Recently in eBusiness and Marketing Category

TMC's CTO and VoIP blogger Tom Keating sent an email around the office today calling attention to the Google click-fraud story. Tom asks the question, "Wonder when we'll see a credit to our account?" When indeed?

I've been a Google AdWords pay-per-click (PPC) advertiser for a few years now, although in an admittedly small way. I probably spend about $100-$150 on PPC advertising for my EmailResults.com web site. I would love to have a nice chunk of that money returned to me, but I doubt whether I'll ever see it. How in the world am I supposed to sift through the tens of thousands of clicks I've paid for to figure out which ones are from somebody in China being paid to click on ads all day at a penny per shot?

In their defense, my understanding is that Google goes to great lengths to filter out click fraud -- see this blog entry from Google lawyer Nicole Wong. And I've always found that users coming from AdWords clicks (as well as Yahoo! Search Marketing, formerly Overture, formerly GoTo.com) convert better than users from other PPC programs, indicating a lower level of fraud.

AB -- 3/9/06

An article today from Direct, "The Search Engine Boom," says that search engine marketing for North America brought in $5.75 billion in 2005, $4.7 billion of which was for paid search advertising. The total figure should hit $11.1 billion in 2010.

Direct references a study conducted November 2005 by Radar Research and Intellisurvey, commissioned by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO). More information on the study is available in this press release on the SEMPO web site. The full research report appears to be available only to members of the organization.

AB -- 1/26/06

Yahoo! and Google have recently added more sophisticated analytics tools for advertisers in their paid-search-advertising programs, Yahoo! Search Advertising and Google AdWords, according to this article from Direct: "Search Engines Add DM Tools."

The new tools can be especially helpful for small and midsize advertisers who are less likely to employ complex and expensive third-party analytics services.

Describing Yahoo!'s offering, provided for a fee through a partnership with Marketing Management Analytics (MMA), the Direct article says, "The service will roll up advertisers' total offline spending to produce a focused ROI comparison of offline promotions to online marketing on Yahoo! Search Marketing," and also quotes MMA's COO Ed See: "We've created a specific analytic product for Yahoo! clients who are interested in understanding better how their online ads are performing, how much money to move into or out of online, and the interactions between online and offline spending for all the various marketing levers."

Here is a tool that Yahoo! Search Marketing calls the Marketing Console:

And this one is called the Conversion Counter:

Google's free Google Analytics service is based on capabilities acquired when it bought Urchin Software recently. Direct says Google Analytics "integrates with AdWords, but it also can monitor ad and Web-page performance on other advertising networks, including those from Yahoo! and MSN Search" and "advertisers should be able to track user clickthroughs from ad to landing page, or within Web sites, and their return on investment for those keyword terms." In addition, the system can be used to monitor the results from other ad media such as banners, email and referral links.

These images will give you an idea of the Google Analytics interface:

AB -- 1/26/06

I'm an enthusiastic consumer of market research. My eyes light up when I see a press release from IDC, In-Stat, Infonetics, Dell 'Oro, ABI and other providers of technology-market insight.

These organizations typically produce proprietary and syndicated reports that sell for thousands of dollars. But the research firms also provide glimpses into the results by issuing press releases, which prove useful for our news reporters and give interesting insights into technology trends.

Big companies also love these reports, especially when a report proves how successful the company is in gaining market share. In fact, in some reports there's something for everybody! It's a tribute to the flexibility of research that these two press releases can both come across the TMCnet news feeds within hours of each other, both referencing the same study by IDC about external disk storage systems market share:

EMC #1 in External Disk Storage Revenue for 7th Consecutive Quarter; Analyst Firm Reports EMC #1 in NAS for 6th Straight Quarter

HP Owns No. 1 Rank in Worldwide Total Disk Storage Systems Revenue for 14th Consecutive Quarter

IDC's big news in their release, "External Disk Storage Systems Achieves Record Growth in the Third Quarter of 2005, IDC Finds," is that factory revenue grew a record 12.5% year-over-year in Q3 2005 to $3.9 billion. But when it comes to the market positions of individual companies, evidently you can slice and dice the figures in a number of different ways to make the news sound good for everybody.

