A bugbear of Pay Per Click advertisers across the globe is how inaccurate geo-targeting can be. The thought of being able to display adverts to internet users in a tightly set location is ideal for local businesses but the unfortunate reality is that platforms like Google AdWords haven’t been able to accurately serve adverts a lot of the time.

Geo-targeting to date has mainly been based on the location of a users’ Internet Service Provider. This can often be very different to where that user actually is. Take us as an example - Liberty has had three offices, all based in Cardiff, but Google believed the first was in Birmingham, the second in London and the current one in Essex, due to the ISP we have used at each location. Very frustrating for advertisers and surely very frustrating for Google, knowing they’d spend more if this could be improved.

It looks like this may soon happen as, according to New Scientist, technologies are being developed that can accurately track internet users to within 690 metres of their physical location. The article says “The new method zooms in through three stages to locate a target computer. The first stage measures the time it takes to send a data packet to the target and converts it into a distance – a common geolocation technique that narrows the target's possible location to a radius of around 200 kilometres.

...they then send data packets to known Google Maps landmark servers in this large area to find which routers they pass through. When a landmark machine and the target computer have shared a router, the researchers can compare how long a packet takes to reach each machine from the router; converted into an estimate of distance, this time difference narrows the search down further.

Finally, they repeat the landmark search at this more fine-grained level: comparing delay times once more, they establish which landmark server is closest to the target. The result can never be entirely accurate, but it's much better than trying to determine a location by converting the initial delay into a distance or the next best IP-based method. On average their method gets to within 690 metres of the target and can be as close as 100 metres – good enough to identify the target computer's location to within a few streets”

If/when this rolls out, we can't wait to see the impact it has on Pay Per Click!

A recommendation made by the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) could lead to restrictions on bidding on competitors' brand names and trademarks in Google AdWords.

The adviser recommended that the ECJ should rule against Marks & Spencer for bidding on keywords such as "interflora" as well as variations including misspellings of the trademark and phrase versions including "interflora flowers."

Interflora, who started taking legal action against Marks & Spencer over two years ago, has been unhappy that M&S were paying Google to appear in the Sponsored Links section of the search engine results for its own name. They argued that as M&S' adverts bore no relevance to Interflora, they were taking an "unfair advantage of [their] brand, in breach of trade mark law."

Evidently, the Advocate General agrees, stating that a brand should be allowed to stop a competitor from advertising on its own name as a keyword "in the case where that ad does not enable an average internet user, or enables the said user only with difficulty, to ascertain whether the goods or services referred to in the ad originate from the proprietor of the trademark or an undertaking economically connected to it or from a third party." In other words, if an advert could be confusing and has nothing to do with the brand keyword being searched, then they should not be targeting that particular keyword. After all, a searcher may think that M&S' advert appears when they've searched for Interflora because they're associated with each other or working together.

The potential ruling's implications

The Advocate General's ruling may be non-binding, but it is a signal that the ECJ is likely to lean in that direction and rule in favour of Interflora and against M&S. If so, this landmark case could affect online advertisers throughout Europe when it comes to competing with their competitors' names on Google AdWords.

Bidding on competitor brand terms is not new. In addition to being a practice where one brand might attempt to sway potential customers from another brand, the number of impressions a keyword receives can also provide a valuable insight into the strength and popularity of a brand on a day-by-day basis. For example, as this is typed, Confused.com, Gocompare.com and Comparethemarket.com are all bidding on each other's names:

Bidding by accident?

Perhaps the biggest implication is the ruling's effect on accidental brand term bidding. This will be an issue for phrase term brand searches (e.g. "interflora flowers," "confused.com car insurance," etc.) or if a brand's name contains or is made up of a generic product/service keyword.

For example, if M&S' advert appears for the keyword "interflora" then it is obvious that they are bidding directly on their competitor's name. However, if the advert appears for "interflora flowers," is it because they are bidding on that keyword or because they are bidding on just the keyword "flowers" on broad or phrase match? What about companies that have keywords in their name, such as flowersdirect or Flying Flowers?

The above screenshot shows Interflora's ad showing for a search for "flying flowers," probably because they bid on the keyword "flowers."

Admittedly, Flying Flowers may not be trademarked, but what if it were? Will advertisers be expected to add every single trademarked competitor to their negative keyword list, or only bid on exact match and therefore require an extensive exact match keyword list? Will Google step in and automatically discount popular brand and trademark names and variations? Would it even be able to, without the need to acquire a mammoth list of trademark names?

