Internet Marketing Toronto - Ignite!

The Olympics - Uniting Nations, Educating Australia’s Youth

I love the Olympics… its a great demonstration of sport and courage. Some great things have happened at the Olympics like Jesse Owen’s demonstration at the 1936 Berlin games, the Jamacian bobsled team (”feel the rythim, feel the rhyme” … you finish the song in your head) and many many more.

What I love more about the Olympics is the opportunity to learn about other countries and cultures. A spirit captured by one of our staff in Australia. This is Stuart’s 5 year old son Jack, who learned all about Canada in his class study of the Olympics.

Though we have no medals (yet), though we will always live in the shadow of our neighbour to the south, though we will most likely be subjected to hours of commentary of how we underfund amateur sport… we are still a proud nation - with fans around the world!

To Jack… Canada salutes you - Nice flag eh!

New Facebook Design and Ad Placement Location

Facebook announced a new round of changes to its site design and user interface today - in addition to changing the location of it’s ads.

In an announcement on July 20th Facebook states that the changes will result in a “cleaner, and simpler design, along with the opportunity for users to preview and test the next-generation features and functionality” You can read more from their official July 20th press release here

Changing Facebook’s Ad Location
In addition to this press release, advertisers were emailed a seperate announcement detaling the changes to the advertising system. Currently, Facebook ads are placed on the left side of the page, below a profiles navigation. The new changes will place the ad on the RIGHT side of the page - an area of the page that, arguably, users are more used to seeing ads (thank your Google, Yahoo and MSN).

Moreover, Facebook will now be showing TWO ads at any one time on any given page. There was no mention of how an ad is selected to place first, however it is safe to assume that placement will be determined by ones minimum CPC bid. That being said, this change may pave the way for Facebook to adopt a “quality score” type of a system similar to Google and Yahoo’s which “rewards” advertisers with higher ad placement through a calculation involving high click-through-rates, bids and landing pages.

The last major change is the addition of a new ad on Facebook’s home page. This ad will be located to the right of the News Feed and initially run for a limited set of advertisers (no mention of how to be part of that limited set). Their statement does say that “as this space continues to evolve and improve, we’ll provide more details.

It will be interesting to see how these changes affect the uptake of Facebook’s advertising system. Given the recent announcement that MySpace’s advertising platform is now operating in full swing, it appears that Facebook wanted to make a little splash of their own. That… and the fact that Facebook’s investors might be looking for some sort of return on their investment.

As a current Facebook advertiser, it would have been great to see them invest in their platform and add some very basic functionality that other services already have. Here is a list of my “Darn, Sure Wish Facebook Had This in Their System” wishes:

1. Conversion tracking - Google, Yahoo and MSN all have it and it REALLY helps explain to a client where their marketing dollars have gone and specifically what RETURN they have received for it

2. Better Billing Reporting - It can’t be that hard to create a system that sends me a pdf invoice of when a credit card has been changed and shows the breakdown of those charges/clicks

3. An MCC - Recently when I wanted to set up a new client I found that until another client had paid off their credit card… I couldn’t create a new campaign. Having some type of “My Client Centre” would be nice and would help manage different accounts in a more streamlined process.

4. Reports in HTML - Create the option of having reports generated as HTML, not just excel!

Basic rule of thumb (and this goes to Yahoo and MSN too) if you want more advertisers, serve the companies who are selling your product with effective tools to manage your system.

You can see Facebooks new changes by accessing their beta site here - however at last check, this was re-directing to their existing home page.

Spark Internet Marketing - Google AdWords Qualified Company

At long last, Spark Internet Marketing has been awarded our Google Qualified Company status (insert polite applause here). Since launching our company under a year and a half ago, it has been a goal of ours to manage enough Google AdWords spend and clients to elevate our standing with Google from “Qualified Individual” to “Qualified Company.”

To become a Qualified Company in the Google Advertising Professionals program, a company must:

1. Have a billing and mailing address in a country where company qualification is available.
2. Employ at least two Qualified Individuals in the program. Individuals must be qualified under the main company-registered My Client Center account and not their own account. See the requirements for becoming a Qualified Individual.
3. Build and maintain the minimum 90-day required total client spend (spend requirements vary by country) for the company’s My Client Center account.

In Canada, a company must maintain a minimum of $100,000 over a 90-day time period to receive certification.

For good measure, Spark also has its Yahoo Ambassador and MSN Adwords certification in addition to its new Google Qualified Company status.

Spark would like to thank our PPC clients for entrusting their internet marketing to us and helping us meet this goal!

By 2012 Digital and Mobile Media Spending will RISE

Those of us in the business can feel it…we know that digital and mobile media is growing throughout North America. Now there is proof that these mediums are on the rise.

Recently, an article citing the PriceWaterHouseCoopers study regarding growth in global entertainment and media (E&M) pointed out that digital and mobile media will represent 11% of the total Entertainment and Media spending. A total of $234 billion. This change is very exciting for a number of reasons. Firstly, this demonstrates that although the big “R” word (Recession-although very arguable) is looming over the USA and Canada, a market will be expanding and growing. Secondly, this is exciting because it reiterates the higher possible ROI from this type of marketing medium through more expected user activity.

