Digital Marketing Blog

How will PPC Marketers Use Google Modified Broad Match?

 

Google recently developed a new AdWords keyword match type called Modified Broad Match. It's triggered by using a "+" sign immediately next to a term: +marketing. Affectionately becoming known as BMM, or Broad Match Modifier, this new match type is being positioned "between" standard broad match and phrase match in terms of volume and performance. Search engine PPC marketers will need to quickly understand the ramifications and practical applications for this new match type. Here are some of our thoughts following Google's Webinar on this topic.

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What do you think? Please comment below. We'd love to read your opinions and especially hear about any real-world results you may have seen with BMM.

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Visualizing Modified Broad Match Type Volume

We always ask: Why? (Sure, it drove our parents and teachers crazy raising us but also serves us well as professionals.) So why did Google implement this new match type?

In looking at the surface area of this image from Google, you can see the answer. Modified Broad match greatly enhances the footprint volume of phrase match. This alternative helps bridge the two match types.

 

Why use Broad Match Modifier?

Google has noted three primary reasons for using this new modified broad match type:

1. If you want more volume from your phrase match terms
2. If you turned off poor performance broad match terms in the past and want to re-try those terms; this may be the push they need to gain positive ROI
3. If you turned off or never used certain broad match terms due to difficult negative match type management

We agree with those reasons for why you should try modified broad match. To us, #1 is probably the most important and the first area we'd attack. All of our PPC campaigns are hyper-targeted to meet strict performance metrics so we're always looking for ways to increase volume while maintaining those target cost per returns.

But perhaps the biggest reason we see for using BMM: The + modifier eliminates synonyms that are part of the standard broad match type. So if you sell only cowboy and work boots, under the standard broad match type boots would have triggered shoes, sandals, sneakers, and more. Under the new Modified Broad Match +boots will only trigger stemmed variations and mispellings, thus dramatically eliminating the -negative match guessing game you would have to play with Google under standard broad match.

 

What BMM Can't Do

While you can "combo" other keyword match types within Google AdWords, from what we saw in the webinar we attened modified broad match can't be mixed and matched with others. We could be wrong on this, so please share if you know otherwise. We captured some chat and moderator Q&A that seems to say combo match examples won't work with BMM:

• Incorrect BMM Use Example: +women's "formal shoes"
• Acceptable BMM Use Example: +women's +formal shoes

 

Final Thoughts on Modifed Broad Match Type

If the chasm between standard broad and phrase match is simply too large, it hurts the effectiveness of both match types. So to that extent modified broad match may help. It's PPC's answer to the gap wedge; for you golfers out there that get our primitive analogy. We can't wait to see more real-world numbers and we certainly welcome more options (more the merrier), so thanks Google! But at the end of the day the skeptic in us says: This is a way for Google to generate more CPC volume, or revenue, and its impact for PPC marketers is yet to be determined.

Read More: If you haven't already, we recommended checking out Google's blog post on Modified Broad Match Type; and sharing your commments below.

For more information visit ymarketing.com, follow @ymarketing on Twitter or call 877.736.4321 x707

Lead Capture for just the Cost of a Click: Google Adwords Contact Form Extension

 

The ymarketing Paid Search Team recently read an update to the beta for Google Lead Generation Forms in paid search ads at SEOroundtable.com. Have you ever wished you could easily increase leads for just the cost of a click? Google is testing it out with Google AdWords Contact Form Extensions to normal AdWords ads. The current leads are phone number based with three custom fields. Delivery of these ads is via email as a moment and clients are committed to contact the lead within 24 hours.

We have noticed the Mortgage and Entertainment Industries testing In the new Contact Form Extension. We have also seen other bloggers and paid search companies mention these ad format updates such as this blog post from DailyRadar.com

Things to know about the AdWords Contact Form

• It will only associate with ads in the #1 position.
• The Leads will be priced with the Max CPC Bid during beta test.
• About the form: Requires Phone Number Collection, up to three custom questions, questions shown will be determined by Google quality algorithm.

Get whitelisted into the Program through your AdWords Account Manager at Google and start getting your phone leads from Google AdWords!

Here are some sites that like the new Google Contact Form Adwords Feature: searchengineland.com, insideaffiliates.com, seroundtable.com

Here's a site that dislikes the new Google Contact Form AdWords Feature: blog.hubspot.com

SEO specialist ymarketing thinks:
This is worth testing. We want to see the results of the beta ASAP!
Do you have "real experience or results to share about your experience with this beta?"

What do you think?
Contact Us or Leave a Comment!

For more information visit ymarketing.com, follow @ymarketing on Twitter or call 877.736.4321 x707

6 Ways Businesses Must Leverage LinkedIn | ymarketing

 

LinkedIn has quietly posted some very impressive numbers once again.

