One man’s “Quality” is another man’s “useless page rank”!

In the complicated and interconnected worlds of SEO and digital PR I find myself increasingly talking about the importance of "quality". However, after a series of déjà vous inducing client meetings I realise what a contentious and subjective term it can be.

From a brand, customer engagement, marketing perspective quality is key to delivering the right content to the right audience and ensuring brands aligning themselves with appropriate partners. But, from a link equity perspective quality relies on Google page rank, deep linking anchor text to the right page and ensuring spiders are able to follow those links. So how can we as an industry ensure we deliver the best "quality" work to clients to create brand buzz and excitement fuelling demand whilst also appearing at the top of the search engine listings to increase visitors to the site? If digital PR is the new SEO, how can we ensure that the right people are defining what constitutes quality?

There is no question that digital PR managed correctly can be a key tool in the link building armoury. Optimised content distributed to sites and syndicated across the web all containing back links can help to provide the crucial "votes of confidence" Google uses to help position web pages in their index. It sounds great and allows brands to deliver improved SERPs as a side effect of distributing engaging content. But the skills and techniques of natural link cultivation should be not forgotten in this wave of enthusiasm and excitement around digital PR. Whilst generic back links to a brand from high "quality" sites which reach the right audience will provide some small degree of improvement in their SERPs, a focused link building campaign on key pages and terms will deliver far greater results from a positional perspective and allow brands to improve positions on key revenue driving pages.

Of course brands should be protective of the environments in which they appear but they must also be pragmatic about the methods required to improve their SERPs. While adopting a holistic approach to all parts of the digital spectrum is crucial, this should not be done to the detriment of the subtleties and specialist knowledge available. Perhaps the solution is the same as any other marketing campaign, setting clear objectives and realistic goals.

As you'll know by now, I preach about the importance of bringing distinct disciplines closer together, to understand the interplay between them and take advantage of the wide and diverse skills within this industry. But to suggest SEO is dead and it's all about the PR seems to be moving the task from one team to another rather than combing skills to deliver results which are fundamentally greater than the sum of the parts.

Google feeling the agency wrath once again

These days Google can't step out of the front door without upsetting someone and it's become somewhat de rigueur for agencies to slag them off left, right and centre despite the fact that a lot of us, myself included, generate some profit from the existence of their services.

As such when the news broke last week that Google are further relaxing their trademark policy in the US you could already here agencies across the land downing spreadsheets and sharpening pitchforks in protest.  In case you missed the screams of anguish the first time around (last year in the UK following a ‘test' in the US), the first stage of Google's evil plan was to allow advertisers to appear against users' searches for trademarked terms they don't own, although the advertising copy itself could only refer to the brand if it was run by the trademark owner or an authorised party.

The result of such a change is that competitors could suddenly appear against each other's results, reducing the cheap brand traffic that paid search advertisers love so whilst competition also forced up the cost of buying clicks due to the auction model Google uses.  Whilst there was an impact the reality is simply that Google's algorithm for paid search, whilst dictates which position advertisers appear in and how much they pay, meant that legitimate advertisers almost always still get to the top spot for a fraction of the cost of a competitor due to increased ‘relevance' - itself a function of copy and proportion of users that click.

The next step in Google's master plan?  To allow advertisers to use whatever trademarks they like in an ad.  Advertiser frustration may seem understandable - advertisers using your trademark now appear more relevant to both Google and the consumer and therefore you end up getting less clicks for more money.  Yet before you go and start collecting rocks to throw at our little search friend it's worth considering a couple of points.

Firstly you can only include a trademark if you have a legitimate justifiable reason, e.g. you offer information on or sell the trademarked product.  Which, it's worth pointing out, pretty much puts Google where Yahoo! have been for years (so they DID get something right obviously, huh?!) and also... Kind of makes sense.  Especially when supplier and affiliate terms will enable brands to police this space themselves anyway.

