Category: Advertising

How Google grew their advertising revenues from $28bn to $59bn (Free eBook)

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Learn some secrets about how Google grow their advertising revenues from $28bn in 2010 to $59bn in 2014.

ZMOT is now core training for all members of the Google sales team. It’s part of our DNA — not just in the U.S., but around the world

The Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) influences which brands make the shopping list, where shoppers choose to buy and with whom they share the results. It’s up to us to join the conversation at this new moment where decisions are being made, and to provide the information that shoppers naturally crave, in all the ways that they crave it.

This book will help anyone interested in those new moments before people buy, those Zero Moments of Truth where first impressions happen and the path to purchase often begins. If you care about help- ing shoppers explore, dream and find what they’re looking for — in short, if you’re passionate about the future of marketing — this book is for you.

Download the book here: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/research-studies/2012-zmot-handbook.html

Here is also a quick video that will introduce you to the concept if you are not familiar with it

Let me know your thoughts about ZMOT, Is this something that would impact your digital marketing strategy?

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In 2015, (Infographic) Are Google and Facebook Teaming up?

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As the end of the year approaches, Google and Facebook advertising solution are seeing harmony that has never been reached before to an extend that makes one asks, are they teaming up or at least having a common vision for 2015?

Facebook has announced their new secret weapon and it has been a major game changer in 2014, Kenshoo recently did a study and found that combining search and facebook resulted in 30% increase in return on adspend. Facebook wants to capitalise and build upon the success and investment that advertisers are doing in Google search campaigns.

Search is always a great way to start a digital campaign. It helps the business owners find out how people are searching for their business and what their needs are. Remarketing through Google display network has always been a very important companion to a successful search campaign as it helps increasing the ROI and dropping the cost per acquisition.

Facebook uses the audience that is acquired through Google search as a building block, through their website custom audiences feature they have the ability to find existing customers and target them with a special message. This is a valuable feature as it helps further increase ROI and reduce CPA. Facebook can reach over 50% of the users driven by Google through their tracking pixel.

Let’s face it, driving user registration to SMB websites is not an easy job, building Google / FB audience are more feasible and cost effective alternatives for marketers. Ultimately, growing these lists could be done through using look alike audience feature that both platforms provide.

Here is an infographic that i created to show the level of connection today between Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. Except to see better harmony in 2015.

Integrating Google adwords and Facebook adsDownload integrating Google AdWords and Facebook Ads in your digital campaign (PDF)

Lookalike Audiences: Facebook Ads Most Powerful Tool That Nobody Uses

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look alike audiences

Some 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind. Facebook is the dominant social networking platform in the number of users, despite recent growth by services such as Pinterest and Instagram, Facebook remains the dominant social networking platform.

Facebook advertising is no longer what it used to be over the past few years, they used to preach two things which are not valid anymore:

1. Setup a page, Identify your audience, create compelling content, Advertise, and finally measure & adjust. [WRONG] Today, we all know that investing time, money and effort on a Facebook page is not worthwhile because of very limited organic reach of your posts, it’s basically an investment into something that you do not own and have no control over.

2. Facebook advertising core value proposition is about word of the mouth advertising. [WRONG] As the product is evolving there are no longer what used to be called sponsored stories, driving post engagements and page likes are not as attractive as before.

This is what Facebook is not about anymore, so what is it about?

Facebook is the only network that gives advertisers the ability to use lookalike audiences that are based on social graph dataincluding demographic, psychographic, transaction level attributes. To create a lookalike audience, FB creates some kind of regression equation from original custom audience data with these attributes as predictive variables. Then it matches top 1% of FB users that have similar attributes and creates the lookalike audiences.

Google Display Network already has this feature but it uses cookie-based behavioural targeting and twitter rolled out a similar feature last September but it is still in early stages to judge.

Lookalike audiences works extremely well and saves you the hassle of having to assume what kind of targeting would work better for your campaign. However, it is as good as the initial audience seed that you provide, it has to be very clean and well segmented in order to send the right signals to the Facebook algorithm and let the magic work.