AB -- 12/2/05

As reported by TMCnet bloggers Tom Keating and Greg Galitzine today, as well as the Associated Press, the World Summit on the Information Society has agreed that management of the Internet should remain with the United States (via ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a private-public partnership), rather than be turned over to the United Nations. The Summit is meeting this week in Tunisia.

TMCnet Contributing Editor David Sims also wrote about this today (see "Whew: Internet Escapes U.N. Clutches"), and I hadn't realized until I read his article that one of the original purposes of the Summit was to address the "digital divide," the gap between rich and poor in access to information technology. Apparently, this aspect of the agenda has taken a back seat to the much-publicized effort by elements of the U.N. to take control of Internet management.

The AP story quotes the U.S. Department of Commerce: "The rural digital divide is isolating almost 1 billion of the poorest people who are unable to participate in the global information society."

Interestingly, a study released just last week identifies a significant "digital divide" in Europe, based on age, education, employment status and other factors. Quoting the study, AP said inequities in Europe were caused by "missing infrastructure or access; missing incentives to use information and communications technologies; lack of the computer literacy or skills necessary to take part in the information society."

AB -- 11/16/05

A few years ago when my colleague Steve White and I were both working at Tailwind.com in Stamford, Conn., one of our co-workers asked him what was the first thing he would save if his house was on fire. "My TiVo," Steve promptly answered.

People love their digital video recorders (DVRs) for many reasons, but one of the most-loved features is the ability to buzz through loud irrelevant commercials. Naturally, television advertisers and networks hate and fear this capability of the technology. But experience shows that many technologies that have initially raised concerns for commercial interests have in the end fostered new business opportunities. Consider the impact of the VCR, the growing possibilities for online music sales and the increasing (legal) applications for P2P and file-sharing technologies.

A report on a study by Parks Associates indicates that users of DVRs are willing to accept targeted advertising in exchange for the ability to fast-forward through regular commercials. This trend promises to allow the world of television advertising to migrate from a mass-marketing to a target-marketing paradigm. Parks Associates' press release from yesterday outlines the results of their survey of 2,084 U.S. consumers.

Parks's release says that 46 percent of survey respondents "are comfortable with viewer tracking and targeted advertising services if offered in conjunction with ad-skipping capabilities." Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst says that their finding "bodes well for TiVo and other PVR/DVR developers, who are hoping to balance viewers' desire to have fewer commercials with the needs of broadcasters and advertisers to better measure their audience and drive more value from advertising."

Parks's announcement caught my eye in view of TiVo's own announcement on July 18, 2005, of a new interactive advertising technology it is launching with General Motors and The WB Network. The new technology will involve the presentation of customized advertising tags giving users access to special promotional footage and allowing them to directly respond and request information from the advertiser.

Following is a list of features of the new technology quoted from TiVo Inc.'s release:

• Enabling advertisers to insert a customized call to action or branded "tag" in their commercial, replacing the generic ad tags previously used by TiVo's advertising clients;
• Ensuring advertisers' traditional TV spots will be more visible in TiVo homes, whether viewed in normal play or fast forward mode;
• Enhancing the TiVo customer's experience by allowing them to select the tag and "telescope" from the traditional 30-second ad while pausing their program to view long-form content, requests for information, or recording opportunities which will enhance the viewing experience;
• Providing advertisers with the ability to receive leads directly from their TV spots, with the viewer's consent, so advertisers can track leads to conversion and ensure a qualified return on investment;
• Additional data for advertisers to gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of TiVo's proprietary tagging feature, the strength of their creative executions, and the efficacy of their television media buying strategy.

My friend Steve once said that TiVo has 'changed the way he watches television.' Sounds as if it might also change the way he interacts with advertising.

