Google Ad - Everything You Need to Know About the EU Google Probe

Source - mashable.co
By - Todd Wasserman
Category - Google Ad
Posted By - Imagination Print

 Google Ad

Google earned its reputation by providing the best possible answers to consumers' questions. So it's somewhat ironic that the company is under fire in Europe for some rather halfhearted answers to European Union officials' queries over its privacy policy.

The EU has been challenging Google on the issue since last year, but the latest twist came Tuesday as CNIL, a French watchdog group, issued a statement saying Google "did not give a precise answer" to questions from European data protection. As a result, the CNIL is leading a "working group" to provide recommendations for enforcement. Those recommendations should come by this summer.

Below we explore what this means for Google.

How did this come about?

After integrating Google search results with Google Plus, the company introduced a master privacy policy in January 2012. A month later, the CNIL decided to take a closer look. In October, the CNIL, working with privacy watchdogs from 26 other European countries, called on Google to offer stricter privacy policies. Google had three months to reply, but the answers were unacceptable to the EU.

What do they want Google to do?

In short, they want Google to offer more detailed info about how it uses consumers' personal data, disclose how long it keeps such data and make it easier for consumers to opt out of sharing their information with Google and the company's various units, including YouTube, for advertising purposes.

Did Google have a similar investigation in the U.S.?

Not quite. The Federal Trade Commission settled with Google for $22.5 million last August after the agency found Google had violated the privacy of users of Apple's Safari browser on the iPhone.

But wait, wasn't there another FTC probe of Google?

Yes, but the subject of that investigation was alleged antitrust violations, not privacy. Google settled that 19-month probe on Jan. 3. An EU investigation of Google on antitrust grounds, meanwhile, continues. The EU claims it will not be influenced by the FTC's settlement. That probe may be settled soon, according to reports.

What's the upshot for Google?

Unclear. Countries in Europe vary in their enforcement powers and fines. In France, for instance, fines max out at around $388,000 for repeated privacy violations rules violations.

Google Ad - Trade of the Day: Google (GOOG)

Source - http://investorplace.com
By - John Jagerson and Wade Hansen,
Category - Google Ad 
Published By -  Imagination Print

Google Ad       

Recent moves by Google should keep their ad revenue momentum strong

Recommendation: Buy GOOG under $800 per share with a price target of $860 by September 2013.
Option Alternative: Buy to open the September calls at the $790 strike price for $55 per share or less. Advanced option traders may choose to cover that long position with a short call in March in a diagonal spread
Whether it is a new acquisition or a policy that can set the standard for the industry, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has taken several steps that will help it continue its climb to break $800 a share for the first time.

        AdWords

An issue for companies like Google that rely heavily on Internet ad revenue is the increasing number of people using mobile devices instead of personal computers. This leaves these companies tasked with putting ads on these smaller devices and getting people to click on them as they would on their personal computers.
Google is updating AdWords by rolling out mobile enhancements to the popular advertising program, which allows businesses to choose keywords. They then pay Google every time someone performs a search using those keywords and clicks on their ad. Currently, more than $40 billion of Google’s annual ad revenue comes from AdWords.

Many business owners report that they have seen sales increase with AdWords, but they also have seen the cost per click increase dramatically. And even if business owners don’t care to advertise on mobile devices, they’ll still have to pay for it, which means they’ll pay higher rates.

• The Real “4th Asset Class” Revealed: Why Warren Buffett Loves It and You Need It

Google said the enhanced campaigns allow businesses to better tailor their ads to meet the growing population of people who use mobile devices. The question becomes whether small business owners will take the bite.

Partnering With Yahoo!
In the meantime, Google and Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) have partnered in a non-exclusive contextual advertising deal. This partnership includes Google ads appearing on Yahoo pages and certain co-branded sites using Google’s AdSense for Content and AdMob services.
In a statement released by Yahoo about the partnership it was said: “Say you’ve been shopping for boots. If you see an ad for boots, that’s instantly going to pique your attention more than an ad for, say, a car battery. That’s better for users. This is why contextual advertising is such a powerful tool.”

