Before we can explore how Action Spec will change the way advertisers manage their Facebook advertising program, we need to understand what Action Spec is and how it works with Facebook’s Open Graph. By now, Facebook users and advertisers are well acquainted with the capability to “Friend” another user or “Like” a status update. This principle functionality has historically been managed by Facebook via their social graph—the users and their connections to everything they care about. In 2010, Facebook introduced Open Graph, an extension of social graph, to include third-party websites and pages that users liked or shared. In short, Open Graph represents the things that users cared about outside of Facebook.

(Source: Facebook)

Today, Open Graph includes arbitrary actions and objects created by third-party apps. Actions are verbs that users perform in an app. Objects define nouns or subjects that the actions apply to. Imagine Facebook users being able to “Submit” a “Form” or “Complete” a “Survey” as part of their engagement with a Facebook app. As users “Submit” and “Complete” their way through the in-app conversion funnel, these actions are displayed on Timelines, News Feeds and Tickers, allowing the app to deeply integrate itself into the user’s experience and his or her friends’ experiences on Facebook.

Once an app has defined its actions and objects on the Open Graph, advertisers will be able to leverage Facebook’s Action Spec. The Action Spec, which is currently in beta, will be available in Marin Software via the Facebook API and provide access to the Open Graph. This query-based language will allow advertisers to target ads at users who perform a specific action on an object within an app. For instance, if Marin Software is interested in driving additional conversions via our Facebook app, using an Action Spec, we would be able to create and target Sponsored Stories towards users or the friends of users who have “Submitted” a “Form”, “Completed” a “Survey”, or both.

By defining brand specific actions and objects through Open Graph, advertisers are able to increase app- and ad-relevance, improving their engagement level with Facebook users. Furthermore, based on user engagement with these actions, Action Spec delivers unparalleled control over the target audience these ads are displayed to. Together, these targeting features enable Facebook advertisers to make smarter decisions for maximizing their business goals.

Support for Action Spec within Marin is expected to release in the near future. For more information on defining and using Action Specs, click here.

Marin Software is proud to announce the opening of our new offices in “The Live Music Capital of the World”. Home to the Longhorns and an extensive list of high tech companies, Austin benefits from great universities, a vibrant city, and an eccentric and diverse culture. Situated in the Central time zone, Austin also provides an ideal location for both West and East coast support for Marin customers.

Joining tech giants IBM, Apple and Google, who already call Austin home, Marin looks to stay focused, deliver a great product and delight our customers from the Silicon Hills. The new Austin offices are yet another sign of Marin’s growth and ongoing success.

Are you interested in keeping Austin weird? Find out more about careers at Marin Software here.

• A 50% increase in click-through-rate (CTR) for social ads year-over-year
• An increase from 5% to 23% in Facebook ad budgets allocated towards social ads
• An 86% increase in cost-per-click (CPC) for social ads year-over-year

These year-over-year increases point towards a strong advertiser adoption rate. The relevant nature of social ads, coupled with strong CTRs, has caused a shift in advertising budgets from traditional ads to social ads. With the increasing adoption rate, competition amongst advertisers has resulted in increasing CPCs. Given current trends, Marin predicts that Facebook advertisers will allocate 50% of their budget towards social ad formats by the end of 2012. This would mark a significant jump from the current 23%.

For advance tips and best practices on implementing and managing Facebook ads, click here.

Though this tweak is said to provide users with more relevant ads and help advertisers achieve better performance, it forces search marketers to be more in-tune with their ongoing creative tests. When testing, hone in on creative that deliver statistically significant results for your business, whether that’s clicks or conversions. Focus on high traffic groups to reach significance within the 30-day rotation period. Once significance is reached, pause “losing” creative and test new iterations of the “winning” creative. This resets Google’s 30-day clock and preserves the continuity of your creative test.

Creative testing tools, like Marin’s AB Testing solution, automatically reveal “winning” and “losing” creative once statistical significance has been reached. This logic, coupled with a best practice focus on testing creative in top traffic groups, should make the new 30-day rotation period a reasonable time frame for testing. As a best practice, take note of start dates when engaging in creative testing. Marin users should continue leveraging Dimensions as part of their creative testing workflow. These tags will help alert you when a test is nearing the end of its 30-day rotation period.

• Mobile clicks increased 132% in 2011
• Smartphones carry higher CTRs and lower CPCs when compared to tablets and desktops
• Mobile will comprise 25% of all paid search clicks by the end of 2012

To put these mobile trends in perspective, Josh presented two case studies on recent mobile performance across Fuor Digital’s customer base. He also examined several compelling statistics on mobile user behavior, including:

• Where smartphone users are browsing
• How shoppers leverage smartphones
• How smartphone users respond to ads

To view the recording of this webcast and hear more on the state of mobile search, click here.

• Q4 shopping queries increased 34% year-over-year across all devices, and increased 181% for mobile devices. In 2010, there was 1 day of online sales exceeding $1 billion. In 2011, there were 10.

• The early season observed the highest average-order-value (AOV). Bargain hungry consumers took advantage of early offers. With a $152 AOV, November should be considered a pivotal time period for retailers.

Source: iProspect

• November 24-28 delivered twice the average daily traffic and revenue. Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday reported the highest online shopping activity during the holiday season. Continued growth in online sales up until Christmas indicates shoppers are not only researching, but purchasing consistently throughout the high season.

• Early season promotions lead to increases in conversions and AOV, but at the cost of late season performance. Persistent, “always on” promotions drove flat results, as shoppers lacked a sense of urgency.  On the other hand, large promotions failed to generate repeat conversions. Creating “value” (i.e. lower prices), rather than “sales” (i.e. offering discounts), will be something online marketers should consider in 2012.