Sure, Twitter gets all the media attention, but it's warranted given its explosive 802% year-over-year growth. But LinkedIn's 89% YOY numbers look remarkable when compared to anything but Twitter or Facebook. But look deeper at the numbers and you'll find that LinkedIn actually grew 6Xs faster than Twitter in August, and 4.5Xs faster in July, according to compete.com

Consider LinkedIn's vitals (as of August 2009):

• 27 million total users
• 14.2 million users in August 2009
• Representing all 500 of the Fortune 500 (how many companies can say that?)
• Average stay: Over 7.3 minutes per visit
• Visits per person, per month: Over 3.7
• Pages per visit: Over 13

• Rank: #67 among all websites (ahead of USA Today, Southwest Airlines, HP, Wells Fargo, TicketMaster, Priceline and MLB.com mid-summer)

But this isn't meant to be one more blog raving about LinkedIn's interconnected networking prowess. What we're looking at is LinkedIn's power to elevate your business for free; specifically to lend search equity from LinkedIn's mighty vault into your company website's SEO account.

Here are six (6) ideas you can implement to improve your website's search equity leveraging LinkedIn:

1. Company Page

Within LinkedIn your company page serves as a "cliff notes" version of your website and as a valuable "peek inside your company" as it will contain links to the individual LinkedIn profiles of each of your team members who has associated their individual profile with the company's. This serves you well as long as the page is kept up-to-date and as long as individual members keep their profiles in good shape. We recommend businesses ask all key employees to setup profiles, keep them up to date, and associate them with company page.

2. Anchor Text

Nearly every LinkedIn user knows they can include their company website (example shown), but the common setting does not give your company's site as much value as it can. By selecting "Other" instead of "My Company" you can use descriptive text, keywords that describe your business. After all, you don't want your website to be found for the term "My Company", do you?

The way to really leverage this idea is to get everyone in your company using the same keywords, the same descriptive text. This works because of the inherent Search Equity that LinkedIn has earned (and passes each time it links to your site) and because of the extra value search engines place on keywords placed within anchor text (the descriptive text that contains a hyper link).

3. Join a group, Create a Group

As our good friend from Hubspot Pete Caputa says so well, "LinkedIn Groups are an amazing opportunity to build an opt-in email list quickly. (Almost like the early days - late 90s - of email list building.) If you're into internet marketing... you should join the HubSpot Pro Marketers list." (nice plug, Pete!)

"You should also start your own group about a topic related to your business, which would interest your target prospects," Caputa notes. "LinkedIn Groups spread quite virally throughout LinkedIn because group badges automatically display on members' profiles. Once your list is built, you can gently promote your educational content, blog, etc. For example, if you sell software to accountants, create an 'All Star Accountants' group or something along those lines."

4. LinkedIn Answers

Answer a question and your connections will see it in their Network Updates feed. LinkedIn rewards quality; you will gain expertise points when the person asking the question votes your answer as the "best answer".

5. Network Updates

These are the LinkedIn equivalent of your Facebook Status update, or your latest update on Twitter, and they tell your entire network what you're up to. This is a great place to let people know of your latest blog post.

 

 

 

 

 

6. Direct Advertising

While the minimum advertising level used to be $50,000 a month, LinkedIn has followed Facebook's lead and rolled out an innovative new advertising platform they call "Direct Ads" that, at a $50 minimum and a pay-per-action / pay-per-click model, is affordable to a much broader array of businesses.


Ads are simple to create, targeting is powerful and relatively simple, and the scale and access to high profile decision makers is unparalleled on any network.

We've been running these paid campaigns on LinkedIn and Facebook for our clients and have developed a testing strategy that works. With the right strategy and attention, you should be able to recognize results from your paid social network efforts as well.

Feedback
What do you think? How are you utilizing LinkedIn in your business? Do you have some great ideas we missed? We'd love to hear from you and add to this list...

For more information visit ymarketing.com, follow @ymarketing on Twitter or call 877.736.4321 x707

Why Businesses Must Blog | ymarketing

 

As I talk about the virtues of social media marketing and blogging in particular, with business owners from 20-person companies to marketing executives representing Fortune 1000 enterprises, I frequently encounter the same objections when it comes to Business Blogging:

• "I just don't get it. How would blogging possibly help us reach our business goals?"

• "Blogging is fine for other people, but we're serious about driving our business forward and need to spend our time marketing."

• "Who has time to blog unless they're unemployed?"

And just recently I heard my favorite objection yet:

• "Don't some people blog when just a simple tweet would do?" (a hip reference to Twitter and its 140-character limit and a shot directed at the long-windedness of some bloggers, all rolled into one!)

