The competition for online advertising spending is fierce. With U.S. online spend forecasted to grow 23.3% this year, according to a February 2012 forecast from eMarketer, it comes as no surprise that two big online giants are doing whatever it takes to secure more ad dollars.
Just this week Google and Facebook announced upgrades to their systems. On June 5, Google launched its DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform, the “biggest ever overhaul” of DoubleClick. The goal of the upgrade is to allow marketers to more easily manage ad campaigns across different platforms, including mobile, video, display and search.
Direct Marketing News explained it best: DoubleClick — essentially a tool to streamline digital marketing efforts — aims to integrate the process of creating and tracking campaigns by enabling tailored messaging and an easy analysis of real time results. The entire system is bolstered by Google Analytics to allow backend tracking and the ability to report onsite traffic while incorporating that information into specific ad campaigns.
On the social media side, Facebook is also enhancing its online advertising offerings. Now advertisers can select whether they want their Sponsored Stories links appearing on fans’ desktop News Feeds, mobile News Feeds, within the sidebar, or in any combination of the three.
“Facebook is always looking for ways to improve products and has responded to requests from marketers to control the placement of their sponsored stories,” the company said in a statement, according to Business Insider. “As companies are promoting services more frequently on mobile, this option gives them the opportunity to focus on specific placements that will impact them most directly.”
The message both Google and Facebook are sending is clear. They want to make it as easy, as fast and as flexible as possible to purchase online and mobile advertising. In turn, marketers need to stay focused on what online and mobile advertising platforms are going to deliver the best results.
See our two recent posts on Facebook advertising and online advertising to help develop the best strategies when it comes to online/social media advertising.
