South West eCommerce Newsletter
Hi %%First Name%% and welcome to this edition of the South West eCommerce newsletter.
In this issue...
- Facebook Now Bigger Than Google?
- Banned By A Stinking Bully
- Free Ebook: Affiliate Profits From Free Google Traffic
Facebook Now Bigger Than Google?
A survey completed in March 2010 by traffic monitoring service Hitwise showed that for the first time ever, traffic to Facebook exceeded traffic to Google in the United States, with Facebook claiming 7.07% of all internet traffic in the USA and Google claiming 7.03%.
Although at first glance this may seem like Facebook is just edging ahead, it's important to note that over the last 12 months Google's traffic has increased 9%, whereas Facebook's traffic has increased 185% in the same time. That is, Facebook's traffic is skyrocketing, and we should see the gap between their traffic and Google's increase over the coming months.
But does that mean that Facebook is becoming a better option for advertisers than Google? Unfortunately, not yet. Here are some reason's why:
- Google's entire reach is actually much higher than the numbers noted above, because they own a number of other sites, like YouTube, that aren't under the Google.com domain. Also their search results get shown on other major sites and search engines, so when you combine all of those other sites, the Google market share is still massive.
- A relevant point for advertisers is that Google.com and Facebook.com receive different types of traffic. When I visit Google it's because I'm searching for something. I have a need and I am looking for a solution, and therefore I'm looking for results and am more likely to spend money. But when I visit Facebook, I'm there to network with friends and family. It's more of a "social outing", and I'm not as interested in purchasing, so I'm less likely to notice advertisements.
This point is confirmed when you compare the statistics of clicks and conversions between Google and Facebook. You will almost always receive a much higher click rate and conversion rate in Google than you will in Facebook. The viewers are simply more likely to buy when they come from Google.
But that doesn't mean that Facebook is not worth advertising in. It depends on your product and your market, and Facebook does let you target your ads as much as possible (eg. "only show my ads to females living in Sydney who have an interest in movies", and so on).
If you would like to give Facebook advertising a try, our search engine marketing service (Professional package) now includes management of Facebook ads.
Banned By A Stinking Bully
There's a particular search engine out there that controls a huge chunk of the Internet traffic, and has a number of services they offer. We have worked with that search engine for many years now, and have prided ourselves on following their guidelines to the letter.
One of their services that we utilised was that we would place some of their advertisements on some our websites, in return for a percentage of revenue earned by those advertisements.
However, we recently received an email from this search engine that stated that in their view, they had noticed "suspicious activity" on one of our websites, and as a result they had suspended our account. They would not tell us what the "suspicious activity" was, but we know from other complaints all over the web, this can often refer to unusually high clicks on advertisements, "pay to click" programs, or other systems to inflate traffic or clicks.
Those of you who have known us for the 10 years we have been in business, may guess that whatever this "suspicious activity" was, it was not generated by us. Our good record with this search engine over this time confirms that we would not do this. Because the search engine refused to tell us what the "suspicious activity" was, we can only assume that someone may have clicked on our ads repeatedly, or that the search engine have mis-interpreted our traffic stats or something.
Whatever the mis-understanding, the search engine has permanently cancelled our account, without providing any information as to what the problem was. We have since found that this is happening to people all over the world every day, and we find it procedurally unfair in the extreme. This is a genuine case of a big bully making an error of judgement and treating a smaller business unfairly.
Perhaps you know which search engine we're talking about. Stay tuned while we investigate this further, because if it turns out to be possible to get someone banned by clicking on their ads over and over, then there is a serious problem there.
(NOTE: when someone clicks on a search engine advertisement over and over, the advertiser is never charged for the extra clicks. The search engines have sophisticated systems in place that do not overcharge the advertiser. However, from this experience it does appear possible that people who do show these advertisements on their websites, could be penalised if someone went out of their way to click on the ads repeatedly, over a period of time).
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Until next time!
South West eCommerce
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