Healthy Blog Reviews

Last month, Google announced a new “ remarketing ” feature, allowing advertisers to later target people who’d visited their sites or YouTube channels. Retargeting like this is a popular marketing topic: an Advertise.com/SEMPO survey ( via ) found that slightly under 70% of marketers had never used it, but 46.3% of marketers thought retargeting was the “most underutilized marketing strategy.” With Google just getting in on the market, obviously the time is ripe for established companies to make bigger moves as well. However, as with all behaviorally targeted marketing, protecting consumer privacy is a big concern—especially for consumer privacy watchdogs. The Center for Digital Democracy has filed with the FTC asking for a probe into behavioral targeting by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, among others. This is just the most recent volley in that battle. Interestingly, a French company is also choosing now to enter the American retargeting marketing. Criteo is moving its HQ to Palo Alto (from Paris)—but they’re bringing with them the European standard of privacy, which thus far has proven to be higher than that of the US. CEO JB Rudelle says: We have been working in countries like Germany, which is probably the most demanding country in the world when it comes to privacy. We put a direct opt-out link on all retargeting display banners in Europe, and hope to bring this feature into the U.S. market. (I do have to say, though, that the CDD’s director might be taking this a bit far when he says “Online marketers have made what was science fiction in ‘Minority Report’ now a reality.” Maybe it’s been a while since he’s seen that movie, but last I checked we’re not talking about iris-scanning identifying and tracking technology—or even technology that requires or uses your name (necessarily). There’s a debate over whether an IP address constitute personally identifiable information in the first place—though tracking consumers from site to site without their consent does feel like it’s crossing a line.) I don’t know if directly opt-out links would be enough to assuage some of the privacy critics. What do you think? Can retargeting and privacy peacefully coexist?

Posted April 8, 2010 by cgseo under Uncategorized

In January, Google reported a coordinated hack attack targeting Chinese human rights activists’ Gmail accounts. In response, Google (eventually) pulled their search engine from China . And now the hackers are at it again. The Yahoo “e-mail accounts of more than a dozen rights activists, academics and journalists who cover China have been compromised by unknown intruders” last month, according to the New York Times . NYT reporter Andrew Jacobs, one of the targeted journalists, said the “hackers altered e-mail settings so that all correspondence was surreptitiously forwarded to another e-mail address.” Several of the affected users received messages from Yahoo after problems accessing their accounts, according to the AP . Yahoo hasn’t yet decided to respond, as Agence France Presse reports. Yesterday, the side stepped the news agency’s questions on the matter, only stating Yahoo! condemns all cyberattacks regardless of origin or purpose. We are committed to protecting user security and privacy and we take appropriate action in the event of any kind of breach. However, Yahoo doesn’t really have a whole of options. They left their Chinese business in 2005, selling their interests to Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba (which later had an IPO larger than Google ’s). They still own 39% of Alibaba, but don’t have operational control of the company. They may be able to shut down their email offerings, which are routed through Chinese servers. There’s no indication that these are the same hackers (or not), although the targets are substantially similar. Victims this time included “a law professor in the United States, an analyst who writes about China’s security apparatus and several print journalists based in Beijing and Taipei, the capital of Taiwan,” the NYT reports. What do you think? Should Yahoo shut down its Chinese email? via

Posted March 31, 2010 by cgseo under Uncategorized

I talk about small business Internet marketing more than anything else since a lot of people that I know are small business people. That’s why I blog about their experiences and their issues because these people are often viewed as the backbone of any true economic recovery that might take place. While big business still use the “bad economy” as an excuse to cut jobs at record pace the little guy is trying to make it happen. Heck, as a result of the continued layoffs from the big boys more small businesses are being born every day. As a result, social media adoption by SMB’s has increased as well. A study reported by the Center for Media Research which was done by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business tells us ….social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year. Small businesses are increasingly investing in applications including blogs, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. It’s good to see the little guy get more involved with social media. Unlike search marketing (in particular paid search) social media allows for some true creativity and because of its relatively low cost (notice I didn’t say free) the small business has less of a chance of getting burned. I can’t tell you how many times I speak to SMB’s who bemoan how much money they have spent on paid search and have seen no return. Social media opportunities are a breath of fresh air to these people. The chart below tells the story This kind of activity is something that will reinvigorate a struggling SMB and can even lead to cost savings as they learn what is really working with their advertising. Dr. Alan Glazier, CEO and Founder of an eye and vision care center, said “… I was forced to consider alternative options to keep my business visible… with a very small investment in social media marketing, I was able to generate new business opportunities… (and) most importantly, my marketing budget has been reduced by more than 80%… “ Maybe Dr. Glazier’s sense of humor is helping as well (needing to find alternatives to keep his vision care center visible…Good one, doc). Of course, as with anything it’s not all party hats and celebration. SMB’s struggle more with some of the downsides of the social media “effect” because they are often not able to spread the work out over other team members because they may not have them. Also, there is fear around social media as to whether it can open a can of worms that they are not ready to handle. 50% of small business social media users say it takes more time than expected. While social media adoption has doubled in the last year, there are still some roadblocks to small businesses fully exploiting its potential. Another 17% feel that social media gives people a chance to criticize their business on the Internet. Related to this, only 6% feel that social media use has hurt the image of the business more than helped it. While it is never the silver bullet or the “automatic win” that many SMB social media hucksters proclaim it to be there is a lot of opportunity for the SMB to be promoting their business and finding more business than ever before. The odds are not stacked against the SMB in social media as they can be with other marketing options but the old adage “you gotta be in it, to win it” is more real than ever. Tell us a good SMB social media story or encounter you had. Some really creative ideas never get outside of the towns they are hatched in unless we tell someone else. Let’s hear it.

Posted March 2, 2010 by cgseo under Uncategorized