AB -- 7/29/05

For a long time I've thought that click fraud in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising was a massive problem in the Web advertising business. So I was interested to see this announcement today on the TMCnet Web site, arriving via the BusinessWire feed:

Surging ''Click Fraud'' Imperils Internet Marketing; Click-fraud costs may hit $1 billion yearly

SPSS, a provider of predictive analytics software, issued this press release to promote its products as a solution for detecting click fraud. Predictive analytics, the company says, can "identify advertisements that exhibit irregular behavior patterns."

In my own Internet business (EmailResults.com), I have used PPC advertising to drive traffic, and I've noticed that some PPC services provide better-quality traffic, that is, a stream of qualified users who will respond to the offer at a reasonable rate. So for the most part I have stuck with Overture and Google Adwords and have stopped using About.com. Recently I decided to try Business.com but haven't yet come to any conclusions about the quality of the traffic they send to the site.

Here's how I imagine click fraud works: A PPC advertising network finds subcontractors who offer to provide a stream of users to the network to click on ads. The users who click on the ads are paid to do so. If you are living in Asia, Africa or South America, it could be a relatively well-paying job to sit at a computer and click on ads for a tenth of a cent per click or some such rate.

This is probably an over-simplified scenario, but I think that's basically how it works. It's probably done under-the-table and through shadow companies so it's not real easy to track down.

SPSS's news release gives five recommendations for overcoming click fraud (I quote):

1. Determine the policy for online search advertisements before signing any contracts.

2. Use Web analytics to better understand traffic to your Website.

3. Monitor Website activity closely through the entire lifespan of an online campaign.

4. Apply predictive analytics software to anticipate fraud.

5. Flag possible fraud cases with online search advertisers as soon as identified.

AB -- 7/18/05

This week Symphoniq is releasing BusinessPulse, a new addition to its Web performance management suite. BusinessPulse is designed for monitoring of Web application infrastructure. Symphoniq is a company started by NetIQ; their product suite is called Symphoniq TrueView Web Management.

I'm publishing Symphoniq's press release in its entirety below:

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Symphoniq Announces TrueView BusinessPulse

New product transforms large volumes of end-to-end response-time data into valuable information about Web performance for all levels of the organization.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada, May 2, 2005 – Symphoniq ™ Corporation, a new company created by the founders of NetIQ™ to manage Web application infrastructure, today announced the addition of BusinessPulse™ to its TrueView™ Web Management Suite. Symphoniq will demonstrate BusinessPulse in the Performance Pavilion at Interop, May 3-6 in Las Vegas, booth number 449-15.

The company will also demonstrate how they used BusinessPulse to quickly implement Apdex reporting using end-to-end response time monitoring data. (See accompanying release).

According to a recent poll conducted by Gartner, end-to-end monitoring is rapidly becoming a priority for IT managers.

“This is because poor performance can be so expensive, and, hence, these tools are looked at as proactive measures to enable IT personnel to remediate issues before they manifest themselves in outages of mission-critical applications,” said Cameron Haight, research vice president at Gartner[1]

One emerging standard for end-to-end monitoring is real user, or “passive,” monitoring.

“Desktop or client-based passive monitoring seems to be also growing in interest because many of the advantages to this approach counteract the downsides of synthetic transactions,” said Haight.

However, the large volumes of data generated by real-user monitoring can be daunting.

“Eight years ago a typical large Web site might consist of 10,000 to 20,000 pages. Today it’s not uncommon for large sites to weigh in at millions of pages. Often, these aggregate content from a wide range of sources, including outside the data center,” said Gartner analyst Ray Valdes. “Managing the infrastructure that runs these sites has reached a level of complexity that requires a new approach.”

BusinessPulse lets an IT organization view their entire Web application infrastructure based on TrueView’s end-user response-time data. It includes both preset and customizable reports that perform the sophisticated performance analysis required to manage the enormous websites that are common today. BusinessPulse reports provide actionable information for people at every level of the organization. For example, IT administrators gain the exact information needed to pinpoint and fix application infrastructure problems, both inside and outside the datacenter, while executive management can see how the Web is affecting business processes or look at overall resource allocations.

