April 2006 Monthly Newsletter :: Anduro Marketing
Last month’s CCAT event, featuring Google's Wendy Muller, was attended by over 500 people and was a tremendously enjoyable and informative experience. Every detail of the event went smoothly and Wendy's presentation was informative and thought provoking. A special thanks to Wendy and thank you to all the sponsors which made this event possible. Visit the CCAT (membership required) site for downloads related to the event. Of course, CCAT deserves such strong credit for fully supporting this event and drawing together the diverse group of people and companies that make up the technology sector in Calgary. Premiere sponsors Macleod Dixon, West Canadian, and Commonwealth Legal also deserve our tremendous gratitude.
During her presentation, Wendy discussed trends and developments in the Web Marketing space from Google’s perspective. She focused on the use of contextual advertising in the tight brand recognition race, using the example of a powerfully targeted marketing campaign for the film Hustle & Flow. She also illustrated new possibilities for links between Search and Print. There was some confusion over the idea of demographic advertising; this is clarified below.
In the days immediately following the event, we received a great deal of feedback from attendees. What follows is a sampling of that feedback we want to share with you:
“We were very pleased and proud to be part of such a great event. The turn out was just great…I look forward to finding out what is up your sleeve for next year!”
“The fact that Google would reply to our request for a speaker is significant and shows they recognize the emerging needs of the business community in Calgary and Canada as a whole.”
“Aside from being very approachable, Wendy was quite open and she made herself available to those with questions. She listened patiently and made thoughtful comments and suggestions while keeping things informative, light, and fun.”
We at Anduro Marketing are tremendously proud of our association with this event and thankful to CCAT and all of the sponsors that made it possible. Thanks again to Wendy Muller for her excellent presentation!
Demographic Advertising Explained
During Wendy’s presentation, there was some confusion over the apparent availability of demographically based advertising over Google’s AdWords PPC system. This was primarily brought on by this notice posted in AdWords:
“New! AdWords site demographics. Want to reach 18-24 year-olds, or women with children? Site tool demographics match your ad with your audience. Available now for campaigns targeting the United States...”
Following the presentation, we were able to speak with Wendy further, and she explained what this program really means and how it is intended to work:
Q. What is demographic site selection?
A. Demographic site selection is a way to find and select sites with the right type of audience for an AdWords campaigns. A demographic group shares a particular trait or characteristic: age, gender, income, or some other factor. If an advertiser knows their ad will appeal mainly to young men, or to people with children, they can use demographic site selection to find sites that appeal to those audiences. Demographic site selection is available as part of the AdWords site tool.
Q. Why is Google offering demographic site selection?
A. Demographic site selection is an extension to the Site Targeting advertising product. Historically, we only allowed for affinity or psychographic site selection. However, now with demographic site selection, advertisers can place their ads on sites pertaining to a certain topic - as well as on sites that have a high composition of a certain demographic.
Q. How does it work?
A. Once an advertiser has selected the US as the market they wish to target, selecting sites by demographics is exposed in the site tool. Then, based on the demographics attributes selected by the advertiser, we will generate a list of sites that are frequented by Internet users who fit the demographics selected.
Q. Are you planning to offer it internationally?
A. At the moment, we are only offering demographic site selection to advertisers who target Internet users in the US. We don't have any international product plans to announce at this time.
Q. Are you using user information from Gmail, Orkut, personalized search or one of your other products?
A. No, only comScore Media Metrix data is used for demographic site selection.
Q. Is this in response to MSN AdCenter?
A. No. Demographic site selection has always been on the site targeting product roadmap.
Q. Are you planning on using user information for ad targeting in the future?
A. We believe the targeting capabilities we offer today provide advertisers with the greatest return and result in the highest quality user experience. We don't have any future plans to announce at this time.
Speech Craft Workshop
Would you like to improve your public speaking skills? The Calgary Beltline Toastmasters club invites you (along with your friends and colleagues) to Speech Craft, a 6 week course designed to teach effective public speaking skills. The workshop will be held at each Wednesday morning from April 5th to May 10th from 08:30-09:30am. The cost for the workshop is $45 to cover enrollment and materials. For more information, or to enroll, contact Kathrn Henry at (403) 355-5720.
SEO-Browser Featured Tip: W3C Validation
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), established in 1994 by Web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, is an international consortium and standards body dedicated to the development and measurement of common programming standards for the World Wide Web. It is the chief governing body for the development of Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and eXtensible Markup Language (XML).
Proper code compliance is an important part of website design and should be carefully reviewed by Web developers. Using compliant code ensures the proper cross-platform and cross-browser function and consistent display of a website. In the past, improper code compliance caused severe problems for search engine spiders, delaying complete crawling at least and preventing indexing at worst. The search engines have gotten much more intelligent in recent years but it’s good to keep in mind that a cleanly coded site presents the least resistance to their robots while providing your visitors with a consistent Web experience regardless of their chosen browser.
To ensure your website coding is W3C compliant, visit www.seo-browser.com and try the W3C Validation feature.
For more information on any of the products available from Anduro Marketing, contact us at info@anduro.com or (403) 410-3803.
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