Internet Marketing Optimist
Internet Marketing & Business Strategy by Andrey Milyan
Bridging The Gap Between Real-Time Publishing And Just-In-Time Monetization
By Andrey Milyan
5 Oct 2009
Not too long ago, Catherine Taylor, one of the columnists at MediaPost, wrote an interesting piece on the problems of just-in-time monetization, raising some intriguing questions. The phrase itself stuck in my head and I’ve decided to share some of my own thoughts on the issue.
There is no denying the fact that the rate of innovation is increasing exponentially. The last decade or so has been extremely disruptive for the established advertising channels. We have seen the rise of new media, from search and display to social. Even the battle-hardened internet marketing pros struggle with challenges posed by services like Twitter. Social media sites themselves have so far been unable to effectively monetize the huge audiences they attract.
Challenges Of Just-In-Time Monetization
Besides the issues of getting social media users to interactive with a brand (not to mention monetizing them), there is also a gaping hole in advertisers’ ability to respond quickly enough in the world of real-time publishing. While online reputation management is a challenge, it is the inability to deploy ads quickly enough that is preventing companies from maximizing their ROI. How do you take advantage of a surge of tweets brought on by a breaking news story or some YouTube video suddenly gaining thousands of views? It is certainly not easy. Google is working hard to incorporate real-time publishing into its own ad-supported model and envelop as much of that content with AdWords ads as possible. Nonetheless, today advertisers have a limit ability to deploy just-in-time monatization campaigns in the world of real-time publishing.
The Dragon Rising: Search And Social Media Market In China
By Andrey Milyan
25 Sep 2009
With the Asian economies quickly emerging from the economic downturn and the Western world still languishing in the worst recession in recent memory, growing Internet markets in countries like China look ever more attractive. Although accurate numbers are notoriously difficult to come by (much of the data is heavily politicized), Chinese broadband population already surpasses that of the US and its overall number of Internet users is higher than the entire US population (via SEW). With over 338 million of its citizens on the web (out of over 1.3 billion), China constitutes the single biggest Internet market in the world.
However, don’t expect Google, Yahoo! or Facebook to help you reach this growing market. As the data below shows, their reach in China is very limited, in part due to successful domestic competition, in part due cultural differences (take a look at this fascinating behavioral study conducted by Enquiro Research a few years ago), but also due to the direct intervention from Chinese authorities (traffic to sites like Facebook and Twitter is often restricted).
Is The Search Marketing World Still Flat For Small Businesses?
By Andrey Milyan
21 Sep 2009
When I first started in search engine marketing, it was a godsend for many small businesses (SMBs). It was cheap, fairly easy to implement and, to use the words of Thomas Friedman, the playing field was leveled. Although still a powerful channel today, I would like to suggest that the ability of SMBs to compete effectively online has significantly diminished.
In part, this is just the nature of the game. Once the big players saw profit-making potential online, it was just a matter of time before the small businesses were crowded out. As the industry matured, established industry leaders entered the space, along with new giants that have sprung up online, often making it prohibitively expensive for SMBs to compete in major fields like travel, real estate, etc.
Search engine marketing itself has become infinitely more complex. I can’t help but roll my eyes when Google starts pitching their AdWords or AdSense products to blogger moms. Even those business that once were able to hire a webmaster, to help them promote their business online, now either need to outsource their efforts to an agency or plan for an entire in-house team of search engine marketing professionals. Either option is too expensive for most SMBs.
How To Destroy Your Reputation Online And Alienate Your Customers
By Andrey Milyan
17 Sep 2009Recently a small dental practice in Northern New Jersey that I work with has discovered that it doesn’t rank first for the doctor’s name on Google. Instead, a listing from a large directory of doctors takes up the coveted first spot. As if that wasn’t enough, that page also contains reviews from a few patients. Although all the reviews were in fact positive, the owners were shocked and disturbed. Their first knee-jerk reaction was to try to control the comments and they complained bitterly about the loss of control over their reputation online. If this scenario sounds painfully familiar, here are a few lessons on online reputation management to keep in the back of your mind.
Lesson 1: You Cannot Control Your Reputation, Only Manage It
Businesses from big to small seem to think that they somehow have control over their reputation, or at least they used to have it before the Internet came along. The truth of the matter is, reputation has always been controlled by the customer. Thus, it is important to view the Internet as an opportunity rather than a threat. Do you think people haven’t been talking about your products and/or services before the era of online reviews? Of course, they have. Granted, the comments were more isolated then but the only real different now is that you can monitor much of that conversation. That brings us to our next point.
Source Attribution: The Next Frontier In Search Engine Marketing
By Andrey Milyan
16 Sep 2009Just like economists and financial analysts, search engine marketers like models, the simpler the better. And just like economists, marketers are often times led astray by these very models. From the very start the focus was on getting the searcher to click on your listing, visit your website and convert. Any tracking began with the keyword used and, hopefully, ended with a conversion (sale, download, newsletter sign-up, etc.). This ability to measure results gave advertisers unprecedented insight into their customers’ behavior.
Unfortunately, search marketers, and the advertisers they served, were living in a bubble. Although a very special advertising medium, search is certainly not the only one. Some keywords used are so specific that a searcher had to be exposed to a brand, a product or a service before getting to a search engine. Marketers also began to notice that the search volume would at times increase after a display or a TV ad campaign was launched. Clearly, different advertising channels were influencing each other, in what is known as the cross-channel effect, but in what way and to what extent?
About Andrey
Andrey Milyan
Greater New York City Area
Andrey Milyan is a seasoned search engine marketing professional with years of industry experience. He co-founded and served as the editor-in-chief of the first print publication in the search engine marketing industry — Search Marketing Standard. Andrey has extensive research, online/offline publishing and project management expertise. Currently, he works as a media coordinator at Reprise Media.
- Bridging The Gap Between Real-Time Publishing And Just-In-Time Monetization
- The Dragon Rising: Search And Social Media Market In China
- Is The Search Marketing World Still Flat For Small Businesses?
- How To Destroy Your Reputation Online And Alienate Your Customers
- Source Attribution: The Next Frontier In Search Engine Marketing
- Bridging The Gap Between Real-Time Publishing And Just-In-Time Monetization | Internet Marketing Optimist: [...] in advertisers’ ability to respond quickly enough in the world of real-time publishing. [...]
- Frank Reed: Andrey - Congrats on your new move. As you know I agree wholeheartedly with you regarding the limita [...]
- Is The Search Marketing World Still Flat For Small Businesses? | Internet Marketing Optimist: [...] If you’re audience is on social media, it could make sense to experiment with social med [...]