Wordstream, a firm specializing in PPC services and SEM software, has concluded that the top industries contributing most significantly to Google’s $37.9 billion in revenue over 2011 were Finanace & Insurance, Travel & Tourism, and Retails & General Merchandise.
Google’s 2011 earnings were a disappointment to investors as projected revenue fell $300 million short of expectations. Even with profit growth improving from $2.52 to $2.71 billion in Q4 2011, stocks dropped 10% overnight.
As much as 96% of Google’s $37.9 billion in annual revenue was the result of advertising. Wordstream began an initiative to report on the industries that have contributed to Google’s $37.9 billion in 2011 revenue. Below is an infographic that shows the results of their research, but the full report may be of interest, as well.
Wordstream also offered estimated data across keywords and costs-per-click, using their keyword database that runs trillions deep, Google’s Keyword Tool searching for the 10 million most popular keywords in 2011, and the average cost-per-click (CPC) data by keyword.
2011’s Top 5 Industries With The Largest Google Ad Spend
- Finance & Insurance: $4.0 billion
- Retailers & General Merchandise: $2.8 billion
- Travel & Tourism: $2.4 billion
- Jobs & Education: $2.2 billion
- Home & Garden: $2.1 billion
According to Wordstream, the top 10 ad spending industries accounted for 60% of Google’s annual advertising revenue.
The highest spending advertiser on Google in 2011 was Lowe’s, spending $59.1 million for the year. Amazon was a near second, spending an estimated $55.2 million with Google. Home Depot made it into the top 3, spending $50.3 million on Google advertising.
Google doesn’t share company and industry advertising revenue or performance data with the public, which leaves analysts to make projections and estimates through available information. We may not know the exact performance numbers and the level of accuracy, but it’s certainly fun to look at!
Facebook remains a dominant force when it comes to social media marketing, but Twitter is closing the gap, according to a recent return-on-investment survey. Using over 700 marketers, the survey was conducted by Wildfire Interactive, a social media management platform.
Facebook lead the pack with 94% of respondents using the network for their social media marketing strategies, however Twitter wasn’t far behind at 74%. There were other options available, but the results didn’t come close to the two power social networks.
The other choices for marketing were as follows:
- Blogs & Content: 41%
- LinkedIn: 32%
- YouTube: 30%
- Other: 6%
Wildfire has also reported that nearly 70% of marketers found Facebook fans to be more valuable than non-fans, the top three reasons being:
- New customer recruitment: 44%
- Higher conversion rates: 18%
- More frequent purchases: 18%
Can Twitter ever close the gap on Facebook to take the crown as the social media marketing network of choice?
Thursday, January 19th, 2012 04:59 am GMT +00:00 in Internet Marketing by Marketaire
Enter the connected consumer. This person more than likely owns a tablet and a smartphone and thanks to Facebook, is constantly connected to friends. One in three consumers is projected to buy a tablet by 2014. Today, over 60% of people 25-34 years of age own a smartphone. We are becoming more connected. A survey by Zmags takes a look at the connected consumer and how they spend their time in the digital world.
As mobile continues to advance, so do web applications and mobile versions of websites. It’s interesting to note that only 4% of these consumers download and use branded applications. In fact, 87% prefer to use mobile and regular websites. This is fantastic news for the “tablet commerce revolution”, which suggests that tablet users are also using tablet-optimized websites such as Amazon.com. These connected consumers are not a Gen-Y, however. She is a 40-something year old woman.
The survey also looks at Facebook and labels it as an untapped opportunity. Even though many connected consumers are also connected on Facebook, more than 75%, Facebook is and won’t become a mall. While shopping on an eCommerce site, 50% of consumers are also logged into Facebook, and 40% engage with brands’ fan pages, however this doesn’t imply that they’ll turn to Facebook for online purchases.
The survey found that most consumers preferred to shop using a smartphone or via a tablet from the comfort of their couch. 87% of consumers are also using PCs and laptops to browse, research and purchase.
The survey also took a look at connected consumer demographics, 52% of which are women with an average age of 40 and an approximate annual income of $63,000. More than 16% of connected consumers own a tablet, and 43% own smartphones. For eCommerce the connected consumer prefers to use a PC/laptop to visit a website to shop, not a smartphone app.
