Google has been hit with a record €4.34bn fine for Android antitrust violations

Google has been hit with a record fine of €4.34bn (£3.9bn) by the European Commission, accusing the company of using the Android operating system to illegally “cement its dominant position”.

According to the Commission, the ad tech giant has imposed illegal restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators since 2011 in efforts to secure a monopoly on general internet search.

The firm’s parent Alphabet must now bring the...

18 July 2018 | Advertising Technology

The core pillars of technical international SEO

Thinking of marketing to customers in another country, or who speak another language? Even if you’re familiar with SEO (search engine optimisation) in your domestic market, international SEO opens up some new issues you may not have considered.

This article offers an overview of the technical aspects of SEO you’ll need to handle for effective international online marketing. There’s a lot to think about and research when establishing an international web...

13 July 2018 | Organic Search

What does Amazon’s Alexa For Hospitality mean for marketers?

The voice technology revolution is not just occurring within the home. Hotels, restaurants and the wider hospitality industry are rapidly adopting new tools and solutions to keep pace with the demands of modern consumers.  

The Best Western hotel chain, for instance, is expanding its partnership with Watson Ads on a series of artificial intelligence-powered interactive ad units that engage mobile users checking holiday destinations through The Weather Company. Once engaged in...

4 July 2018 | Advertising Technology

Marketers consistently overestimate success of ad campaigns – Adobe Digital

Marketers and consumers have different ideas about what constitutes relevant online advertising, and the gap is growing according to Adobe Digital Insights.

The research, based on data from over 1000 consumers and 300 marketers in Western Europe, found that many marketers are overestimating the success of their campaigns.

In Germany for instance, 69% of marketers report that they are delivering relevant ads, while only 49% of consumers agreed.

In the UK the picture is a...

11 May 2017 | Advertising

Is Google taking lessons from the dating scene?

Opinion It almost goes without saying that being found online by search engines is an essential part of marketing for most brands today. An entire industry has sprung up around optimising on-site content so that sites and pages are found better, or at least, more accurately. But if the days of stuffing keywords onto webpages or in meta tags so search engines score them more highly represent the ‘iron age’ of search, then simply prioritising on-site SEO is also starting to look...

7 March 2017 | Organic Search

2017 marketing predictions you wont have read elsewhere

Marketers have been frantically planning for 2017 for weeks, if not months, so it may seem a little late in the year to be thinking about what the next 12 months could hold in store.

But even a day is a long time in marketing, and with trends, tech and consumer tastes constantly changing, there are still plenty of opportunities to do things bigger, better and more intelligently, when January comes around.

The challenge, it seems, is knowing which hints and tips to hone in on....

12 December 2016 | Advertising

Half of US small businesses failing to use SEO, survey finds

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It’s one of the most fundamental eCommerce marketing tools in the book and yet a new report finds that half of small businesses’ websites in the US do not engage in SEO, reducing their chances of being found by potential customers. The survey also showed that of those small businesses surveyed only just over half (54%) had a website in the first place.

The report, from a small business digital marketing survey by Clutch, shows that cost...

17 March 2016 | Commerce

Early studies show increase in AdWords CTR after Google drops right-side ads

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The change may be relatively new, but research suggests that the CTR of Google Adwords has improved as a result of a repositioning of ads on the platform.

Since mid February Google stopped showing ads on the right hand side of desktop search results, moving instead to showing a fourth ad above the organic search results and up to three ads at the bottom of the page below the organic results.

Analysis from a two-week study of the impact of the change,...

15 March 2016 | Advertising

Search engine marketing growth analysed in Adobe report

©iStock.com/Rawpixel 

Search engine marketing spend grew 12% globally year on year according to the latest Global Digital Advertising Report from Adobe, which looks at trends for the last quarter of 2014.

In the US overall search advertisement spend rose 5% year on year, while in Europe, although large at 17% year on year, it had actually slowed on the previous quarter. In the UK spend fell by 3%.

The research showed that while overall worldwide spend on...

28 January 2015 | Organic Search

Yahoo and Bing make inroads on Google’s US search share, but do advertisers care?

©iStock.com/pearleye 

A spike in Yahoo searches has pushed Google down to its lowest search share in almost six years, the result of a change in tact from Mozilla.

According to web tracker StatCounter, Yahoo’s search share has been buoyed by a deal with Mozilla where it became the default search engine for Firefox 34 users in the US giving company the platform for its highest US share since 2009.

StatCounter has reported that Google grabbed 75.2% of US...

14 January 2015 | Organic Search