All of these are legitimate questions and objections (and they all have equally legitimate answers, hopefully answered in this post).

Businesses that don't invest in blogging are losing out on a huge opportunity. 

Here are the top six (6) reasons Why Businesses Must Blog, in order to thrive in 2009 and beyond, in order of importance:

1. Increase Search Equity. Search Engines crawlers (affectionately known as "spiders") scour the internet for food daily; their favorite meals consist of text, headlines (H1 tags), meta data, page titles and links with descriptive anchor text. Well-crafted blogs are a virtual feast. The search engines behind these spiders don't really care if a newly discovered page is a blog or a regular web page; what they're particularly interested in is new, unique, well-crafted content. Blog posts between 200-400 words with good use of headlines, descriptive anchor text and relevant keywords are a virtual Olive Garden to the search engine spiders in a sea of soup kitchens. So the domains these Blogs reside on are rewarded with deposits in their search equity account. If your blog is on your company site (i.e. blog.yourcompanyname.com) then your site benefits and accrues the search equity; if you use a "free" blog site (i.e. yourcompanyname.blogspot.com) then Google or some other webhost gets the benefit. If you need more convincing that using a "free" service is a bad idea for your business, read Top Reasons Why Business Blogs Shouldn't Be On BlogSpot.com.

2. Increase Website Traffic. The clients who we have worked with to setup and properly promote integrated blogs (blog.yourcompanyname.com) have seen their traffic increase between 300% and 2,000%. The effect of these traffic gains - although by itself quite dramatic - is that the number of inbound links multiplies and additional search equity is applied. Since starting our blog (blog.ymarketing.com) we've seen our amount of content pages indexed on Google and Bing triple, and the blog has played a direct role in tripling the number of quality inbound links to ymarketing.com.

3. Increase Search Engine Spider Crawl Frequency. The question of "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it fall" has an application in the world of search: if a website gets updated and no search engine spider comes by to re-index the site, then the change didn't really do your business any good. We've seen clients increase their crawl frequency from monthly to several times a week; I have to attribute this primarily to the addition of an integrated blog, and the results are that changes to the site (i.e. meta data testing, new content pages, news updates, etc.) get indexed nearly immediately, so we can get a read on what changes had a positive impact right away. The whole process of test, read and refine is greatly accelerated.

4. Increase Sharing and Word of Mouth. Have you noticed that people typically don't share product information on Facebook? Not too many people "Digg" company information sheets, right? And most of the Internet population resists the temptation to "bookmark" the "About Us" page on your site. People like to share things that are of interest to them on a personal level, and things they think their peers and friends would be interested in. This is true for B-to-B as well. Blogs make it easy for people to share with others. They give site visitors a reason to connect on an emotional level. In our research we have collected data that proves that referred visitors are between 1.5X and 4X more likely to convert into a qualified lead or new customer than general website traffic, so the financial, rational argument for sharing can be made. When we setup client blogs we include the most popular business sharing tools as buttons to make tweeting, digging and sharing on Facebook and LinkedIn as easy as emailing a friend.

5. Qualify Leads before they ever make contact. I recently experienced this myself. A prospect for our business read a comment that I wrote on someone else's blog, liked the line of thinking of my comment as much if not more than the original author, followed the link I provided back to our blog, read several posts, agreed with our approach and philosophy, then contacted us as a well-read, highly-informed qualified prospect. That is happening more and more, and would not have been possible let alone probable before we started blogging.

6. Build Community. The reason most people think of first ("You blog so that you build a community of like-minded individuals, promote discussion, etc.") is actually my #6 reason Businesses Must Blog. Let's be real: If you're not the size of Microsoft, Cisco or Netflix, the community construction aspect of blogging is going to take a while to fully develop. But it will, as long as you make the decision to start blogging, continue to publish quality content, and invite others to participate in the conversation.

A Word on Blogging Best Practices

The Best Practices of Blogging recommend that you spend equal portions of your time reading the blogs of others, commenting on those other blogs, and crafting your own. So if you can only invest, say, two hours a week to this valuable new pursuit of blogging, be sure you start with 1 half hour into finding and reading other people's blogs of interest to you and your business goals, a half hour or more leaving comments and asking questions on those blogs, and an equal amount of time writing your own posts.

Leaving Blog Bread Crumbs

Taking a cue from would-be social media pioneers Hansel & Gretel... One of the best ways to build a community in the early days of blogging is to include a bread crumb - a link to your blog - every time you read and comment on someone else's relevant post or blog. An example:

"A very interesting and provocative idea about the greening of marketing, Michael. I thought you were absolutely right on your assessment of the topic of how direct mail impacts our environment, but consider this one idea you may have missed: Search is the new direct mail. I've written about this topic at http://blog.ymarketing.com/?Tag=inbound%20marketing and invite you to have a look..."

