The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament isn’t just a sports
event—it’s a national phenomenon. Each year, viewers find new and better
ways to tune into all the action, with second screens becoming an
increasingly integral part of the games. Using new data from the first
four rounds of 2016’s tournament and looking forward to the Final Four,
we can see when and why viewers are turning to their mobile phones, and
the types of content that keep these fans engaged.
Keeping fake traffic that originates from infected computers (aka
“botnets”) out of our ads systems has been a priority since we launched,
and over the years we've worked hard to put in place extensive
technology checks and filters to safeguard against this type of traffic.
Today we're further reinforcing our existing botnet defenses across
our ad systems through a new feature that automates the filtering of
traffic from three of the top ad fraud botnets, amongst those we are
monitoring and defending against. One of the key benefits of this new
feature is that it is resilient to possible changes to the malware that
generates this botnet traffic.
This move boosts our defenses against invalid traffic generated by
some nasty ad fraud malware, including Bedep and two other malware
families that we have code-named Beetal and Changthangi. Together these
three botnets are comprised of over 500,000 infected user machines.
Today we’d like to take this opportunity to take a deeper look at ad fraud botnets.
Ad fraud botnets: a menace to the advertising ecosystem
Ad fraud botnets are armies of malware-infected computers that are
controlled by malicious fraudsters intent on generating large amounts of
non-human ad traffic volume, typically for unscrupulous publishers. As
a result, ad fraud botnets are a major threat to the budgets of
advertisers, the reputation of publishers, and the safety of consumers.
And this threat is considerable, given that hundreds of thousands of
computers around the globe are infected with malware used specifically
for ad fraud.
The Bedep Botnet size over the course of 60
days. Dips in the graph represent weekends, when some infected machines
are turned off.
Global distribution and concentration of Bedep Malware.
Botnet traffic is difficult to consistently filter in advertising
platforms because malware authors try to make their fraudulent traffic
look as human as possible so that it resembles legitimate traffic. For
example, botnet traffic has many of the same characteristics as real
traffic, including the use of common browsers, and typical user behavior
on a web page (e.g., scrolling, clicking, and mouse movement).
Our move to consistently and confidently cut out the traffic from
these botnets, despite any changes in the malware on which they’re
based, represents a significant milestone in the defense of our
advertising ecosystem.
The art and science of protecting against botnets at scale
Identifying ad fraud malware and protecting ad platforms against
botnets is a sophisticated effort that requires deep technical
knowledge, diligence, and the ability to think several steps ahead. It’s
a game of chess against an opponent that is constantly changing the
rules.
In addition, it takes robust and extensive infrastructure to properly
analyze malware threats at scale. For example, there are millions of
malware programs out in the wild, although not all of this malware is
associated with ad fraud botnets. This scenario represents a
considerable technical challenge, since the malware, along with a vast
amount of botnet traffic, needs to be continuously analyzed. To
compound the challenge, there are hundreds of thousands of new malware
programs produced each day that our systems need to analyze as well.
Our team has expanded its expertise by working to gain a deep
understanding of the Bedep, Beetal, and Changthangi malware families.
Subsequently, we have expanded the capability to significantly protect
our systems against traffic generated by this malware through an
automated, scalable, and seamless filter. This filter is already
available to all marketers on DoubleClick Bid Manager and Google Display
Network (GDN).
A bold move, but there’s more to come
We believe in fighting the good fight in order to stop malicious
actors in the advertising ecosystem. We also know that our success is
not based solely on sophisticated algorithms or robust, highly-scalable
infrastructure. Our success also relies on a team of warrior scientists
that combines art and science to innovate and cultivate, relying on
creativity and collective wisdom to effect change in unique ways.
This is a really exciting start to the year for us, yet we know that
our work is not done yet. We will continue to be vigilant, working hard
to protect our systems from fraudsters in 2016 and beyond. Stay tuned.
As TV viewership shifts online to over-the-top services and connected devices,
audience measurement models need to evolve. In our latest Evolution of TV article,
we explore how combining TV panel-based ratings with digital census-based data will
enable marketers to understand an ad's effectiveness in detail.
In households across the U.S., families still may gather to watch TV after dinner,
but that picture looks far different today than it did even just a few years ago.
Though people still consume video over-the-air or via cable, most viewers today
also turn to devices like PCs, tablets, and smartphones while watching to get more
information about the program that's on, communicate with others, or research an
advertised product or service. Plus, TV consumption is increasingly becoming a
digital video experience. Viewers rely more and more on connected TV devices (like
Chromecast) and over-the-top services (like Hulu)—in addition to smartphones and
personal computers—to watch their favorite shows and videos.
With this shift to TV delivered via the internet and across so many devices, and
the massive amounts of actionable data this provides, panel-based TV ratings and
the Gross Ratings Point (GRP) must evolve toward to a hybrid panel-plus-census
model that incorporates many of the strengths that come with digital viewership.
Panel-based measurement and the GRP will continue to provide important color and
context to the overall viewer picture. But as TV advertisers and programmers gain
access to more precise reach and frequency data, the emphasis on these approaches
will diminish. Census-based measurement, focused on impact, will become
increasingly important. The effectiveness of a TV ad will be measured with much
more granular detail and certainty, right alongside digital video ads—providing
both advertisers and content owners with a single view of their audiences across
all screens.
With the addition of digital census data and programmatic ad-buying capabilities,
marketers can also understand the effectiveness of an ad in driving brand
awareness, favorability, intent, loyalty, and sales, doing so faster than ever
before possible on TV.