Source: iProspect

With these insights, online marketers can start taking steps now to prepare for a successful 2012 holiday season. Creating and separating mobile campaigns, testing creative timing and messaging in the offseason, and integrating social and display programs are just a few initiatives online marketers should consider.

Want to read more holiday 2011 findings with recommendations for a successful 2012? Download the full report at http://www.iprospect.com/our-work/our-thinking

What’s Great for Google is Good for Bing

As campaigns mature, keywords evolve from experiments to proven revenue drivers. These proven revenue drivers often perform similarly across publishers. If a newly added Google keyword achieved 100 clicks with a 5% conversion rate at a 200% ROI over the last two weeks, it makes sense to test the same keyword on Bing. Unfortunately, many advertisers fail to maintain keyword parity across publishers, even when the failure to do so can result in missed revenue opportunities.

Identifying where these keyword gaps reside can prove to be a daunting task. To promote engine parity, implement tracking when engaging in keyword expansion. (Third-party solutions, like Marin Software, can help track and report on these changes at scale.) Take detailed notes on where, when and why these keywords were added to the account. These notes are not only essential to analyzing performance, but are critical when copying top performing keywords across publishers. To retroactively assess parity, download a sorted keyword performance report and apply an Excel vlookup to compare publisher keyword sets. Take note of where the gaps are for top performing keywords.

Bring the Whole Family

Copying exact and phrase match keywords to broad match type is a simple strategy for reaching a larger audience and discovering additional keyword opportunities. However, an increase in traffic doesn’t always correspond to an increase in performance. When introducing broad match keywords, be relentless in your efforts to find appropriate negative keywords.

Driving improvements in keyword efficiency often requires the use of phrase and exact match keywords. Expanding broad match keywords to phrase and exact allows for effective segmentation of keyword traffic and performance metrics. A keyword on broad match only captures the traffic for its phrase and exact match counterparts. Consequently, the clicks and conversions are aggregated to a single keyword. With the same keyword on broad, phrase and exact match, clicks and conversions can be segmented based on match type and precise optimization strategies can be implemented for each keyword.

But Remember to Silo

Consider the following dilemma. A keyword running on Google across all three match types has a broad match bid that exceeds the phrase and exact match bids. As a result, the broad match keyword cannibalizes traffic that should otherwise be captured by the phrase or exact match keywords. To effectively expand keywords from broad to phrase to exact match types, and segment performance based on match type, you must implement match type silos.

Match type silos not only promote match type parity but, with appropriate negative keywords, guarantee proper query-to-keyword matching. (For more on match type silos, read our whitepaper on managing negative keywords.)

Be mindful of publisher and match type gaps. Once these keyword gaps have been filled, remember to optimize. Researching negative keywords, setting appropriate keyword bids and generating relevant ad creative are just a few tasks to keep in mind. Implement these strategies and share your results with us.

• Misspellings (“waterproof sunblock” will match “waterpoof sunblock”)
• Singular/plural forms (“bollard cover” will match “bollard covers”)
• Acronyms (“MLB” will match “Major League Baseball”)
• Stemmings (“single serving coffee” will match “single serve coffee”)
• Abbreviations (“st.” will match “street”)
• Accents (“cliché” will match “cliche”)

This level of matching is already baked into Google’s organic algorithm, but the impact it will have on search advertisers has yet to be seen. Initial Google testing yielded a 3% increase in clicks, with comparable CPCs, however those who don’t want the potential for more clicks have the option to opt out.

Click here for more information on this upcoming change.

This past Thursday marked our 3rd annual Marin Masters event at The Standard Hotel in New York City. A hundred customers in the tri-state area were invited to hear their peers, as well as Marin’s Global Services team, share success stories, best practices and industry insights.

In keeping to current trends and hot-button topics, the themes this year were mobile and attribution. Content included a presentation on our recent mobile whitepaper and a case study presented by MediaWhiz, in which they describe how they leverage Marin to track offline conversions for their client, AMF Bowling.

Agencies Beeby Clark+Meyler, MediaCom and Optimedia lead a discussion panel on mobile trends and their 2012 mobile search strategies. Each agreed that mobile and desktop metrics should be analyzed separately when optimizing performance, citing the need to customize the mobile experience. Using click-to-call and testing creative language to match mobile behavior were among the key recommendations. All three agencies expect their mobile search budgets to grow by at least 15% in 2012.

Marin Client Services wrapped things up with a presentation on Marin Enterprise best practices and strategies. Topics for the discussion, chosen via customer survey, were geared towards the specific business goals and objectives of our customers.

We would like to extend a big thank you to all of our speakers; and to Yahoo! for sponsoring this event!

At a glance, our study revealed an increase in click-through-rate (CTR), with cost-per-click (CPC) remained relatively steady. More specifically, we found a significant increase in CTR and a drop in CPC on Google. Some of our key findings include:

• 46% increase in Google click volume
• 14% increase in CTR on Google
• 4% increase in the share of clicks coming from Exact match

So what does all this mean? The increase in CTR coupled with a 12% lower CPC points to Marin users increasing their efficiency on Google. This finding is further validated by the increased usage of exact and phrase match type keywords, as users continue to identify and fill gaps using Marin’s keyword expansion tools.

Device targeting, specifically smart phones and tablets, continues to soar in popularity. Increases in click volume give evidence of the growth in consumer adoption. With smart phones and tablets showing higher CTRs and lower CPCs compared to desktops, mobile search should continue to be top of mind for advertisers.

Want to see other Q1 industry trends from 2012 with our recommendations? Download the full report here.