That way when interested readers see your comment and agree with your point of view or unique insight, they'll follow your link and discover your blog.

What do you think... What did we miss? What are the compelling reasons for business to blog that we neglected to include?

For more information visit ymarketing.com, follow @ymarketing on Twitter or call 877.736.4321 x707

Now that GM stands for “Government Motors” – let’s look under the hood | ymarketing

 

Can Search and Social Media data predict the value, the interest, the likelihood that an individual division of GM will survive? As readers of this blog know, we successfully used this very same data to predict winners and losers of American Idol. This time we turned our data and analysis to three key pistons inside the engine of GM that are likely to play a major role in the bankruptcy, sell-off and self-dubbed company "reinvention": Cadillac, Hummer and Saturn.

Cadillac - down but not forgotten

In the green we've charted Cadillac's unit sales over the last two years (annual volumes shown) and estimated a small downturn for 2009. The blue line indicates the relative interest in Cadillac as shown by volume of search queries across Google in the automotive category alone ("Cadillac Margaritas", for example, would not show up in these results). Using search volume as a proxy for consumer interest, we can see that interest in Cadillac has remained fairly high, with an index of 73 for Q2 of 2009 - nearly the same as the 75 index in Q4 2007. Although interest has been a bit higher (the peak was an index of 83 in Q1 2008) and a bit lower (the low was 69 in Q3 2008), it has remained relatively consistent across the last 7 quarters.

But what about Social Media? Using Facebook Lexicon as a proxy for Consumer Interest (what Facebook's 200 million members write about on each other's "walls"), we see a slightly different picture. Cadillac mentions peaked in Q4 2007, had a brief resurgence around the Holidays of last year, but have been falling ever since. With an index of 41 now vs. 73 in 2007, Cadillac's Social Media index is now off more than 40%.

Since a careful analysis of both Facebook and Google data revealed the winner of American Idol, we're going to keep close tabs on both of these disparate data sources for now. However, if we follow the assumption that Facebook represents consumer perception, higher up the sales funnel than Google search, one might assume that Cadillac search and purchase interest might wane in coming quarters.

Hummer - a lost cause (but you knew that)

Hummer interest is off the charts... in a bad way. Google search interest is way off, down to an index of 39 from a high 67 in Q1 2008 (off more than 40%).  Facebook chatter paints the same picture: In Q2 2009 the index is 64, down from the high in Q2 2008 of 97 - a drop of nearly 35%. It seems that the oil crisis of Summer 2008 may have doomed this brand for good. Sales figures from GM confirm this fact as well, as Hummer posted less than half the 2008 sales as in 2007.

Saturn - sales holding steady, but interest is falling out of orbit

Studying the search and social media around the Saturn automobile brand by sticking to just automotive categories - carefully excluding the search mania centered around "Viewing Saturn" as it approached Earth in July of 2008 - shows us that while sales volume drop off (22% drop from 2007 to 2008) Saturn has fared better than most GM divisions. But, this particular division just doesn't seem to get people "talking" (or more accurately put, searching or writing wall posts).

Worldwide Google search volume for the Saturn brand peaked last Summer (while fuel approached $5/gallon) but has dropped off considerably since that time; from a high index of 65 in Q3 2008 to just 42 in Q2 2009 (a drop of more than 35%).

The Facebook index paints a similar picture: The most recent quarter's index of 29 is down more than 35% from last Summer's high of 45.

 

What's even more interesting?

You can compare the Facebook indices between the brands, and you see a picture that emerges like this for the most recent quarter:

What's Surprising? Hummer has by far the most interest among Facebook's masses, and Saturn has the least; the inverse of their sales figures. What we've learned from analyzing Facebook for some time now is that the TRENDS are far more important than the overall volume of data, and trend-wise it doesn't look good for any of these three falling brands.

What about Google? We can compare the indices for 2009 here as well:

While overall interest among searchers is highest for Cadillac by nearly a 2:1 margin worldwide...

... Growth in searches is for Saturn is actually faring the best, with Cadillac making a surge in interest late in May 2009. Interest in Hummer has lagged the general category for all of 2009.

We're talking about Global data for Google Searches, so we asked the natural question: where are all these buyers?

Interest in the Cadillac brand is actually highest in Iraq (as measured by Google's weighted indices around the globe), followed by the US and Canada, with Estonia and Sweden rounding out the top 5.

The hot bed of Hummer searching is in Costa Rica, believe it or not, followed by three other Central and South American states. The US ranks 7^th, just behind Slovakia.