Google Ad - OMC Says Splitting Google Advertising Campaigns by Device Is Now Fundamental

Source - http://www.melodika.net/
By - Press Release
Category - Google Ad
Posted By - http://tinyurl.com/GoogleAd2

Google Ad

New research released by MarketingLand.com showed that there is a growing difference between online advertising behaviour on smartphones,tablets and desktop/laptop PC's. In their "Paid search trends for 2013" study, MarketingLand.com concluded that "Investing in device-specific targeting will become increasingly important in 2013 as tablets gain greater market share."

The immediate consequence of this news may not be obvious to the layman but Online Advertising expert David Twigg of OMC says it makes the argument even more compelling for a professionally managed adwords campaign. He says "The evolution of online advertising is pretty rapid at the moment and one of the main areas it is evolving the fastest is in creating campaigns that are friendly to the range of devices they are being consumed on. For example smartphones have a quite specific advertising layout due to the size of the screen, tablets are more akin to laptops and desktops but still have a range of small detail differences.

In MarketingLand.com's study it was found smartphone share of ad clicks was starting to stabilize whilst tablet share is continuing to increase. Twigg says "Whilst smartphone internet usage will keep growing the experience is still a long way behind a more meaty device like a tablet or laptop and as tablets and laptops become more and more portable i can see they will eat into the smartphone consumption of the internet over time. Of course all types of device will probably continue to grow in terms of pure numbers but i see tablets gaining the upper hand in market share terms."

In the same report MarketingLand.com pointed to the reversal of Google advertising cost per click levels, claiming that product listing ads were a main contributor to this trend reversal. " Our clients are on average paying lower costs per click than 12 months ago." David Twigg says "I think the last 12 months has been a big watershed for online marketing because there have been a lot of disillusioned advertisers that thought it was easy to generate leads and sales online but through a mixture of inept campaign management and poor decision making they have burnt their budgets. We have seen many competitors to our clients drop out of the adwords landscape presumably through lack of ROI, this reduces the bidding environment and causes cpc's to fall."

OMC launched a free adwords advertising appraisal last week aimed at Australian businesses that feel their adwords campaigns should be performing better, it is available by clicking here

Google Ad - Google Reinforces Crackdown On Ad Scammers

Source - http://www.thedrum.com/
By - Jessica Davies
Category - Google Ad
Posted By - http://tinyurl.com/GoogleAd1

Google Ad

Google has warned it will treat scammers that flout its ad policies with “zero tolerance” as it continues its efforts to combat bad ads.

The internet giant has stated it will continue to solidify its systems to root out policy-violating ads which damage consumers’ web experiences.

In a blog post David W. Baker, of Google Ads Engineering, said the company will throw its weight behind combating scammed ads and their sources and will use “considerable fire power” to do so. 

“While most people are working on productive New Year’s resolutions, scammers and bad actors will begin 2013 with the same old goal: make money with the help of bad ads. 

“Advertising helps fund businesses online and enables them to provide services and content for free to their users. But, bad ads can ruin your web experience, putting you and legitimate businesses in harm’s way,” he said. 

Any ads that violate Google’s ad policies, which includes marketing counterfeit goods, are tracked in a variety of automated and manual methods. Over the last few years it has tightened its methods in a bid to stamp out scammed ads. 

Last year the search giant cracked down on a paid-search ad scam that linked premium publishers to a fraudulent face cream website. The ads, which appeared when searching for particular keywords such as “face cream” showed paid links that appeared to be from the BBC, Independent and Daily Mail promoting the cream.

However, scammers continue to create workarounds designed to undermine Google’s tracking robots.

“We will continue to do whatever it takes to keep our users, partners, and the web as a whole, as safe as possible. We have zero tolerance for bad ads and will keep working tirelessly to maintain the most secure advertising systems in 2013, and beyond,” said W. Baker.

In 2012 Google shut down 12,900 sites promoting get-rich-quick schemes; 123,000 sites hiding malware; 82,000 accounts attempts to sell counterfeit goods and 8,600 accounts making phishing attempts. 

It also halved the percentage of bad ads from 2010 to 2011, and disabled over 2 million bad ads and banned 889,000 bad advertisers.