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Mobile Matters: Paid Search Clicks Surging on Google

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Tropic Survival

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If mobile advertising isn’t on your agenda, Tropic Survival gives you data on why you might want to reconsider.

In just the last year, paid search ad clicks on mobile devices have climbed steadily, and are expected to account for ¼ of paid clicks on all devices by the end of 2012,  according to Marin Software’s State of Mobile Search in the U.S. report.

When 2011 began, Marin’s research shows mobile devices only took up a little over five percent of click shares, but mobile devices gained steam and never looked back, showing a steady rise and ending the year with over 12% of the paid click pie.

It’s a nice story, but here’s what really matters.

Marin’s report states that mobile search is different from traditional desktop searches, in part due to the lack of screen real estate. There may be less room for ads, Marin states, yet their data shows users on cell phones and tablets are far more engaged.

Click-through rates on mobile dominated their desktop counterparts. CTRs were 72% higher on cell phones than on desktop computers, tablets had a 31% higher CTR than desktops and brought in a lower cost per conversion.

Smartphones and tablets aren’t exactly new to the marketplace, but Marin said in their report the popularity of mobile devices exploded in 2011, and were more widely adopted by consumers than ever before. Smartphones have penetrated 50 percent of the cell phone market.   Apple sold more I-Phones last year than Macs in their ENTIRE company history.

So it stands to reason that with increased sales, would come an increase in mobile web browsing. Marin notes that mobile browsing offers a best-of-both-worlds for consumers, allowing them to get information about products from from the web as they out looking at those very same products!

Advertisers have taken notice, and shifted some of their ad dollars into mobile, from 3.4 to 8.7 percent of their overall search budget, a 156 percent increase!. Yet the budgets aren’t keeping up with the rise in click-thru rates, which Marin said are growing between 4 and 8 times that of their desktop counterparts.

But before you go spending your advertising dollars, Marin said you need to consider your industry, audience and geography before getting your toes in the water.

And there is a difference between tablets and mobile phones. Tablets actually had the lowest cost per conversion, while smart phones actually had the highest (106 percent higher) Now tablets don’t have the stranglehold on the mobile market like cell phones do, but they too are delivering for online marketers.

What is your mobile marketing strategy? Let Tropic Survival make mobile marketing work for you.

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ComScore: Social Media Universe Expanding, Evolving

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Tropic Survival

Internet Minutes

Since social media is so ingrained into most users’ Internet experience, it’s easy to

forget that most social media platforms are still relatively new.

If they were children, most would still need to have their hands held when

they crossed the streets.

Yet there is no denying that social media WILL become the leading provider

of web content in 2012, according to an extensive report by ComScore. In December

social media accounted for 16.6 percent of all Internet minutes, and 9 out of 10 users

visited at least one social media site in a month.

Traditional web portals like Yahoo! and AOL, long the dominant landing pages

of the Internet, saw their popularity steadily decline throughout 2011.

They took up 16.7 percent of users’ Internet minutes, surely to be overtaken by Facebook

and Friends in the coming year.

Social media’s relevance to the entire online platform is one of the several

themes to emerge ComScore’s  findings on the state of digital technology.

It should come as no surprise that Facebook is leading the pack when it comes to reach,

and in fact it now reaches 3 out of every 4 Internet users. Amazingly it still continues

to attract new visitors, but where Mark Zuckeberg’s creation grew last year was not in

growth but in user engagement.

In December Facebook saw a 32% spike, with each user spending just over 7 hours on the site.

Your average consumer now spends about 15 percent of his or her time on Facebook.

ComScore says this makes Facebook the most engaging website overall, although all of

Google’s sites are still the most popular, with 187 million visitors in December.

Among the rest of the social media pack, Twitter has firmly entrenched itself as the

runner-up, with 37.5 million unique visitors in the US.  It had been running neck

and neck with LinkedIn throughout most of 2011, but the professional networking

site ended the year four million visitors behind.

MySpace, once the social media king, was the only site to buck the trend and saw its

audience shrink in 2011. It started the year with amount 50 million visitors, but dropped

each month and ended up 4th among social media sites with just under 24 mil.

Which leaves us with several upstarts, all which showed huge promise.  Google+, which had

90 million accounts as 2011 wrapped, reached 20.7 million visitors, followed by Tumlbr at 18.8.

But most startling of all was the success of Pinterest, which wasn’t even a blip on

ComScore’s radar screen six months ago. The site drew 8 million visitors based mostly on

good word-of-mouth.Pinterest bucked another trend among social media, garnering a mostly female audience.

It and Tumblr were the only sites other than Facebook to garner at least an hour of visitor engagement.

Pinterest’s success also highlighted the emergence of the “interest graph” and ComScore

believes that social networking based on shared interests, rather than personal connections,

will become one of the headlines of 2012.