There are multiple ways to create the seed such as using the conversion tracking pixel or choosing segments from fans of your page. However, I recommend to use custom audiences by uploading a list of emails of the registered users on your site. For the best results you can follow these steps:

1. Generate a list of registered users on your site.

2. Segment the list to groups, each group has a maximum of 10,000 emails(that the maximum allowed list size). You can segment your lists according to data that you record in your site such as the engagement levels of users (e.g. Users who write reviews and rating regularly), purchase activities, frequency of login, demographics, etc, …

3. For each segment, create a custom audience list, FB will match the emails to FB accounts (you should expect a match rate of 50%, for example if you provide 10K emails, Facebook should be able to find at least 5K emails of them registered)

4. Create lookalike audience for each custom audience list, make sure to choose the best precision option and the location, this should get you around 250K lookalike audiences for every list uploaded that contains about 5K valid emails on FB.

5. Create ads relevant to each lookalike audience segment.

You will be amazed how this feature works well, but it all depends on how good your seed data is prepared and segmented.

Note: Just to make sure how accurate FB algorithm works, try to create an ad for one of the custom audiences and check for its metrics such as male vs female or iOS users vs Android users. Try the same for lookalike audiences and you will be amazed by how similar the ratios are!

Do you see this as an approach that will help you reach your goals and objectives? Math and science says it should as well as testimonials by advertisers who have tried this so far.

Egypt Yellow Pages Launches Mobile Apps For iPhone, Android and Windows 8.1

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Egypt Yellow Pages Mobile App

Yellow Pages has launched 3 new apps aiming at making its service easier to use and accessible to a wide range of users in Egypt.

First up, there is a new Yellow Pages iPhone app available on App Store. The app is more than just a re-skin that is iOS 7 compatible, the app user experience is designed to help the users find what they are looking for on the go through a smart single search box where you don’t need to type the location and the app is smart enough to detect your location and show the results near you.

The app is practically a directory and a map with over 330,000 business listings and venues in Egypt that users can carry in their pockets. Taping on one of the home category icons will effectively help the users discover and explore local stores and venues near them. This is good news for businesses that want to acquire more customers from their neighbourhood, or passing by customers that happens to be in this location at that specific time and need to buy a product or a quick access to a service.

Yellow Pages New iPhone App

4 new updates have been released to the app in the past 2 months, each single update of them received a stunningly 5 stars rating from the users. The old English and Arabic apps are now merged into a single universal app in which users can switch between the 2 languages; much better for the user experience.

Yellow Pages iPhone App Review

Android users now finally can download the long-awaited Yellow Pages Android app on Google Play store. The app is accessible to over 3,835 Android devices worldwide. The app is optimised for high end Android devices such as Samsung S4 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 but it also works well with low end Android handsets such as the Galaxy Ace and Duos, also works great with 7 and 10 inch tablets.

Integration is done nicely with Google maps, which makes it very easy for the users to use turn-by-turn voice navigation available in Egypt through Google Maps. The Android app has received very positive feedback from the users, over 680 users rated the app and over 82% of them rated 4 or 5 starts for it. Exceptional for an Android app to satisfy equally for both high and low end device owners.

Yellow Pages Android AppWindows 8 is often criticised for its shallow  apps catalog, Egypt is no exception, but this is changing overtime with more apps being launched and push by Microsoft and its partner Linkdotnet in Egypt. Egypt Yellow Pages Windows 8.1 app is available for download on the Windows Store as one of the leading apps in the the Egyptian market, only a few apps came before like EgyptAir Windows App and Egyptian eGovernment maps app which is also powered by Yellow Pages data.

Yellow Pages Windows 8.1 AppThe new apps have received hundreds of thousands of downloads and continue to grow rapidly. Yellow Media has announced its intent to launch a new context-based relevant in stream mobile ads as an innovative way of mobile advertising that has a positive value on the user experience based on their interests rather than traditional mobile banner advertising.

Egypt: National ICT Strategy that aims to boost investment in the ICT sector to 55 billion EGP

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Egypt: National ICT Strategy that aims to boost investment in the ICT sector to 55 billion EGP

Check out my latest article at Wamda: Egypt aims to boost investment in the ICT sector to 55 billion EGP.

To do so, the Ministry of ICT mostly plans to invest in infrastructure, granting 75% of Egyptian households access to internet at a speed of 2Mbps by 2015, and, by 2021, increasing access to 90% of households at 25 Mbps. It also hopes to offer 3G service to 98% of users by 2015, and 4G service for 90% of the population by 2021.

