The launch of Marketplace at Sears.com underscores the limits of blind CSE syndication and the need for transparency, disclosure and control in strategic marketing partnerships.
Sears Marketplace launched last week with an impressive roster of retail clients for its new shopping portal. On the surface, Sears appeared to have been quite successful at lining up an array of A-List partners. Since PM Digital typically arranges and manages the feeds for these types of product listings, we were curious why many of our clients were there without our direct involvement.
It soon became clear that a few of our comparison shopping engine partners (CSEs) and their blind syndication networks were at play. Our tracking revealed that Sears Marketplace was getting their content from Shopping.com. Further research told us that Shopping.com was syndicating to Shop.com, which in turn was feeding to Sears Marketplace.
Unfortunately our own clients had never given permission to provide content to Sears Marketplace, and based on what many have told us over the past few days, they definitely would not have agreed to such a thing. It is no surprise that marketers — especially those with upscale brands — would have preferred to decide for themselves whether partnering with Sears was brand appropriate.
Continue reading →
The major snowstorm on the East Coast on Saturday and Sunday lifted online sales for 67% of PM Digital’s retail clients an estimated 10% vs. what they would have seen for the weekend without the storm. For the apparel category, specifically, this lift affected 71% of PM Digital clients.
The strong weekend results for online sales is icing on the cake to a strong overall holiday season for ecommerce. As has been reported by comScore and others, online sales are up year over year in 2009 vs. 2008, so there is a lot to celebrate.
Some of the key drivers in lifting sales this year in particular were 1) promotions; 2) gift cards; 3) egift cards) 4) accurate forecasting (running budgets high on the best days and scaling back on lower-converting days), and 5) taking advantage of best practices in search strategies.
Continue reading →
Invest in search now to put you a step ahead in 2010.
Depending on your definition of ‘investment’ and ‘return’, search this Holiday is being asked to be as solid as investing in dollars in 2005. And, for most, it will deliver. But search’s ability as an investment vehicle today is struggling, better yet, starving for capital.
Many players have narrowed paid search’s scope and potential because of the need to deliver month-over-month revenue and profit consistency, despite the fact that year over year, search has proven it can be a consistent, star performer. And in better economies, it was used to prod the market because of its unique ability to instantly gauge and measure interest in products, services, messaging, brand positioning, promotions and more.
As we sit here on Cyber Monday during a time of year when experimentation can be disproportionately higher (to capitalize on naturally higher yields), do we run the risk of compromising next year’s opportunities for this year’s demand and profits? The answer is yes. But let’s be sure that we understand the expense implications for next year when aggressive growth will be back in vogue and required by management and shareholders. There will be zero tolerance and jobs will be on the line – talk about pressure.
Continue reading →
Based on PM Digital’s beta work, Google’s Ad Sitelinks test well and offer a great new tactic for retailers this holiday season.
Google’s Ad Sitelinks are moving from beta to phased roll out next week. Whereas betas are seen by only a tiny portion of users (about 1%), in a phased rollout, approximately 10% of Google users will now see these ads.
Ad Sitelinks were developed specifically as a way for retailers to get better click through rates from their trademark terms. Rather than sending all searchers to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks enable a marketer to direct consumers to specific pages. PM Digital had several clients take part in the beta and has since rolled out many more. We definitely saw significantly higher click through rates for Ad Sitelinks compared to regular sponsored ads.
Here is an example of how Ad Sitelinks look:
When Ad Sitelinks were first tested around the beginning of summer, it was done as an A/B/C split: 1) the normal sponsored ad containing a logo; 2) a logo plus Ad Sitelinks; and 3) Ad Sitelinks with no logo. The winning beta was Ad Sitelinks with no logo, which is what will be rolled out next week.
Continue reading →
Ever wonder how competitors are able to achieve top rankings on otherwise unprofitable keywords? It’s all in the metrics.
Consistent with Google’s 3rd Quarter Earnings and their outlook for 2010, paid search will receive ample 2010 budget dollars within the retail media mix. Because of the efficiency and control paid search gives retailers in yielding sales at an acceptable ROI, most marketers will try to shift as many dollars as possible to paid search and away from less efficient sources. In fact, if asked, most will say they would like paid search to be an even larger part of the mix, if only they could get more scale from the program.
The inability to get more scale out of paid search is sometimes confounding. Within merchandise categories, we frequently see certain retailers owning top spots for a wide swath of keywords which competitors can’t make work. For example, the scale that Merchandiser B wants so badly is going to Merchandiser A, despite the fact that Merchandiser B is a category leader. How does this happen?
Continue reading →
The end of Yahoo’s Paid Inclusion is not surprising, but the timing presents challenges for retailers who relied on the program. Below is PM Digital’s quick take and initial recommendations.
Last week Yahoo announced that they are discontinuing their Paid Inclusion program (Search Submit Pro) at the end of this year. The last date Paid Inclusion will be live is December 31, 2009. The discontinuation of the program will include the top level, category level and product level feeds — basically everything.
Yahoo is leaving the program live through the end of the year so that they don’t leave any retailers in the lurch for the holiday season. That said, most Yahoo SSP customers are retailers whose fiscal year ends in January – not December. So Yahoo will in fact be impacting retailers’ full year demand given the loss of revenue for an entire month.
Continue reading →
Universal search and vertical search appeal to different types of searchers and searches. But does either appeal to marketers?
We continue to receive a good number of questions about universal search (how can we retain our ranking?) and vertical search engines (should we be using them?) For guidance, below is some topline marketing perspective on the relative strengths and opportunities for each.
Vertical Search
With search having become a mainstream necessity for consumers and a lucrative media channel for the search engines, vertical search engines will proliferate over the next few years. Examples include TheFind (consumer goods), Kayak (travel) and MyRide.com (automotive). As far as marketers’ acceptance and use of these as a media channel goes, it will depend on several factors.
Continue reading →
Value has moved firmly from accessory to necessity. Retailers with a convincing value proposition – be it price, quality or payment terms – will fare best during the year-end holidays.
I’ve just returned from two retail-focused conferences (the Shop.org Annual Summit and another NYC apparel-focused show). The overriding theme at both was that value will be the predominant message of the holiday. Those who promote value and whose message resonates with customers will win, and those who don’t will miss out.
Today we’re on the cusp of the holiday, but back in July, Kmart was already promoting their Christmas tree section. At the time, I read a few articles criticizing the retailer for pushing the season, but I don’t think that was Kmart’s sole mission. Rather, the offer in Kmart’s aisle was layaway, an old fashioned practice whose time is once again appropriate.
Continue reading →
PM Digital has been leveraging content search much more than we had in the past, and we’ve found some great success there. Google’s content network, in particular, yields a massive amount of impressions which is desirable for advertisers looking for more scale from search (approximately 70% of internet users view content ads per month for 139 million impressions).
In the past year, PM Digital was fortunate to have Michelle Obama favor two of our clients’ clothes, and we leveraged linking those brands with Michelle Obama’s name and other relevant keywords within the content network, trying to make the most of the constant media mentions.
These campaigns yielded a significant amount of sales. Most advertisers, though, may not get the opportunity to link their brand to Michelle Obama, so can they still find success with content?
Continue reading →
Our latest “Game Changers” review of important news developments looks at recent changes that are impacting both old and new media in a positive way. Here are four transformations worth keeping an eye on.