The Zmags survey was done with a relatively small sample of people, 1500 in the US. There is no mention of location, race, gender, or age.
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 04:48 am GMT +00:00 in Internet Marketing by Marketaire
Do you want a job that’s in high demand and will likely stay that way for the next 5 years? You may not have considered becoming a Data Scientist before now, but the conclusion of IT service company EMC’s recent survey is showing that this position is in very high demand.
According to 63% data scientists, it’s projected that the profession will be undermanned within the foreseeable future – half of that group viewing it as a serious shortage. As the “physical Internet” continues to expand, there has been explosive growth of the use of sensors, which will provide companies with an extraordinary wealth of data.
Gathering data is the easy part, the difficulty lies with transforming that raw data into something useful. In fact, only 1/3 participants in the study were confident that their company has the ability to make strategic business decisions based on new data.
“Data is the new oil,” said Andrea Weigend, Stanford’s Head of the Social Data Lab, also the former Chief Scientist at Amazon. Unfortunately for the majority of companies, technology is evolving faster than the workforce’s ability and skills to make sense of it, and organizations across all sectors need to adapt quickly to the new reality or perish.
The explosion in digital data, bandwidth and processing power – combined with new tools for analyzing the data – has sparked massive interest in the emerging field of data science. Organizations of all sizes are turning to people who are capable of translating this trove of data – created by mobile sensors, social media, surveillance, medical imaging, smart grids and the like – into predictive insights that lead to business value. Despite the growing opportunity, demand for data scientists has outpaced supply of talent, and will for the next five years.
Who are data science practitioners, what skills do they need, and why are they so different?
The rest of the survey data is in the infographic below. Are you in the Web or IT industry? Is this a career you can see yourself pursuing?
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 04:39 am GMT +00:00 in Internet Marketing by Marketaire
The Zen of Steve Jobs is a comic book that follows the life of Steve Jobs during the time he was fired from Apple, revolving around his friendship with Kobun Chino, a Japanese Buddhist monk who was also Steve’s spiritual guru.
The Zen of Steve Jobs is an 80-page comic book containing a mixture of both fact and fiction, unlike the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
The project was created by Jesse Thomas, JESS3 CEO and Founder. When Jesse was young he had an idea of making a comic book with a technology-theme, Steve Jobs being an obvious protagonist. In 2011, Jesse pitched his idea to Bruce Upbin, Forbes Managing Editor, who immediately had an appreciation for Jesse’s vision. Shortly afterwards production began as a collaboration between JESS3 and Forbes.
The comic is available on Amazon in paperback form; however the digital edition is only available for the Kindle Fire.
Check out the video below for a closer look behind the project. Images below that will give you a glimpse into the comic itself.
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 04:11 am GMT +00:00 in Internet Marketing by Marketaire
Daily deals site TIPPR has created an infographic summarizing the activity of consumers on the daily deal space during the 2011 holiday season. The past season people certainly took online shopping more seriously, not only for the convenience, but for the online deals.
Projections for activity in the daily deal space over the holidays were anywhere from $80-100 million between Thanksgiving and Christmas. 90% of holiday shoppers had said they were likely to purchase a daily deal over the time period, and 87% said they were more likely to purchase when recommended by a friend.
TIPPR put together the inforgraphic below using data from their network containing more than 1,000 affiliate deal sites, including stocking stuffers, most popular categories, and shopping trends to illustrate how consumers shopped.
Some stats worth mentioning:
- 90% of shoppers had the intention of giving a deal as a gift in the 2011 season.
- 29% of TIPPR users shared a deal with friends on Facebook.
- As an average, consumers frequented daily deals sites 10 times per month, checking email offers 17 times per month.
Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 03:56 pm GMT +00:00 in Internet Marketing by Marketaire
There’s always a lot of talk about the war between Google and Apple from a technology perspective, but there is a very powerful third competitor that can’t be overlooked: Amazon. The infographic below illustrates the large part that Amazon plays in the technology wars.
Forget about Google vs. Apple or Google vs. Bing, even Microsoft vs. Apple. There are a lot of big players, especially when it comes to tech, and each have the big names like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Google.