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Social Media Billboards: Pinterest Climbs the Charts

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Tropic Survival

Pintrest may be dismissed by some simply as the latest place for recipes or craft project ideas, but now some new statistics indicate it’s quickly gaining some real traction on the web.

If social media is part of your marketing game plan, then you’re going to need to pay attention, because Pinterest is rocketing up the charts.

While the virtual pinning board is still far behind Facebook in the amount of referral traffic it generates, Pinterest came out ahead of more established sites like LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+, in January according to a report by Shareaholic.

They took a look at over 200,000 publishers, who reach over 260 million people, and Pinterest’s referral traffic numbers were right up there with all the heavy hitters.

And more importantly, it’s Pintrest saw it’s piece of the referral traffic pie get bigger, while the majority of social media websites saw declines, although most were slight.

Pinterest garnered 3.6% of referral traffic last month, a 1.1 percent increase, the largest such gain among all of the sites Shareaholic tracked. Only the aforementioned leader Facebook showed a gain anywhere close to that, just under a percent.

If you’re a brand with a heavy social media presence, those are numbers that are impossible to ignore. Especially when you consider that last July Pinterest accounted for only .17% of the internet’s referral traffic, according to Mashable.

Some other interesting points worth noting:

Oh MySpace. Where Have You Gone?

Bringing up the rear is the darling of social media past. MySpace. In both December and January referred a mere .1 percent.  Been nice knowing ya.

StumbleUpon Did Stumble, But It Didn’t Fall

While the bookmarking site lost a hefty chunk of it’s referral traffic in January, it wasn’t enough to make it fall out of the #2 spot. While it may not be getting the buzz like Pinterest, StumbleUpon still generated 5.07 percent of referral traffic in January, well ahead of similar site Reddit, the only other bookmarking site to make Shareaholic’s list.

Google Minus?

Even though Google is further integrating its Google+ service into the rest of it’s products, Google+ saw a slight decline in referral traffic, as did Google overall. Google+ still has a long way to go, referring only .22 percent in January, a .02 drop. All of Google’s services also saw a small decline, from 3.69 to 3.62.

Back to Pinterest

Carefully curated or carefree, pinning is getting interesting. Let Tropic Survival know if you are looking for a branding strategy that includes Pinterest.

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Video Ads Deliver Fine-Touch to a Mass Medium

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Tropic Survival

So what does the future hold for the world of online video marketing?

The lines are continuing to blur between the online and broadcast mediums. With cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner integrating more and more complex computer technology onto their set-top boxes, marketers will soon be able to use the same standards for video delivery across multiple screens

This will hopefully lead to more inspired formats, and more accurate measurement, no matter where you advertise.

Today’s marketers need to consider:

  • How video ads are presented
  • How users interact with ads
  • The value an ad will now have for the advertiser
  • Will reach or program ratings have the most value?
  • Targeting audiences based on more reliable addressability
  • Be ready for the cross-screen app marketplace, where a single login lets users access app content from anywhere, no matter what platform your audience is using.

Video ad technologies such as CometAds allow marketers to see how and when consumers are engaged with brands on different networks and which consumers are advancing the “conversation.”

What can you do today with new video ad formats?  With enhanced advertiser data you can create even more powerful videos, and bring your consumers exactly what they’re looking for, like never before and CometAds uniquely allows you to easily create, publish, track and monetize dynamic video and display advertisements all on one platform. CometAds even comes complete with a mobile app so you can check impressions and click-thru rates in real time.

With Alpha and Beta Testing complete, Tropic Survival, the Agency who incubated the online ad platform, continues to prove the power of CometAds’ as an integral part of any marketing strategy, throughout all categories from healthcare to retail and beyond.

Now prepped for Beta testing in a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) game changer, here is a behind the scenes look at the next generation CometAds universe. From publishing ads to creating content for YouTube, the possibilities are endless for small and medium businesses ready to launch into the great unknown of online advertising:

  • Upload — Browse your company’s content, such as logos, graphics, audio and video, and upload it onto the CometAds server.
  • Select — Choose from CometAds collections of stock video, photos and audio clips, or pick your own.
  • Create –  Take your content and just drop and drag!  It’s very simple to move your content across the timeline.
  • Publish — Once you’re done editing, just one click and your video ad is unleashed upton the Internet, including leading social media sites, so you can target the customers you want to.
  • Track — Using their applications, you can zero in on exactly whose clicking on your ad, allowing you to adjust your spending and where you syndicate your ad accordingly.
  • Profit — Since CometAds makes creating and distributing your ads much more cost-efficient, businesses sit back and enjoy the savings!

“Storytelling matters more than ever in advertising, and today’s audience expects an added level of personalization,” said Tropic Survival COO and CometAds partner, Sheila Duffy-Lehrman, recent winner of the Business Leader Mover and Shaker Award. “Video display ad are a strategy now available to any size business via CometAds technology.  No platform is better prepared than CometAds to meet their online advertising needs.”