As a result, broadcasters and advertisers will have a better idea of who's watching
and when, and the impact of a program or ad on individual viewers. Most
importantly, it will allow marketers to tailor more personal ad experiences. And
with all the real-time data at their fingertips, they will be able to optimize
their campaigns on the fly.
Download the fifth part in this series below to explore the challenges and
opportunity in measuring TV and video audiences across all screens.
It's no surprise that consumers turn to digital—especially mobile—as they shop for
a car. But thanks to new data from Luth Research, we can see exactly how
(and how much) digital shapes the auto customer journey. Check out the
900-plus digital interactions one consumer had leading up to her lease.
Auto marketers know that the average research timeline for a new car purchase can
span months. Within that time, countless intent-driven micro-moments occur when consumers turn to their devices to
answer a question or to address a need. Whether it's a question about which car is
the safest, which will fit a family of five with all their gear, or what the lowest
monthly payment can be, these intent-driven moments are often Google Searches; and
how auto brands respond in these micro-moments shape car buyers' decisions.
But what exactly happens during those months of research? What types of exploration
do consumers conduct? What do actual micro-moments look like?
Through new clickstream data provided by Luth Research's opt-in panel (illustrating
the order and pages a user visited), we are now able to answer those questions by
analyzing the searches, clicks, website visits, and video views that make up one
individual's path to purchase.1 The result is a granular view of how the
key auto
shopping moments play out in one consumer's car-buying process.
Meet Stacy
Stacy is a 32-year-old mother of two. At the time of her search, she drove a
mid-size SUV that fit her family of four. But with a third child on the way, she
needed a new car that would fit three car seats, and so she had to decide between
leasing a larger SUV or going with a minivan.
A Detailed Look at Stacy's Car-Buying Journey
During the three-month period leading up to her decision to lease a car, Stacy's
research included over 900 digital interactions where she intentionally sought out
information related to an auto lease or purchase.
71% of Stacy's digital interactions occurred on mobile.
These interactions—which took the form of searches, visits, video views, and
clicks—were on Google, YouTube, manufacturer websites, dealer websites, and review
websites.
Interactions
defined as searches, website visits, video views, and clicks. “Brands
explored” included at least five interactions; “brands considered”
included at least 20 interactions, and “brands decided between” included
at least 100 interactions.
In those which-car-is-best, is-it-right-for-me, can-I-afford-it,
where-should-I-buy-it, and am-I-getting-a-deal moments, Stacy turned to Google
Search. Throughout the course of her research, Stacy conducted 139 Google Searches.
Those are 139 instances where she intentionally sought out information, presenting
139 opportunities for auto marketers to meet her there with relevant and useful
content that could shape her decision.
Here we walk through what those micro-moments looked like for Stacy, with examples
of her actual mobile search paths and resulting actions.
Stacy's which-car-is-best moments
Six out of 10 car shoppers enter the market unsure of which car to buy.2
Stacy started out focusing on family friendliness and safety, which led her to
consider several brands and models.
Stacy's is-it-right-for-me moments
As shoppers start to weigh practical considerations (like seating capacity and
number of airbags, for instance), they start to determine their checklist of
important features. Stacy's checklist included fitting three car seats and a
sliding middle row.
Stacy's can-I-afford-it moments
As shoppers narrow down their options, cost consideration comes into play. Stacy
explored pricing and payment options that were right for her, including: price
points less than $30,000, comparisons of leasing vs. buying, lease exchange
programs, and the trade-in value of her current SUV.
Stacy's where-should-I-buy-it moments
Though much of the car-buying process has moved online, the visit to a dealership
remains a crucial step for many car buyers. In fact, search interest for "car
dealerships near me" has doubled in the past year.3 As Stacy explored
nearby dealerships, she also considered local inventory, deals, and specials.
Stacy's am-I-getting-a-deal moments
Though many am-I-getting-a-deal moments take place at the dealership, Stacy spent
time researching deals both on the lot and off. She researched lease money factors,
read about how she might forgo a dealer altogether, and crowdsourced actual prices
paid for different brands and models so that she could show up prepared.
The Implications for Auto Marketing
Ultimately Stacy leased an SUV that met the criteria she was searching for in her
micro-moments. In her own words: "My most important criteria were number of seats
and cargo space to fit my whole family and all our gear."
While Stacy is just one person, she is one of many auto shoppers looking to find
the answers to their questions in micro-moments. Each of her 139 Google Searches,
and the hundreds of interactions that followed, represent a series of opportunities
for auto marketers to be there and to be useful.
As a starting point for your brand, think about how you're meeting potential car
buyers like Stacy across the key auto shopping moments.
Is your brand there? With the majority of the car-shopping process moving online,
and increasingly on mobile, it's crucial that you be
there when and where people are looking. Does your media plan make it easy for
someone like Stacy to find answers, especially in search?
Is your brand useful? Beyond just being there, consider how useful your brand
is. Does your brand answer the questions Stacy had about safety, seating capacity,
and price? Do you make it easy to compare across models and competitor brands? And
most importantly, since the majority of Stacy's research happened on mobile, are
those answers optimized for a mobile experience?
Are you holding your brand accountable for connecting in these moments? Make sure
you're measuring your brand's share of these key moments. Are you incorporating all
of the potential outcomes from mobile research—online and offline—into your
attribution model? Are you accounting for the impact that mobile has on sales? Have
you tested the impact of increasing mobile budgets in order to quantify the lift in
sales?
