Search professionals that struggle with motion sickness may have to brace themselves before utilizing the new feature. The page changes with each character entered into the search box. The innovation has some Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search experts concerned fearing fickle potential customers may shift their click focus in mid-search decreasing click-throughs. This would be true if PPC campaign success was dependent on a fly-by-night consumer. People intent on looking for a particular product will conduct a search for that product and click accordingly. For example, if a user is searching for jeans, the user is unlikely to be swayed from PPC jean ads in favor of ads for JetBlue simply because they both begin with JE.

Though a web page may be faster and more real-time based, that doesn’t mean a serious, relevant user will fail to convert. If anything, Google’s new live update feature will ensure PPC campaigns are effectively leveraging the right audience.

Online performance marketers know that improving customer retention, acquiring new customers and increasing current sales requires a multi-channel approach that maximizes spend through continuous improvement and optimization. Marketers who are gun shy about investing in digital may believe that such optimization will cost more than it is worth. If done right, shifting to an online performance model will ultimately demand more from your marketing spend. It will enable companies to effectively target and re-target new and current customers, get the most out of your leads database and promote growth through cost-efficiency. Performance marketers know this. It’s time they spread this knowledge to recession-wary CMOs.

A case can be made that email is the original social media network. Before Facebook and Twitter came along, email was driving targeted messaging results. It remains a pivotal component to any business marketing strategy. It shouldn’t be thrown to the scrap heap in favor of Facebook or Twitter. It should be incorporated into your social networking platform. Email should be used for engagement across the entire social consumer landscape. By incorporating Facebook and Twitter into your messaging campaign, you can extend your reach to users likely to disregard promotional emails by including such offers on your social networking pages. Once the social user is engaged, subsequent emails will sustain and grow interest maximizing spend and driving ROI.

A continuously improving email program, one that implements social networking, will most assuredly make those questioning the life span of email rethink their position. By combining it with social media, email will not be facing its end but a new beginning.

According to Covario, the top four spots on Google can be worth upwards of $100 million in annual revenue. Performance marketers should digest the findings in the Covario study and incorporate them into an overall sales strategy emphasizing the search value proposition. We need to stress the value of click-throughs as positions fluctuate; they can increase ROI. In terms of tracking processes, Paid Search is highly measurable and easy to monitor. As for Organic Search, enhanced Webmaster Tools on Google make it possible for clients to see the breakdown of impressions and conversions on their site.

The value proposition of search begins and evolves with continuous optimization. Any plan for improving search optimization must include generic keywording. The value of search to a brand is undeniable but only if that brand can be found. 

Online advertisers are not telemarketers. They are not hamstrung by the telephone. And their processes for the consumer, notably opt-in and opt-out functionalities, are already user-friendly making Do-Not-Track more of a political tool than an advertising detriment. Do-Not-Track will not reduce the number of ads consumers see. It would prevent ads from being targeted to sites a user has visited. But if a user likes receiving targeted ads, he or she simply wouldn’t subscribe to the list.

Given the attention privacy issues have received this year, it is understandable and somewhat commendable that the government wants to act. But by drafting up weightless and needless legislation, continuing to focus on platforms like Do-Not-Track does not make sense. 

Social media allows users to put the direct back in direct marketing. On Twitter and YouTube, people proactively market themselves and their special skills. Some users do exhibit a high degree of talent in a number of areas; i.e. singing, dancing, art, technology. Others, on the other hand, offer mediocrity to the masses. And yet both messages connect with people, sometimes in real-time. They are visual; therefore, more immediately memorable. Now take that one step further by utilizing YouTube as a vehicle to drive thought leadership through the web. Why couldn’t, why shouldn’t thought leadership go viral?

I, for one, will never call for the death of the written word. Thought leadership in print is most certainly an important marketing resource. Still, thought leadership articles, regardless of topic or author, can’t help but lack the appeal of a personal appearance, even if it’s remote. If you were interested in affiliate marketing, would you rather read an article authored by Monetizeit GM Peter Klein or would you prefer to sign into a cyber town hall and have Peter answer your question directly? If you were intrigued by the latest advances in search, would you favor accessing an article by MediaWhiz GM of Search Adam Riff or downloading an informal yet informative dialogue featuring Adam on YouTube?

One could make the argument that preparing for these virtual appearances would be a hassle, that the back and forth involved in scheduling them would become a time efficiency nightmare. There is truth to that – much the way meeting written deadlines, rewrite deadlines and unexpected editing revision deadlines can incite stress related hair pulling. But the end result, the spreading of specialized expertise, makes the process well worth it.

When it comes to promoting thought leadership, I’m not advocating one against the other. At the end of the day, it is a matter of individual preference.  Articles and “live” appearances each have their place and should complement each other. Perhaps performance marketing should take a page out of its own playbook, creating something akin to a targeted, audience-specific thought leadership campaign. This would enable savvy marketers and thought leaders to expand their reach, spark discussions and potentially drive results.