The impact on Google

Speaking of Google, the ruling will have implications for them as well.

Any restrictions on keywords will result in less money being spent by advertisers, and a restriction on this scale could make a significant dent in the amount they earn from AdWords. If advertisers stick more to exact match keywords, if they are worried about bidding on trademarks via broad and phrase match, they could see even more of a drop-off in the amount of keywords that advertisers bid on.

Is it wrong to bid on competitor brand terms?

Obviously Interflora is pleased by the Advocate General's recommendation, wanting "to protect [their brand] for our customers, florists and the future." But what do others think of the recommendation? Patrick Altoft of BlogStorm argues that it's "a win for common sense. Loads of people bid on competitors trademarks but nobody in the industry really likes it." As mentioned previously however, bidding on a competitor is more than just stealing their traffic: it can give real, accurate data on how many people search for a brand, so this information will be lost as well, with marketers having to rely on Google's Keyword Tool and Google Insights instead.

Evidently it will come down to this: those who benefitted greatly from bidding on their competitors will be unhappy with the recommendation, while those who were taken advantage of (such as Interflora) will consider the potential ruling to be fair and will help them to get the clicks that they feel they deserve.

Either way, it will certainly change the landscape for PPC advertising in the UK and Europe.

The Advertising Standards Agency’s online remit is due to expand to cover the marketing communications on organisations’ own websites, as well as other non-paid-for-space under their control.

This significant development which will undoubtedly affect the operations of in-house online marketing teams as well as marketing agencies across the UK is to be brought in on March 1 of this year.

This progression in the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing will regulate all of an organisation’s messages which appear online. The new rules will govern areas including misleading advertising, social responsibility and the protection of children.

Such a development is due to be greeted with open arms by consumers and ethical businesses alike, as it will offer further protection to both, ensuring the same high standards are applied online as are enforced in other media.

The new regulation is set to cover:

• Marketing messages displayed by businesses on their own websites, ensuring their integrity regardless of the sector or industry in which they operates. The rules will apply to all organisations, completely irrespective of size.
• Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Following the principles of the ASA’s new remit will ensure that you can continue to run your business with complete peace of mind, safe in the knowledge that your obligations have been met. You can find more information on the Committee of Advertising Practice website: http://www.cap.org.uk/CAPServices/Digital-remit-advice.aspx

If you have any confusion regarding the regulations, contact the team here at Liberty Marketing, and we will be happy to ensure the marketing messages on your website are fully compliant.

Social network ad spend has been rising steadily over the last few years with marketers extending their online pay per click and banner advertising beyond the seach engines to include the social networks as well. It is estimated that during 2011 marketers in the US alone will spend £3.08 billion on social network advertising. eMarketer predicts that US ad spend will be up 55% on 2010 when marketers spent $1.99 billion, and that worldwide social network spend will be up 71.6% in 2011 to $5.97billion.



Facebook, by far the largest social network, is clearly having the greatest impact on this growth through a year-on-year increase in Facebook advertising. Facebook therefore contributes up to 65% of the 2011 prediciton. eMarketer predicts that advertising spend on facebook will hit $2.19 billion in the US alone in 2011 and over $4 billion worldwide. That's more than double the total spent in 2010!


So as we move further into 2011 social networks are poised to absorb an even greater percentage of all online spending making them difficult to ignore for any business serious about their online marketing. We will be watching eagerly to see what developments Facebook has planned for the forthcoming year.

Whether you are a fan of Google's new Instant search or not, if you are running a PPC campaign then this post will be of interest to you.

There appears to be a glitch in Instant search that could be costing top spot advertisers dearly. Whilst Instant search is turned on, if a search returns Adwords ads above the organic SERPs and you hit enter twice in the search field you will automatically open the number 1 Adwords result. This costs whoever is in the top spot, but the user won't have made the choice to click the ad, so what will they do? Click back, because they were expecting a Google search results screen.

This will have a detrimental effect on top position bounce rates and could be wasting a great deal of advertiser's budgets.

Currently running in Beta test mode, Google are testing video extensions that will be shown with their Adwords ads.

The plan is to have an "expandable plus-box" directly beneath the normal PPC text ad in which video extensions will play. Users will be able to watch the video before deciding whether or not to click-through. This sounds interesting for users, but the current cost of this service for advertisers is less appealing.