The second thing to consider is Google's justification.  I'm paraphrasing (see their reasoning in full here), but ultimately their rationale is that you've been able to do it through other media for years.  You run Joe Blogg's car showroom and want to run a press ad telling the world you are now giving away an iPod to your one billionth customer?  Not a problem... Yet on search?  Not on your nelly.  Until now (in the US at least... the UK soon no doubt).

And this is what the complainants overlook - paid search is probably the only form of advertising where the media owner tries to police the advertisements.  If you run an advert that breaks the law on TV then it is your responsibility and sure, if you passed yourself off as another brand you can bet your bottom dollar someone's going to get sued, but it won't be the TV channel.  Google's latest change merely shows the medium is growing up.

Jack of all Trades

Going back a few weeks, I wrote about "who owns social media?" The answer to that particular piece being that social media cannot operate in isolation and to be successful, multiple different skills need to be blended together. To add some more fuel to the fire and to broaden this a little, we've been discussing internally the merits of a specialist digital media agency versus a full service one.

Paid Search became the domain of the specialist agency when a flourish of agencies were set up focusing all of their resources on that particular field, developing expertise as a genuine point of difference while increases in technology took away some of the man-hours to increase efficiency. Media Planning & Buying has existed in its own right in the traditional sense and that has followed in digital with large agencies dominating on the pretence that they can achieve greater buying economies of scale with an increase level of spend.

The disadvantage with specialist agencies comes from the nature of a ‘specialist' - someone who is devoted to a particular occupation. They can be very single-minded due to the expertise and experience that they have in that particular field, however this can lead to them having a narrow and restricted view on advertising and indeed marketing in general. To that end specialist agencies are beginning to broaden their services, such as The Search Works merging with TradeDoubler to offer a more holistic approach. It's also been said a million times before that people consume media differently now than they have in the past therefore surely their behavior requires an approach from the people who connect brands with consumers which mirrors this?

Naturally I'm inclined to believe that a full-service environment, with all disciplines together under the same roof with central co-ordination of these disciplines, is the way forward. This way, full-service agencies can provide independent, agnostic advice on aspects such as the budget allocation between the different disciplines, or advise on the impact that Display actually had on persuading one of their customers to convert online through a different channel.

Moving away from media in isolation, we're seeing digital creative agencies such as AKQA launching their own media divisions to combat the need for digital expertise in all areas under one roof, i.e. Media and Creative. As the IPA's newly inaugurated president, Rory Sutherland recently addressed the challenge of having media planners who do not have experience in dealing with creatives, highlighting the need for a more rounded approach:

"It terrifies me that almost nobody under the age of 35 in a media agency has any experience of working with creative people and vice versa; hence fewer and fewer people understand ... the whole equation of business"

Coming from LBi it would be easy to accuse me of blowing my own trumpet but that would be missing the point. Ultimately co-operation is what is important - we are all better if we are working together.  If a business is able to get a group of specialist agencies working together towards a common goal then that is fantastic, but in practice this rarely happens and it is most achievable within a full service environment, with each party fighting for their share of the budget.

Big fish, little fish

Happy Friday one and all, last week I got a bit carried away with behavioural and forgot to tell you all about my trip to the Festival of Media in Valencia ( thank you Adconion ) 

Sometimes I get a bit of a complex about being the digital geek and having read the attendee list I was humbled ( and to be honest *** scared that I'd be totally out of my depth ) by the list of names speaking over the two days - Dominic Proctor, John Charles Deceaux, Steve King, basically all that is great and good in the world of media. What struck me was that all these big fish kept coming back to 4 main points

1. agency remuneration models - commission doesn't cut it anymore

2. social media - can't afford to do it, can't afford not to

3. value attribution - no one has the measurement model right yet

4. technology - is the future

So as the grand fromages mulled these points I thought about our stance with regard to them. 

