Performance advertising success stories in social media (#SocialMedia)

In marketing Social Media branding and advertising services, we are often asked about the efficacy of these emerging marketing tool. While it is easy to illustrate the obvious benefits of being able to monitor the web presence and increased traffic which are produced by the social media campaigns, businesses are still seeking comfort as tot he effectiveness of these campaigns.

Lightspeed Venture Partners has found some interesting dynamics and case studies which support the credibility and utility of these campaigns on their blog:

Comscore recently noted that performance advertising adopts online media faster than brand advertising because it is easier to measure results over short time periods. The knock on social media ad inventory has been that CTRs are low. This is less relevant for performance advertisers who only pay on the click or the action anyway. We heard about some terrific success stories for performance advertisers in social media on the panel who are seeing ROI on their ad spend comparable to Google. more....

Our friend, Scott Rafer has been taking advantage of this phenomenon at Lookery.com:

Lookery has exactly aggregated 60M+ social profiles of “age, gender and location, the three key elements for targeting,” which advertisers can use on any ad network, anywhere on the web for a flat fee. In our particular case, we’ve assembled those profiles in a white-hat, no-PII, privacy friendly manner that we’re happy to discuss in detail. We should be at 100M+ profiles by the end of Q2 2009. All the profiles are in English-speaking countries, Western Europe, and the Gulf states.

Internet Ad Spending Increase Stands Alone in 2009 Forecast

According to a new release and ad spending forecast by ZenithOptimedia, current ad expenditure forecasts predict a steeper decline in North America and Western Europe, with all regions joining in the general decline. The report forecasts global ad expenditure to shrink by 6.9% over the course of 2009.

Entering Q2, 2009 says the report, there is limited long-term visibility in the market as most advertisers wait until the last moment to confirm their spending commitments. Many are treating advertising as a discretionary expense, and one they find convenient to cut. Unprecedented economic problems and events affecting the predicted 6.9% decline in global ad expenditure in 2009 include:

• Lack of quadrennial events (Olympics, elections) creates tough year-on-year comparisons for markets like the US
• Poor corporate confidence means very limited visibility in the market
• Consumers are putting off big purchases and shifting consumption from premium to value products, opening opportunities for advertisers with value to offer
• Consumers are spending more time at home, consuming more media, particularly television and the internet
• Search is driving internet growth as consumers use it to find bargains

Read more at MediaPost

On-line video: People are watching longer videos...Internet is the broadcast TV killer

The other night, we missed the 9pm showing of 24 on FOX in NY. So I hooked my computer up to the TV and watched the episode in almost high def off the internet on FOX.COM....who needs cable?

The article below from Media Daily News lends some interesting statistics to this trend.....now we need to figure out how to monetize this exposure:

Trending Up: Nielsen Says Online Video Usage Soars
by Wayne Friedman, Yesterday, 4:07 PM

Online video continues to expand -- now up 40% versus the same levels a year ago.

Nielsen Online says March's 9.6 billion streams and 130 million Web users are a 38.8% hike over March 2008. Total streams for viewers during March were at an average 74.4 with the total time per viewer, in terms of minutes, at over three hours per month -- 190.7 minutes.

Nielsen says the total time per viewer in March -- which includes progressive downloads but excludes video advertising -- was up a big 12.6% versus February. This seems to suggest -- as other research has found -- that users are watching longer-length videos

more....