You may have forgotten about Amazon, they don’t receive a lot of media attention compared to more popular companies listed above, but Amazon is one of the few companies that have the ability to compete with Google’s massive computing power. In reality, Amazon is presently competing with Apple, Google and many well known tech companies in many key areas of online media. While Google has their Google Docs for storage and Apple has iCloud, Amazon has developed the Cloud Drive. While Google created Android tablets and Apple created the iPad, Amazon created the Kindle Fire. When it comes to Amazon vs. Google, the tech list goes on: Google Music is a direct competitor to Amazon MP3, Google Checkout is up against Amazon Checkout, and YouTube is within the same territory as Amazon Unbox.
CPC Strategy has created an infographic that looks at the markets Amazon is competing in with Apple, Google, and many other technology companies. They’ve also included a brief analysis of how Amazon could potentially win.
Do you think Amazon has a chance of remaining a competitor? Are they trying to extend their reach too far, resulting in an ambitious, broad approach? Do they have a chance of competing with Microsoft, Google, and Apple in additional territories by creating leverage through their current resources? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
Well friends, we have a Christmas gift for those looking to do a little extra citation building this season! BrightLocal has curated a list of the top 50 citation sources for businesses in both the US and UK.
Over 1 Million Local Citation Sources Found
BrightLocal launched a massive citation analysis project between the months of March and May this year.
The analysis targeted more than 480,000 Google Places listings and were segmented across 40 separate industries and 100 locations. This citation information was then pulled into a database of more than 1.1 million separate citation sources.
The massive list was then filtered for quality, removing junk brand and business sites, resulting in a refined list of 15,000 quality citation sources.
Some of these sites have very powerful citation opportunities and are spread throughout Google’s citation index as a result.
For reference, back in June 2011 Google made the decision to remove citation content from Google Places listings, resulting in the information being hidden from public view.
Citations Are Essential For Effective Google Places Ranking
Make no mistake, even though citation domains are no longer visible in Google Places listings, they remain an integral part in local SEO ranking. Take a look at the chart below that illustrates the top 5 ranking factors from David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors survey.
The Significance of Citations
The 4th most important local SEO ranking factor is considered to be the Quantity of Citations.
The two tables below list the top 50 citation sources for US and UK targeting. Google removed citation data before data could be gathered for additional countries.
The Frequency Count is the number of times the domain was found on 480,000 Google Places listings analyzed. Many domains were found multiple times per Google Places listing.
Top 50 US Citation Sources
Top 50 UK Citation Sources
For convenience, click here to download a full Excel copy of the citations sources listed above.
3 Helpful Tools To Assist With Citation Building
Merry Christmas everyone!
Sunday, December 18th, 2011 12:29 am GMT +00:00 in Internet Marketing by Marketaire
Everyone knows the Twelve Days of Christmas song. Many different products and brands have put their own spin on these twelve days of gifts throughout the years, but no gift is better than free advice. Internet marketers and Search and Social people have published helpful holiday lists on their own, but what about a “Twelve Days of Twelve Days of Internet Marketing” list?
SEJ has come up with a list of twelve of the best “12 Days of Internet Marketing” posts from the past few years. Using the tips outlined in these articles, your company’s online efforts are sure to be merry and bright.
Thursday, December 1st, 2011 12:52 am GMT +00:00 in Internet Marketing by Marketaire
Recent data released from PayPal shows an increase of 516% for mobile purchases on Black Friday 2011. Shopping time was busiest this year for mobile payments between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM PT. The data is also showing that Black Friday mobile payment transactions were up 148% when compared against a typical Friday. This year alone we’ve seen a 371% increase in the number of people who choose to shop from their mobile devices. Top cities for mobile purchasing include Chicago, Miami, Houston, New York, and Los Angeles.
Compared to 2010, mobile payments during Thanksgiving (US) and 11:00AM PT on Black Friday have increased 516%. PayPal had predicted an increase in people that would choose to engage in online shopping from mobile devices or tablets, which is commonly referred to as “couch commerce.”
PayPal also predicted a surge in mobile payments this holiday season. When PayPal surveyed both tablet and smartphone users,46% said that they planned to make holiday purchases through mobile devices, and more than 60% of mobile buyers would purchase from the comfort of their homes.
Have you shopped from your mobile device or tablet? Would you?