The Twitter advertising revolution is in top flight. Fresh off its Promoted Tweets revenue earning initiative, Twitter is appealing to consumers and advertisers once again with its new @earlybird feed. The @earlybird program allows participants to opt in to receiving coupons and marketing messages.

For advertisers and performance marketers, the data acquisition and display advertising implications of Twitter’s move into advertising are positive. The goal of any data acquisition team is to find a relevant target audience to effectively market client products and services. Engaging consumers through using a robust data acquisition service can be a highly effective method for building a customer database.

Here’s how it works: Consumers sign up to receive exclusive offers and deals from advertisers. For a nominal fee, advertisers will tweet these offers to @earlybird followers. The key is making the consumer feel in control of the information he or she is seeking. By incorporating Promoted Tweets and/or @earlybird into a client data acquisition program, performance marketers will benefit from social media’s ability to influence buyer intent allowing users to proactively research companies before deciding to opt-in. With Twitter, the opt-in becomes the conversational tweet.

Like Promoted Tweets, @earlybird will work for data acquisition purposes for three reasons – it engages a relevant target audience, enhances brand awareness and increases buyer intent. It is also simple, fairly unobtrusive and expected to drive results.

Profitability wise, it’s a win-win for both advertisers and Twitter. Well, for Twitter it’s presumed to be a win. The Blue Bird is being tight-beaked about how much it stands to gain financially from the service. Considering Twitter wasn’t earning anything before Promoted Tweets came along, even modest revenue streams would be considered quite a coup.

The benefits to data acquisition are fairly obvious, but that is not the only area poised to profit from Twitter. If strategically implemented, Twitter advertising can drive increases in display advertising revenue. Effective performance marketing relies on recognizing and utilizing trends. Twitter is all about trending, being of the 140 character moment. According to a recent Nielson social media study, social brand advocacy increases ad awareness and quadruples buyer intent. Where does Twitter advertising fit in?

Yahoo! Finance reported that twenty four hours after purchasing their Promoted Tweet, Coca-Cola drove 85 million ad impressions with an engagement rate more than 5.5% above normal levels. With that kind of increase in brand awareness, it is hard to imagine that @earlybird will not be able to, at least, duplicate the success of Promoted Tweets. Disney agrees, becoming the first @earlybird partner.

Enhanced profitability and improved audience targeting methods aside, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Twitter’s latest advertising announcement is the lack of a public uproar. If you recall, Twitter Nation alleged that Promoted Tweets would be intrusive to users ultimately ruining the social network. Such talk died down pretty quickly when folks realized they could actually profit from these tweets in the form of drastically slashed airline tickets or exclusive retail sales.

If marketers strategically implement Promoted Tweets and @earlybird into their data acquisition and display advertising platforms within client campaigns, they’ll be chirping with the little blue bird all the way to the bank.

Mitch Tuch is the leader and general manager of MediaWhiz’s Data Acquisition team.

Simplicity and user-friendliness are what set Google apart from other search engines. There’s nothing flashy about the homepage. It’s not cluttered with celebrity news, sports scores or trending alerts. It’s a search engine. People find that comforting. Advertisers are rather fond of it, as well, especially when it comes to ad dollars and cents. Mirroring Google Me after the search engine should drive similar results for individual users and those controlling ad spend. Yet, many industry insiders are concerned about Google’s chances of making a dent in Facebook’s stronghold of social media. There is no arguing that in spite of its recent privacy kerfuffle, Facebook remains the social network of choice for individuals, businesses and advertisers. But in the seemingly infinite online space, it’s hard to imagine that anything Google related would have a difficult time catching on.

With the popularity of online song streaming on the rise, music downloads have stalled. Stalled downloads mean diminished returns. The logical next step in streaming is an ad-supported system. The music industry as a whole is still reeling from piracy issues, which threatened to permanently cripple record labels. The emergence of an ad-supported system has prompted some record executives to develop their own ad-supported streaming websites. As the music industry prepares to go digital by necessity, digital marketers and SEO link acquisition teams should collaborate with record executives to ensure they buy relevant ads that will target the right audience. The music industry has lost millions via illegal downloads. The pitch from link acquisition experts should focus on helping record executives sing a happy authority song.

When evaluating an email marketing platform, performance marketers should consider the following – the strength of their opt-in, the overall design and content, whether the SPAM police have issued an APB, the importance of continuous testing and optimization, and perhaps most importantly integration into social media channels. By ensuring the functionality of their email marketing systems, performance marketers will increase the likelihood of driving higher ROIs. Driving those kinds of results will make future holiday traffic jams all the more tolerable.