  • Deleting a Shortcut will remove that report from any scheduled emails, as with deleting a custom report.
• Shortcuts apply at the profile level, like the rest of reports in Google Analytics.

This is a continued step in making your experience with Google Analytics as efficient as possible. We hope you find Shortcuts a useful feature.

Twitter did big things for their advertising name when they released Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, allowing for Twitter to effectively be used for marketing purposes. As any company that is new in advertising will do, Twitter has announced some new improvements to their marketing opportunities. Twitter has announced that they will now be allowing marketers to target Twitter users based on interest with their Promoted Tweets and Accounts. In addition to this new opportunity for Twitter marketers, the company has lowered the minimum bid for their ad bidding system to one cent, making their advertising prices pretty attractive. Twitter seems to be making all the right moves that will bring them a decent reputation with advertisers.

Today we’re taking an important next step by allowing you to target your Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts campaigns to a set of interests that you explicitly choose. By targeting people’s topical interests, you will be able to connect with a greater number of users and deliver tailored messages to people who are more likely to engage with your Tweets. When people discover offers and messages about the things they care about on Twitter, it’s good for both marketers and users.

With their new interest-based targeting feature, Twitter is offering up two options to marketers. The first option allows marketers to choose from upwards of 350 interest categories, and target users based on those that they choose. These categories include things like Movies, Music, Pets, Science, Society, Law, Style and Fashion, and many more. After choosing an interest category, marketers can choose specific interests based on them, like sub-interests. Twitter calls it a two-level hierarchy, and it contains hundreds of interest options.

There are those marketers that are looking to target more precise user groups, which is where the second option comes into play. This option allows marketers to, “create custom segments by specifying certain @usernames that are relevant to the product, event or initiative you are looking to promote. Custom segments let you reach users with similar interests to that @username’s followers.” This will allow marketers to reach even further than to those that follow them and reach users with the same interests.

Twitter has already been testing this new feature for a while, and they reported that many have seen significant increases in their audience reach. There have also been beta testers that were able to make good use of the option to specify user groups and target them specifically. In both scenarios, there have been high engagement rates in the targeted Promoted Tweets and Accounts.

In light of their new and improved marketing opportunities, Twitter has lowered the minimum bid on their ads, knowing that they will be receiving many more bids on these ads.

Great content matters: if you have engaging Promoted Tweet copy, you can win even if others bid higher. We believe the new lower minimum bid, in combination with interest targeting, will drive greater ROI for every campaign on Twitter.

The announcement was made by Kevin Well, Director of Product Management.

Viewability is one of the more important factors that marketers have to take into consideration when dealing with multiple ad campaigns at a time. It is definitely not always an easy task to measure the viewability of ads, especially with the larger campaigns. The IAB even details some of the better ways for the ad industry to improve upon their marketing viewability and measurement, in “Making Measurement Make Sense.” The 3MS standard of viewability that has been set in place is that 50% of an ad must be viewable for at least one second. However, there has been a problem with viewability lately, and according to a study by AdSafe Media, an advertising security company, less than half of the ads online meet the standard.

This AdSafe Media Report, with results reported by AdWeek, showed that for advertisements sold directly by publishers, 49.9% met the viewability standard. For ads bought through ad networks, only 41.2% met the standard. For those advertisements that were sold through ad exchanges, only 40.3% of ads were able to meet the mark. After an extension into a viewing window of 15 seconds, the numbers are even lower. Directly sold ads went to 21.1%, exchange ads went to 16.4%, and network ads dropped to 16.3%.

Another problem that AdSafe Media found within the results was the amount of ad collision that has occurred within the first half of 2012. When the same advertisement pops up twice on the same page at the same time, it lowers t chance of conversion on each of the two, making ad collision something to avoid. However, we tend to see it happening quite a bit on some of the websites that we regularly browse. The results showed that these ad collisions happen with about 6% to 7% of ads that are served on the internet, which may seem low, but it is still too many.

In the AdWeek article by Tim Peters, a suggestion based on the results is given that could help in avoiding ad collision.

Instead of getting views through two ads colliding, brands could be better off buying one long vertical ad. Ads measuring 160 x 600 pixels meet the 3MS viewability standard 53.1 percent of the time (and 68.1 percent of the time if bought directly). For 728 x 90 pixel ads—those wide horizontal ones usually found atop the page—the requirement is met 36.1 percent of the time, whereas the boxy 300 x 250 units hit the mark 38.4 percent of the time.

Before any really successful performance marketing can take place, viewability standards have to be considered. If an ad is to bring in the results that any marketer hopes for, then it needs to be well thought out and viewable to consumers. The results of AdSafe Media’s viewability study shows just how important this factor should become, as over half of the ads that are put out on the web today do not meet the viewability standards needed to be successful.

