Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Gmail Offers a Picture Show” plus 3 more

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• Gmail Offers a Picture Show
• Google Says If the Ad Can’t Be Seen Then You Don’t Pay
• Ecommerce is Up, No Thanks to Social
• Instagram Direct Brings the Social Photo Experience Closer to Home

Gmail Offers a Picture Show Posted: 13 Dec 2013 04:29 AM PST By the end of the early part of 2014 you will be able to view pictures automatically in Gmail across all platforms. So long, ‘always display images from’ type messages. The Official Gmail blog tells us more But thanks to new improvements in how Gmail handles images, you'll soon see all images displayed in your messages automatically across desktop, iOS and Android. Instead of serving images directly from their original external host servers, Gmail will now serve all images through Google's own secure proxy servers. So what does this mean for you? Simple: your messages are more safe and secure, your images are checked for known viruses or malware, and you'll never have to press that pesky "display images below" link again. With this new change, your email will now be safer, faster and more beautiful than ever. You can opt out if you want as well. Is this a good thing for you?

Google Says If the Ad Can’t Be Seen Then You Don’t Pay Posted: 13 Dec 2013 03:19 AM PST Google is doing something that might have other ad networks in a tizzy by announcing that only ads that are viewable (50% of the ad for at least 1 second) will be paid for by advertisers. From the Inside AdWords blog Today, we're taking an important step towards this goal by making it possible to buy based on viewability — in real time — across the more than two million sites in the Google Display Network. Viewability was already available for reservations buys on the Google Display Network, now this solution is available in the auction on a CPM basis globally as well, across desktop, mobile and tablet. In other words, you can now choose to pay for ONLY those impressions where your ad has a chance to be seen. Google really has a chance to change how advertising is bought and sold if this works well and it could put real pressure on the rest of the industry to do as well. As we've said before, making viewability a basis for buying, selling and measuring media can help transform the digital marketplace. With access to more meaningful metrics, brand advertisers can unleash their most creative campaigns, knowing they'll have a chance to shine. And publishers will be able to more fairly value all of their inventory, not just those spots considered "above-the-fold." We'll continue to work with our partners in the months to come to make this a reality, and to ensure that every ad has a chance for its holiday wish to come true. Hey, what advertiser wouldn’t want to pay for only those ads that are seen? Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Ecommerce is Up, No Thanks to Social Posted: 12 Dec 2013 02:46 PM PST Cyber Monday was the biggest day in e-commerce history. According to Custora, 70 million online shoppers spent over $10 billion across over 100 US-based online retailers. The end result was an 18% increase over 2012. Mobile was a huge factor with 1 in 3 purchases coming in over a mobile device. 80% of those came in on an iPhone or iPad. Thanksgiving was a particularly hot day for mobile shopping. Probably spurred on by all the bored people at holiday gatherings. “How long until the turkey’s ready?” The drop-off on Cyber Monday means that most people switched out their phones for their PC’s. Probably because they did a large portion of shopping while they were at work on Monday. Christmas? Unless Custora has a time machine, I’m guessing that’s their best estimate based on last year? In 2012, we saw a huge boost in mobile downloads on Christmas Day thanks to all those iTunes gift cards and new tech under the tree. Should be another good year for mobile ecommerce. What wasn’t a factor? Social. Custora says that social sites generated around 1% of the ecommerce sales on Cyber Monday. When you widen that to the entire holiday shopping season, it rises to only 2%. Organic – people who found the site through an un-paid reference such as a search engine accounted for the largest chunk of sales. Direct is a close second. These are the people who typed in the URL or visited from their own bookmarks. Email made a nice showing with 17% of sales, up from 14% last year. CPC is also up. Then there’s Social with a measly 2%. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s down a percent compared to last year. So retailers put more effort into Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram this year and came out with fewer conversions. This isn’t new. We see these kinds of numbers over and over again but we still cling to the believe that social media is a marketing must. I work in social media marketing so I’m not saying its worthless. I’m saying it’s great for brand recognition. It’s good for networking and community building, but it’s not the best for direct sales. When was the last time you bought something from a photo you saw on Pinterest or a post on Facebook? Chances are you saw it, it caught your eye and you went out to the web to learn more. Maybe you looked up a DVD on Amazon – found a great price so you decided to buy it. In that scenario, Facebook led to the sale but it wasn’t directly responsible. That’s what I think is happening more often than not. What do you think? Are your social media efforts directly or indirectly impacting your bottom line? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Instagram Direct Brings the Social Photo Experience Closer to Home Posted: 12 Dec 2013 12:58 PM PST Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom braved the snow and ice in New York this morning to present a new chapter in the company’s history book – Instagram Direct. The concept is simple. Instead of sending your photos out to the entire world, you can now send them to 1 person or  a small group of people. It doesn’t sound very revolutionary, but it really is. When you take a photo, you can choose to send it to all of your followers or go direct. On the Direct screen, you get a list of people you follow or you can scroll through your contact list alphabetically. Choose one person or a group of up to 15 people. Then hit send. On the other end, the receiver gets a notification in the inbox. Instagram is more like an email than a broadcast, so they have to open the message you’ve sent. When they do, something cool happens on your end. See the avatar circles under the photo? The sender is on the left and the recipients are on the right. At first, these bubbles will be faded but when someone views the photo the fade recedes and a the icon gets a check-mark. If they like the picture, a heart replaces the check. Think about this in a business situation. You’re at a location and you want everyone to meet you there. You take a picture so they can easily recognize the spot, then you send it to 5 co-workers. You can tell at a glance who opened the photo and who needs a nudge so they don’t miss the meeting. There’s plenty of room for comments and the structure lends itself to back and forth conversation. In the demo, Systrom sends a photo of his dog to his girlfriend with a request that she pick up treats. She responds asking what flavor. He answers with an icon for a chicken. That’s a sweet, personal conversation that they could have had over Instagram but does the rest of the world need to see this? No. And speaking of the rest of the world, Instagram Direct has a safe guard to keep you from getting bombarded with direct messages. You can only get direct photos or videos from people you follow. If someone else tries to send you a message you get a pending request which you can either accept or ignore. Beware, this is an open invitation. Once you say yes, they’re open to send and send until you stop them with another action. Instagram is a great marketing channel, especially if you’re looking to reach a young, male audience. But I’m not going to suggest you get into the habit of using Instagram Direct to advertise your goods. I do think it’s a useful tool for collaborating with a remote team. It’s much easier than sending an email by mobile and the fact that you can easily keep photos and refer back to them makes it better than text messaging. Oh, you can also use Instagram Direct for fun with friends and family. All work and no play. . . right? To quote Kevin Systrom, “now you have a reason to take a photo.”

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