The Saturn brand appears to be almost entirely a North American phenomenon, likely owing primarily to distribution. Although there are pockets of interest in Europe and Mexico.

What do you think? How will Cadillac, Hummer and Saturn fare under the leadership - permanent or temporary - of the Obama Adminstration? Your opinion, comments and questions are welcomed here.

For more information visit ymarketing.com, follow @ymarketing on Twitter or call 877.736.4321 x707

The Search for an Upset: Could a Perfect Storm Propel Kris Allen into the Next American Idol? | ymarketing

 

If you're a regular Idol Prediction Project reader you know we've been using Search and Social Media data to predict winners on Idol using: iTunes (purchase intent), Facebook (wall posts), Twitter, Digg and Google Search data... all with pretty good accuracy.

On Saturday May 9, 2009, Aubry, one of our blog contributors made this prediction in response to last week's post on who will be the ‘Challenger to Idol favorite Adam': "If Kris Allen exits this week, Adam will pick up a majority of his votes... Adam seems to be the #2 [favorite] of Kris fans and the young girls are Kradams. If however Gokey goes out, Kris will win because Gokey fans out and out dislike Adam." Could Aubry be right?

It's a lot closer than many people believe

On the May 13 results show Ryan Seacrest said, "More than 88 million votes were cast ... and only 1 million votes separated 1st and 2nd." If it's that close on a three-way race, and you assume that dedicated voters make up the majority of the "voting bloc", then it really comes down to: I) a surging Kris tightening the race; II) Danny Gokey's Swing Voters; III) Adam Lambert backlash. (And of course how the two finalists perform; let's not discount that important element!)

Perfect Storm Part I: "Heartless" from Allen tops "One" from Lambert

Kris is surging. Multiple Social Media and Search data sources confirm that fact. And his performance of Kanye West's "Heartless" Tuesday night may be a big factor. Past strong performances by Allen like his version of Falling Slowly "propelled Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's 2-year-old original into the top 30 on iTunes' download chart," proving through purchase behavior that Allen does have market appeal. If only we could see the download figures for "Heartless"... anyone?

Facebook chatter (as measured by terms like ‘kris allen' and ‘adam lambert' appearing in wall posts) show Kris Allen taking a lead over Lambert for the first time this entire year. The chart below also showcases ‘kanye west' and ‘bono' for perspective on just how popular these two finalists have truly become.

Google Search data showed Adam with a nearly insurmountable lead (3X, 5X, 8X in some cases) up until this week, when tremendous acceleration for search terms featuring ‘Kris Allen' showed that lead severely diminished:

In fact, for the first time since we began measuring "breakout searches" on Google, Kris Allen posted MORE fast rising search terms than Adam (6 vs. 5):

USA Today blogs about how "If radio stations decided the American Idol winner this week, Kris Allen would have the edge. An early look at Mediabase numbers shows that Kris' version of Kanye West's Heartless has had 17 spins on 13 stations this week, barely beating out Adam's U2 cover, One, which 16 stations played once each." But if you total the Top 6 spins/stations, Kris has 22/17 to Adam's 18/18. Here's how the Mediabase numbers look for the week:

• 1. Kris Allen, Heartless: 17 spins/13 stations
• 2. Adam Lambert, One: 16 spins/16 stations
• 3. Kris Allen, Apologize: 5 spins/4 stations
• 4. Danny Gokey, You Are So Beautiful: 5 spins/4 stations
• 5. Danny Gokey, Dance Little Sister: 3 spins/3 stations
• 6. Adam Lambert, Cryin': 2 spins/2 stations

Other Indicators show the race tightening up as well. Globally Adam still maintains a lead over Kris, but the overwhelming distance that once separated them has evaporated:

On Digg, Adam's held a 4.5 to 1 advantage in the first week of May. That lead is down to 3-to-2 as of May 15, 2009 but Adam still holds the edge. Adam maintains leads on Twitter, YouTube and in the Blogosphere as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perfect Storm Part II: Gokey Swing Votes

The conventional wisdom "around town", and our blog contributor Aubry, seems to be that Danny Gokey voters are more likely to cast their votes for Kris than they are for Adam. But we attempted to substantiate that hypothesis with Search and Social Media data and found out that's a pretty tough task - especially since the relevant data is just 2-3 days old. A search through the blogosphere (Google blog search) produced a split: a roughly equal number of "Danny Gokey fan" blogs say they'll vote Kris and Adam.