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Find how to get a Trip to the Grand Cayman Islands
All Paid for by Adknowledge

Adknowledge Is Taking Their Partners to the Island of Grand Cayman.

Adknowledge has announced today the launch of their “Escape to Paradise” contest, a promotion that rewards both their highest earning, and fastest growing email and affiliate marketing partners. The contest, which runs from September 1st, 2012 through December 31st, 2012, rewards winners with a trip for six days at an all-inclusive resort on the beautiful island of Grand Cayman. There are two different ways to win, and unlike similar promotions, each winner gets to bring a guest.

“We wanted to do something very special for our partners,” said Matt Hoggatt, General Manager of Adknowledge’s Email & Affiliate Channel. “We not only wanted to take them on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, we wanted them to be able to bring their spouses or loved ones as well. That was genuinely important to us. It will be a great opportunity to network and share ideas with some of the best marketers in the world, but this really is about cutting loose and having a good time.”

Adknowledge is taking its five highest revenue earning partners and its five fastest growing partners as well. Winners will depart on Tuesday, February 5th, 2013 and return Sunday, February 10th, 2013. Partners still have plenty of time to push enough traffic to win. Round-trip airfare, all meals, drinks, room and board will be covered, as well as some special excursions.

“We’re definitely keeping a couple of surprises up our sleeve,” Hoggatt said. “Our original goal was to give the winners of this trip something they would remember fondly for the rest of their lives, and that’s exactly what we are going to do.”

For more details about Adknowledge’s “Escape to Paradise” contest, please visit: http://lm.adknowledge.com/li06/

Seems that SiteScout has been fully integrated into Google Ad Exchange, which is obviously one of the top sources for media opportunities. This should make a lot of media buyers happy with access to over 7,000 premium sites. According to SiteScout:

Google has some of the highest-quality inventory available, and we strongly recommend testing your campaigns across these new sites. Google Ad Exchange will also have a dramatic impact on the reach of your retargeting campaigns, so be sure to re-test these as well.

This launch also gives us access to a huge amount of Google’s “hidden” inventory, on request; so, if you need more traffic from Australia, UK or wherever, let us know and we will make it available for you. For example, we’ve added almost 300 new sites from Brazil to the system as per a request from a user. Just reach out to your account manager, or reply to this email with details of what kind of inventory you need.

(TIP: To filter only Google sites in the Sites tab, enter “8-” into the filter field.)

To explore these new sites, you can now sign in to SiteScout directly from our homepage. Look for the sign in form in the top right-hand corner of the page.

Wonder how Real-Time Bidding Works? Here’s an informative quickie from SiteScout

Yesterday, I wondered just how the lawsuit between Apple and Samsung would affect the mobile marketing community as well as the smartphone market. I was under the impression that Apple would be taking a huge step toward the front spot in the mobile platform race. In effect, I thought that this would cause marketers that advertised on Android devices to make the switch to Apple, as Android would probably be falling behind quite a bit in the near future. However, this was simply the opinion I was leaning toward, and I was not entirely convinced that Android was in for a mess of trouble due to the lawsuit.

According to Google’s new announcement on the subject of the lawsuit, Android’s core operating system will not be affected by it very much at all. The Verge, a popular online news website, reported the statement made by Google that should ease the minds of Android marketers.

The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don’t relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Patent Office. The mobile industry is moving fast and all players — including newcomers — are building upon ideas that have been around for decades. We work with our partners to give consumers innovative and affordable products, and we don’t want anything to limit that.

Samsung did, indeed, manufacture a gigantic share of the devices that run the Android operating system, but the lawsuit was only against Samsung, and not Android itself. Android quietly sneaked away from the lawsuit, supporting Samsung but not getting too involved. It was a smart move for Google, because it seems Android will continue to live on strongly, probably even retaining its spot ahead of Apple in the smartphone operating system market.

How will they stay afloat if their most influential manufacturing company is now down and out? Well, Google itself has had a lot of experience in manufacturing software to run its Android OS. Samsung may have been a popular company, but Google will always be able to survive on its own. Without being able to even think of simulating the innovations of other operating systems, Google will now have to innovate further and come up with new and exciting ways to keep users in love with Android. Marketers can get excited about this as well, because with these innovations will come more marketing opportunity with Android OS.

With Google’s announcement, I am led to believe that Android will be just fine. There are plenty of other manufacturers, including Google itself, that can help to keep Android alive and well. Sure, Apple will gain some ground on Android, but the competition will still be heated, as both companies have been given the opportunity to improve. Samsung seems to be the only company in this big conflict that has come out severely injured. Their name has taken a huge hit in the smartphone world, and recovery won’t be easy.