يلوبيدجز مصر أول شركة فى الشرق الأوسط تجمع بين شريك جوجل أدوردز المعتمد و شريك جوجل المميز للأنشطة التجارية الصغيرة والمتوسطة الحجم

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يلوبيدجز مصر و التى تعرف حالياً بأسم يلوميديا حصلت على درجة جديدة من الشراكة مع جوجل لتصبح شريك جوجل AdWords المعتمد بالأضافة إلى كونها أول شريك مميز لجوجل للأنشطة التجارية الصغيرة والمتوسطة الحجم فى الشرق الأوسط.

هذا يعنى أن يلوبيدجز توفر خدمات الأعلان على جوجل بشكل محترف و معتمد من جوجل لتشمل:

إدارة الشؤون اليومية للحملات
إرشادات في مجال التسويق
دعم مخصص للعملاء
إعداد تقارير تفصيلية للأداء

يلوبيدجز مصر شريك جوجل AdWords المعتمد و شريك Google AdWords المميز للأنشطة التجارية الصغيرة والمتوسطة الحجم

يلوبيدجز مصر شريك جوجل AdWords المعتمد و شريك Google AdWords المميز للأنشطة التجارية الصغيرة والمتوسطة الحجم

  ما الفارق بين شريك جوجل AdWords المعتمد و شريك جوجل المميز للأنشطة التجارية الصغيرة والمتوسطة الحجم؟

شريك جوجل أدوردس المعتمد من الممكن الحصول عليه للشركات التى تستوفى شروطه مثل أن يكون للشركة فريق عمل من الحاصلين على شهادة Google AdWords و التى تمكنهم من أدارة حملات العملاء كما يجب أن يكون للشركة أيضا حد أدنى من المصروفات على حملات العملاء فى الشهور الثلاثة الماضية لا تقى عن 10,000 دولار أمريكي.

Google AdWords Certified Partner

شريك جوجل المميز Premier SMB Partner لا يمكن الحصول عليه ألا من خلال أبرام أتفاقبة خاصة مع جوجل، هذه الأتفاقية لها شروط خاصة لا تتوافر إلا للشركات الكبيرة التى أثبتت تواجدها فى السوق لسنوات عديدة و تتميز بوجود قاعدة عملاء تتجواز الألاف و كذلك وجود عدد كبير من خبراء المبيعات و الأستشاريين الأعلاميين الذين يستطيعون صناعة الفارق للعملاء و حصولهم على أفضل عائد على الأستثمار و يتم ذلك بكل شفافية و تحت أشراف كامل لشركة جوجل فى الشرق الأوسط و شمال أفريقيا و مقرها أيرلاندا.

Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner

الجدير بالذكر أن كل نوع من هذه الشراكات منفردة فأن تصبح شريك معتمد لا تؤهلك لشريك مميز و العكس صحيح.

كيف تتأكد من أن الشركة التى تتعامل معها هي بالفعل شريك معنمد أو شريك مميز لجوجل؟

يمكنك التأكد من خلال الرابط التالى:

أبحث عن شريك معتمد أو شريك مميز لجوجل أدوردز Google AdWords فى مصر

بالطبع يجب عليك التأكد أذا كانت الشركة شريك معتمد فقط أو شريك مميز أو كلاهما من خلال رؤية اللوجو الخاص بالشراكة.

لماذا أتعامل مع شركاء جوجل فى حين أنه يمكننى عمل حساب على أدوردز و شراء الأعلانات مباشرة من على الأنترنت؟

هو نفس السبب الذى تلجأ لشركة حينما تريد عمل موقع على الأنترنت، فبأمكانك عمله بنفسك أو اللجؤء لشركة تطوير مواقع، أو هو نفس السبب الذى تلجأ لشركة تصمميمات حينما تري تصميم لوجو خاص بشركتك. هناك مثال يقال “أعطى العيش لخبازه” فأنت تحتاج لخبراء يستطيعون أنشاء حسابك و متابعته و أدارته و عمل كل ما هو لازم له لتحصل على العائد من الأستثمار. وقد أثبتت الأحصائيات أن من يتعاملون مع شركاء جوجل تكون أستفادتهم من الأعلان أقوى بكثير مما يقومون بعمل الأعلان بأنفسهم حيث يعتبرون أن أعلان جوجل ليس بأعلان عادى و لكن هو قناة توزيع و مبيعات جديدة لا يمكن الأستغناء عنها بعد تجربتها و الأستفادة منها

Google Officially Launches Google AdWords Premier SMB Parntner Program Page in Egypt

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Google have officially launched Google AdWords Premier SMB Parntner Program Page in Egypt. It is the first Arabic page that is launched under that section as Egypt Yellow Pages is officially the first partner in Egypt and the Arab world (After Morocco whcih launched their site in French).

