Whilst many online retail sites concentrate on usability in their drive to improve the online customer experience for consumers, thereby increasing conversions, Littlewoods owner, Shop Direct Group, are taking a somewhat different approach.

Four of Google’s leading executives are to benefit from a shared bonus payout of $15m in recognition of their performance in the business during 2012.<br /> The largest sum of $6m is to go to the Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt. The remainder of the considerable amount of cash will be shared between Google’s chief business officer, the financial chief of the company and its lawyer.<br /> The co-founders of Google will not benefit from the award. That will not bother them unduly as their combined stock holdings are now worth billions of dollars. Sergey Brin and Larry Page usually take only a single dollar in payment each year since Google came to the market in 2004.<br /> The announcement about the bonuses was made at the same time that Google agreed to settle a fine of $7m in the United States. The penalty was levied for its alleged unauthorized collection of personal data in connection with the Street View feature.<br /> The search engine giant has also agreed to delete all the data that it collected and to increase training for staff to avoid a recurrence. An advertising campaign is also to be introduced by Google to inform internet users how best to secure their information when using wireless networks.<br />

When using Google to search for a product or company you will be presented with a variety of types of result; organic results at the bottom of the page, and then ads at the top and the side, and perhaps something labelled “sponsored” somewhere in between. Some new research has indicated that few users are actually aware of the distinctions between the types of result displayed. </p> <p>Users click on paid-for ads without realising what they are</p> <p>The research, conducted by the customer experience firm Bunnyfoot, suggested that around 40% of users may not be aware that AdWords are actually paid for, instead thinking them to be the more useful natural results. The study came about as a result of research conducted for an online insurance client, during which it was noticed that 81% of users were clicking on AdWords listings. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that 41% of users did not realise they were clicking on paid ads.</p> <p>Results likely to be different in many other industries</p> <p>The research is at odds with other statistics from Group M, which suggested that most clicks are on organic search results; however, as Bunnyfoot say, their research looked just at car insurance results whereas Group M looked across a much wider range of industries. </p> <p>Car insurance is a very competitive AdWords market, with all major brands using them, so the AdWords results present known names to users at the top of the screen. This is unlikely to be the case for all verticals. However, in highly competitive and very branded markets, it’s probably best to market on the assumption that a considerable minority of users are happily clicking on ads without even realising that the advertiser is paying handsomely to be there.<br />

Almost since Facebook was launched, brands have been measuring the success of their social media strategies by how many “likes” they have garnered, and how quickly they managed to attract a substantial number.</p> <p>Current measures unhelpful </p> <p>The problems with this measurement of success is that it tells the brand essentially nothing, other than that it managed to attract someone at some point to click on a small “like” button. It tells them little about why the user clicked, and nothing about their ongoing engagement with the brand; how many of us have brands we “liked” at some point that we have never engaged with since?</p> <p>One of the major topics of discussion at the recently held Social Media Week in New York has been the thorny subject of how to move past the cult of the “like”, and how to start really figuring out how brand content and activities in social media affect consumers. Brands need to start segmenting their fans and targeting them according to their behaviours, reengaging with fans that have gone dormant, and exciting those already interested. Including an advocate’s own content in your content streams, for example, is one way to reinforce engagement and encourage advertising simply by word of mouth. </p> <p>Nokia tracking measureable results</p> <p>One brand that has embraced social media wholeheartedly is Nokia. Its strategy includes involving offline activities, which gives concrete measurability in terms of usage (in their case, of physical vending machines), and putting consumer reviews centre stage on the homepage. This move increased progression to product pages by 35% - showing that concrete measures are possible; using some lateral thinking is essential.<br />

Shares in the originator of the EHow website, Demand Media Inc., rose by 24% on the news that the business is planning to separate its domain-registration (ENom.com) and its content arms to form two public companies. </p> <p>The company’s plans obviously met with the approval of the market as during trading in New York the shares rose to a high of $9.75 before finally closing at a figure of $7.84. Since the turn of the year the share path has been a downward one, with Demand Media seeing a drop of 16% in the value of its shares so far in 2013.</p> <p>The board announced that the move would not only provide investors with greater clarity but would also allow the two new businesses to grow steadily. Demand Media, based in Santa Monica, will now be seeking the help of advisers from outside the organisation to ensure that the business is split in the most effective way. This will be quite a complex procedure and much planning will be needed to ensure a smooth transition.</p> <p>Demand Media, through its EHow website, provides video and articles on a wide range of topics. These range through the latest activities of world celebrities to personal finance advice. The company also runs Cracked.com a popular US comedy site.</p> <p>The company’s net income in the fourth quarter of 2012 was $4.7 million. Revenue rose by 22% to $103.1 million.<br />

