Retargeting is an advertising technique used to encourage those who have visited a website without converting, to return to that site and convert. This is done by placing a cookie in a consumer’s web browser when they visit the site.  The advertiser can then retarget that user with relevant display ads on other participating websites when the consumer visits them.

There’s been a lot of talk about mobile. For once, even that amount of talk isn’t “too much talk” – it’s not enough. At current growth rates, smartphones and tablets will account for over 25% of click traffic by the end of 2012. That’s four Yahoo and Bings combined. And growing. Yes, soon the majority of internet use will be via mobile.

But there’s more – those growth rates will accelerate with more killer apps and Android pricing.Consider as well the launch of 4G networks in 2013 offering mobile connection speeds that are the same as ADSL broadband.

An Ofcom report highlighted that 27% of all UK adults and 47% of teenagers now own a smartphone, with 59% having purchased their first smartphone within the past year.

The phones aren’t just being used for non-revenue social networking and email either. Ben Wightman here at Latitude analysed terabytes of our client traffic for our new Mobile Report to find that smartphones are responsible for 9% of all paid clicks in December 2011, with 4.4% coming via tablets.

So, what to do? The first, most essential point is that if you don’t have a mobile-optimised website, get one. There is no option of giving mobile visitors the poor experience of having to pinch, zoom and scroll in order to read a desktop site on the smaller screen. An IAB study revealed that if a retailer’s website didn’t work on their mobile, 20% of customers would buy from a competitor’s mobile site instead, 8% wouldn’t bother and 2% replied “other”. That’s a 30% loss of mobile-driven business. So, it’s an arbitrage, there’s a mini-gold rush on and it won’t last. If you are an incumbent, time to defend. If you are a challenger – get in and steal share while you can.

Second, mobile is the real bridge between offline and online – it’s in your hand, by definition. Trends such as multi-screening, where smartphone and tablet users use their mobile while watching TV and the popularity of users discovering and engaging with the physical world around them using social networks mean that the connection between on- and offline is ubiquitous.

If you are running a TV ad campaign, make sure your online presence is set up to capture the immediate web traffic you will generate. Ensure PPC campaigns are adequately funded, and are targeting mobile devices. Change mobile ad creative to reflect the TV messaging. Update your mobile landing pages to be consistent with your TV ad and to give visitors a rewarding experience. And don’t forget to include social features so your new visitors can easily share with their friends.

Finally, if you operate both physical and online services, make sure the two are linked and that the messaging is consistent. Right now, consumers are likely walking into your business location with your website in their pocket. Capitalise on this – first, give visitors to your mobile site a reason to visit your store. Be creative and stand out; web vouchers for in-store discounts are easy, but can you find other ways to engage your mobile visitors in the real world?

January is often a time for reflection. Now is the time to reflect on your mobile strategy. Forget the year of the Dragon, in 2012 – re-tool for mobile.

“Latitude’s approach to digital marketing is innovative and challenging the status quo, which echoes what we’re doing in the craft beer industry”, said BrewDog co-founder James Watt. ”We’ve gone through a period of huge growth in the last 12 months and I’m positive that partnering with Latitude will help us reach even more customers looking to drink quality beer. We are already seeing fantastic results after going live with the campaign last month.”

Alex Hoye, CEO for Latitude, added:

“We are extremely excited to be working with BrewDog. Not only do they brew fantastic beer, they are also true pioneers in their industry. Latitude will be using our expertise in cutting-edge digital marketing to establish a strong brand presence whilst also ensuring and growing incremental product specific, long tail and generic campaign focus.”

According to Internet World Statistics, there are around 2 billion people who are “internet users”.  That’s a little bit less than 1 in 3 people world wide, and of them, around 40% (800 million) have Facebook profiles.  That’s significant.  back in August 2010, Eric Schmidt said that we create as much information in 2 days as we had for the whole of human history up to 2003.  The change in pace of information creation?  User generated content via social media.

We’ve reached a point where conversational content now dominates the web, and this can’t be ignored.  Last year, Google made it their stated aim to add a social layer to all of their products.  This included greater individualisation of search results and the launch of Google+.

Search Your World

This week, we’ve seen the launch of Google Search Plus Your World, which takes personalisation further.  We’ve had social media items incorporated into natural search for a while, with information about who shared what, but the new update takes this much further, to the point where it is quantified.

