This week’s International Search Summit in London brought many interesting search and social media marketing topics to the table. Over the next couple of days key takeaways from the summit will be posted here on Multilingual Search, so stay tuned. [...]]]> This week’s International Search Summit in London brought many interesting search and social media marketing topics to the table. Over the next couple of days key takeaways from the summit will be posted here on Multilingual Search, so stay tuned. Here are 5 tips to start off with (and sorry about the lack of spacing, unfortunately it’s not working the way I’d like it to):

1. Find Your Local Hairdresser

So what has this got to do with international search and social? A lot actually. Bas van den Beld did a presentation on the Global Collision of Social, Local and Mobile (and won the medallion speaker award) in which he included a bunch of stories to prove his points.

Social has always been around, but we now have all these new tools to fully realise this behaviour. However, surprisingly many marketers still don’t get how social works and Bas pointed out how the outdated traditional one-way marketing communications model – if you don’t listen to what I’m saying, I’ll just scream louder – has in many cases been applied to social networking platforms. The reality, though, is that we live in a world where the power of peer recommendations far outweigh that of brand communication. So instead of always focusing on the end-consumer (or worse even, on yourself), identify and influence your local hairdresser (your brand advocate) who’s likely to talk about your product or service to the circles where it’s relevant and have her spread your message. This is not only more cost-effective, it’s also infinitely more powerful.

• See State of Search for more detailed write up of Bas’ presentation at the ISS.

2. Targeting the Middle East? It’s NOT all Arabic!!!

The Middle East is a region that is slowly starting to appear on the radars of foreign corporations. When seeing some of the figures presented by Lee Mancini at the International Search Summit in London you understand why companies should begin to care about this region. Search and social are both growing at a phenomenal pace but beware that it’s not all Arabic when targeting the MENA region. According to Lee, 54 percent of Google searches are now made in Arabic, 34 percent in English, and 8 percent in French.

Language use varies significantly within the region and even Arabic has outspoken regional differences, i.e. Arabic in Egypt and Saudi Arabia is not identical. So, keep in mind that the Middle East is far from a “one size fits all” region, meaning that replicating marketing strategies across Middle Eastern countries is likely to be just as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum, as Mary Schmich once wisely said.

• See State of Search for a more detailed write-up of Lee’s presentation.

3. Avoid using generic TLDs in Germany

It’s a global world indeed. Germany, however, is still largely relying on its own resources since there’s a vast amount of information available in German, meaning that the necessity for foreign inputs isn’t as prevalent as is often the case in smaller countries.  As a consequence, searches are conducted in German and there’s generally little ‘interference’ from other countries in SERPs – only companies like Facebook can get away with a .com domain, Andre Alpar stated during his presentation. Use instead a .de domain and also beware that German’s are fond of using the dash symbol in their domain names, e.g. search-engine-land rather than all in one go.

4. Playing “all white” in Germany is an uphill battle

Germany is arguably the most competitive market within the EU. The country has the highest amount of domains in Europe and these domains rank for the lowest number of keywords. For this reason, link acquisition strategies are very aggressive, where buying/renting links up until now has often proved a necessity to ranking high – as Andre put it, you either need deep pockets or a lot of time to succeed in Germany’s highly competitive search landscape. Whether Google’s Penguin Update will change the code of conduct will be interesting to follow.

5. Treat online reputation management like brand/PR spend

According to Google’s Shopper Sciences study, in 2011 the average shopper used 10.4 information sources to make a purchasing decision, up from 5.3 sources in 2010. This ever growing power of online feedback and research in shaping consumer purchasing decisions has made online reputation management one of the most crucial battlefields for business success. Social proof, i.e. what people are saying about your brand/company, often is the tipping point between buying from you or taking business elsewhere. But since social proof’s impact on conversions is more difficult to quantify and track, marketing budgets are often assigned to areas with higher accountability.

In his presentation, Nick Garner advised companies to identify the hot spots where potential customers go to seek information and validation about their services and products – what Nick referred to as “Zero Moments” – and then influence, shape and manage the course of conversation happening on these important customer touchpoints.

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Yandex, Russia’s leading search engine, recently disclosed its Q1 2012 financial results. Results exceeded analyst expectations, with revenues up 51 percent to $200.3 million, and net income up 53 percent to $43 million. Surely, such figures would make most company [...]]]> Yandex, Russia’s leading search engine, recently disclosed its Q1 2012 financial results. Results exceeded analyst expectations, with revenues up 51 percent to $200.3 million, and net income up 53 percent to $43 million. Surely, such figures would make most company executives jump up and down, however, digging into the figures makes one question whether this apparently positive financial performance is actually worrisome from Yandex’s perspective?

Despite exceeding analyst expectation, could or should the figures be even higher? Firstly, it’s important to keep in mind that the Russian internet is growing at a massive pace which — needless to say — has a positive effect on online advertising platforms in the vast country. In fact, Russian online advertising expenditures were up 56 percent in 2011, with the biggest gain coming from contextual ads, up 63 percent and no sign of stagnation in 2012. In other words, it appears that Yandex’s Q1 2012 revenue increase is actually below that of the overall market.