This original question appeared in the USA Today Blog on April 27^th when they speculated that Kris Allen could be a "game changer". "The flamboyant Lambert engenders devotion or distaste, the polar opposite of the more conservative Gokey. Allen's base could shift allegiance to Lambert, who shares his penchant for tinkering with arrangements, or they could align with Gokey, who like Allen serves as a church worship leader. Where those votes go might well determine the outcome."

Perfect Storm Part III: Adam Backlash

USA Today reported on their blog that a backlash may be brewing against Idol's Adam Lambert and cited several factors as to why this could be: 1) Idol producers gave Adam the final performance slot three straight weeks, 2) Simon Cowell's outright prediction of an Adam win on Oprah, and 3) Simon's heavy-handed "instructions" to the Idol audience about not forgetting to vote for the "favorite", Adam. USA Today even characterized the backlash as more of an "anti-judge backlash."

Search data we uncovered seems to underscore this same sentiment. VoteForTheWorst.com has a self-described mission to "support voting for the entertaining contestants who the producers would hate to see win on American Idol"). Sounds like a good place to track negative backlash; so we looked at search engine traffic ending up at the site. Adam Lambert appears as the #2 term, responsible for 87 times more traffic than the first Kris Allen term, which comes in at #273 for that site.

Final "American Idol" finale thoughts

The data shows it's too close to call; not a landslide for Adam as many predicted a few weeks back. In betting terms, Allen is what odds makers would call "a live dog".

Just the beginning?

We searched TweetVolume for clues on the Final Two this week and knew Gokey was in trouble. Then for fun we contrasted Idol with Britain's Got Talent 2009 sensation Susan Boyle. Looking at that data, we couldn't help but wonder when are we going to see the Idol World Cup? Susan Boyle vs. Adam Lambert (or Kris Allen?). Pay-Per-View numbers would be incredible! And TXT volume would probably crash cellular networks worldwide!! Hey Simon, when you use this great idea of ours please remember to make out our royalty checks to "ymarketing, LLC", OK?

 

For more information visit ymarketing.com, follow @ymarketing on Twitter or call 877.736.4321 x707

American Idle: Is Detroit Stuck In Park? What Search Engine Data Tells Us | ymarketing

 

Stuck in Park?

As a follow up to a highly successful series where the ymarketing team predicted winners on American Idol, we're now turning our attention to what could be called "Doom In Detroit".

This is the first in a series where we will look at what Search and Social Media data can tell us about the relative chance each Auto Manufacturer, and its brand lines, stand of surviving the current economy.

Background

The most popular post in the Idol Prediction Project series was when we looked at purchase intent. In that blog post we examined how search engine referrals leading to iTunes had a high correlation with each contestant's popularity. Week after week our data showed us the favorites, and identified those that were likely to be leaving early. Five weeks before the Final 3 Idol contestants were announced, our data correctly predicted it would be Adam Lambert, Kris Allen and Danny Gokey. We utilized Search and Social Media popularity as a proxy for the popular vote that the TV show conducted each week, with great success.

Applying Learning to Detroit

When it comes to understanding the current automotive industry landscape and predicting its future shape--and with it each Auto Makers chance at survival--we believe the same logic holds. Although; this American Idle Prediction Project on Automotive OEMs will certainly present its challenges.  For example: An inquiry into the volume of searches for "General Motors" these days yields a wealth of information, but nearly all of it is related to GM's government bailout, it's impending dealership closures, negotiations with the UAW and the like. Interesting, but not very helpful for predicting popularity and sales. But could an examination of all queries on Google for the search term "GM Dealership Chicago" yield the kind of results we're interested in; purchase intent?

Week One: Car Buyers Take Action After Researching Online

We took a look at one prominent car buying research site that served 6.3 million unique visitors last month, Edmunds.com, which ranks in the top 200 of all sites in the U.S. After visiting Edmunds.com, prospective buyers and tire-kickers alike venture off to well over 5,200 different sites (as measured by our data sources). These post-site visits are called "referral traffic" in search engine speak.

A significant portion of these post-site visits from Edmunds.com end up at the Auto Makers' own sites (fordvehicles.com and chevrolet.com), and many more end up at individual dealership sites (siouxcityford.com and hamiltonchevrolet.com as examples).

We wanted to see WHICH American Auto Makers are benefitting the most from this Referral Traffic and, arguably as important if not more important, which ones are growing month to month. Here's what we found over the last two months:

Week 1 Results

Ford is clearly in the lead with buyers who do their research on Edmunds.com. They have 55 different sites in the top 5,000 and all but a half dozen are dealerships. Their most prominent site, fordvehicles.com, ranked #19 overall and grew more than 4% last month alone. Fordvehicles.com also has a 10% edge over their largest competitor, GM's top site. Since Ford is a top tier and consistent advertiser on American Idol, it does beg the question: Is Idol responsible for helping Ford get out of Idle?