For a more comprehensive look at the consumer trends behind the auto shopping
moments, check out "The 5 Auto
Shopping Moments Every Brand Must Own."
Sources 1 Methodology: Google partnered with Luth Research. Luth analyzed
the digital activity of its opt-in panel participants. This article details the
cross-device clickstream data of one individual named Stacy over a period of three
months. 2 Automotive Shopper Path to Purchase, Millward Brown Digital and Polk,
September 2015. 3 Google internal data, U.S., September 2015.
Désormais inscrit dans l’agenda des grandes manifestations artistiques
et culturelles internationales, le Festival de Fès des Musiques Sacrées
du Monde consacre sa vingt-deuxième édition aux « Femmes Fondatrices »
Le Forum Afrique Global Santé a été organisé à Casablanca du 24 au 27 Mars 2016 en marge de la 17ème édition du Salon International de la Santé baptisée « MEDICAL EXPO » et la 3ème édition du Salon de la Santé des Etats membres de l’Organisation de la Coopération Islamique.
Whether you’re a global brand or the shop around the corner, the shift to mobile is
changing your customers’ behavior in and out of the store. Here, we share five
insights into how brands can connect meaningfully with people in real time, in all
of their micro-moments.
Smartphone shopping has reached some remarkable new milestones. Mobile
shopping-related searches increased 120% in the last year, a
review of Google data shows.1 With this growth, retailers are finding
that mobile plays a critical role in driving shoppers in-store. Shoppers now reach
for their smartphones in every kind of micro-moment, from
I-want-to-know to I-want-to-buy (and crucially,
I-want-to-buy-again) moments.
These moments represent a tremendous opportunity for brands. Because with mobile,
marketers have the unique power to match marketing messages with signals of intent
and context. What are they looking for? Where are they right now? What kind of
person is shopping? With mobile, marketers know.
Recent Google search data and mounting third-party evidence has given us new
insights into how marketers can engage shoppers in these micro-moments. Here's what
we've recently learned:
2. Consumers are hungrier than ever for local information. Google
searches with "near me" have grown 2.4X year-over-year.2 In fact,
according to research, 50% of consumers who conduct a local search on their
smartphone visit a
store within a day, and 18% of those searches lead to a purchase.3
Eighty-two percent of shoppers say they consult their phones on purchases they're
about to make in a store.
3. Ads that show local inventory drive shoppers into stores. One
in four people who avoid stores say it's because they don't know if a product is in
stock.4 If you're an omni-channel retailer, showing shoppers the items
you have in stock at nearby stores can be half the battle. After adopting Local Inventory
Ads, which show actual store inventory to online searchers, Sears Hometown and
Outlet Stores saw a
122% increase in store visits. Furthermore, Local Inventory Ads drove eight
dollars of in-store sales for each dollar invested.
4. Smartphones are the new in-store research advisor. Eighty-two
percent of shoppers say they consult their phones on purchases they're about to
make in a store.5 Amazingly, nearly one in four shoppers say they have
changed their minds while in a checkout line after looking up details on a
smartphone.6 The beauty and body-care retailer Sephora has been a
leader in treating in-store mobile behavior as a major opportunity: They
encourage in-store customers to scan products into Sephora's mobile app to receive
product ratings, reviews and other key information.
5. Omni-channel shoppers spend more. According to MasterCard, customers who shop both online and off with a
specific retailer buy 250% more on average. Macy's discovered that its omni-channel
shoppers are 8X more
valuable than those who shop in a single channel.
Taken together, the numbers say that whether you're a global brand or a local shop,
mobile is changing your shoppers' behavior in and out of the store. It's essential
to be there on mobile, yes. But it's even more important to create rich and
relevant experiences that connect your stores with shoppers in all of their
micro-moments—and encourage those shoppers to come back again and again.
Sources: 1 Google global search data, November 2014–October 2015, as defined by
searches that trigger Shopping ads. 2 Google Trends, August 2015 vs August 2014, U.S. 3 Google/Ipsos, "Understanding Consumers’ Local Search Behavior" study,
United States, May 2014, Survey n=4,500 and Smartphone searches =3,431. 4 Google, Ipsos MediaCT and Sterling Brands,
Digital Impact on In-Store Shopping, published on Think with Google, May
2014. 5 Google/Ipsos, "Consumers in the Micro-Moment" study, March 2015, U.S.,
n=5,398, based on internet users. 6 Google Consumer Survey, April 2015, U.S., n=1130.
There are so many major moments that lead up to Election Day: debates, caucuses,
primaries. But the moments that matter most won’t make major headlines. They’ll
happen quietly and quickly in micro-moments, when undecided voters become decided
voters, often by going online.
Voter decisions used to be made in living rooms, in front of televisions. Today,
they're increasingly made in micro-moments, on mobile devices. Election micro-moments happen
when voters turn to a device to learn about a candidate, event, or issue.
Today's voters want a quick way to catch up on the latest elections buzz and
they've found it in online video. Since April 2015, people have watched more than
110 million hours of candidate- and issues-related content on YouTube. That's 100X
the amount of time it would take to watch all content ever aired on CNN, C-Span,
MSNBC, and Fox News combined.1 Whether voters are looking for a debate
sound bite, instructions on how to vote, or Stephen Colbert's latest burn, they
turn to YouTube.
Since April 2015, people have watched more than 110 million hours of candidate- and
issues-related content on YouTube. That's 100X the amount of time it would take to
watch all content ever aired on CNN, C-Span, MSNBC, and Fox News combined.