Google explains 5 reasons why you should go to Premier SMB Partner than DIY (Do it yourself) approach.

If you have a business in Egypt and you want to advertise it on Google, you should consult Egypt Yellow Pages to help you plan and execute your online marketing new channel.

free AdWords consultation in Egypt

Yellow Media and Google Enter Strategic Partnership to Support SMBs in Egypt

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Yellow Media – Formerly known as Egypt Yellow Pages and Google Ireland have signed strategic partnership agreement that will make Yellow Media the first Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner in Egypt and the second one in North Africa.

The Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner Program enables strategic relationships between Google and companies that can deliver the power of Google AdWords to their local merchants. Small and medium-sized businesses working with a Premier SMB Partner receive professional, full-service AdWords account management, from account setup and activation to ongoing campaign monitoring and optimization.

The official announcement was made on April 22, 2012 in the Four Seasons Nile Plaza hotel with tens of attendees of technology reporters and journalists from major news papers and online news and technology portals in Egypt.

The event was held by: Marc Lambert – Managing Director of Yellow Media, Ahmed Hafez – Head of Sales in Google Egypt and North Africa, Lars Mourey – Director of Sales & Marketing in Yellow Media, and Mohamed Salah – Director of Digital Media in Yellow Media.

Marc Lambert, Ahmed Hafez and Mohamed Salah

Marc Lambert, Ahmed Hafez and Mohamed Salah

Keynote of Ahmed Hafez - Head of Sales - Google Egypt and North Africa

Keynote of Ahmed Hafez - Head of Sales - Google Egypt and North Africa

Following the official launch event, a 2 day intensive training course was given to 200+ Yellow Media sales professionals by the Google Egypt team. Wael Fakharany – Regional Manager Egypt, and North Africa – Google gave a very insightful keynote speech about the success story of how he managed to transform Google Egypt from a country office that only had one individual (Wael Himself) to tens of millions of dollars in a few years.

Wael Fakharany - Regional Manager Egypt, and North Africa - Google: Keynote Speech to Yellow Media Sales Force

Wael Fakharany - Regional Manager Egypt, and North Africa - Google: Keynote Speech to Yellow Media Sales Force

Yellow Media 200+ Media Solutions sales consultants attending Google AdWords training

Yellow Media 200+ Media Solutions sales consultants attending Google AdWords training

To get a free consultation now, or to sign up for Google AdWords fully managed service by Yellow Media.

Interview with TripAdvisor Commercial Director Business Listings EMEA, Karen Plumb

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Karen Plumb, Commercial Director Business Listings EMEA, TripAdvisor

Karen Plumb, Commercial Director Business Listings EMEA, TripAdvisor

Travel review web sites and hotel reviews on online travel agencies are among the most influential forces most frequently cited by travelers when shopping. User generated content is so important and it is here to stay, it helps people to make their decisions,  TripAdvisor definitely takes the lead with more than 50 million unique monthly visitors, 20 million members, and over 50 million reviews and opinions. The sites operate in 30 countries worldwide containing 1 million+ hotel, restaurants and attractions in 90,000 destinations.

In this interview Karen Plumb shares with us in the power of TripAdvisor and the value it can bring  to businesses. Also Karen gives us insights about the new partnerships TripAdvisor is having with local search sites and directories to empower businesses.

Mohamed: Tell us a little bit about yourself?

Karen: I have a background in hotel marketing, having worked at both InterContinental and Thistle Hotels, where I held a variety of international eMarketing and International Marketing roles. I have also worked before in an online company at CheapFlights running the consumer email product and the hotel website, CheapAccommodation.com. I love working in the online travel environment and TripAdvisor is a great place to be.

Mohamed: How do you encourage users to post reviews? Do you run any sort of incentive programs that strengthen customer loyalty?

Karen: TripAdvisor has added badging to the site to recognize and acknowledge the contributions of our active community of reviewers. These badges serve as just one more way users can determine which reviews are most relevant to their trip-planning experience.

The first badge is given after three reviews and users that have contributed over 50 reviews receive a gold badge and a Top Contributor designation.

In our management centre, we provide owners with tools and widgets to encourage guests to write reviews following their stay.