Russian Online Ad Spend % of Total Ad Market

Source: Yandex

Is Google gaining traction at the expense of Yandex

What’s particularly noteworthy is the fact that contextual ads have seen the highest overall gain. That’s Yandex domain, with text-ads still accounting for 90 percent of its revenues, notes Ingrid Lunden. This indicates that competitors are eating into Yandex’s share of the market. Lunden further notes:

“Yandex’s share of the search market in Russia, its largest market by far, is now at 59 percent against competition from Google and others: last year it was close to 65 percent (…) Before today, Yandex had been trading down amid concerns that competitors (mainly Google) were gaining market share on the company in the search advertising market, an area where Yandex in the past had enjoyed a healthy lead.”

Russia is one of the few bastions left for Google still to conquer.  Although the Mountain View, California-based company still hasn’t succeeded in its efforts of doing so, stealing 4-6 percent market share from homegrown Yandex in one year is rather significant. My fellow columnist and Editor-in-Chief of Multilingual-Search, Andy Atkins-Krueger, last year wrote a piece on Search Engine Land about where Google was investing its international marketing spend and basically indicated that the company was pumping money into the Russian market in order to break down Yandex’s stronghold. Along the lines it said:

“Despite their vast spend in Russia, Google does not appear to have moved the Russian market share needle against the leader in the market , namely Yandex which has actually been claiming share gains during the same period.”

Well, it appears the effect might have started to kick in. Because Yandex has proved resilient to Google’s many attempts to challenge its dominant position up until now, this has allowed the company to allocate resources to look beyond Russia for expansion. Although it’s still too early to conclude anything, it poses the question: Will Yandex take stock of the situation and how will it affect its expansion plans?

Two potential scenarios

Turkey was the first (obvious) choice outside of the CIS-region and Ilya Segalovich, CTO of Yandex, told the WSJ Europe yesterday that the company aims to claim 20-30 percent of Turkey’s total search engine traffic, although it currently has less than 1 percent of the attractive market. Expanding into Turkey has proven quite resourceful due to the language barrier, meaning that “Yandex has had to redesign all internal procedures and the parts of the engine to be worked with people who don’t know Russian”, Segalovich said. During the interview, he also hinted that further expansion was highly likely and suggested other European countries as future potential targets.

However, Yandex’s expansion plans are fuelled by profit made in Russia – and if Google keeps eating into its market share in its by far largest market, there are two potential strategic scenarios;

1) Penetrating the Turkish market and expanding into new ones will be put on hold to concentrate fully on defending its home turf.

2) Expanding marketing efforts and headcount to defend its home turf while penetrating Turkey and expanding into new markets.

Is it just a matter of time before Google reigns supreme in Russia as well, or does Yandex have what it takes to combat Google and stay on top in Russia?

Business Development Director of Yandex, Preston Carey, will be speaking about making it in Russia at the International Search Summit @ SMX Advanced in Seattle on June 7th. Tickets are still available.

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In an article published this week, Diane Mermigas stated that “Facebook’s developing social search framework will be a catalyst for redefining and monetizing mobile, unleashing a torrent of new revenue and value that eventually will make its $100 [...]]]> In an article published this week, Diane Mermigas stated that “Facebook’s developing social search framework will be a catalyst for redefining and monetizing mobile, unleashing a torrent of new revenue and value that eventually will make its $100 billion IPO valuation look like child’s play.”

Mermigas argues that Facebook’s endless source of personalised information is its competitive edge and what could ultimately set it apart from Google and even surpass the world’s currently undisputed search champion.

That’s an extensive debate which won’t be covered in this piece; however, one could be forgiven for questioning whether Mr. Zuckerberg’s ubiquitous social network is even worth its expected $100 billion valuation prior to the company’s forthcoming IPO when reviewing this week’s S-1 filing.

Facebook’s Q1 2012 revenue might be up 69 percent from the same period last year, yet operating and net income are the lowest since September 2010. Obviously, this is indicative of heavy investments made by the company. For instance, the number of full-time employees rose 46 percent from last year to 3,539, notes Christopher Heine. Growth is now almost entirely happening in emerging markets, where revenue per user has proven lower compared to mature markets — and expenses connected to fuelling expansion in those markets through increased headcount and maintenance have been rising at a faster pace than revenue.

Fuelling future growth or first signs of declining profitability?

Let’s just look at the international perspective for a second. Facebook’s stated mission is to make the world more open and connected – a mission it certainly lives up to. The social giant now claims it has more than 900 million users globally, of which a staggering 532 million are daily active users. Having this kind of scale, combined with highly personalised information on every single one of its users across almost all markets, do indeed give Facebook something no one else has, as Diane Mermigas argues. In short, Facebook becomes the place to go to for any international advertising campaign.

In addition, Facebook has seen astonishing growth rates in key future markets such as Brazil and India. While expenses might exceed the relative revenue increase when penetrating those markets, this is unlikely to be the case a couple of years from now as Facebook penetration will grow and emerging markets generally become more economically attractive.

However, the question  still remains: Is Facebook simply building the foundation for future growth or are we witnessing the first signs of decreasing profitability?

Source: Seeking Alpha

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It’s no secret that mobile internet usage and ad spend are rapidly gaining on PCs, nor is the fact that digital overall is eating into traditional media’s share of the total ad market, with 2012 being [...]]]> It’s no secret that mobile internet usage and ad spend are rapidly gaining on PCs, nor is the fact that digital overall is eating into traditional media’s share of the total ad market, with 2012 being the year where online ad spend in the U.S. is set to exceed that of print for the first time ever.