 

 

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Tropic Survival and the Business Impact of Social Media

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Tropic Survival

With an IPO filing coming this week, Facebook is more than fun and games for business.Social media is no longer a luxury for most businesses, but a necessity. But how to grow your brand? Marketers are now realizing social mediacan build their consumers bases, IF they develop a long term strategy.Results of a survey done in November 2011 done by our friends at Wildfire show that marketers believe in the power of social media.97% of those surveyed believe social media marketing benefits their business, while 75% intend to increase media spending.So what do marketers feel is the biggest benefit of social media to their companies?Growing Brand Awareness (88 percent), followed closely by Engaging in Dialogue (85), Increasing Sales and Partnerships (58) and Reducing Costs (41)Facebook And Twitter Still Reigns Supreme for Marketers

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the most recognizable names in social media are still the most preferred. Facebook (94%) was voted their favorite social media marketing channel, with Twitter coming in 2nd  (74).  Blogs (41), LinkedIn (32),and YouTube (30)were next, with everyone else garnering only 6 percent.  But with Google+ now out of the beta stage. and other platforms still growing, a shakeup to the familiar could be coming in 2012.

Facebook Fandemonium

If Facebook is the most preferred, it’s because of the value of the Facebook Fan, according to the survey.  The marketers surveyed see value in the fan — for new customer recruitment (44 percent) as well as higher conversion rates and more frequent purchases (both 18 percent)

How Is Your Investment Returned?

When it comes to measuring a return on their investment, there is no set standard for social media. 38 percent based it on an increase in Facebook Likes, comments and interactions, while 24 percent looked at increased revenues.  For 15 percent it was increased brand awareness.

But more and more marketers looked beyond the traditional definition of ROI. Those that did still believed social media had value for their marketing endeavors.

Bottom line, a long-range plan on social media is necessary to see any such return. January is almost over, if you want to explore the impact of social media on your business now is the time to contact Tropic Survival.

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2012 Online Marketing Trends Pinned by Tropic Survival via Entrepreneur.com

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Tropic Survival

With today’s technology progressing in digital social speed, smart marketers “get” that the tried and true ways of reaching customers don’t have yesterday’s pull.  With that in mind, Tropic Survival gives a big “Like” to John Arnold of Entrepreneur.com top ten online marketing trends for 2012. While some will go more mainstream than others, all are worth a look, especially considering the low cost factor for most of them.
1. Deals and Rewards 
Bargain hunting is more important to customers than ever because of the challenging economy and the abundance of price-checking tools now available. Real deals are a way to attract new customers and keep your clientele coming back. But be mobile ready…offer instant price reductions or other incentives when shoppers use mobile devices to compare your prices with retailers. … Continue Reading
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Change the Channel — YouTube’s Redesigned Layout

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Tropic Survival

YouTube has unveiled a drastic overhaul to the site, with a greater emphasis on it’s channels, and a cleaner homepage.You might be thinking why a site as popular as YouTube, with over 3 million views a day, would feel the need to unveil such a major redesign. (Of course that’s never stopped Facebook now has it?)

On the heels of their announcement that they are adding over 100 new channels to their lineup, coming from “well known personalities and content providers”, the YouTube team wants to place a much greater emphasis on professionally produced content through its channel lineup (and to the dismay of some users, away from the homemade videos that the site is known for)

So what will you now find when you head to the new-look YouTube?

… Continue Reading

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How Brands Get a Piece of the Google+ Pie

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Tropic Survival

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Ever since Google+ crashed the scene a few months ago, businesses have been clamoring for a piece of the Google pie.

At the time Google asked for patience and promised they would deliver branded pages for businesses.

Well that day has finally arrived!  This month Google+ officiallylaunchedtheircounterpoint to Facebook’s fan pages, with well-established brands such as Pepsi and Macy’s among the launch partners Google+ is promoting.

With Facebook and Twitter already taking up a large chuck of your company’s social media campaign, do you need a Google+ page as well?

Like the rest of Google+, branded pages are very much in their infancy stage and … Continue Reading

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Just how Big is Google? Numbers Talk

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Tropic Survival

Google Behind The Numbers

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Tropic Survival Gets Good Ink in Home Furnishing Retailer

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Tropic Survival

Retailer cover image

“Making More and Better Ad Impressions”

Don’t do brain surgery on yourself!

Online is forever so don’t go there with amateur ads. Instead show up with cost effective solutions with professional templates and syndicated materials.

That’s the advice from Sheila Duffy-Lehrman, COO and Creative Director for Tropic Survival Advertising and Marketing who leads an award-winning team that helps major furniture brands and furniture retailers of all sizes get their message out in an exciting way.

South Florida is one of the most sophisticated and multi-cultural markets and also one of America’s most competitive.

So what does it take for manufacturers and retailers to stay on the top of the mindset….and search results? The industry savvy team behind the appropriately named “Tropic Survival” ad agency believe they have the key. … Continue Reading

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