The market’s confidence that Google will push on to even greater profits caused the stock price to finally break through the $800 (£518) barrier.</p> <p>Google’s shares reached a $700 level five years ago but then retreated after the recession hit in 2007. A steady climb since has led to this latest value milestone being passed.</p> <p>This boost in the stock price signals growing shareholder confidence in Larry Page, Google’s co-creator, who took over as Chief Executive from Eric Schmidt in 2011. Since Page took control, Google stock has risen by 36%.</p> <p>Over the last seven months the company’s share price has seen steady gains. This has coincided with a fall in the value of Apple stock – a Google rival. The value of Apple has dropped by approximately $230bn (£149bn) since the end of September 2012; however, it is still the most valuable company in the US with its market value estimated at $432bn (£280bn).<br /> Google now stands in third place with its value of $266bn (£172bn). </p> <p>Google’s share price closed at $806.85 (£522.38) on Tuesday - a rise of 1.8%.</p> <p>There is now speculation that Google’s share price could one day break through the $1000 barrier. If you believe that it would perhaps be wise to invest now.<br />

With paid-for social media advertising very much an integrated part of many big (and small) advertiser’s budgets these days, one could be forgiven for thinking that the original issues many had with social ads (primarily around measuring returns) had been resolved; however, a new study reveals that this is far from the case. </p> <p>Most advertisers combining social media ads with other channels</p> <p>According to the research from Vizu (specialists in brand advertising measurement), two-thirds (66%) of advertisers surveyed said that they are now integrating paid social media advertising into their online campaigns; most of these advertisers (83%) integrate them with display ads. Just under half (46%) use social media in conjunction with online video marketing, and 40% use social combined with mobile advertising. </p> <p>When it comes to offline integration, just over half (52%) of those surveyed now combine paid social ads with print marketing, and just over a third (37%) are combining social media marketing with TV campaigns. </p> <p>Advertisers still struggle to measure branding impact</p> <p>Social ads are usually used for branding, and this is where the problem arises. Despite the significant take up, many advertisers still struggle to quantify the impact social media marketing has, and this is constraining the growth of the market. Advertisers understand that investment in social media marketing and content is positive for their brand but can’t clearly display how – and thus struggle to justify future spend. If you buy social media ads, how do you measure success?<br />

If you operate in the financial services sector you are probably well aware of the power of the comparison sites. A new study has highlighted just how the comparison sites dominate the search engines – and how this makes it correspondingly harder to create interesting and relevant content that boosts your SEO and PPC rankings in this sector.</p> <p>Online-only sites “most visible” for search engines</p> <p>According to Epiphany’s Financial Services Report 2013, the most “visible” financial services sites for both paid and organic search results are online-only comparison sites. It measures “visibility” on a combination of the number of times a domain appears in search results, its prominence within those results, and the competitiveness of the keyword used. A higher prominence and greater competitiveness increases the “visibility” score. </p> <p>It probably isn’t surprising that Moneysupermarket.com dominates the results for both SEO and PPC, coming top of the paid search rankings and second in the organic ones. It was just pipped to the post there by Moneysavingexpert.com (which was recently acquired by Moneysupermarket.com anyway). </p> <p>The top non-comparison brand for SEO was Barclays, in fifth place, and the top for PPC was Asda (in 4th place).</p> <p>So what does this mean for sites trying to compete? Well, the first thing to realise is – you can’t. Focus on your own specific content niche, writing insightful articles for your target audience; don’t try to be all things to all people; it is ineffective.<br />

Brands on Twitter have generally constrained themselves to using the service for benign PR type content, or, if they are particularly proactive, interacting with consumers and customer service. The concept of actually buying products across the micro-blogging service has been suggested, but no one has managed to figure out how – until now. Possibly?</p> <p>Users can tweet to buy</p> <p>American Express and Twitter have now announced they are joining forces to allow Twitter users to connect their Amex cards with their Twitters accounts, and then actually buy goods over the social network by tweeting specific hashtags.</p> <p>Amex expanding deals programme</p> <p>Amex has actually been using Twitter for promotional deals for a while; American Amex holders can already connect their cards to their Twitter identities, and if they tweeted a specific hashtag, a coupon would be loaded to their card. However, this is the first time users have been able to actually complete purchases across the network. </p> <p>For example, this week, members will be able to buy a $25 Amex gift card for $15, a Kindle Fire HD and a Microsoft Xbox 360. It remains to be seen whether this new venture is anything more than a gimmicky PR move for both the card operator and Twitter – we’re not about to see this on any mainstream retail site anytime soon, and the offers are short term “flash” type sales – but it is innovative, and it will be interesting to see how many Amex users take up the offers.<br />