Some recent U.S. mobile search spend figures were quite surprising, though – particularly the notion that tablets claimed two-thirds of the total U.S. mobile search market in the first quarter of 2012, according to IgnitionOne’s Global Online Advertising Report

Smartphones still generate more traffic

The first and most obvious reason to why this is slightly surprising is that smartphones have been around for much longer and continue to have a significantly larger audience, although tablet adoption is projected to soar throughout 2012. In fact, the GlobalWebIndex expects tablets to claim an astonishing 14 percent of the global connected device traffic as we enter 2013, while mobile by then will make up an additional 18 percent.

During December 2011, mobiles accounted for 5.2 percent of all connected device traffic in the U.S. , according to comScore. As can be seen below, this is more than double the amount of traffic generated by tablets during that same period.

Mobile has higher CTRs

Furthermore, studies have shown that mobile ads have higher click-through rates compared to those of tablets and especially PCs. In fact, search ads on smartphones are 41 percent more likely to be clicked than ads designed for tablets. Compared to PCs, this number is as high as 76 percent.

*These figures are supported by data derived from Marin Software as well

The ultimate test

So what’s the catch? Conversion rates? BINGO.

Smartphones are performing poorly compared to tablets on the most important metric of all, suggests data from Marin Software. Search’s finest goal is to harvest demand (I’m not saying it’s the only one) and ads on smartphones are well under half as likely to do that as ads for tablets and PCs. This might explain mobile’s lower average cost per click. After all, how much is it worth getting customers in your store  if no one buys anything?

Mobile might not convert as well as tablets and this obviously explains why U.S. search marketers have chosen to allocate the large majority of their mobile device ad spend to tablets in Q1 2012. An important notion in this regard, however, is that smartphone ads might very well provide more bottom-line value than these figures give it credit for. Smartphone penetration has now exceeded 50 percent in the U.S., according to comScore, meaning that the lines between offline and online are rapidly vanishing. This convergence, suddenly making smartphones consumers’ favourite shopping companion, has by many analysts been highlighted as THE key trend for 2012.

If you’re a pure online player, desktop and tablet ads might provide higher value than mobile, but traditional retailers are unlikely to find any advertising platform more effective than mobile if executed right.

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With more than 513 million internet users, according to the 29th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China by the CNNIC, China is by far the world’s largest online market. Although already being the undisputed global champion in [...]]]> With more than 513 million internet users, according to the 29^th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China by the CNNIC, China is by far the world’s largest online market. Although already being the undisputed global champion in terms of number of netizens, China’s online population just keeps growing due to the country’s massive scale.

Concurrently, the technological infrastructure is improving at the same pace as the increase of its user base, meaning that the internet, especially the usage of it, has become much more sophisticated and is continuously evolving – particularly exemplified by the Chinese’s embrace of online shopping. In fact, a September 2011 study of online buyers worldwide conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 86 percent of China’s nearly 200 million online shoppers considered themselves experts at ecommerce, compared to 70 percent in the UK and 72 percent in the US, notes eMarketer.

With an average of a staggering 8.4 online purchases per month by the vast country’s online buyers, China makes developed Western internet economies look like ecommerce newcomers. For comparison, online buyers in the US made an average of 5.2 purchases, while in France and Netherlands this number was as low as 2.6.

China’s scale, combined with its online population’s embrace of online shopping, present an unprecedented window of opportunity for international businesses. However, setting up a business and subsequently succeeding in a country where almost everything is different will prove challenging. Strict internet censorship, outspoken cultural differences and tedious bureaucratic processes are just some of the issues companies need to overcome when entering China’s online market, yet the financial potential seems to outweigh the obstacles likely to be encountered along the way.

WebCertain has compiled a guide/report on how to do business in China. Go to Global Central, request an invite and gain access to a wide range of SEM and social media insights.

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Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the International Search Summit in Munich. One of the sessions was held by Managing Director of Yandex Europe, Bernard Lukey, who provided insights into the online Russian marketplace and, [...]]]> Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the International Search Summit in Munich. One of the sessions was held by Managing Director of Yandex Europe, Bernard Lukey, who provided insights into the online Russian marketplace and, needless to say, Yandex.

One slide after the other indicated that online has really started to pick up in the vast country. Although the “Runet”, as Russians refer to their online market, has witnessed immense growth in the past couple of years, growth rates are projected to gain further traction across most metrics as we move forward. As Bernard put it:

“The Runet might already be big, yet we’ve only seen the beginning of its significant potential”.

Now, you could be forgiven for wondering how accurate these figures are – after all, it’s in Yandex’s interest to promote Russian web growth – but a recent comScore report backs up the search engine’s assertions.

Earlier today, comScore released an overview of internet usage in Europe during the month of February. Russia continues to consolidate its position as Europe’s largest online market in terms of unique users, with more than 54.5 million unique visitors during the month – this represents a staggering increase of more than one million since December last year. For comparison, developed online markets like Germany, France and the UK have all stagnated due to market saturation.

Source: comScore Media Metrix

What’s going on in Italy?
Internet user stagnation has occurred in almost all individually surveyed European countries when comparing to the statistics comScore released for December, yet in this specific case there’s a clear exception to the rule. Interestingly, Italy has seen its internet audience skyrocketing with nearly 4 million internet newcomers over the course of a two-month period, making Russia’s user growth fade rather significantly.