“The complexity that characterizes today’s Web application infrastructure is beyond that of any computing system created to date. With BusinessPulse, we have automated the process of debugging application problems using our 20 years of experience with managing complex systems. BusinessPulse gives IT exactly the information they need to timely find and fix the right problem based on the best practice available,” said Symphoniq CEO and NetIQ founder, Hon Wong. “It also gives executive management the information they need to oversee the business side impact of the Web infrastructure.

BusinessPulse takes data from TrueView as it monitors all user transactions, gathering information about response time as the user transactions progress through the application infrastructure. When the system senses a threshold violation at any leg of the journey, it notifies the TrueView server to begin recording. Because BusinessPulse measures specific legs of the journey end-to-end, it shows IT exactly where to look when problems occur.

Pricing and Availability

Existing customers will receive BusinessPulse as part of their licensing agreement. New customers will receive BusinessPulse as part of TrueView Web Diagnostics, TrueView J2EE Diagnostics and TrueView OWA Diagnostics. BusinessPulse will ship in June.

About Symphoniq Corporation

Symphoniq Corporation lets gives organizations a new approach to managing Web application performance and infrastructure. The founders of the company have innovated and built enterprise-grade systems management software as the founders of EcoSystems

and NetIQ (NASDAQ: NTIQ). Its product suite, Symphoniq TrueView Web Management, harnesses the real user experience to identify the infrastructure components that are causing application performance degradation, inside or outside the datacenter, so IT can fix problems faster and more efficiently. Fortune 500 companies use TrueView to reduce helpdesk costs and improve customer satisfaction. The company is funded by InterWest Partners and Greylock among others.

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[1] Gartner Report. 4/18/05. “Poll Reveals Buying Preferences for Availability and Performance Monitoring”. Debra Curtis, Cameron Haight, Raymond Paquet.

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AB -- 5/1/05

America Online announced today a major campaign against phishing, a method by which criminals use phoney emails and Web sites to convince consumers to give out personal information, which is then used for identity theft.

AOL chose Cyota as partner in the effort, to implement a 24/7 monitoring process that will identify phishing scams and block access to fraudulent Web sites for AOL users.

Tatiana Platt, AOL Senior Vice President and Chief Trust Officer, says the company is trying to "cut the lines before a phisher can reel them in and steal sensitive financial and personal information." She says that in coming months "we'll continue to roll out new and stronger technological and legal defenses against phishers, scammers and identity thieves."

Even prior to the initiative announced today, AOL has implemented measures both visible and behind-the-scenes to protect its members from identify theft via phishing. The company has used specially branded AOL Official Mail for its own communications; this correspondence reputedly cannot be faked by phishers. AOL's spam-blocking system also works to block phishing emails. Members can receive AOL Money Alerts that signal any unusual activity in their bank or credit card accounts. And the company has also undertaken extensive educational efforts to inform subscribers of the dangers presented by phishers.

The news release that came out today says that AOL's partner Cyota is "the leading provider of security and anti-fraud solutions for financial institutions" and serves clients in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Cyota offers an anti-phishing solution called FraudAction. Today's announcement says that FraudAction "detects phishing attacks, shuts down phishing sites, performs forensic work and works with banks and law enforcement agencies to prevent future attacks."

AB -- 4/20/05

Two press releases from today brought to mind the problem faced by many suppliers of products and services. See if you can guess what these two news items have in common:

Jacada Wins Significant Contract with Large Telecommunications Provider

PFSweb Contracted for Dedicated Call Center to Serve U.S., Canadian Customers of Consumer Electronics Firm

Yes, in each case the (no doubt smaller and more desperate) supplier was not able to get permission to identify the name of the (no doubt larger and holding-most-of-the-cards) customer. Having done stints as a PR copywriter, I can sympathize with the poor suppliers in both of these cases. You've made a big sale to an important customer and for whatever reason you're not able to crow about it and milk it for publicity -- drat!

I suppose in some cases the big customer might have a legitimate concern -- maybe they don't want to reveal some aspect of their business strategy to competitors. Wouldn't it be a shame, though, if the insistence on anonymity was just the result of somebody throwing their weight around to show how much power they have? Think that could ever be the case?

AB -- 3/30/05