Abbreviated Marketing News Round-up
March 11th, 2009 | Published in Marketing News Round-up
Google to Offer Ads Based On Interests
Google will begin showing ads on Wednesday to people based on their previous online activities in a form of advertising known as behavioral targeting, which has been embraced by most of its competitors but has drawn criticism from privacy advocates and some members of Congress.
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Google said that it planned to segment users along 20 categories and nearly 600 subcategories, and would not create categories for certain “sensitive” interests, including race, religion, sexual orientation or certain types of financial or health concerns. It does not plan to associate the cookie of users with search data or with information from other Google services, like Gmail.
Fortune 500 Companies Fall Flat On Millions Paid For Keywords
Fortune 500 companies spend $51 million per day in aggregate on 88,792 keywords—yet only 20.82% rank in the top 100 of natural search results, according to a report from Conductor that analyzes paid and organic search strategies of Fortune 500 companies.
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“It remains alarming that although we included branded keywords in the study for the Fortune 500, more than the lion’s share are not showing up anywhere in search results for their most important keywords, including their own names,” said Seth Besmertnik, Conductor CEO.
According to the TNS Compete and the Consumer Electronics Association joint study [....] Consumers in their 50s are as likely to own, or plan on buying, an HDTV as those under 50. Eighty percent of 60-somethings used a cell phone in the past week, nearly equal the usage rates of 18-34 year olds. Additionally, 71 percent of 60-somethings and 52 percent of 70-somethings used a search engine in the past week, compared to 77 percent of 18-34 year olds
Older Americans, however, rely more heavily on in-person information sources for purchasing electronics products. Sixty-three percent spoke with a sales associate in-person when researching their consumer electronics purchase, compared to 47 percent of those aged 18-49.
