I wanted to share a few key quotes and highlights that I found particularly relevant from the event:

According to Google’s Ryan Stonehouse, in October or November Google+ will have specified business pages.

The delay of these business pages is something that I believe hurt Google+ the most, considering that loyal Facebook users are accustomed to having the ability to interact with their favorite fan and business pages. This delay, in my opinion, has put Google+ in a clear second place to Facebook at this time. In order for Google+ to “catch up” to Facebook, I believe that Google must make all features available that Facebook currently has at this time, while introducing new and innovative features to maintain loyal users. Google+ has a tough act to follow, now that Facebook hosted its F8 Developers Conference which unveiled a slew of new features, all focusing on making the user’s experience much more integrated into their everyday life.  For more on this particular point, refer to Rise’s previous blog: Google+ is Back, But is it Too Little Too Late?

During the “Spark Sessions,” there was a great deal of conversation about the “Hangouts” feature in Google+. Here are a few key takeaways on “Hangouts”:

“Hangouts” will revolutionize the way companies can offer customer service, bringing a more personalized approach to brand engagement. “Hangouts” are also mobile accessible, which will make it convenient for people who need on-the-go customer service.

“Hangouts” will soon have the ability to be “on air,” meaning that individuals can participate in “Hangouts” which can consist of thousands of people. This will make it possible to easily host speaker presentations and corporate meetings, all using Google+.

I like the concept of “Hangouts,” however, I feel as though Google+ will need a much larger user base in order for the feature to truly impress. Let’s imagine that Google+ had the amount of users that Facebook had; how remarkable would it be to know that you could peruse your feed and be able to join in on “Hangouts” of all your friends and family. Until Google+’s user base grows, I know that this feature will not be as great as it could be.

Google+1 was another popular “Spark Session” topic of discussion. A few things to note:

Google’s Ryan Stonehouse presented that Google+1 is the fastest-growing social widget in history. What many people feel, myself included, is that the +1 button may be prevalent as a widget on webpages, however, it has been essentially disregarded by the general public. I feel that this could easily change, however, if  and/or when more people are using Google+.

Google+1 will be present in Display ads coming sometime this fall. Ryan Stonehouse commented that this addition “could, in turn, make it the most relevant content on the page.” He further commented that Google+1 buttons will “enhance the advertising experience by injecting people into the mix.” The +1 button will also target specific information to users’ circles. This update was something that I found particularly interesting in that it could completely change the way people see and interact with Display ads, making the ads much more credible and relevant. People tend to trust their friends’ and family’s opinions on products to buy, places to visit, etc., so the likelihood of a person feeling impacted by the Display ad would increase. This could, in turn, increase click-through-rates for these ads.

These points were a few of many discussed during the event, however, I feel as though they stuck with me the most. Feel free to comment below with any questions or remarks.

There are a number of options when looking into being more “mobile-friendly” with your company’s advertising efforts. Some of these include display/banner advertisements, mobile search, branded applications, SMS/MMS, and coupons— to name a few options. Even with the amount of options that are out there, many companies are still skeptical. The uncertainty in spending more on mobile advertising is something which results from many companies wanting to be immediately impressed by the medium’s effectiveness in reaching their target market. This is a reasonable concern, in their respect, but sometimes the way to get ahead of the competition is to, quite frankly, make that leap of faith.

Time is a crucial factor to keep in mind when rating a medium’s effectiveness. Most companies who choose to “go-mobile” do not allow their efforts enough time to produce the result that they wish to achieve. Many companies have dismissed mobile advertising as a highly-effective medium because of their rather “average” results in the short-run. If you look at advertisers who have been present in mobile for a while and/or have collectively used mobile platforms—such as Google mobile, AdMob, Admoda, etc.—there has been more of a positive response.

In 2011 especially, an increasing number of companies are realizing the importance of advertising in the mobile medium. Not only are the advertisers who have been successful in this medium increasing their spending for mobile platforms, but there seems to be a larger amount of new companies jumping on the mobile bandwagon. If this continues, companies will not only put serious consideration into implementing mobile advertising, but potentially have it as a staple approach in their overall advertising strategy.

One can now get quite targeted when attempting to serve ads to a broad or niche market.  For example, if you would like to target your new Green Lantern movie to people who love Film you can choose the Broad Category: Movie/Film with one click of the button.  Next, you can get even more granular by choosing people who like film, but particularly Action/Adventure and Science Fiction Fantasy.  Although this will reduce your reach, it will serve the amazing Green Lantern creative and ad copy you have designed to Bookers who are truly interested in such a film.  Facebook has made this very user friendly and cosmetically appealing now as well. 

In my coming posts I plan to discuss the demographic targeting capabilities within Facebook as well as the new reporting and analytical tools that are currently available for the Facebook advertiser.

Why you may ask… well, do you like to pay for the same thing twice?  Most often when negotiating a CPA buy with the publisher networks, they will require that they get paid on view-through conversions.  A view-through conversion occurs when an Internet user who has seen your ad, but not clicked on it, completes the predetermined action on the advertiser’s website.  Basically the idea is that whether the Internet user was consciously aware or only subliminally influenced by the ad they saw, it affected their behavior and it helped lead to the conversion on your website.  This is a logical argument and I cannot disagree that the publisher network deserves to get paid under this scenario.  Where this gets messy is when your customer has seen and been cookied for two or more ads on different publisher networks and when the customer converts ONCE, the two ad networks come knocking for payment and you have to pay TWICE for one order.

Ad serving technology such as DART for Advertisers can solve the problem of having to pay multiple times for the one conversion.  The technology enables you to attribute the conversion to only one network by telling you who last cookied the converting user.  So if your ad was seen 10 days ago on publishing network A but 2 days ago on publishing network B – only network B will get paid.  It is very important that you have the publishing networks agree to bill off of your ad serving technologies reporting.  The bigger networks only tend to trust a few brands so you’ll have to make sure you’re investing in the right tool.  Beyond being able to tell you which banner publishing network last cookied the user, some technologies will also allow you to tag all other forms of paid Internet marketing as well.  In this scenario, you’ll know whether to attribute the conversion to your email marketing campaign, paid search effort, banner advertising, or affiliate marketing campaign.

I don’t know how many advertisers out there are double and triple paying for conversions but I guarantee you it is much more than a handful.  Beware when entering into multiple CPA deals across multiple networks.  You will get excellent exposure and reach but you might also get burned.  Make sure you are protected and invest in ad serving technology.