I’ve checked comScore’s analyses on European internet usage back to September, and nothing seems to indicate that this spectacular growth is due to seasonal variation. Surprisingly, comScore doesn’t comment on it in the press release, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I haven’t got a clue of what might have caused this drastic shift over such short a period of time, so if you have any insights, please share them in the comments.

The UK continues to lead engagement
The UK continues to lead European engagement, with 36.7 hours spent on average in February. This is an increase of 1.1 hours from December, while the average hours across Europe have increased by 0.7 to stand at 28.2 hours. The U.K. is followed by Turkey and The Netherlands when combining both hours spent and number of page views.

While the overall increase of around 6 million unique visitors across Europe has been largely driven by a few countries, engagement appears to be on the rise in multiple markets across the region, relatively unaffected by market saturation. And surely, as most Europeans decide to spend more of their time online – and via multiple devices, making markets more fragmented – it becomes absolutely imperative to know the web browsing characteristics of your target audience and provide localised solutions accordingly.

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Social Media Examiner recently released its 4th annual Social Media Marketing Report. The 42-page report sets out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing based on more than 3,800 responses from marketers [...]]]> Social Media Examiner recently released its 4^th annual Social Media Marketing Report. The 42-page report sets out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing based on more than 3,800 responses from marketers across different markets (an overwhelming majority of respondents are based in the U.S., though). Here are five key findings from the report:

• The top two benefits of social media marketing are increased exposure and increased traffic, according to 85% and 69% of the respondents, respectively.




• 55% of respondents indicated improved search rankings as a benefit of social media marketing. Surprisingly, this is a decrease from 2011 where 62% viewed social media marketing as a means to improve search rankings. I look forward to seeing this figure in one year from now when we’ll be a lot wiser on the magnitude of SPYW.




• Gaining market insight through social media made its way into the top 3. The study found that B2B companies (68%) were significantly more likely than B2C (59%) to use social media for insight-gathering.




• Converting fans/followers into loyal ones doesn’t happen overnight. This may not come as any surprise, however, it’s supported by the report, which clearly indicates that the time invested makes a difference. 60% of those spending at least 6 hours a week found benefit in using social as a platform to acquire loyal customers, compared to just 46% of those spending 5 hours or less per week.




• 40% of survey respondents are using Google+. Being introduced less than a year ago, this is indeed impressive – but there’s still a long way to Facebook’s 92% penetration. With Google leveraging its search dominance to boost its own social network, the importance of having a business presence on Google+ can’t be underestimated.

These are just a few of the many interesting findings. Check it out for yourself – get the full report here or watch the video in which author, Michael A. Stelzner, provides an overview of the full report.

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In my last post here on Multilingual Search I listed 10 brief takeaways from ISS Munich. At the summit, Senior Strategy Consultant at the GlobalWebIndex, Brett Petersen, presented some of the key findings from the company’s [...]]]> In my last post here on Multilingual Search I listed 10 brief takeaways from ISS Munich. At the summit, Senior Strategy Consultant at the GlobalWebIndex, Brett Petersen, presented some of the key findings from the company’s sixth wave of research into the global consumer adoption of the internet across 27 key markets. Their findings are based on 122K survey responses, making it the world’s most detailed on-going research project of its kind.

One of the insights shared by Brett was the fact that consumer expectations towards brands on social media seem to differ rather significantly between countries and regions, meaning that brands need to identify the social media characteristics of their audience and market before developing a global social strategy.

While the internet over the years has been hailed as this unifying force breaking down borders and cultural differences, the divergence in online usage patterns between regions and countries is becoming increasingly outspoken as the internet evolves, notes the GlobalWebIndex. This is indeed an interesting tendency worth keeping an eye on in the future.

So far, so good – now, let’s take a look at how user expectations actually vary between countries and regions.

Interaction

Across all markets, users are most likely to expect interaction with a brand when liking them on a social network – a motivational factor being particularly important in Latin American and Asian countries. Interaction here encompasses areas such as customer service and general conversations with brand representatives.

Source: GlobalWebIndex

Active contribution vs. passive consumption of content

When moving beyond interactions, the differences in consumer expectations towards brands on social networks become rather prevalent (see image above). Users in most markets prefer receiving content over contributing actively themselves, however, it’s somewhat surprising that some of the so-called early adopters of social media like the UK, Australia and France prefer contributing over passively consuming content.

Regarding content, emerging Asian markets like Indonesia, China and The Philippines expect branded quality content to a higher degree than the average. Quality content, however, is very open to subjective interpretation and is something which most certainly varies between markets as well. Some rather universal social media content tips, though, revolve around providing exclusivity to your fans, such as giving them access to new products prior to official launch. Whatever you can come up with that provides exclusivity and serves your overall business purpose is likely to have a positive effect on your social media efforts, regardless of where in the world you’re located.

Social

With the exception of China and to a little extent Indonesia, users across all markets are least likely to follow or like brand pages with the objective of sharing this brand engagement with their friends. This, however, is in contrast with research released today by eMarketer, suggesting that 22 percent of American Facebook users “like” a business/non-profit to demonstrate their support to others on the social network. eMarketer furthermore notes:

“A 2011 study from 8thBridge found that consumers most often “like” a retailer on Facebook because they purchased a product and liked it; they then used Facebook to provide a straightforward recommendation for friends to see.”

Fulfilment

Fulfilment, referring to offering added value services to fans, such as having a social e-commerce shop integrated on the brand profile or allowing fans to track a product delivery, is very surprisingly (at least to me) less of a motivational factor than contributing to, for example, businesses’ product development processes through filling out questionnaires or just giving inputs to product improvements without even being encouraged to do so.

