Mobile N SYNC & Yahoo Team Up!

Mobile Search and PPC ADvertising seemed to be the perfect combination for the 2006 marketing platter.

This dish will entice those R&D budgets and those who continue to look to other avenues in order to expand their already well integrated strategies. Marketing to people on-the-go? Are you kidding me? Sounds almost too perfect, "Hey I'm in San Diego, CA today and I happen to be 3 blocks from where Urban Outfitters is doing their Summer Sale. they already have my cell phone number from registering through their new cool mobile site, they should just text me with a special promo code or note in my account that I opened their message and give me 15% my order if I go into the store in the next hour." (If you're from Urban Outfitters and you are reading this and haven't thought about this, maybe you shoudl hire a new marketing strategist.)
It's old news, but Yahoo has acquired software start-up VerdiSoft and founder-entrepreneur Marco Boerries, the brains behind Sun Microsystems' StarOffice. How old is the news? Yahoo completed the deal in February, but purposely kept it under wraps until today, when Boerries' name surfaced in connection to a new Motorola alliance. Read more about this here

Mobile is set to be the fastest growing media platform over the next five years, according to a new report by Informa Telecoms & Media, reports NetImperative. The global market for mobile entertainment is expected to reach $42.8 billion by 2010, nearly tripling from the current $15.8 billion.

Global revenues from mobile games are predicted to rise from $2.6 billion this year to $11 billion by the end of the decade, overtaking the music and adult-content categories. The number of mobile phones is set to climb from 1.8 billion to 3 billion.

Are you beefing up your 2006 Search Marketing Campaigns to include mobile search? I bet you are now!

Local Search to Release Headache Reliever

The following post from ClickZ goes into detail about people in the US who are moving and describes what they are searching for in this newly developing buying cycle. I guess searching for maps is a good idea especially for those cross country moves or how about a "Guide to Bee Stings" or "How to Deal With Out-Of-State Drivers?"
Moving Stressful? ... Nah... Get educated below.

New movers are increasingly turning to local search to get information about their new towns, according to a study conducted by Harris Interactive for Yahoo!

One in every four U.S. adults have moved within the last three years, and 60 percent of new movers said the experience was stressful.

However, 91 percent of new movers – a group coveted by marketers because moving always triggers a slew of new purchases – found that using the Internet for local searches was helpful in reducing their stress.

The top four stress-reducing features of using the Internet for local search cited by new movers was comprehensiveness (58 percent), speed and convenience (51 percent), accuracy (41 percent) and dependability (28 percent), according to the study.

Seventy nine percent of new movers searched for local maps and directions within a month of moving, making it the primary search activity by new movers. Sixty four percent looked for movie theaters, bars and nightclubs, making entertainment the secondary local search activity for new movers; and 56 percent looked for restaurants, making that activity third.

Other popular search categories for new movers in descending order from most popular are doctors and dentists, supermarkets, home and garden stores, churches, drugstores, hardware stores, gyms and dry cleaners.

The results are based on a survey of 2,604 U.S. adults who have relocated within the past year, according to Harris Interactive.

*So what is the deal with the extra 4 people, why are survey numbers never round, like 2600 people? So go back and re-evaluate your PPC campaigns and see if you are targeting the right markets for your product.

Potential End to Laundry Media Blog?

So I haven't blogged in forever now after getting nominated under the Marketing Sherpa Best of Blogs 2005. Without disclosing anything, my blog may be getting moved under my current company where I've been promoted recently. I am very aware that there are many readers of this blog and I will still be maintaining one with all of the same data and whimsical posts, but it will be under my current employer's domain. Check back for updates as this may happen sooner than later.



For anyone interested here is a recent note from the Google Adwords Team:
Google AdWords™ Announcement
Keyword Evaluation Changes
Hello from the Google AdWords Team:

You asked, and we listened. In the coming weeks, we'll simplify our keyword status system and introduce quality-based minimum bids, giving you more control to run on keywords that you find important. We believe these changes will result in higher quality ads.

What's changing

Simplified account management: Your keywords will be active or inactive — instead of normal, in trial, on hold, and disabled. In addition, accounts will no longer be slowed. Currently, accounts are slowed when they don't meet our performance requirements and your ads appear rarely for your keywords.


Quality-based minimum bids: Soon, each keyword will be assigned a minimum bid based on its Quality Score. Keywords with a higher Quality Score will be given lower minimum bids to stay active and trigger ads. Keywords with a lower Quality Score (including those that are currently on hold) will have the opportunity to run if your keyword or Ad Group's maximum cost-per-click (CPC) meets the minimum bid.


The Quality Score is determined by your keyword's clickthrough rate (CTR), relevance of your ad text, historical keyword performance, and other relevancy factors.


Ad Rank, or the position of your ad, will continue to be based on the maximum CPC and quality (now called the Quality Score).
What you should do

Here are some suggestions for what you should do before and after we implement the changes described above:

Before implementation: If you're happy with your current keyword list, there's no need to make any changes. However, if you have any on hold keywords that you don't want to trigger ads, we suggest you delete them from your account. This is because any keywords with a high enough Quality Score and maximum CPC could be activated and accrue ad clicks. You can use our Find and Edit Keywords tool, available in your account's Tools page, to quickly search for and delete any keywords in your account.

After implementation: We'll email you after we implement these changes. You should then log in to your account and monitor your keyword performance under these new guidelines. Any disabled keywords at the time of implementation will remain labeled as disabled in your account. Several weeks later, we'll delete them. This period of time is meant to give you an opportunity to review your disabled keywords and activate them.

Finally, to ensure your ads are optimized for performance, we suggest you continue to improve your keywords and ad text for relevancy. Here are some resources that will help:

How to create a targeted keyword list.
Optimization Tips page.
For more information, please visit our Performance Changes page.

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team