Latest News

Christmas 2010

• Boxing day was the busiest day of 2010 for online retailers in the UK, with visits to websites around 12% higher than before Christmas.
  Experian Hitwise as cited by MediaTel, January 2011

• UK consumers spent £6.8bn online in December which equates to approximately £111 per shopper.
  IMRG as cited by Marketingmagazine.co.uk, January 2011

• Total UK online sales reached £58.8bn by the end of 2010 – an 18% increase on 2009. It is predicted that this total will reach £69bn by the end of 2011.
  IMRG as cited by Marketingmagazine.co.uk, January 2011

Global Trends

• Worldwide internet traffic grew 62% in 2010. The regions experiencing the fastest year on year growth were Eastern Europe and India/South Asia, where average traffic growth exceeded 100%, and the Middle East, where traffic rose just under 100%.
  Telegeography, October 2010

• Global advertising spend in measured media is expected to exceed $500 billion for the first time ever in 2011. Online ad spend is expected to hit $82 billion.
  GroupM, December 2010

Internet Connected Devices

• Worldwide tablet sales are predicted to grow by more than 400% over a two-year period, reaching 81.3 million units in 2012.
  eMarketer, December 2010

• Nearly 1 in 5 UK tablet users (19%) make online purchases using the device.
  eMarketer, December 2010

• 350 million internet-enabled television sets are expected to be sold worldwide by 2015.

Here is the latest round-up of some of the most recent stats:

eCommerce

• 62% of Brits shop online. This has risen from little over half of the population (53%) in 2008.
  Office for National Statistics, August 2010

• Online shopping has grown by 25% to £4.4bn year on year.
  IMRG, June 2010

• Over 2 in 5 (42.6%) of Brits are now shopping online at least once per week and the average shopper is now spending £71 per month on online goods.
  eCommera.com, August 2010

Media Multi-tasking

• Brits spend nearly half (45%) of their waking lives immersed in media.
  Ofcom, August 2010

• A fifth of our media time is “simultaneous” consumption (e.g. surfing the internet while watching TV).
  Ofcom, August 2010

• 16-24 year olds cram 5 hours worth of media into 2 hours of actual time per day.
  Ofcom, August 2010

Social networking

• Social networking now accounts for nearly a quarter (23%) of all time spent online.
  Ofcom, August 2010

• Nearly 1 in 5 (18%) under 25s check/update Facebook or Twitter before they get out of bed.
  Retrevo “Gagetology Report”, US data, September 2010

• 1 in 4 mobile phone users in the UK use their handsets to access social networking sites and blogs.
  ComScore MobiLens, July 2010

Mobile

• Each month in the UK, a staggering 4.2 million consumers are visiting retailers’ websites using mobile internet.
  GSMA & ComScore, August 2010

• Mobile searchers are twice as likely to search for a brand name than when searching from the desktop.
  ComScore, September 2010

• 1 in 4 searches carried out on Android smartphones in the US are voice searches.
  Google, September 2010

Google posted the following regarding impressions with Google Instant. I think its worth understanding the difference as this is going to affect your CTR/Quality Score of your account. We also added a screenshot which might make it easier.

When someone searches using Google Instant, ad impressions are counted in these situations:

• The user begins to type a query on Google and clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, a spell correction, a related search).
• The user chooses a particular query by clicking the Search button, pressing Enter, or selecting one of the predicted queries.
• The user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of three seconds.

Related articles

• Google Instant: A More Innovative Approach to Search (adwords.blogspot.com)
• Here’s What People Are Saying About Google Instant (GOOG) (businessinsider.com)
• Google Instant: The Complete User’s Guide (searchengineland.com)

Google announces changes in their trademark policy for UK, Ireland and Canada and some other changes in the EU following. What this change means is that there is not going to be any protection from Google for brand terms in the pay per click ads. Most important resellers will be able to use a trademark in their ads. The same applies for affiliates.

The letter from Google below outlines all the changes with the relevant links:

Policy Changes For UK, Ireland & Canada

We are writing to inform you of a change to Google AdWords policy that may affect your Google AdWords account.

In an effort to provide more relevant results and a higher quality experience for our users, we will be adjusting our trademark policy in the UK, Ireland, and Canada to allow some ads to use trademarks in the ad text. From14 September 2010, ads which meet the below criteria will not be removed for trademark policy if they include a trademark in the ad text. The ads will have limited serving, showing only in the UK, Ireland, Canada, and the US (where the policy already exists). Ads which may show with a trademark in the ad text include:

·   Ads which use the term in a descriptive or generic way, and not in reference to the trademark owner or the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term.

·   Ads which use the trademark in a nominative manner to refer to the trademark or its owner, specifically:

o Resale of the trademarked goods or services: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the goods or services corresponding to a trademark term. The landing page of the ad must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the goods or services corresponding to a trademark from the advertiser.

o Sale of components, replacement parts or compatible products corresponding to a trademark: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the components, replacement parts or compatible products relating to the goods or services of the trademark. The advertiser’s landing page must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the components, parts or compatible products corresponding to the trademark term from the advertiser.

o Informational sites: The primary purpose of the advertiser’s site must be to provide non-competitive and informative details about the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term. Additionally, the advertiser may not sell or facilitate the sale of the goods or services of a competitor of the trademark owner.

This change will affect all ads in the UK, Ireland, and Canada.

To learn more about this trademark policy revision, visit http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?answer=186124 .

If you have ads in your account which were previously disapproved for trademark policy and that comply with the aforementioned criteria, you may submit those ads for re-review after September 14 and eligible ads may begin showing in the UK, Ireland, and Canada. For instructions on editing your ad text, please see

https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6272&hl=en_US.

The Google advertising program is managed by a set of policies which we develop based on several factors, including user and customer experience and business considerations. We review our policies regularly and make changes to keep them current and effective. Our goal is to have policies that are fair, consistent, and adaptable.

Policy Changes For EU/EFTA

From 14 September 2010, Google will no longer monitor or restrict keywords for ads served to users in the regions listed at http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=186123, in response to trademark complaints. This change will bring our procedure in line with our current approach to keywords in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland and most of the rest of the world. Complaints received prior to 14 September 2010 will continue to be processed under the current procedure; however, any investigation of keywords in the affected regions completed prior to 14 September 2010 will no longer apply to keywords after that date.

To learn more about this trademark policy revision, visit https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=177578

Google a few months ago started trialing some comparison ads for terms around “credit cards“. Some of the main credit card providers are participating in the test. Today I noticed that the comparison ads are now lower from the top three and actually separated and named “Google Comparison Ads“.

I can only pressume that getting top position for a very competitive term like “credit cards” that costs more than £10 per click and not allowing the other providers to bid wasn’t a good idea.