News

You already know that more of your website visitors are arriving via mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Even if you don’t study your website’s analytics, you surely know that your own activity is increasingly done on devices other than a computer. The website may remain the hub of your digital presence, but social media, email and your presence on other websites are all important components of your organization’s marketing.

Car with sign on roof is early example of mobile advertising.
Old school mobile advertising

We routinely see data showing client websites receive up to   half of their visitors via mobile devices. That’s true on specialty sites receiving few visitors and sites that receive thousands of visitors every day.

Up to half and growing is an important number.

Google is meeting the trend by creating “call-only” advertising campaigns that should be part of every local retailer and service company’s strategy moving forward. The mobile feature launches with the ability for your agency to start scripting messages and landing pages directly for mobile. And that means you can save significant amounts of advertising expenses by optimizing a mobile-only ad campaign.

Mobile advertising has been available for years, but mobile-only is a giant step for the world’s leading search engine company. Remember that almost all Google profit comes from advertising so Google mobile advertising is not a casual test. The company says that “70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from search results.”

If only a fraction of that number is accurate, your organization needs to be using this new feature fast. Talk with us about call-only advertising if you’re a client or think you should be one.

 

Source: Charge up your phones with call-only campaigns – Google Inside AdWords
Image: Mobile Advertising by Ardfern via CC 3.0

Unwritten Marketing Rules Cost eBay $200 Million
News

eBay is a big company that makes a lot of money, but it recently ran afoul of some rules that all businesses must follow. Industry expert Danny Sullivan recapped eBay’s most recent earnings call  and the results detailed in his “Search Engine Land” article weren’t pretty. Sullivan reported that eBay’s penalty from breaking Google’s unwritten marketing rules may have cost the online giant $200 million.

All the Different Rules

We all must follow different rules.

Federal law states that the US flag may not be used for advertising or embroidered on clothing. I’m reliably informed no federal penalty exists for doing this because any penalty is determined by a state or  the District of Columbia.

An HR executive I once worked with used to wash his hands of wrongdoing when an executive asked a tricky question about an HR law:

The speed limit on the highway is 55 miles per hour. My job is to tell you when you’re driving 55, 65 or 100 miles per hour.  Your job is to drive the car.

This passing-the-buck sentiment kept him out of trouble, I guess, although it wasn’t his job. I once tried the same line as a young director working for same CEO, Thousands of unfulfilled orders sat in a warehouse, I told him, but the credit cards had long been charged. The FTC specified that we were supposed to ask each customer for permission  to delay their order. He started and simply asked, “What’s the penalty?”

I stammered, admitted that I didn’t know the penalty. He told me to return when I knew, and in a moment of expediency, told me to call our attorneys to learn the answer.

Breaking Google Law

These days my answer and advice about legal issues is much simpler. I’m not an attorney so if I think a client needs that advice, I simply suggest they speak with an attorney.

But there are other rules out there now that can cripple a business.  Google, Bing, Facebook are among online giants publishing “guidelines”. Marketers have hair-splitting debates about each word.

Monthly, I tell at least once a customer that they are in danger of a serious problem with one of these companies, invariably Google. It’s not that Google’s rules are worse or better than anyone else’s. They simply control about 70% of all search in North America. Mess with them, even inadvertently, and your website and the online reach of your business will be harmed.  We eventually stop working with the companies who ask us about the penalties.

Your takeaway as a small business leader is to push just a little bit when your agency or online marketer tells you that something on your website risks a Google penalty.  Make them explain the penalty so you don’t hear the copout of breaking a rule.  But when your agency is adamant, informed and seemingly well-versed in the issue, you ignore their advice at your own peril.

Silver Beacon has now saved two organizations from these penalties. One is on track now to receive well over one million pageviews. The other is doing fine too.  We talk with our clients about their stories not to brag, but to warn of the dangers involved in breaking a severe Google law.

Your attorney can hand you all the books with all the laws, but that doesn’t mean you should give yourself legal counsel. We can also give you all the guidelines for the big web companies, but only a trained marketer knows which “guidelines” are bad for your traffic and which could have the company manually remove your website from its listings.

Resources

“Google Penalty Hits eBay’s Bottom Line” – by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land
“4 U.S. Code § 8 – Respect for flag” – Cornell Law
“Google Hits eBay with Manual Penalty…” – by Matt McGee, Search Engine Land

News

Perhaps the most telling indicator of the intense competition Microsoft faces in an industry it once dominated is that my search for Microsoft’s financial statements took me to their listing Google Finance’s page where I could peruse their financial expectations.

Time is the consistent balancing factor for your financial plans
Time is the balancing factor for your financial plans

A spate of articles bemoaning the cyclical nature of King of the Mountain in American industry will undoubtedly follow today’s news that Microsoft will lay off 18,000 employees–about twice as many as Wall Street pundits previously projected. You’ll undoubtedly read about the railroad barons giving way to Edison’s Bell Labs before technology from wars made Detroit rich. The technology leaped to offices, giving way to AT&T, Xerox, IBM and now our very own Microsoft.

Weep not for Redmond, friends. Microsoft will be just fine for quite some time. Its strategic miscalculations are famous: not struggling a  nascent Apple struggling to stay alive at 5% market share, the ugly mismanagement of its antitrust war with the government and its failure to put an Internet-capable device in every home during the holiday season of 1991 when Google co-founder Larry Page was otherwise occupied getting ready for the Senior Winter Dance at East Lansing High School.

Forget the Money Talk about Microsoft

We all have a piggy bank we use for rainy days.  Microsoft has kept about $5 billion in its piggy bank for years.  Sure, they took on debt this year, like maybe you did if you managed to get a home equity line. But they used to buy one of the world’s top cellphone manufacturers.  If you not so coincidentally subtract Microsoft’s debt from its purchase price of Nokia, you end up with about $5 billion.

If your great uncle Edmund gave you 100 shares of Microsoft, that’s a nice little evening out every few months because the stock earns about $2.60 per share.  Over the last four years, while Microsoft the butt of Zune jokes, Google destroying Bing in the search world and continuing to give life support to Windows Phone, the company earned $78 billion.

The earnings from Microsoft’s last four years would allow you to buy 20% of Google’s stock.

High finance isn’t played like fantasy football, but the bottom line is that Microsoft will be around for a long time.

The company still has 80,000 employees, and for now, the company’s operating system still runs the world. Until some company can make an Excel equivalent that pleases CFOs, the company’s Office product will stick around.

Your takeaway as a small business leader is to ensure that the financial ratios expected by the members of your Board, by yourself and the plan you’ve written and by any lenders remains consistent.  The bigger takeaway is to have a contingency plan for big events to keep your finances consistent.

What happens if you lose your best sales rep?  What if a new competitor opens? What if a key executive gets sick, or heaven forbid, dies?

Assume one of these things happens in the second half of 2014.  What will you do to ensure 2015 is consistent with the financial plan stakeholders expect from your organization?

 

Resources

“Microsoft Corporation” at Google Finance
“Larry Page” – Wikipedia
Image: Clocks and Money” by hisks