In fact, searches for election-related content on YouTube have grown by nearly 4X
since presidential candidates started making their announcements last
April.2 And voters of all ages—not just young people—turn to YouTube in
their I-want-to-know
moments. While 59% of people who turn to online video to learn more about the
candidates are under the age of 35, one in four are over the age of 45.3
So, how can candidates win these micro-moments to win in November? As the season
heats up, here are three ways all candidates—whether they're running for a local
seat, Congress, or the presidency—can meet voters in their micro-moments:
1. Be there: What online video trends reveal about voter micro-moments
Being
there for voters in critical micro-moments means knowing what they're looking
for. To get a map of voter wants and needs when it comes to video, we use Google
Trends and filter by
YouTube.
Here's a look at the trending topics since the presidential candidates launched
their campaigns in April 2015 and how much search volume has grown on those topics.
Source: Google data, U.S., YouTube search interest in top issues, April 2015–February 2016.
As you look at what voters want, ask yourself: Do I have the video content to
answer their queries? Are my videos showing up for voters experiencing
micro-moments on YouTube?
In Nevada, Hillary Clinton's campaign answered "yes" to both of those questions.
First, her campaign created a moving video ad about the
second issue on the list above: immigration. Then, the campaign used standard
targeting features to try to reach voters who might be interested in the issue:
Thanks to the TrueView "skip" button, campaigns can get immediate feedback:
Did viewers skip the ad, or choose to watch it? Based on that feedback,
campaigns are able to adjust TrueView ads midflight. As The Wall Street
Journal noted recently from the perspective of the Ted Cruz campaign, TrueView
ads "offer the closest parallel to the power to persuade voters offered by classic
TV ads, but allow for much better targeting."
2. Be useful and quick: How candidates' video content helps when micro-moments
happen
Timing is everything when it comes to micro-moments. Voters don't just want the
right content—they want it right now. While micro-moments can happen at any time,
we see spikes in interest around key decision-making moments. Take the Iowa
caucuses, for example, when voters went to YouTube to get informed:
The chart above shows watch time before, during, and after the Iowa caucuses. The
first major spike was driven by people coming to YouTube to catch up on video of
recent debates and town halls. The second was driven by people watching Donald
Trump's caucus speech. Both are micro-moments experienced by voters en masse.
But it's not just political events, like debates and caucuses, that are shaping
election watch time trends. Timely, cultural conversations spark voter
micro-moments, too. For example, the week after same-sex marriage was legalized,
watch time for related videos was 24X compared to the average of the three weeks
prior:
Some candidates are getting out in front of these micro-moments with event- or
issue-related content, combined with more targeted ads. In an effort to get out the
vote, Donald Trump's "Find
Your Iowa Caucus Location" video and Bernie Sanders' "How to Caucus in Iowa" explained to Iowans how to
register and caucus:
The Trump and Sanders campaigns knew voters would head to YouTube to ask "how to
caucus" ahead of Iowa, and they were ready with two simple videos that offered
step-by-step instructions. Talk about a decision-making moment: These videos could
have meant the difference between showing up for your candidate on caucus day or
staying home.
3. Be Influential: Who influences voter opinion in micro-moments
We've talked about understanding what voters are looking for in election
micro-moments and when those moments occur most. But who carries the
most sway in these moments? More than half of daily YouTube users ages 18–49 say
their personal opinions (including politics) have been influenced by YouTube
creators.4
Savvy politicians have taken advantage of YouTube creators' influence, taking
interviews with them or partnering on videos to share in the dialogue. Six YouTube creators interviewed
President Obama after his last two State of the Union addresses. And this election
season, politicians are acting more like creators themselves. For example, Marco
Rubio published several videos that are more in the style of creator Casey
Neistat's "Ask Me Anything" videos than
typical campaign TV ads:
Creators are, ultimately, master listeners. The most influential creators on
YouTube listen for audience questions and create content that answers them. The
most influential politicians on YouTube do, too.
At a time when politicians and pundits are asking, "Do Political TV Ads Still
Work?," YouTube trends show that online video is now table stakes for political
campaigns. In our connected world, video works hardest when it answers a need or
want that voters experience in election micro-moments.
These micro-moments might occur before, during, or after a debate or in reaction to
a cultural event. They might happen when voters need a question answered fast, like
"how to caucus in Iowa." Politicians can have extra influence in micro-moments by
working alongside creators or taking a page out of their playbooks, as Marco Rubio
did.
Micro-moments are shaping the electorate in 2016. I, for one, can't wait to find
out which candidate won the most micro-moments—who met the most voters in their
decision-making moments on YouTube. We'll find out on November 8.
Dive into the data to learn more about voter micro-moments with The Presidential
Elections on YouTube - Trends Report 2016. Sources 1Google data, U.S., classification as election "candidates" and
"issues" was based on public data such as headlines and tags, and may not account
for every such video available on YouTube. Content broadcast by CNN, C-SPAN, Fox
News, and MSNBC was estimated by adding the number of days since their first
broadcast. April 2015–February 2016. 2Google data, U.S., YouTube search interest related to election
candidates and issues, April 2015–February 2016. 3Google/Ipsos Connect, Google Elections Omnibus, U.S. adults 18+,
n=2,022, January 2016. 4Google/Ipsos Connect, "The YouTube Generation" study", U.S., 18–49
year-olds, n=1,125, November 2015.