GM's top site, Chevrolet.com, ranks #22 and is in 2^nd place. The site's traffic from Edmunds.com referrals actually grew at a faster rate than Ford's at 19.2%; so we look for a showdown in the coming months for the top Auto OEM slot. GM has 40 sites in the top 5,000, and 30 of them appear to be dealerships. It could be argued that GM overall gets more traffic from Edmunds.com. If you add up all the available data for the top 600 sites GM actually has an 8% edge in total referral traffic. But none of those top 600 sites are a dealership, so it bears further research and analysis before we can draw a conclusion.

Chrysler is hurting. If you read the news, you know that. This blog will certainly pay attention to the news cycle and see how it impacts purchase intent. But for now, we can quantify that Chrysler's top site, dodge.com, ranked #25 and is in 3^rd place. The problem: the site saw its Edmunds.com referral traffic drop more than 9% last month. Chrysler has 36 sites in the top 5,000.

Encouraging signs: Chrysler appears to have the top two dealership sites (dodgedealer.com ranking #630 and windwarddodgechryslerjeep.com coming in at #649) and their #2 web property, chrysler.com, ranked #39 and grew at a rate of more than 50% last month.

What do you think?

What do you think of the premise of this blog series? Can purchase intent be measured by proxy using search and social media data? In coming blogs we will examine other data sources and yes, take a look at the global automotive industry as well. If you'd like to have input into the next installment, please share your ideas and opinions here.

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Search & Social Media Data Split on Challenger to Idol favorite Adam Lambert | ymarketing

 

If you've followed the Idol Prediction Project and our data download you already know we've been saying Adam Lambert, Danny Gokey and Kris Allen (your Final 3) were the strongest contestants based on the data. We showed weakness in Matt Giraud's search and social media numbers the week before he was cut; and last week this blog showed that Allison had the lowest level of Global Appeal, just prior to her exit.

This week it's a lot tougher to predict what's going to happen. Reason: Beyond Adam, the verdict is split.

 

Who's #2? The case for Kris

Digg, Google Blog Search and iTunes all point to Kris Allen as the clear challenger to Adam in the finals. When measuring all Diggs (stories, article and blogs deemed worthy of sharing by Digg's 36MM+ users) since April, Kris Allen has a commanding lead...for #2 (94 diggs for Kris vs. 76 diggs for Danny). But both trail Adam's 421 diggs over the same period of time.

A search of blogs mentioning "Kris Allen" turns up nearly 39,300 since April 1 (12,400 since May 1), while "Danny Gokey" tallies 27,600 since April 1 (and 11,600 since May 1). Adam fans: Yes, he's clearly #1 with 53,600 mentions since April 1 (19,200 since May 1). It's interesting to note, though, that Kris mentions on blogs in the month of March actually outnumbered those mentioning Adam.

iTunes is more tricky to gauge. But with the help of compete.com we were able to measure search referrals that resulted in traffic to iTunes.com; and received a welcome assist in the form of a story that MJ broke on MJs Big Blog. MJ's blog clearly shows Kris as the front-runner for the #2 slot*, as measured by the mysteriously appearing/disappearing iTunes popularity bars. (*Behind Adam, who is seemingly miles ahead, each and every week).

Who's #2? The case for Danny

Google Search Traffic points to Danny starting to open up a narrow lead for #2 as of Wednesday, April 6^th, from a virtual dead-heat with Kris leading up to Tuesday night. (Adam is #1...by a mile.)

Facebook wall posts give the edge to Danny over Kris by the slightest of margins leading up to Tuesday night and into Wednesday April 6^th. (Adam is #1... by a factor of 2-3X.)

Twitter data points to Danny having about a 40% edge this month to date with over 2,900 tweets vs. Kris with just 2,100 tweets. (Adam has over 8,800.)

YouTube site referrals (search queries on search engines that lead to a YouTube visit) have Adam out front with the #16 and #45 overall search queries and 137 distinct terms (words or phrases) leading to videos of Adam. Danny is #2 here with #976 query and 15 overall search terms, and Kris is a distant #3 with the #3,535 query and only 8 overall search terms.

And one final thought: Take a look at the only search terms related to Idol contestants that Google Insights deems a "breakout" for this past week (breakout seems to be defined as a search that's growing at a rate of over 700%):

Who will end up in the finals? Who will win? The latter just maybe entirely dependent on the former, as there may be a swing vote factor to consider. If as the data shows, Adam gets through, the challenger may have a chance to take him down IF the swing votes follow Danny or Kris. However, if Adam gets a large portion of Kris or Danny's swing votes, he may become unbeatable. We'll attempt to predict the swing vote factor using destination referrals prior to the finals.

