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Chains wrapped around computer keyboard - do not trackEveryone is hurt by “Do Not Track” and other well-meaning privacy initiatives that  hurt the economy, reduce the number of online options consumers have for news, entertainment and research and could even change pricing of mobile phone, Internet, television and other plans.

Most business leaders would agree that any short-term gains generated by compromising customer privacy would be offset by reputation damage and may eventually drive an organization out of business.  But consumers may not understand what happens when they install ad blocking software or take advantage of Firefox’s proposed “do not track” flag.

By informing companies that they don’t want their activities tracked or they don’t want to see advertising on websites or smartphones, consumers will block the activity that allows organizations to provide free and subsidized services.   Google said today that they would make code available for Internet developers to embed this opt-out mechanism in future browsers, but even The Washington Post conceded that doing so might cause repeated or less relevant ads.

Smart advertisers aren’t tracking you–they are tracking the activities of a computer session to serve better, more relevant advertising.  That tracking leads to better advertising targeting which means the companies sponsoring the information and connectivity are more profitable and can continue offering free services.

Imagine a world where you pay a membership fee for access to a search engine or for Facebook or to watch a video. Advertising pays for all of these services and more, including subsidized telephone services, broadband pricing initiatives and a global economy where a small business in Europe can compete with a multinational conglomerate in Los Angeles for the same consumers in South America.

You must know that companies have to be paid.  Someone pays the employees, pays for the lights to be on, pays for the things we all enjoy now free. Forget free applications and consider how your daily surfing habits would change.  Email would likely remain free, but would probably have more restrictive sizes that wouldn’t allow pictures or files to be transmitted.  Even browsers are advertising or product supported. Two popular browsers, Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome, are directly supported through donations from Google, an organization that creates almost all of its revenue from online advertising.  You don’t pay $29.95 to buy browser software as you were expected to during the web’s nascent days.

And that’s true in so many situations because online advertising is affordable and effective. I know that because I help small businesses and non-profits generate more revenue from their online advertising efforts.  That profit means they can create new jobs, keep prices stable a longer time and fund philanthropic activities.

Today’s Wall Street Journal print edition featured a story about Mozilla’s “do not track” future capability on the front page of its Marketplace section.  Further inside the section and no coincidence was an article about The New York Times’ plans to begin charging consumers for access via Amazon’s Kindle and the Apple iPad. The Journal called this “the biggest test to date of consumers’ willingness to pay for news they’re accustomed to getting free.”

Providing bandwidth, content and creating websites costs money.  When consumers realize that some of their favorite activities may now be unavailable for free, it may be too late to restore some of those services.  Online ads are effective thanks to the tracking mechanisms that make ads appeal to the proper audiences. If ads become random and less efficient, you just may pay for the privilege of telling law-abiding companies that you don’t want to be tracked while organizations who don’t follow the practice or are not based in the United States will do as they please. Ad blocking and “do not track” initiatives are bad for America’s businesses and worse for America’s consumers who use free Internet services.

Source:  “Web Tool on Firefox to Deter Tracking”, Wall Street Journal, 1/24/11
Source:  “Times Prepares Pay Wall”, Wall Street Journal, 1/24/11
Source:  “Google, Mozilla Detail New Privacy Procedures“,  Washington Post, 1/24/11
Source:  “Do Not Track FAQ“, Mozilla, 1/24/11
Source:  “Keep Your Opt-Outs“, Google, 1/24/11
Image:   Courtesy of Armin Hanisch
Articles

uneven balance - search engine shareWe’ve beat the drum about a search duopoly since before the Yahoo-Microsoft search alliance was finalized. A duopoly is a market condition when there are two competitors serving many buyers.  Literalists will insist that Yahoo, Ask, AOL and meta search engines still receive a very large number of search requests. That’s true.

What you need to know as a small business leader is that comScore’s latest data shows that Google or Bing “powered” 93.8 percent of US search in December.   There is an awful lot of money to be made in the fringes that remaining 6 percent or so.

But in January 2011, make sure you understand that web search is a two player game. Yahoo! is reinventing itself into a content company as fast as it can.   AOL isn’t far behind.  And we’re not counting searches on entities like Facebook, Amazon or eBay.  One could argue that an Amazon search is in many ways a proxy for a commercial search–certainly among its core categories.

Your takeaway as a small business leader is to remember that even Google says search engine optimization (SEO) is an ongoing process and you have two different companies in which to position your company’s goods and services.   That’s the first, ultimate priority because you reach 94% of the United States that way.

Source:  “December 2010 Search Engine Rankings“, comScore, 1/14/2011

Image:  Balance by Stephen Stacey

Articles

segmenting emailMany small businesses leverage the power of email packages from companies like iContact, Constant Contact and MailChimp.  All have robust messages builders, built-in analytics and subscriber feature sets.

If you’re like me, you receive emails from clients, partners, colleagues and vendors. There is the invariable newsletter, a big sales announcement or notices of upcoming meetings. But most small businesses don’t leverage the functions in those email systems by creating segments.

Almost every business I speak with has a big list that receives the same email once or twice each month. Consider segmenting your customers and sending regular email through the system.

For example, one client has a great data product that has a daily update.  By segmenting the email lists into various customer segments, this company can use the analytics to understand more about their customer behavior.

Other clients can create a newsletter for their customers and easily swap out one or two text blocks for prospects versus customers or non-prospects, non-customers versus those who receive product information. Whether you use Outlook, Gmail or something else, your takeaway as a small business leader is to use your email marketing system’s lists to look at open rates, identify interested prospects and avoid sending that horrible “notify sender when read” message. Segmenting your email addresses is something anyone can do that provides flexibility and tools far beyond your normal email client.