Prévue le 25 Mars, cet événement vise la valorisation de la
contribution de la femme dans le développement socio-économique de la
région ainsi que la préservation de la culture Sahraoui
Trois sites accueilleront cette édition : Ouled Ghanem, El Jadida, Sidi Abed
L’enfant Doukkali sera au centre de l’attention du 1er au 3 avril prochain. La deuxième édition du festival de l’enfant se tient cette fois à El Jadida, Ouled Ghanem et Sidi Abed.
Twitter is celebrating its 10-year anniversary on Monday.
The social network co-founded, and now led by, Jack Dorsey kicked off a worldwide online celebration on its blog Sunday afternoon.
The posting, titled "Thank you! Love Twitter," invites people to celebrate its first decade with the hashtag, LoveTwitter.
"Ten years ago, it began with a single Tweet,"
the posting says, pointing to Dorsey's now-famous first Tweet. "Since
then, every moment of every day, people connect about the things they
care about most — all over the world."
Getting good, relevant answers when you search shouldn’t depend on what
device you’re using. You should get the best answer possible, whether
you’re on a phone, desktop or tablet. Last year,
we started using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal on mobile
searches. Today we’re announcing that beginning in May, we’ll start
rolling out an update to mobile search results that increases the effect
of the ranking signal to help our users find even more pages that are
relevant and mobile-friendly.
If you've already made your site mobile-friendly, you will not be
impacted by this update. If you need support with your mobile-friendly
site, we recommend checking out the Mobile-Friendly Test and the Webmaster Mobile Guide,
both of which provide guidance on how to improve your mobile site. And
remember, the intent of the search query is still a very strong signal —
so even if a page with high quality content is not mobile-friendly, it
could still rank well if it has great, relevant content.
Marketers have an increasingly complicated job, with access to an unprecedented
amount of customer insights and analytics tools. A new study from Forrester
Consulting uncovers how successful organizations use marketing analytics tools to
develop relevant customer experiences.
Consumers expect to find what they want anytime, anywhere from their smartphones,
tablets, and laptop. These micro-moments offer marketers more opportunities than
ever before to connect and engage. They also enable marketers to learn valuable
insights about consumer behavior. With so much customer data to consider, effective
marketing measurement is more important than ever before.
To understand the challenges marketers face in measuring performance and creating a
well-integrated tool set, Google commissioned Forrester Consulting to perform an
in-depth survey of 150 marketing, analytics, and information technology executives.
The research
revealed how successful marketers are able to leverage analytics tools effectively
so they make the most of consumer interactions.
Key findings:
Marketers must be able to tie performance to business results. Among the
survey respondents identified as "sophisticated marketers," 53% stated they
adhere to well-established metrics that tie directly to business objectives.
These marketers support organizations that are at least 3X more likely to hit
their goals than other marketing organizations.
The right tools are critical to success. Only 26% of marketers surveyed
believed that their marketing analytics tools are well-integrated and work
seamlessly together. But, marketers with well-integrated tools were more likely
to outperform revenue goals.
Marketers that implement complete marketing analytics platforms see an
increase in performance. Sophisticated marketers who deploy a complete
marketing analytics stack of five or more tools are 39% more likely to see
improvement in the overall performance of their marketing programs.
As a company most often associated with amazing music recommendations and awesome parties (not to mention life-changing employee benefits),
it’s rare that we get to talk about the exciting world of technical
infrastructure – the real power behind the music – but today is special.
Today we are announcing that we’re working with the Google Cloud
Platform team to provide platform infrastructure for Spotify,
everywhere.
This is a big deal. At Spotify we are
obsessed with providing a streaming experience that feels as though you
have all the music in the world on your phone. Historically, we’ve taken
a traditional approach to doing this: buying or leasing data-center
space, server hardware and networking gear as close to our customers as
possible. This approach has allowed us to give you music instantly,
wherever you are in the world.
But in a business growing quickly in
users, markets and features, keeping pace with scaling demands requires
ever increasing amounts of focus and effort. Like good, lazy engineers,
we occasionally asked ourselves: do we really need to do all this stuff?
For a long time the answer was “yes.”
Operating our own data-centers may be a pain, but the core cloud
services were not at a level of quality, performance and cost that would
make cloud a significantly better option for Spotify in the long run.
As they say: better the devil you know…
Recently that balance has shifted. The
storage, compute and network services available from cloud providers are
as high quality, high performance and low cost as what the traditional
approach provides. This makes the move to the cloud a no-brainer for us.
Google, in our experience, has an edge here, but it’s a competitive
space and we expect the big players to be battling it out for the
foreseeable future.
What really tipped the scales towards
Google for us, however, has been our experience with Google’s data
platform and tools. Good infrastructure isn’t just about keeping things
up and running, it’s about making all of our teams more efficient and
more effective, and Google’s data stack does that for us in spades.
Google has long been a thought-leader in this space, and this shows in the sophistication and quality of its data offerings.
From traditional batch processing with Dataproc, to rock-solid event
delivery with Pub/Sub to the nearly magical abilities of BigQuery,
building on Google’s data infrastructure provides us with a significant
advantage where it matters the most.
We have a large and complex backend, so
this is a large and complex project that will take us some time to
complete. We’re looking forward to sharing our experiences with you as
we go, so watch our engineering blog
for more information on what we learn, build and break along the way.
We’re pretty excited about our Googley future and hope you’ll find it
interesting too.
As 2016 marketing
strategies kick into high gear, there’s one word on everyone’s mind:
programmatic. Global programmatic ad spend is expected to reach $21.6B
in 2016, and account for 67% of all digital display ad sales(1).