The current annotated social results include information about who shared what and liked items to give us insight into what content from the wider web our connections are interested in:

Search Plus Your World gives you much more; telling you how many social results you have, which results are from within your community, and who shared what.  They also include more content actually from social networks, with a prominence for Google+:

Number of Social Results

Social Images

Google Plus Link

Results from within my circle (shown using the little blue man) represent 4 out of 10 of the results for “Latitude”, and 3 out of 10 results for “SEO”.

There has been criticism of this.  EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center [sic]) complained that the inclusion of social results was an invasion of privacy, and Twitter/Facebook expressed disappointment that their content wasn’t well represented.  I’m not certain that either complaint is particularly valid – any social content that I’ve shared is avaialble for my circles to see anyway, and content from Twitter and Facebook is indexed in Google.

The big question is what this means for businesses.

Well, for a start, it means that simple SEO is no longer enough to sustain visibility and get traffic.  Companies who only look at the journey up to the click will start to suffer.  Those which invest also in the post click experience of their customers will benefit more.  Businesses that engage meaningfully with their customers and encourage and embrace feedback and conversation to build their relationships will benefit because their social investment will be reflected in the number of people who share their content and see it prominently within the search results.

Businesses that have a strong community of customers around them who are willing to provide word of mouth recommendations to their own social networks will benefit.

I wrote earlier that there are 2 billion people online around the world, and technology has caught up with that number.  The ability to match genuine interest communities and quantify those relationships means that it is possible to add conversation anywhere and for real recommendations to support the decision making process that people have online.

We’ve talked for a long time about the importance of brands online, and Google have been vocal in their use of trust metrics to provide customers with a better experience.  This change is about empowering communities to support each other, and about users getting a better experience from the companies they work with.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

Alfred North Whitehead

We are social beings, and base our choices on our relationships and who we are.  Adding a conversational layer to search changes it from a useful tool into an expression of who we are.  If conversation is our natural state, then social search is natural search.

“It’s no longer a case of separating online marketing from offline, but thinking about them as one”, commented Alex Hoye, CEO of Latitude Digital Marketing. “Economic pressure, technological acceleration and immense consumer adoption have forever changed the dialogue between brands, their products and buyers, evolving it in unexpected ways. What we have done with ‘Integrating Online and Offline Worlds’ is bring together a snapshot of all of these developments under one cover.”

Paul Kennedy, Head of Consulting at Callcredit Information Group added:” The incredible technological advancements we have seen in 2011 are surely only the beginning for what’s to come in 2012. Mobile, Facebook and Twitter to mention only a few channels, are evolving at tremendous speed and the sooner an integrated approach to marketing is in place, the more organisations will benefit from a competitive edge.”

You can view the book here.

So with the above in mind, it was nice to attend the Google@Manchester event earlier this month and have our cutting edge bite confirmed by Google, who talked about these growth areas as key to the future (with a multitude of latest stats to illustrate the points, which I’ll mention in this post). I was also left with no doubt that social media’s significance in search is here to stay. And Google will put all its might into making sure that happens with G+.

The event played host to around 250 attendees from the world of search, mainly consisting of digital agencies and corporations, and was led by Dominic Allon, Google’s Director of Agency Sales. It was most enjoyable as a variety of presentations took place, ranging from a live Hangout with the G+ Crew over at Mountain View, an interactive digitally-themed Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in which everyone took part by holding up the answer cards A-D until the winner won a tablet, to a live walk through Google’s new OS ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ (Android 4.0) and a live Discussion Panel on Connected TV.

To neatly summarise their mindset, Google quoted that their vision lies with ‘SoLoMoCo’ – Social, Local, Mobile, and Commerce. Incidentally, searching this reveals a Parisian based Internet Company who specialise in these 4 areas – I don’t want to get into who originally spawned the idea, but this was the first time I’d heard Google use it (although they’d used ‘SoLoMo’ previously). Essentially though, Google insinuated that using the first three could help Commerce.