Some of the higher cost methods such as newspaper, radio and outdoor advertising will be seeing a dip in the next 4 years. More marketing dollars are being spent in digital and mobile media with more active users around the world. This is creating a more globalized economy in a more technologically advanced time.

I anticipate that as the next decade begins, more tech savvy people will be immersed in a culture dominated by digital and mobile media. No longer the underdog, this form of media will steadily grow and move throughout the global economy.

Read the entire article here.

~S

p.s. If you have read any articles, please share them or your own thoughts on this topic!

Yahoo! Updates To Crawling, Indexing & Ranking Algorithms

Yahoo! has announced updates to it’s crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms for May.

During this time we should expect to see “…some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index.” These kinds of changes are always done to improve the overall search results so we’re confident that these usually mean better results for our clients overall!

In fact, with Yahoo! most of the time we see improvements in rankings during these changes rather declines. When we do see some declines they correct them over the following few weeks. So, no need to panic this time!

Internet Marketing Video Blog now on Internet Marketing Toronto - Ignite!

Hello IMTI! readers. My name is Tony Cohn and I am an internet marketing consultant here at Spark. Each Friday, I will post a new installment of “Cohn’s Corner,” which is a weekly video blog on internet marketing. Today’s episode is a discussion of the social network Twitter. Enjoy!

New Keyword Research Tool - Facebook Lexicon

I happened to be on Facebook today (yes, during work hours…) and noticed something interesting in my news feed:

Do people talk more about skiing or beaches?
“Facebook Lexicon counts how many times words get mentioned on Walls all over Facebook. You can find out the answer, or run your own searches, using Lexicon.”

It appears that Facebook is releasing some very interesting data about what keywords are on people’s walls. Specifically it is measuring the amount of times the term “obama” is written vs. “clinton” as an example.

Why is this important? Quite simply put, advertisers on Facebook (and Google, Yahoo and MSN for that matter) now have access to keyword research data on one of the most popular sites on the internet.

Unfortunatly it dosen’t give raw numbers (taking a page from Google’s Keyword Suggestion tool I say) but it does show some good comparitive data.

As you may know, advertising on facebook includes the option to target users with specific keywords on their pages - this tool made that job a whole lot easier and I expect that we will see more Facebook advertising as a result of their willingness to share this sort of information.

Thanks Mark Z. I appreciate the data.

We’re Going to PubCon Las Vegas!

Adam and I are getting our plans set to attend PubCon in Las Vegas December 3rd!

I just wanted to remind everyone that we’re going to PubCon in Las Vegas in December. We’re looking forward to the event as the lineup of speakers this time around is particularly good. If anyone else is going and you’re reading this post - post a comment here and let us know if you want to meet up with Adam and I for dinner or breakfast. We’d love to meet you in person!

WhoCalled? Dynamic Phone Number Generation & Tracking

It’s official - we’re launching our call tracking service called WhoCalled?™

John Wannamaker, considered the father of modern advertising once said

“I know I waste half of my advertising dollars, I just don’t know which half!”

As an answer to his question, Spark Internet Marketing is very excited to announce the launch of a new service which will finally track phone calls derived from multiple marketing campaigns . This new service will give you the ability to track the effectiveness of all your marketing efforts, including print, radio, email marketing, yellow pages and search engine based campaigns – wherever you have a phone number, we can track it!. Currently, we are able to track how many people come to your site through search engines, referring sites and develop them into a business lead for you. We do this by measuring if a user filled out a form on-line and submitted their information to you for follow up. We have never been able to truly follow the calls received from all marketing campaigns, including Internet based; until now!.

To learn more about WhoCalled? and to discuss pricing please contact sales@sparkinternetmarketing.com or dial 1.877.772.7530.

With the use of unique phone numbers generated from our system for your different campaigns, we can now track phone based conversions for individual pay per click campaigns, search engine optimization and other marketing efforts. Combined with existing data we can determine which marketing efforts are generating phone conversions for your business.

Our call tracking system will allow you to effectively analyze both: your on-line and offline marketing initiatives. Find out where your marketing dollars should be increased and which marketing efforts are ready for retirement.

Here are some of the features available with this call tracking platform:

• Unique 800 or local phone numbers are mapped to your actual phone numbers and callers are dynamically connected to your actual number after dialing the unique number.
• Calls can be recorded for quality of service evaluation (custom audio disclaimers that the call is being recorded must be uploaded to the system)
• Detailed call records are made available through a reporting portal showing you the number of calls made during a period, the duration, where the call was placed from using zip code or postal code lookup.

There is no limit to the amount of numbers you can use and the cost of a new unique number is significantly less than purchasing a new 800 number from your local carrier - and you get these fantastic features which your local carrier does not offer.
We are currently testing this service out and plan to roll out to our customer base towards the end of November or early December.

To learn more about WhoCalled?  and to discuss pricing please contact sales@sparkinternetmarketing.com or dial 1.877.772.7530.

We’ve Got BETA Access To Microsoft’s Webmaster Portal Tools!

It’s official - we’ve got access to Microsoft’s Webmaster Portal Tools!

Over the BETA period we’re going to test the tools out using real sites. As part of the BETA

program we can’t disclose what we find but rest assured we’ll be making the best of it, and sharing what we can with you.

If you have questions feel free to ask. We’ll do our best to answer them without violating the terms of use.