Programmatic
advertising allows brands to reach their audiences with messages
tailored to their interests and mindsets in the crucial moments when
decisions are made. As such, it’s not just changing how we buy and sell
media—it’s also transforming the way we strategize, design, and develop
creative.
Transitioning to a data-driven
creative process has real rewards. For marketers, it can improve the
effectiveness of their campaigns. Media agencies can offer a greater
breadth of services to clients, while creative and production agencies
can produce higher-quality creative and build more efficiencies into
their creative process.
Yet how do we actually make the
transition? At DoubleClick, we saw a need to define best practices for
developing and implementing creative strategies for programmatic
campaigns. In partnership with the digital creative studio, Fancy Pants
Group, and the management consulting company, Accenture, we tested
several approaches with three brands: Gilt Groupe, L’Oreal Vichy, and
Royal Bank of Canada.
Over the course of these tests, we
identified a more effective creative process for programmatic campaigns.
Today, we’re unveiling that process and the research behind it in a comprehensive guide for marketers.
We identified three key mental shifts that can help marketers make the transition to data-driven creative:
1. Understand all the data that’s available, then select the right data signals
Marketers
may already be using data from CRM tools or market research to fuel
campaigns. But a wealth of additional data signals are also available,
from first-party analytics on company websites to third-party audience
data to contextual inputs about device, location, or media type.
For
instance, when we worked with L’Oreal on their programmatic campaign
for their Vichy sunscreen products, we used location data, audience
lists, and weather information as the data signals that informed the
creative and gave us a solid basis for testing.
2. Work with creative agencies to develop sound creative strategies that are informed by data
Too
often, the creative agency and production shop are brought into the
process after the big decisions have already been made. Instead,
marketers need to work with agencies to build creative strategies that
are based on data from the beginning of the project.
When
developing a programmatic campaign with Royal Bank of Canada, we worked
with the brand to gather all teams into a single room to build the
creative brief. Together, we mapped out a strategy that resulted in a
cross-agency team that was invested in the process and outcome from the
start.
3. Drive a collaborative, agile campaign process that involves all vendors and agencies from start to finish
In
today’s campaign creation process, each party completes their portion
and hands it off to the next with little feedback. This prevents
communication and transparency between media and creative. To ensure
success, marketers should involve all agencies throughout the campaign
process and ensure everyone is talking to one another.
When
we worked with Gilt.com on a programmatic campaign to drive membership,
we not only involved everyone from the beginning, but also continued to
work together after the initial campaign ended. By doing so, the brand
was able to tap the analytical capabilities of multiple stakeholders.
For
a quick glimpse of the five phases in the campaign process and the
roles and responsibilities of each party across that process, check out The creative process for programmatic infographic.
Whether you use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn or any other social media, you need to learn fow to earn followers and fans and how to create engaging content, design attention-grabbing graphics and promote your brand to the right audience. Get it right and social media can deliver sales, traffic, brand awareness and more.
Here are 6 simple things you can do today to take your social presence to the next level:
1. Be Liked: Create valuable content 2. Be Shared: Add shared buttons 3. Be Prepared: Get a content plan 4. Be There: Post regularly 5. Be Visual: Use eye-catching images 6. Be Social: Interact with your followers
Pour la 15ème édition du Festival
Mawazine Rythmes du Monde, l’Association Maroc Cultures propose cette
année une programmation à la fois éclectique et grandiose sur sa
scène Africaine du Bouregreg. Au programme : la talentueuse guitariste
malienne ROKIA TRAORÉ, le bassiste virtuose MARCUS MILLER, la formation
multiculturelle de L’ORCHESTRE NATIONAL DE BARBÈS, la création
artistique OMAR SOSA & FRIENDS en hommage à feu le mâalem MAHMOUD
GUINEA, le guitariste-chanteur touareg nigérien BOMBINO, le duo
éclectique espagnol FUEL FANDANGO, le spectacle « AFROBEAT EXPERIENCE
» avec le roi du blufunk KEZIAH JONES accompagné de Dele Sosimi
Afrobeat Orchestra pour un hommage à Fela Kuti, une création guidée
par le guitariste vétéran ERNEST RANGLIN et pour finir en panache, le
batteur percussionniste maroco-sénégalais MOKHTAR SAMBA.
When building a micro-moments marketing strategy, one place to start is with
mobile-centric searches.
So you want to create a killer mobile strategy. But where do you begin? There's no
doubt that mobile has changed daily life and decision-making. After all,
smartphones are the most personal of devices; They stay with us as we move across
time, activities, and locations, and they have become the device of choice during
the critical micro-moments when we want to know, go,
do, or buy.
That means there are a lot of exciting possibilities for us marketers to reach
consumers in the moments that really matter. If you're looking for where to focus
first, one place to start is with mobile-centric searches―that is, searches which
happen 75% of the time or more on a mobile device. These queries offer powerful
insights into what your audience wants when they're on a smartphone, and how you
can win by giving them the relevant experience they expect. It's about being there
for them and being useful.
Mobile makes up 88% of all "near me" searches, with those mobile searches growing
at 146% year over year.
Why mobile-centric searches?
Being there and being useful requires an understanding of consumer intent and
context. The intent signal that search gives and the context signals that mobile
can provide (such as location) can help you tailor your answers and experiences
precisely for that consumer's micro-moment. "Near me"
searches (like "coffee shop near me") is one example of this. These kinds of
searches grew by more than 130% year over year1 and they're much more
common on mobile. Mobile makes up 88% of all "near me" searches,2 with
those mobile searches growing even faster at 146% year over year.3 These
mobile-centric "I-want-to-go" queries happen across almost all types of businesses,
from hotels and rental cars to nail salons, shoe stores, pizza parlors, and banks.