The first half of the agenda included a brief focus on ‘the good news story’ that the Internet is, presented by Mark Howe. It accounts for 7-8% UK GDP and grows inexorably while the economy around it flounders. The other main themes were Mobile and The Video Revolution. Some interesting facts on these:

• 1 in 3 mobile searches have local intent
• CTR on mobile banners: Apple gets double the CTR Android does and users are twice as likely to click on a banner at 7pm over 7am (not too surprising really!)
• Only 17% of UK businesses have a mobile site, yet a FAR high % of shoppers use their Smartphone on the high street (up to 68%).
• There are 800m YouTube users. That’s about the same as Facebook. A quarter of those use it daily.
• There are 10-12 YouTube clips watched each month for every person on the planet.
• 10-20% UK and US YouTube bandwidth is mobile.
• The video ad Quality Score is influenced by skip rate. “Good videos pay less”, say YouTube.
• YouTube is massive compared to its nearest rivals in terms of watched content, iPlayer and 4OD, but stressed it’s not a competitor to these TV broadcasters: it’s a distribution platform, not a content creator.

Moving on to the second half of the agenda, Hanging Out With The G+ Crew was one of the most memorable elements of the event. As with many features of the afternoon, things were demonstrated live on the web. So to demonstrate G+’s free business-attracting Video Conferencing USP, the Hangout feature, a 20 min session was held with Product Director, Dennis Troper, who was having his coffee and bagels in Mountain View. This was a hard push of the new social network, which is the fastest growing of all time with around 50million users already. An exceptional start, yes, but now the real challenge arises in stopping that growth from plateauing.  With Google owning 90% market share of search in most developed economies & using this might to push G+ by its future influence on search results, businesses are then forced to take it seriously. To illustrate this, Google mentioned that 94 of the top 100 US companies were already on G+ and also, through expansion of +1 button availability (now on GDN ads for example), there are around 5billion +1 buttons served each day.

The primary purpose of having G+ integrated with search is of course relevancy. Relevancy to the user involves personalisation. If I see my friend has clicked on a search result, I’m going to check it out too , rendering that result’s position less important – it could be #8 and normally I’d have checked out the top 3 first. This is one of the many points that Dr. Patrick Dixon mentioned in his superb talk entitled Bringing It All Together: A Look Into The Future. This was my favourite part of the afternoon because it took a step back from the finer details of Ice Cream Sandwich or however many hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and looked at marketing in general from a more scientific viewpoint. How it affects us lies with emotion. Marketing is nothing if it doesn’t ‘touch’ people’s emotions. Always been the case and always will be. So this is another reason for Google personalising search. The individual user wants to see search results that are served uniquely for them and Google wants to provide that. This leaves the middleman (corporations focused on getting as many visits to their site as possible) with slightly less control over the search results than before as rankings will now differ for each user… to an extent. What do corporations do about this? They make sure they engage with their customers via G+ and other social media. And why did Google invite Dr. Patrick Dixon to state this at an event full of these ‘middlemen’? Because they probably share his sentiment.

The last area definitely worth a mention was Shane Cassells’ Full Value of Search presentation. He delivered an inspiring speech that any data driven conversion analyst would have loved. But in actual fact, the messages conveyed here touched on common sense more than anything. One fundamental issue widespread in this industry is attribution: 90% of PPC conversions are still attributed to the last click, whereas over 50% of conversions in reality involve multiple clicks. Much like a football team scoring, the assist provider sometimes deserves equal or more credit than the goal scorer. Therefore, getting the full value of search means advertisers should fully understand conversion paths to their products to make the best-informed marketing decisions.

Another major point Shane discussed was ROPO, or ‘Research Online, Purchase Offline’. This is a reality in many sectors, particularly retail, where the detective work is done online in prep for a more efficient shopping errand resulting in the equivalent last-click, provided the item feels right and still connect emotively of course! Some 40% of consumers do this. To understand the full value of search once again, the challenge for this industry lies with creating the best on- and offline attribution model possible, where the hitherto unsung heroes in the upper echelons of a sometimes complex buying process are promptly rewarded. Google’s made inroads into this with GA Multi-Channel Funnels and recent telephone metrics added to Adwords to better understand the PPC call quality. Some affiliates such as Quidco and Vouchercloud are all over providing for the online/offline relationship, but need retailer cooperation to implement properly.