The report doesn’t mention whether discounts and special offers go under the fulfilment category – in case it does, the findings stand in even greater contrast to those of eMarketer, who finds that discounts and special offers is the top reason for liking a brand page in the US.

Well, in contrast or not, I can only applaud the great work they are doing at the GlobalWebIndex, because although we live in a globalised world, it seems that localised solutions are needed more than ever.

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Last week’s International Search Summit in Munich provided a wide range of in-depth quality sessions on international SEO, PPC and social media. Many of the recent developments and challenges that the international SEO community is currently [...]]]> Last week’s International Search Summit in Munich provided a wide range of in-depth quality sessions on international SEO, PPC and social media. Many of the recent developments and challenges that the international SEO community is currently facing were addressed at the summit – here are 10 key takeaways:

1. If you don’t already have a business presence on Google+, establish one

Google is cementing its position with all access points to the web increasingly becoming Google – a situation being termed “the rise of Googopoly” by the GlobalWebIndex. Chrome is now the leading browser in key growth markets such as India and Brazil, and Android is witnessing explosive growth and leads in almost all developed high value mobile markets. In addition, Google+ is already the second largest social network globally, and its importance for brands has only been propelled upwards by the heavy integration of Google+ in its search results. Appearing in the top SERPs on Google without a Google+ presence will become almost impossible.

2. Determine your target market’s level of brand interaction on social media before creating your social strategy

The GlobalWebIndex has identified four distinct tiers of consumer engagement with brands on social media.  Their findings show that consumer expectations to brands vary according to country, with emerging markets expecting a significant higher level of commitment and interaction from brands than the early adopters of social media, who are generally more passive. Identifying the characteristics of your audience and their expectations to brands on social media is the cornerstone in developing your global social strategy.

3. Link building approaches differ between markets and industries; hence, understand each market individually and then decide on which strategy to pursue

Some countries and industries have a much higher ratio of money links to brand links. For example, according to Bastian Grimm, 76 percent of links to the top 10-ranking sites in Germany for the keyword “Poker” were money links, whereas in the U.S. money links only accounted for 30 percent of the total number of links when using the same keyword.

Obviously, there are several other factors which need to be taken into consideration, such as where links should be coming from, i.e. blogs, forums, directories etc. The key notion here is: What might work in one market may very well prove insufficient in another.

4. Integrate “the holy trinity”

Integration of content, SEO and social media is at the core of online success. There is nothing revolutionary about this statement, however, tying these areas together through a holistic approach is becoming increasingly important.

5. Online reputation management – Identify potential risks and goals and bank appropriate response content

While managing your online reputation has never been more complex, the importance of doing it surely exceeds its complexity. In this regard, peer to peer recommendations online is a key factor in 50 percent of purchase decisions, according to Tracy Falke. Reputation management strategies should be proactive by identifying potential risks and banking appropriate response content to prevent potential crises from escalating, thus minimising the chances of losing brand equity.

6. Use Russia’s leading search engine, Yandex, to claim your share of the growing Russian online market

The Russian online market will grow exponentially over the next couple of years and Yandex is the place where most Russian netizens go to. International marketers now have Yandex’s many advertising products available to them in English including PPC, bid management and web analytics tools.

7. Use canonical tags to combine same language and same content under one URL

Andy Atkins-Krueger has already posted an in-depth piece on John Mueller’s session about Google’s new language and country markup.

8. Use hreflang tags to separate same language, different content or different languages on different URLs (check out Andy’s article for further explanation)

9. Let users and not translators decide the keyword list and structure

Find your core keywords for any particular market and language and then set up a small campaign with these keywords in Broad Match. When there’s sufficient referrer data available to you, this can be used to refine and select keywords which have a closer match to the actual searches, ensuring a longer and more accurate long tail. The campaign can then be rolled out on a larger scale.

10. Test what can be most easily scaled between markets

Successful PPC campaigns always take local customs into consideration, however, hiring translators to find the right keywords and adapting everything will often prove a costly affair when targeting multiple markets. International marketers working on a tight budget should always try to identify areas which can be relatively easily replicated across different markets.

These are just some of the many great takeaways from ISS Munich. I’m sure I’ve missed out on quite a few, so please feel free to add in the comment box below.

Tickets are still available for the International Search Summit in London on 14^th May where Pierre Far from Google and Bas van den Beld, among others, will be speaking.

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The survey on the international impact of Google Places can be filled out here.

In February, Google sent out a list of 40 [...]]]> The survey on the international impact of Google Places can be filled out here.

In February, Google sent out a list of 40 algorithm updates – a new record for the company’s monthly series on search quality. While much immediate attention has been given to Panda 3.3 and link valuation in the SEO community, Google’s announcement of its “Venice” update – impacting on local search – has so far gone relatively unnoticed.

Local search is unquestionably one of the most interesting areas in SEO today, and while local experts have speculated the future direction and impact of local search, it’s still unclear exactly where we’re headed.

Google Places has had a major impact on local search and for some industries and businesses, developing an effective local search strategy is absolutely vital to online as well as offline success. Although this seems to be widely recognised, so far information on the international impact of Google Places has been very limited.

WebCertain has now taken the first steps in exploring the current and projected future impact of Google Places in international markets through this survey. All participants will get a free copy of the final report, as well as the chance to win passes for an International Search Summit event, if responding before 1st April.