If you have a physical location, "near me" searches are probably popular for your
business too. You can see why they happen so often on mobile; When we urgently need
an ATM or have the craving for fro-yo, we naturally turn to the devices in our
hands to solve our need.
Of course, a "near me" search is just one type of mobile-centric search. Let's look
at examples of mobile-centric searches for a few specific categories and see what
themes rise to the top.
Automobiles
You might guess that most car-related searches on mobile would be active shoppers
looking for nearby dealers. But as it turns out, mobile searches are loaded with
intent across various stages of the car-buying process. Among the top
mobile-centric auto attributes:4
for sale (such as "Chevy Silverado for sale")
price (such as "Audi R8 price")
dealership (such as "Dodge truck dealership")
Those three themes represent different flavors of moments in a typical auto-shopping
journey—from "is-it-right-for-me" moments to "can-I-afford-it" moments to
"where-should-I-buy-it" moments.
And a small device doesn't mean a small purchase. Many of the most popular
mobile-centric searches for autos are actually luxury car price inquiries: searches
like "Tesla price," "Maserati price," and "Audi R8 cost."5 Luxury car
price searches like these grew nearly 90% on mobile from 2014 to 2015.6
Are they "I-want-to-know" or "I-want-to-buy" moments? That is, are these searchers
walking by a valet-parked Rolls-Royce and wondering what it costs, or are they
shoppers thinking about moving up to a luxury car themselves? A tool like Google
Analytics can offer more insight into the intent signals of the user based on
how they navigate your site. Using that knowledge, you can deliver a response that
speaks to the aspirational intent of some and the purchase intent of others.
Jewelry
When it comes to bling and baubles, rings are among the most mobile-searched type
of jewelry, followed by necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.7 But when
you look deeper into rings specifically, things get even more interesting.
Some of the top mobile-centric search themes for rings are:8
promise rings (such as "promise ring for girlfriend")
wedding rings (such as "wedding ring set")
engagement rings (such as "engagement rings for men")
Yes, the winner there is promise rings. In fact, promise ring-related mobile
searches grew by 77% from 2014 to 2015.9 As the chart below shows,
interest in these rings on mobile has been showing a steep increase over the past
several years in general, with searches tending to spike around the holidays (most
likely "I-need-a-Christmas-gift" research moments) and then Valentine's Day. The
mobile-centricity may be in part a function of the younger, mobile-first
demographic tending to wear these rings.
Hotels
Hotel searches cover a wide range of types and use cases, from the business person
searching for a luxury hotel in New York City to the family of five (plus pooch) in
a minivan looking for a last-minute place to sleep near Orlando.
Data from Hotels.com states that 74% of mobile bookings are made for same-day
check-in.
When it comes to mobile-centric hotel searches, the themes leading the way
include:10
near me (like "pet friendly hotels near me")
cheap (like "cheap hotels in Myrtle Beach")
price (like "motel prices")
"Near me" searches are the clear mobile-centric winner in the hotel industry. This
jibes with data from Hotels.com that states
that 74% of mobile bookings are made for same-day check-in. In other words, near
and now often go hand-in-hand.
Few things are more pressing than finding a bed for the night when you don't have
one. Those last-minute hotel searches really show how people turn to their mobile
phones in "I-really-gotta-book-something" moments.
What it all means for marketers
All three of these examples show that mobile can't just be a shrunken version of
existing online ads and desktop content. It really calls for us to think bigger
about consumers' context and intent so that we can cater to mobile-specific
situations.
And rather than trying to think about all the possible mobile micro-moments your
brand might win, mobile-centric searches help you focus. Understanding and
optimizing for them helps ensure you're there and useful for the consumer in their
moment of need.
Here's how to leverage mobile-centric searches in your business:
Identify your mobile-centric searches and themes. Talk to your
agency and ask them to do an inventory of the mobile-centric searches for your
category and brand. You don't have to master every moment at once, but make sure
you know your key mobile-centric searches and especially the broader themes that
rise to the top. These are places where your customers are calling out: "Please
solve my need for me on mobile!"
Be
there, across the moments that matter. Once you know the
mobile-centric themes for your category and brand, be exhaustive in the keywords
you use to address those themes and attributes. Try to really own a larger "share
of intent" on the mobile screen for these searches. These searches are where
hearts, minds, and dollars are increasingly being won and lost. Being there is
the first step in winning them.
Find new ways to be
useful. Put yourself in consumers' shoes for those mobile-centric
moments. What situations are these people in, and what are they trying to learn,
do, find, or buy on their smartphone? Then ask yourself, "Does the content of my
ads and the functionality of my mobile site or app help my customers in their
moments of need?" If you can find new ways to cut steps and be more useful, act
there first.
For additional best practices for how to be there and be useful in consumer
micro-moments, check out "Micro-Moments:
Your Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile."
Sources 1, 2, 5-7 Google internal search data, U.S., all devices, 2014-2015. 3, 9 Google internal search data, U.S., mobile devices, 2014-2015. 4, 8, 10 Google internal search data, U.S., all devices, 2014-2015. The
searches within the category that took place 75% of the time or more on a mobile
device were isolated. The searches within that set were then synthesized into
themes or attributes, with the themes repeated the most being the "top"
mobile-centric themes
As a form of online marketing, some companies today will send
bloggers free products to review or give away in return for a mention in
a blogpost. Whether you’re the company supplying the product or the
blogger writing the post, below are a few best practices to ensure that
this content is both useful to users and compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines.