The final point I’ll mention from this great presentation is a very simple one: equal effort should be put into advertising and the actual website itself. Too often the former’s favoured more than the latter. Somewhat minor tweaks to a webpage such as enlarging a button or adding a price-driven message can have massive effects on overall conversions. The message here then is to evolve the website through testing different things more frequently, just as different advertising strategies are continually being contemplated and implemented.

A Beautiful Site, We're Happy Tonight, Shopping in a Mobile Wonderland...

There are approximately 11 million smartphone users in the UK and over 15% of these are expected to browse retail sites over the forthcoming Christmas period.

According to Global Mobile Statistics 2011 from MobiThinking, 1 in 7 searches are now conducted by mobile. This makes sense; our phones are readily available to us, conducting a search takes a matter of seconds so it’s easy to see why around 50% of mobile searches lead to purchase.

More and more retailers are realising the potential that a mobile compatible site can bring, but for those who are yet to ‘see the light’, the recently launched GOMO by Google shows retailers how their current site would look as a mobile friendly site.

In a survey carried out by Limelight Networks, users highlighted the following as the three key factors that retailers should take into account when setting up a mobile site:

1. 88% said the time it takes for the site to load or appear on the screen as extremely important or important
2. 88% said detailed product images on the site as extremely important or important
3. 82% said mobile site optimisation, such as removing the need to side-scroll, as extremely important or important.

Should these three factors be absent from the user’s experience, mobile retailers can expect to see a rise in the number of abandoned searches and baskets where users will instead turn to competitors to complete a mobile transaction. As obvious as this may be, a fully transactional mobile site should also be simple to use. A quarter of UK consumers who shopped online last Christmas experienced problems, highlighting the need for mobile sites to be even simpler to use in order to ensure customer loyalty.

In this busy period, customers want to be able to shop when and where they want, whether on the commute, in their lunch break, or in the evening after seeing a product advertised on TV. Retailers need to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Boots, New Look and Argos and bring an easy, enjoyable Christmas shopping experience to their customers in the form of mobile.

The Econsultancy Innovation Awards are a global celebration of groundbreaking innovation and success within the digital marketing industry. Latitude, who has recently acquired a string of accounts including Klick Fitness and Governor Money, is proud to be selected as an award finalist and recognised as a pioneer of new ideas in the digital field.

“Being nominated for this award reflects the incredible results in multichannel marketing that Latitude has achieved over the past year” Alex Hoye, CEO of Latitude, commented. “We are reaching our 6^th year with Anglian Home Improvements and they continue to work with us because we consistently strive to stay ahead of the curve and deliver cutting-edge, innovative solutions during a time of fierce competition. We are excited to be a finalist and look forward to mingling with the industry’s most innovative thinkers.”

The winners will be announced by Econsultancy at the Award Ceremony in February 2012, held at the Hilton Park Lane Hotel.

Due to having a close relationship with Facebook, Latitude are able to put a little more ‘meat on the bones’ to this story to give a clearer understanding of where things are heading for Facebook and the Gambling market.

It is true that Facebook have been holding conversations regarding this topic, however there is still no defined path forward. Facebook are still looking to recruit suitable personnel in this area in order to facilitate any changes or direction they decide to take. More significantly, what has already evolved during the last couple of months is what Gambling companies can already do with Facebook. Companies are already able to run CPC and CPM campaigns to attract new users through the various platforms – marketplace, sponsored stories etc. They can also launch applications on the platform whilst linking these to real money sites. What is important to note is that this can only happen if they have signoff from Facebook Legal, which is something bookmakers and gaming companies need to pay for.

According to Facebook, there isn’t currently a “new deal” being worked on, but just them investing time and effort into work closely with these leading businesses on adding value to their propositions.Although this is the line taken by Facebook and I may merely just be passing on the message that they have been asked to portray, I am sure there are grey areas within this discussion. What I would prompt any agencies or bookmakers to ensure is that they remain close to Facebook and invest in them to ensure they keep up-to-date with Facebook’s developments – and front of mind for Facebook Gambling changes.

On a final note, the Independent wrote an excellent review of Mark Zuckerberg:Inside Facebook programme that premiered on BBC2 on Sunday 4th of December. It pointed out several interesting observations and also mentioned my favourite part of the programme  - when Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s Vice President of Communications and Public Policy,  says “lets pause” when asked about sponsored story advertising. This has to call into question exactly how true the EGR suggestions are versus the word from Facebook themselves.