Once viewers reach the 10 second mark the advertiser will be charged the same maximum cost per click as if their ad had been clicked, regardless of whether it is clicked. So will this lead to a flurry of 10 second ads or are the search results becoming more and more cluttered, as with Google Preview?

Google has suggested that video extensions could be of particular use for product demonstrations, previews and trailers.

At present, there are no plans to roll this service out in the UK.

With Microsoft Advertising adCenter now providing all paid search results for Yahoo! Search and Bing in the US, and Bing supplying the organic search results for Yahoo! Search, they have just announced that this will be rolled out in select markets across europe and the UK in early 2011.

The european transition will begin with the UK, France and Ireland with all of europe expected to be completed by early 2012.

Current advice is to continue using adCenter as normal but to expect further information regarding the pending changes approximately 3 months prior to any changes taking place.

Writing AdWords copy has become a modern day art form, one that many SEM’s have refined over years to take advantage of the 4 line structure. I’m sure we have all slaved over that phrase or line which is just 1 character too long! Well, Google have recently made things more challenging – thanks very much - by adding variable line lengths to the equation.

In the past we have written ads which fit within the following structure:

Title: 25 characters max
Line 2: 35 characters max
Line 3: 35 characters max
Display URL: 35 characters max

This strict format has often seen punctuation omitted in favour of that last character and to date we have been able to get away with it because we know exactly how our ad will appear in Google. Variable line lengths change this by expanding or contracting the line length in relation to the size of a user’s browser.

The result is that an ad you may have spent ages over will now appear in a completely different way to different users thereby losing some of its advertising appeal in the process.

So what does this mean for future copy?

Good copywriters won’t be fazed by this change. A good copywriter will create dynamic copy which reads well regardless, but the correct use of punctuation will now become critical to ensure your advertising message gets through the way you intended. Reviewing existing ads and altering them accordingly would also be advisable.

The first half of 2010 has seen a dramatic rise in the total spend by British organisations on online advertising, up 10% from last year to £1.97 billion.

The bi-annual online advertising expenditure study produced by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers, puts the increase down to a large surge in the video and social network advertising budgets of many small and medium sized companies.

With a current market share of 24.3% of the total UK advertising spend; online advertising is now becoming a major consideration for many businesses. The 10% increase in online advertising is within a context of a 6.3% rise in total UK advertising spend to £8.1 billion, which shows positive signs relating to the increasing confidence in the economy.

The highest spending could be seen in the entertainment and media sector, which has always relied heavily upon advertising within the digital sector. This accounted for 14.4% of total online advertising spend in the UK, followed by finance and fast moving consumer goods.  

In what was a largely positive study, figures reflected a sense of optimism in the industry which has not been seen for the past couple of years. Even retail, a sector which has been hit disproportionately severely by the economic collapse, experienced an increased online advertising spend from 7.1% in the first half of 2009 to 8.4% in the same period of 2010.

The chief executive of IAB, Guy Phillipson, commented: “The return to double digit growth in UK online advertising spend is characterised by increased investment by major brands, particularly in fast moving consumer goods and entertainment. The effectiveness of social and video ads for classic brand building is reflected in these formats enjoying exponential growth”.

The report indicates a number of drivers for the recent surge in growth, one being the increase in online users within the UK, mainly due to the proliferation of devices such as Smartphones.

The way people spend their time on the internet is also changing with the IAB claiming UK internet users are currently spending 23% of their time online using social networks and blogs.

New regulations mean that from March 2011 companies will be subject to strict advertising rules as the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) extends its power over online marketing. In 2008 there were over 4500 complaints about internet marketing communications that the ASA did not have the authority to deal with. They will now be able to force marketers to remove any content or online advert found to be in breach of its regulations, giving the consumer much more protection.

False claims and misleading statements on websites, as well as untrue price comparison sites will be under the ASA’s control. These new regulations will give the ASA the capacity to position their own adverts in place of those of noncompliant advertisers. Companies that flout these rules will receive substantial negative publicity from the ASA which can damage an advertiser’s reputation.

Marketing statements on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites will also be covered by the new regulations. This means that marketers will have to be careful to ensure that no offence is caused and that no misleading statements are used. Using foul language or sending malicious comments from official company accounts will result in complaints and possibly fines from the ASA.

Internet giant Google has provided extra funding for this extended remit and is completely co-operating with the ASA to help make the Internet a much safer place for the consumer. These regulations will provide an interesting challenge for marketers as some will have to change their current practices to comply.