Andy Atkins-Krueger will be speaking about the international impact of Google Places at the International Search Summit @ SMX Munich on March 29^th.

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In a press release earlier today, Yandex announced that it now offers search refiners, helping users to instantly find the results they are looking for as they type in a query. This is [...]]]> In a press release earlier today, Yandex announced that it now offers search refiners, helping users to instantly find the results they are looking for as they type in a query. This is a response to unspecified queries, which currently represent about 20 percent of all searches on the Russian search engine, Yandex explains.

The new functionality – best described as Yandex’s equivalent to Google Suggest – is powered by the company’s own proprietary technology, Spectrum, enabling its search engine to understand and determine user intent, thus increasing SERP relevance. In this regard, returning unbiased and relevant results should always be the core objective of a search engine no matter how big a fish you are, however, somewhere along the line it appears someone has forgotten its original “Don’t Be Evil” mantra. Well, that’s another story.

As can be seen, Yandex includes 10 suggestions to unspecified queries based on search term popularity, as compared to Google’s four. Whereas Google’s 4-pack allows for displaying all search results, top results on Yandex are partly or fully hidden.

In the press release, the Russian search giant further disclosed that it intends to launch other intent-based products in the near future, as this is a key priority to the company in 2012. How Yandex will move forward with this will be interesting to see. Do you dare guessing what’s coming next?

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Leading technology-focused research and consulting firm, Forrester, recently released a report on European e-commerce and its future impact across 17 major European markets. Overall, online European retail sales are forecast to grow 12.2 [...]]]> Leading technology-focused research and consulting firm, Forrester, recently released a report on European e-commerce and its future impact across 17 major European markets. Overall, online European retail sales are forecast to grow 12.2 percent annually, reaching a total value of 230.4 billion U.S. dollars by 2016.

While e-commerce is set to increase across all major European markets, the highest compound annual growth rates will be seen in countries like Spain and Italy where consumers so far have been more resilient to embrace online shopping.

Although the U.K. and Germany will remain Europe’s two largest online economies through 2016, Sweden and the Netherlands come out on top as the countries with the highest percentage of online shoppers by 2016, with 86% and 85% of the total online population making purchases through this channel, respectively.

From a consumers perspective, saving time, finding the best deals at a given budget, as well as better selection are not surprisingly among the main reasons for shopping online. In fact, 69% of the European respondents in the survey perceived the time factor as a major reason to shop online, notes Editor Don Davies.

Significant Changes in Purchasing Patterns – Zero Moment of Truth

One of the most debated topics in marketing circles in the past 10 years, if not the most debated, has been how the control and power have gradually shifted from companies and marketers to consumers due to the interactive principles of web 2.0 through which the market transparency has dramatically increased. I won’t bother you with another in-depth analysis of what exactly has caused this shift, however, the foundation of the success of e-commerce and its continuous growth is built upon the transparency that came along with web 2.0.

The mainstream adoption of the internet and the heavy usage of it have blurred the lines between the virtual and real world – and this definitely goes for e-commerce as well. In this regard, Knowledge@Wharton notes:

“Today, as web browsing has become more and more pervasive, the way people shop has changed. Long before shoppers find products on a store shelf, they search for the best options online. By the time they make a purchase, they have read reviews, compared prices and fully evaluated their options, whether they are buying a pillow or a Porsche. What, then, happens to the “first moment of truth?”

This new reality being described above has by some marketers been coined the term “zero moment of truth” and refers to marketers having to compete for a shopper’s attention long before a purchasing decision is made. Additionally, the number of online customer touchpoints has risen significantly with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, thus making the job of the marketer much more complex as the lines between offline and online will not only blur but completely vanish.

Wining those battles, however, seems to be key to future bottom line success. According to Myles Anderson, the findings of this year’s Local Consumer Review Survey (2012) reveal that 72% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and 52% said that positive online reviews make them more likely to use a local business. What’s more, the number of consumers checking out businesses online is steadily rising:

How many times have you used the internet to find a local business in the last 12 months?

The tendency is clear; online and offline will melt into one with increased emphasis given to online recommendations and reviews before purchasing a product or service. Although complex, it’s your job as a marketer to connect the dots and win the battle of the booming online market – taking shortcuts surely won’t get you there.

At the International Search Summit in London on May 14^th Nick Garner from Unibet will be speaking about winning the “Zero Moment of Truth” globally. Passes for the summit are still available and early bird rates apply until 30^th March.

WebCertain can be found on stand P31 next week at the Internet Retailing Expo in Birmingham.

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Spain remains the European country with the highest unemployment rate, currently standing at 22.9 percent. Often, marketing budgets stand first in line to get squeezed whenever companies are facing tough times, but despite deep economic crisis in Spain, online ad [...]]]> Spain remains the European country with the highest unemployment rate, currently standing at 22.9 percent. Often, marketing budgets stand first in line to get squeezed whenever companies are facing tough times, but despite deep economic crisis in Spain, online ad spending has grown significantly in the past two years and is expected to march on unimpeded in 2012, with a 15.3 percent increase, eMarketer predicts.

In almost all markets we have seen digital eating into traditional media’s share of the total ad market. Spain’s online ad spending will grow its share of the total ad spend market, from 16.9% in 2011 to 19.1% by the end of this year, as traditional advertising channels are forecast to either stay at the same level or decline. In fact, just to add, this is the year where U.S. online ad spend is set to exceed that of print for the first time ever.