Use the nofollow tag where appropriate
Links that pass PageRank in exchange for goods or services are against Google guidelines on link schemes. Companies sometimes urge bloggers to link back to:
the company’s site
the company’s social media accounts
an online merchant’s page that sells the product
a review service’s page featuring reviews of the product
the company’s mobile app on an app store
Bloggers should use the nofollow tag
on all such links because these links didn’t come about organically
(i.e., the links wouldn’t exist if the company hadn’t offered to provide
a free good or service in exchange for a link). Companies, or the
marketing firms they’re working with, can do their part by reminding
bloggers to use nofollow on these links.
Disclose the relationship
Users want to know when they’re viewing
sponsored content. Also, there are laws in some countries that make
disclosure of sponsorship mandatory. A disclosure can appear anywhere in
the post; however, the most useful placement is at the top in case
users don’t read the entire post.
Create compelling, unique content
The most successful blogs offer their
visitors a compelling reason to come back. If you're a blogger you might
try to become the go-to source of information in your topic area, cover
a useful niche that few others are looking at, or provide exclusive
content that only you can create due to your unique expertise or
resources.
In a crowded market, how does an app attract new customers, gain loyalty, and deliver
value? With great design for a delightful app experience. Here, Google's UX Research
Lead Jenny Gove will take you through 25 principles to build an app that helps users
achieve what they’re looking to do.
Programmatic buying coupled with data-driven creative can deliver more effective
digital advertising campaigns. But connecting the dots between the data and the
creative can be a challenge. Here we break down how to do it successfully.
Brand marketers know more than anyone that effective creative is equal parts data
and emotion. When it comes to display creative, programmatic buying brings a lot
more data into that equation. Knowing what to do with that data can be easy to
grasp in theory, but perhaps more challenging to put into practice, especially when
no single agency or partner has the full picture.
To understand what it takes to employ a truly data-driven creative strategy,
DoubleClick partnered with several global brands, digital creative studio Fancy
Pants Group, and the management consulting company Accenture. The aim was to
conduct a collaborative, programmatic experiment through a series of data-driven ad
campaigns. By tackling real brand campaigns with a variety of data insights at the
ready, we learned how the campaign development process has to change to get to
smarter, data-driven creative.
Understand all the available data that could inform creative choices
First, you may already be using data from customer relationship management (CRM)
tools and market research to inform campaigns. But a wider array of data signals is
available, from analytics on your brand's website (that could tell you your most
popular products, for instance), to audience data (that could give a glimpse of
age, gender, or interests), to contextual insights about which device, location, or
media type delivered the most success for a campaign. The trick is to know all the
sources of data available, and figure out which can fuel smarter creative.
For example, L'Oréal wanted to build a campaign to showcase two Vichy sunscreen
products in France last summer. One sunscreen was for women, and the other was for
children. To create relevant ads for each segment, the company used audience
targeting lists to reach women both with and without children. The data enabled the
brand to target the right consumers at the right time.
Involve creative agencies from the outset of the campaign process
Too often, the creative agency and production shop are brought into the campaign
process after the media strategy has been decided. By informing the creative agency
of all the data from the outset of the project, you can work with the agency to
build more relevant creative strategies for your target audience.
When Gilt wanted to create a campaign to showcase its four available merchandise
categories, the company gave the creative agency a list of the top-performing
keywords from its previous DoubleClick campaigns. Sharing these insights at the
beginning of the campaign process enabled the production team to tailor their
designs to each segment.
Make sure all teams collaborate and communicate throughout the campaign process
In typical campaigns, each group completes its portion of the work and hands it off
to the next group, often with little feedback. By involving the creative agency,
the media agency, and the production shop throughout the process, you can ensure
ongoing communication—and a more effective campaign.
In an effort to drive acquisitions of a premium credit card, the Royal Bank of
Canada wanted to reach Canadians interested in travel. To kick off the project,
RBC's marketing team held a collaborative briefing session with Fancy Pants Group,
the creative agency handling the production; Initiative's media-buying team; and
Accenture, the data analysts who defined the test and control specifications and
set up the performance reports. Together they developed a matrix of various product
benefit messages that were tested against an awareness control message. They found
that one message in particular—no seat restrictions—led to a performance uptick of
28% in conversion.
Making sure the planning, analytic, and creative teams work together can enable
your brand to maximize the value of programmatic, and create relevant and
customized campaigns for potential consumers. Gathering insights from all types of
data sources and uniting several agencies and partners throughout the campaign
process may require changes to your process—but the result is smarter, more
effective campaigns.
Thanks to the TrueView "skip" button, campaigns can get immediate feedback:
Did viewers skip the ad, or choose to watch it? Based on that feedback,
campaigns are able to adjust TrueView ads midflight. As The Wall Street
Journal noted recently from the perspective of the Ted Cruz campaign, TrueView
ads "offer the closest parallel to the power to persuade voters offered by classic
TV ads, but allow for much better targeting."
The Trump and Sanders campaigns knew voters would head to YouTube to ask "how to
caucus" ahead of Iowa, and they were ready with two simple videos that offered
step-by-step instructions. Talk about a decision-making moment: These videos could
have meant the difference between showing up for your candidate on caucus day or
staying home.
Creators are, ultimately, master listeners. The most influential creators on
YouTube listen for audience questions and create content that answers them. The
most influential politicians on YouTube do, too.
