General online advertising Archives


Search, iPads & Social Nets: 5th Local Search Study Shows Evolving Consumer Marketplace

Earlier today at the SMX conference in San Jose, local search agency 15 Miles and Localeze presented the findings of the “5th Annual Local Search Usage Study” (LSUS) conducted by comScore. This is the first year that Localeze has participated in the study. The report is o’erflowing with data so I’ll just pull out a [...]

In Digital Shift Ad Dollars ‘Evaporate’

There’s nothing conceptually new about the notion that when marketers (large and small) shift money online they don’t do so in a 1:1 way. A dollar of traditional ad spending doesn’t turn into a dollar of digital advertising. This point was made years ago. In thinking about this issue I’ve always focused on margins for [...]

Twitter & Amex Lure SMBs with $100 Credit

In December Twitter launched self-service advertising. At the time it appeared that there was a $5K monthly minimum. Effectively that would have locked out most true small-business advertisers, who have a budget of roughly $5K annually. Yesterday AdAge (and Marketing Land) reported that Twitter was partnering with Amex to offer a $100 credit to SMB [...]

Can Facebook Truly Execute Against Its Local Opportunity?

An AdAge article about Facebook this morning focuses on its local and mobile opportunities. However, as I said before, the S-1 said almost nothing about local or small business. It also didn’t talk about the national-local opportunity for Facebook. It did, however, speak extensively about mobile. Here are the relevant excerpts from the AdAge piece: [...]

So, Is Advertising on Yelp a Ripoff or Not?

Yesterday on VentureBeat Rocky Agrawal inveighed against advertising on Yelp. Citing a Yelp rate card provided to him by a third party he argued the company charged SMBs what amounts to a $600 CPM while charging only a $6 CPM to large advertisers. Here were the SMB-Yelp rates he posted: $300/mo – includes 500 targeted [...]

AOL Touting Local Network: Patch, MapQuest, HuffPost

Late last week I ran into a display ad on one of the “industry” sites I sometimes visit: Mediapost. It was something I hadn’t seen before, a promotion for AOL Local: The click went to a page/site, with the following copy: AOL Local provides your brand with the tools to reach communities on a local [...]

AOL CEO: ‘Patch Is the Number 4 Local Property on the Web’

The only statement AOL made about “local” in yesterday’s earnings release and slides was the following: “Patch grew traffic, advertisers and ad impressions over 100% year-over-year.” However, on the earnings call AOL CEO Tim Armstrong opened up a bit about Patch and its performance. Armstrong reaffirmed the company’s commitment to the embattled product: “Patch is [...]

Microsoft Puts Deals in Email Display Ads

As I’ve written at MarketingLand, Microsoft is replacing conventional display ads in its Hotmail service with deals. The company believes the new deals ads will be more interesting and less “distracting” to Hotmail users. I would agree. Google is starting to experiment with display ads in email but generally its text ads are fairly unobtrusive. [...]

Yelp Uses SMB Testimonials to Push Advertising

Yelp has posted what appears to be a new video making the argument for ads to SMBs. The notification sent to business owners introducing the video says the following: Business owners often ask, “If Yelp offers me a free listing and business owner account, why would I ever pay money for advertising?” Check out the [...]

AT&T 2011 Directory Revenues: $3.3 Billion

Earlier this morning AT&T reported Q4 2011 results. I’ve written about the wireless results a bit on Internet2Go. However I always look at the spreadsheet to see how the company’s local advertising solutions are doing. The company’s directory revenues for Q4 appear to be $781 million, down from $926 million a year ago. Total revenue [...]