This begs the question: How come online ad spending is prospering amid an economic downturn?

My guess is, without having sufficient proof to back it up, that an overwhelming majority of Spanish marketers have in fact seen their marketing budgets shrinking over the past years. In addition, marketing is no longer considered this intangible playground, as top level management executives increasingly expect marketers to measure ROI of their marketing initiatives. In that regard, it’s only logical that justifying investments become even more prevalent when money is scarce. This forces marketers to look for advertising media platforms with lower entry-level fees where performance can easily be measured as well – and, needless to say, here the internet comes in handy.

The mainstream adoption of the internet, combined with its ability to deliver ultra-targeted and easily measurable ads, and often for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising like broadcast or print, this platform delivers something that is possibly even more appealing to marketers in economic downturns.

Well, back to the statistics and Spain.

According to eMarketer, the significant increase in online ad spend in Spain is especially propelled upwards by video and banner ads, as these platforms are well-suited to accompany the major sporting events coming up this year, such as the London Olympics and the UEFA Euro Cup. Double-digit growth rates are forecast up until 2015 where the total estimated value of the Spanish online ad market is set to be  2.0 billion dollars, up from 1.1 billion in 2010.

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Tablets are rapidly gaining popularity around the globe, but does user behaviour differ significantly from that of PCs and smartphones? Last week, Russian search giant, Yandex, released a short [...]]]> Tablets are rapidly gaining popularity around the globe, but does user behaviour differ significantly from that of PCs and smartphones? Last week, Russian search giant, Yandex, released a short report on the user patterns of Russian iPad users.

Findings showed that the number of Russian iPad users has grown exponentially over the last year, with 1 million visits to Russian websites coming from iPads during the month of January 2012, as reported by Yandex.Metrica. More than 700,000 of those iPad visitors were from Russia, meaning that the Apple tablet’s Russian user base has increased more than six times over the past year. Meanwhile, mobile phone and PC users grew ‘only’ 2.5 and 1.4 times, respectively.

Source: Yandex

User behaviour

Tablets are likely to be used for lengthy online search sessions, bearing closer resemblance to the web browsing characteristics of PC users than those of smartphone users. According to Yandex’s search statistics, web search is actually just as popular on iPads as it is on PCs, however, usage patterns appear to differ substantially according to time: “On a weekday, PC users make almost 60% of all search queries on Yandex during working hours and only 37% in the evening. By contrast, iPad users make 57% of all weekday search queries in the evening and only 40% of them during working hours. Furthermore, on Saturdays and Sundays, the number of search queries made from PCs falls 20% compared to a weekday, while the number of searches from iPads increases 20%.”

Search interests of iPad users

Interestingly, search interests vary according to type of device. What is particularly interesting about the tablet platform from a marketer’s perspective is the fact that iPad users are more likely to search for products and services, and if tablet usage keeps gaining global impetus, which is indeed very likely, this platform could potentially have a heavy impact on ecommerce.

Source: Yandex

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Yesterday, comScore released a report which includes statistics on online user engagement in key markets around the globe. Below are some notable takeaways:

While there is nothing ground-breaking about stating that social networking is a worldwide phenomenon, so far information on the global impact of social networking and how usage patterns vary according to countries and regions has been fairly limited.

Yesterday, [...]]]> While there is nothing ground-breaking about stating that social networking is a worldwide phenomenon, so far information on the global impact of social networking and how usage patterns vary according to countries and regions has been fairly limited.

Yesterday, however, eMarketer released a report on this exact topic in which it is estimated that just over 1.2 billion people used social networking services during December 2011 – for comparison purposes, this equates to 54.5 percent of the total internet population worldwide.

What is particularly interesting about the report is its inclusion of a 3-year forecast. Forecasts are almost always interesting because they often facilitate and create the foundation for important forward-looking business decisions.

So, where are we headed?

With two-thirds of the world’s population still not having access to the internet, this leaves huge room for future internet penetration growth. By the end of this year, social networking will encompass nearly 1.5 billion internet users, largely benefitting from rapidly increasing internet penetration growth rates in emerging markets, eMarketer predicts.

Top 3 fastest growing countries in social networking from 2011-2014

Although Asia-Pacific is already the region with the highest number of social network users, this will only become more prevalent in the years to come as internet penetration rates are expected to surge in this extremely populous part of the world. Especially India, where internet penetration and broadband so far have been hampered by slow infrastructure investment, is expected to grow its current social network user base by an impressive 157.5 percent due to infrastructure improvements and increasing PC affordability.

By 2014, China is expected to have nearly 415 million social network users, outnumbering the U.S. in second place by almost 2.5 times. This is equivalent of a 61 percent increase, meanwhile, the U.S. is projected to grow its social network user numbers by a modest 15.5 percent. Social networking tends to have a larger appeal in emerging markets, whereas already developed internet economies, the so-called early adopters of social networking, have witnessed a slowdown in user engagement. This tendency is supported by comScore’s findings where Brazil comes out on top as the world’s most avid social networking nation, with 87.6 percent of the country’s total internet population using such services.

Another nation that ranks high is Indonesia. The Southeast Asian country is not only set to increase its social networking user base by a whopping 130.2 percent (see chart above), it is also currently the world’s second most avid social networking population in terms of usage, thus being the only country appearing in the top three rankings for both estimated growth and current usage.