1. we rebate all commissions and charge on a time based model with performance related uplift, always have, always will

2. yes you can if you get the above right and also have a bunch of people who manage to live and breathe this stuff even though its not in their job title

3. ok you got me but at least we are no further behind than anyone else

4. gave myself a self satisfied pat on the back as people talking about technology without actually having a tech team ( in our case an 80 strong one ) is a bit like me talking about the virtures of an Alexander McQueen dress without having ever worn one, aspirational and unfounded.

So that is why today is a Happy Friday,  I am not banging the drum and claiming the death of anything non digital however I thoroughly enjoyed the conference as it reinforced my belief in our proposition and I came away feeling not quite shark like but no longer a minnow.

Please behave

A few weeks ago I highlighted the need for both the consumer and the advertising industry to embrace behavioural targeting – in a climate where both consumers and advertisers are becoming increasingly frugal and many want to see more with less it really does have a future.

The challenge to this is that the general perception of behavioural targeting technology is a negative one and there is one party in particular that has done an awful lot in recent months lead to a negative perception of the use of technology in advertising.  Ask most people how they would feel about a TV that only showed them advertising for car insurance at times when they have a car with a policy that was coming up for renewal and they would understandably think this a good thing, yet if you asked if they would opt-in to behaviourally targeting to receive car insurance adverts at a more relevant time there is a good chance they’d walk over hot coals rather than grant permission.

If, ultimately, behavioural targeting is about receiving less ads but them being more relevant why are consumers and the media so against them?  After all, behavioural targeting is obviously good for the advertisers (less ads doing the job of more) yet it is good for the consumer too (less ads and more content) and let’s not forget – the media, who are often quick to judge the technology, do still rely on advertising (and ultimately its effectiveness) in order to pay the bills.

The reason for the resistance is ultimately quite simple.  It comes down to trust.  Consumers can’t be expected to know the specific details for how every single piece of advertising technology works – all they require is some transparency and some honesty.  And it is in the areas of transparency and honesty that advertisers, media owners and third parties succeed or fail.

Of all the news stories within this area none has hung around like a bad smell quite like that of Phorm, which partners with ISPs to provide a level of insight and targeting that doesn’t rely on cookie data and extends beyond the walled garden of sites with advertising on.  In some ways Phorm is no different to any other behavioural targeting technology – the data is anonymous so there are no personal details attached and users can opt-in and out when they want.

So why the problem?  Why the negative press?  Sadly it comes down to a case of once bitten, twice shy.  The legality is still being debated, although many believe there is little doubt that laws were broken, but rather than trialling on users that had opted in Phorm instead ran an initial test of the technology in partnership with BT but without notify or seeking permission from the individuals’ whose behaviour was being tracked.

It’s a mistake that has haunted Phorm since ever since.  I recently saw Phorm present at the Festival of Media and the presentation did a good job of demonstrating the product – unfortunately much of any potential goodwill was undermined by the fact the presenter felt the need to ban all questions.  Behaviour that doesn’t exactly exude confidence.

In response to the criticism Phorm have launched StopPhoulPlay.com, a site which attempts to quash the rumours and speculation by discussing the facts.  It actually puts forward some strong arguments in places but sadly the message gets drowned out by the angry paranoid tone in which the site has been written, and the very fact they feel the need to create a site that responds to the criticism speaks volumes.  The launch of this site has understandably generated negative, not positive, PR and this has been compounded by the recent allegations of collusion between Phorm and the Home Office to the point where many are calling time on the technology provider.

If you play nice then the outcome can be vastly different.  Google recently announced the introduction of behavioural targeting on their massive display network (the UK’s biggest in terms of impressions served).  As is often the case there was some mild initial criticism but this soon died down – the targeting is now live and in use.  The point of difference is that, as part of the press release, Google also announced an area that explains the new targeting to consumers and enables them to manage the data held on their advertising cookie, giving users the ability to not only choose what types of content they are actually interested in but also to opt-out completely if they choose.  It was a first for the industry to give users this level of control and is likely to be a sign of things to come if technology providers and publishers want to avoid the controversy that dogs Phorm.