The first panel session focused on in-play betting (with the likes of bet365 leading the way) and the need for it to be catered for within the various sporting events. In my opinion this offers a huge opportunity to create WiFi portals that can be promoted and hosted inside the venues, allowing easy access for mobile users wanting to engage in the in-play betting arena. It offers further advertising revenue opportunities for the venues and therefore scope for Gaming companies to ensure they capture these customers wanting to place a bet during the game. Granted there is a lot to be considered in implementing this, but many on the panel suggested there should be movement on this in the coming month.

The second session of the day looked at the influence of technology (and more specifically mobile and social media) on the Sports and iGaming market. Panel members Oisin Lunny, Aideen Shortt, Zico Moro and myself discussed the need for brands to realise the importance of not only current “normal” advertising and sponsorship platforms, but also those emerging ‘touchpoints’ that include deeper delves into mobile marketing and technology, also looking at the growth of the tablet market and getting social media right.

The key takeaway point is build on the importance of utilising technology effectively when looking at ensuring a brand’s growth plan for 2012 and deliver successful customer acquisition and also retention. Aideen Shortt’s excellent insights during her presentation and panel co-ordination enabled people to take learnings from, not only the size of this market, but also the requirements for businesses in 2012 in ensuring they are successful.

The rest of the day provided further insights into the changing nature of Poker network offerings, from MicroGaming to demographic information from ComScore on people accessing gambling related sites (with a high 42% female split- obviously very much bingo led).

Paddy Power then took to the stage speaking about the company’s successful approach to brand building, advertising and sponsorship. Paddy Power’s key to success has been their heavy focus on edgy PR to the point of being fairly controversial, as demonstrated by the campaign designed to promote their website launch. The campaign was based on the tagline “there’s a time and a place for fun and games” with a picture of the last supper and Paddy Power’s URL below it, indicating that the time and the place was not at the last supper but at Paddy Power’s online site. This was one of the campaigns that not only gave Paddy Power a lot of press but also ensured the brand cut through within a very competitive market.

Paddy Power did also label their focus on technology as being the key to their success and hinted it will continue to be a cornerstone in their progression during 2012 as they look to remain at the cutting edge of this advancing digital age.

Although this was a great insight into Paddy Power and their focus target audience of the “bloke in the pub watching the footy with their mates”, I was left wondering how Paddy Power’s cheeky and fun image works with targeting the wealthier punter with the higher lifetime value. This is an interesting question and one I will be sure to try and get across to him or his team when I see them next.

In summary some key takeaway points from the day included:

• The growth of in-play betting (with the likes of bet365 leading the way here) needs to be catered for within the various sporting events (from Cheltenham to various football grounds), through stronger WiFi connectivity.
• Paddy Power advising it isn’t just traditional sponsorship but strong, edgy and fun PR that enables a brand to be successful.
• Mike Shaw (of comScore) advised
  • The UK is one of the leading digital sports markets in the world.
  • Don’t ignore the female population (when 42% of those engaging in online gambling sites are females).
  • Ensure social media engagement is part of your 2012 strategy (the power of the Like is significant).
• Neil Fairweather , @oisinlunny , @aideenshortt and Zico Moro advised
  • 12% of search traffic for online gaming companies is coming through mobile devices (and 3% of this is already coming through tablets since launching in 2010) – Latitude statistics.
  • You should be tailoring your digital strategy to mobile devices & tablets to ensure they are split out and you have functionality (from services such as dotmobi) to recognise these users coming through to your site
  • Remember that over 50% still don’t have smartphones (as noted by Oisin), so ensure sponsorship and advertising still integrates systems such as enticing shortcodes to deliver impact
  • Google+ will now add value to all and has to be considered for 2012- Google is monitoring social signals within its algorithm and one of the key opportunities to ensure they are being recognised by Google is to ensure you have a business page on Google+

All in all, the day was a great opportunity for networking and discovery for one of the most advanced sectors around (alongside retail). The day gave us all an understanding of what’s happened in 2011 and what is to come in 2012.

I am sure 2012 will bring even more advancement in the mobile market but my key suggestions are that you should be ensuring Tablet growth is NOT ignored in 2012, and that Social Media does have a value.