To sum it all up, it seems like we have only seen the tip of the iceberg of this crazy little thing called social networking – certainly, there is a vast window of opportunity out there for the taking.

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There is one word that comes to mind when evaluating Baidu’s 2011 financial performance: gangbusters. Although Google CEO and co-founder, Larry Page, used that very same word to describe Google’s Q3 2011 [...]]]> There is one word that comes to mind when evaluating Baidu’s 2011 financial performance: gangbusters. Although Google CEO and co-founder, Larry Page, used that very same word to describe Google’s Q3 2011 earnings, this seems very applicable to the Chinese search giant’s outstanding performance in the year gone by.

Baidu’s release of its financial results last week revealed astonishing growth across the board, with total revenues and operating profit increasing by 83.2% and 91.4%, respectively, compared to 2010.

Stating the obvious, Baidu’s dominant position in the world’s largest internet market is unquestionably very desirable, but analysts have speculated that the Chinese market alone does not provide enough room for Baidu’s continuous exponential growth. Baidu founder, Robin Li, made it very clear on several occasions that the company’s ambition is to become a universally recognised brand, however, while Asia has been an obvious first choice for expansion, we have been awaiting the company’s first major move outside of that region.

And the Oscar goes to…

Last week, February 15, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced that Baidu is opening an office in Sao Paulo in order to gain a better understanding of the Brazilian and Latin American markets. Baidu has disclosed that this is the first step in its plans to challenge Google’s dominating position in South America, where it currently has around a 90 percent share of the total search market.

Do you think Baidu will stand a chance going up against Google in South America?

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Facebook might be the world’s biggest social network, rapidly on its way to reach the magical one billion user mark, but it is not the only one. Here are a few others that are highly competitive in their domestic markets:

Yesterday, comScore released an Overview of European Internet Usage for December 2011.

The release, highlighting internet usage in 49 European markets and providing individual reporting on 18 of those markets, shows that the Russian internet audience continues to be [...]]]> Yesterday, comScore released an Overview of European Internet Usage for December 2011.

The release, highlighting internet usage in 49 European markets and providing individual reporting on 18 of those markets, shows that the Russian internet audience continues to be Europe’s largest with more than 53.3 million unique visitors during the month. Back in September 2011, Russia overtook Germany as the European market with the highest number of unique visitors online, and the awakening giant has not looked back since. While the other 17 countries included in the reporting have either stayed the same or witnessed very modest growth, the number of Russian unique visitors has increased by more than 2.5 million. Especially rural Russia, making up about 27 percent of the overall population, is experiencing deep transformation and, according to Nielsen, “internet usage growth rates in rural households are almost twice as high as in urban homes.” Despite the vast window of opportunity from a business perspective, this rapidly emerging market has been heavily neglected by marketers so far, Nielsen further concludes.

Source: comScore

When we are moving on to look at the highest engagement of European countries, the U.K. continues its lead with an average monthly user spend of 35.6 hours online during December. Not surprisingly, Facebook has the highest overall engagement for web sites at 93.3 billion minutes spent on the site in total. However, it is interesting that Facebook is second to Vkontakte in terms of highest average user engagement. Russia’s #1 social network, or what has been referred to as “a Facebook clone”, beats its American rival, with visitors spending an average of 7.9 hours on Vkontakte during the month.

Combining high user engagement and rapidly increasing internet penetration rates makes Russia one of the most attractive online markets in the world. The question remains: Are you taking full advantage of it?

Preston Carey from Yandex will be speaking about the market opportunities in Russia at the International Search Summit @ SMX West on February 27^th.  Passes for the Summit are still available.

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How long has it been since you last received an email that came out as absolute gibberish? I do not exactly remember myself, but it has been a long time. There used to be hundreds of different encodings for storing [...]]]> How long has it been since you last received an email that came out as absolute gibberish? I do not exactly remember myself, but it has been a long time. There used to be hundreds of different encodings for storing and indexing text on the internet. Since these encodings were different, they were not as such compatible with one another. “For example, on some PCs the character code 130 would display as é, but on computers sold in Israel it was the Hebrew letter Gimel (ג), so when Americans would send their résumés to Israel they would arrive as rגsumגs”, Joel Spolsky explains on his software blog.

Unicode was invented to solve this problem by encoding all human languages and making it universal as its name implies. So basically, according to Senior International Software Architect at Google, Mark Davis: “The more documents that are in Unicode, the less likely you will see mangled characters (what Japanese call mojibake) when you’re surfing the web.”

The latest figures from Google’s annual survey of the percentage of the webpages in their index that are in different encodings reveal another significant upward move for Unicode. It now accounts for more than 60 percent of all web encodings, which is indeed good news to the many of us who enjoy translation services that allow us to find information in almost any language. Subsequently, this helps content-providers such as marketers expand their potential audiences.

*Your mileage may vary: these figures may vary somewhat from what other search engines find. The graph lumps together encodings by script. We detect the encoding for each webpage; the ASCII pages just contain ASCII characters, for example.

Google has long been using Unicode as the company’s internal format for all the text it searches and processes and will soon be updating to the newest Version 6.1 with over 110,000 individual characters. According to Mark Davis, the search giant’s unified index probably would not exist had it not been to Unicode. Or as he puts it himself: “(…) it’d be a bit like not being able to convert between the hundreds of currencies in the world; commerce would be, well, difficult.”

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