What do you think? What is the most compelling data source from this week's blog? We'd love to hear from you.

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Can iTunes Buyers Predict the Next American Idol Winner | blog.ymarketing.com

 

While there are many American Idol winner prediction methods out there, even one that monitors busy signals to predict votes: DialIdol, in our ongoing Idol Prediction Project we thought a better predictor would be purchase intent. We at ymarketing argue that a search query ending at iTunes.com is a search with intent to buy. When people are laying down cash, that's got to be more indicative of passion and true popularity than most other available measures.

Searches ending up at iTunes

As of Tuesday, April 21st, "Adam Lambert American Idol" was the #55 highest volume search query sending traffic to itunes, ranking higher than any other current or former contestant. Adam's iTunes traffic is higher than "johnny cash ring of fire" at #62 (which could be argued as Adam Lambert-related), "itunes american idol" at #63, "kelly clarkson" at #102, and "american idol 4/14" at #134. None of the other contestants ranked in the top 238.

YouTube Sensation

Looking at YouTube keyword referrals, "adam lambert" is now the #16 highest referring search keyword to YouTube, up from 25th in this blog's prediction post #1. There are currently 118 different search terms containing "adam lambert" that show up in the top 100,000 driving traffic to YouTube. To put this in perspective, the terms "american idol 2009" and "american idol" rank #126 and #162 respectively. The next current Idol Season 8 contestant from a YouTube perspective is "danny gokey" at #1,697 and 14 total search terms; followed by "allison iraheta" at #2,088 and 4 total search terms; then "kris allen" at #6,943 and 7 total search terms; and "matt giraud" at #11,408 and 7 total search terms in the top 100,000. Since YouTube has become the #2 Search Engine, these findings take on increased importance.

King of the Idol Site?

Adam Lambert drives more traffic to americanidol.com than any other contestant... by a mile. "Adam Lambert" is the #4 search term, and he has 4 of the top 30. Only "Danny Gokey" also has a spot in the top 30 at #11. If the rankings were to be determined by americanidol.com visits referred bv search engines, you'd have to stack the contestants this way:
1. Adam Lambert
2. Danny Gokey
3. Matt Giraud
4. Kris Allen
5. Allison Iraheta

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Past American Idol Winner “Sparks” Kris Allen’s Twitter Momentum | ymarketing.com

 

Idol Prediction Project Post #2 - In our continuing efforts to track and predict the Season 8 American Idol winner using search and social media data, we noticed early signs of a departure from last week's All-Adam blowout. If you follow Idol fan sites like USA Today's Idol Meter you noticed that Kris Allen shot into second place this week after being in sixth the week prior. How? While this week's early search and social web data points pointed in many different directions this week, they provide insight into this surge from Kris:

TWITTER: The twittosphere was lit up Wednesday 4/15 with KRIS ALLEN being tweeted 10-to-1 over Adam for a period of time, but it quickly vanished and by Friday 4/17 Adam had resumed his commanding lead. Kris' tweets were apparently "sparked" by this tweet from Season 6 winner Jordin Sparks, "Kris' performance was awesome tonight"). Adam has a 2-1 edge in the number of tweets vs. Danny and Kris, with Lil, Matt, Allison and Anoop trailing in that order.

Tweet Volume 4/15/09 -Did Jordin Sparks comments ignite the Kris tweets?

 

Tweet Volume 4/17/09 - By the end of the week Adam's popularity righted the twitter ship.

FACEBOOK: Adam maintains a commanding lead, but Lil Rounds is making steady gains the last two weeks. The following chart leverages data from Facebook Lexicon. Setting the index to 1.0 for Danny Gokey's wall post volume from Wednesday, April 1, 2009, Adam has been running 4.9X that volume for two weeks.

 

DIGG: By far the most diggs are going to a contestant not even on American Idol, Susan Boyle, who appeared on Britain's Got Talent 2009 and completely shocked Simon Cowell (yes, he's a judge over there as well.) She has 337 diggs in the last 24 hours, compared to 7 for "The Hairstyles of Adam Lambert", and two each for "Saving Matt Giraud", Danny Gokey's "Endless Love" and Adam's "Born to be Wild".

SEARCH: Because of Kris Allen's surge on Twitter we dove into discovering where Kris's fans are going online after searching on his name, and came up with the following results. YouTube leads all destinations with 7.5% of traffic, followed by metacafe at 5.1% and Wikipedia at 4.6%:

Scary: In the "shock and disbelief" category, this just in from digg: Only 1 out of 3 of Americans can name the 3 Branches of Government, but 3 out of 4 can name a judge on American Idol.

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