Mohamed: Independent travelers value TripAdvisor as a research tool to find the best hotels that fit their needs and meet their budgets. Are you thinking about building a tool that would allow users to compare hotels to help them in the decision making?

 Karen: TripAdvisor is constantly searching for new ways to improve its websites to continue to help travellers plan and have the perfect trip. Users can search for hotels by relevant categories and read reviews by like-minded travellers to find the right hotel to suit their needs. Each review is also broken down into detail with travellers rating hospitality businesses on a number of factors, allowing users to make an informed decision during their holiday planning.

Mohamed: What’s your value proposition for the hotel owners? What types of hotels would benefit most by having a commercial business listing on TripAdvisor?

Karen: Whilst being listed on TripAdvisor is free for properties we offer the  Business Listings product to enables accommodation providers to add direct contact details on all TripAdvisor website domains as well as TripAdvisor’s mobile website to convert our highly qualified traffic into direct bookings.  . Accommodation providers can add their phone number, email address and website homepage to their listing as well as posting a special offer to gain additional attention

The benefit of a TripAdvisor Business Listing is that it is on a page where viewers come to look at guest ratings, reviews and photos of a specific property. According to a Forrester survey in 2007, 87% of consumers looking for hotels are influenced by reviews and want to read them before they book. If a hotel has put in the hard work to earn good reviews from their guests, a Business Listing will allow the hotel to capitalise on them.

Mohamed: Recently you have expanded in many new countries in the Middle East and have announced partnership with Yellow Medya in Turkey. How is this going to help both the hotel owners and the end users in Turkey?

Karen: Yellow Medya will be integrating TripAdvisor onto all of its platforms, including online and mobile. By doing so, users of Yellow Medya platforms will have access to TripAdvisor reviews and opinions for accommodations, restaurants, attractions and all hospitality businesses currently listed on TripAdvisor websites.   In addition in the coming months Yellow Medya are helping TripAdvisor populate our database to ensure that every tourism business in Turkey is represented and can benefit from the global coverage TripAdvisor can offer.

Yellow Medya will also be offering a TripAdvisor Business Listings Programme, encouraging accommodation businesses in Turkey to adopt the Business Listings product.

We believe adoption of Business Listings within the Turkish hospitality industry will help businesses gain more visibility in front of our large community of travellers.

Mohamed: What is the most requested feature by the users that is not ready yet on TripAdvisor? What are the new things that you are introducing to TripAdvisor in 2012?

Karen: Earlier this year, TripAdvisor launched a new integration with Facebook that instantly personalizes the site for each person who visits, surfacing trusted reviews from friends, most popular destinations among friends, and an interactive social map.

Now when travelers come to TripAdvisor websites, while logged into Facebook, they will see the activities their friends have shared first, helping them to make more informed decisions when planning their own trip.

In addition our award winning mobile site and apps are becoming increasingly popular enabling travelers to research their trip whilst on the move.

 

Want to learn more about this subject? Visit TripAdvisor for Business Blog where there are lots of information on how accommodation providers can get the most out of TripAdvisor.

About TripAdvisor:

TripAdvisor® is the world’s largest travel site, enabling travelers to plan and have the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travelers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features (including Flights search, TripAdvisor Mobile and TripAdvisor Trip Friends) with seamless links to booking tools.

Egypt Yellow Pages Ecosystem

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There is no question that local search is now one of the core services of many web and mobile applications offered today. Think about the big market players such as Google and Facebook, both of them offer “places”. Social media check-in apps such as Foursquare, verticals like hotel review sites (Tripadvisor),  restaurant reviews sites, food delivery sites, map providers such as Navteq, or even directory assistance services offered by mobile operators, all their services are based on a venue database. If they don’t get it right there is very little point in offering their services.

Think about the effort and cost needed to maintain your own database. Thousands of businesses open, close, or relocate every month. This is the opportunity where what is offered by Yellow Pages is exactly the need of all these applications and services.

Egypt Yellow Pages is no exception, the integration between Egypt Yellow Pages database and their partners is becoming a key strength for many of these applications making use of the most complete business database in Egypt covering over 220,000 listings and 170,000 map locations.

Here is the ECO-SYSTEM of Egypt Yellow Pages

Egypt Yellow Pages ECHO-SYSTEM

I’ll go through the details of each of these systems and partnerships in future posts.