The latest edition of Greenlight’s Magazine provides you with top tips to help you plan your online Christmas 2012 campaign. In this Christmas issue, our in-house experts discuss why Christmas comes early for digital marketers, as well as the value of implementing Social Media and Mobile strategies into your Christmas 2012 campaign.

1. September2012|Issue05
ChristmasEdition
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
SEOCHRISTMAS
MYTHS
THEMETEORIC
RISEOFMOBILE
THEMETEORIC
RISEOFMOBILE
Post-Christmas
justasimportantas
Pre-Christmas
Post-Christmas
justasimportantas
Pre-Christmas
TOP TEN
TWITTER
TIPS
TOP TEN
TWITTER
TIPS
FIVEESSENTIAL
PAIDMEDIA
TIPS
FIVEESSENTIAL
PAIDMEDIA
TIPS
Greenlight's
Christmas
conference
Greenlight's
Christmas
conference

2. EDITOR
Alicia Levy
Marketing & Production
Ashley Burgess & Harriet Micallef
Cover
Diogo Freitas
Design & Layout
Julie Vaccalluzzo
Foreword
Greenlight
Contributors
Anuj Ghaghada
Ben Mckeown
Adam Bunn
Patricia McElhinney
Dave Tillett
published by Greenlight
Level 14, The Broadgate Tower
Primrose Street
London, EC2A 2EW
t: +44 (0)20 7253 7000
e-mail: insight@greenlightdigital.com
www.greenlightdigital.com
© Greenlight 2012 – all rights reserved
September 2012
contents
2 Foreword
Greenlight
3 Make the Web
Work for You
Google’s Anuj Ghaghada
explains
5 HOW TO TAKE YOUR
BUSINESS MOBILE
Three ways to get your
site mobile ready in time
for Christmas
8 TOP FIVE TIPS FOR A
SUCCESFUL SEO
CHRISTMAS
9 TOP TEN TWITTER
TIPS
12 FIVE ESSENTIAL PAID
MEDIA TIPS FOR
CHRISTMAS 2012
14 GREENLIGHT’S
CHRISTMAS
CONFERENCE
Providing online
marketers with
everything they need to
know about Christmas
C
hristmas starts as early as
July for many brands, and
that’s not just a good idea
because Christmas is the peak
for many businesses in terms of
trading, and it’s not just a good
idea because Christmas is the
opportunity to tune up and refresh
your Digital Marketing strategies.
But, it’s a good idea because of the
rapid pace of change in the Digital
Marketing landscape.
It is exponential, making
simple marketing plans more
complicated. Search, display,
trying to position and manoeuvre
themselves around them, trying
to work out where they need to
be visible. Do they need to be on
Facebook, Google+, Twitter ?
To stay ahead in this growing
landscape of change you have
to be disruptive, embracing the
disruption by innovating within
the changing face of Digital.
At Greenlight we take
Christmas seriously because our
clients do. We are relentlessly
working on efficiency and growth
for our clients and delivering
demonstrable value at the highest
level of the organisation. In this
edition of The Magazine, we have
brought together tips from our
recent Digital Advent Calendar
and Christmas Conference, with
each of the panellists being
disruptive in some way. Marketers
too can be disruptive, by making
sure their marketing programmes
are navigating the sea of change in
Digital, in time for Christmas.
We hope you find the content
within The Magazine helpful in
your endeavours to ensuring your
brand is visible this Christmas.n
email and affiliate marketing have
matured with the emergence
of blogs and Social as sub-
lines throughout every channel.
Search itself has fragmented
into contextual, behavioural,
retargeting and pre-targeting.
Online user behaviour is
changing. The Internet used to
be the place where brands set
up online stores and consumers
drifted around, interacting with us
based on the marketing collateral
we pushed out to them. Now the
consumer is the core and fabric
of the Internet and brands are
1 www.greenlightdigital.com the MAGAZINE - Greenlight 2

3. when searching for deals online.
With over a third of mobile
searches having a local
intent, dedicated mobile
campaigns engaging with
smartphone users is a must.
Despite this growing trend,
73% of advertisers still do not
have a mobile-optimised site,
which leads to a frustrating and
fruitless experience for consumers
if they have to constantly pinch-
to-zoom and scroll to navigate
whilst on your site. There is a
wide range of free tools that can
help you evaluate how your site
renders on a mobile device, what
you need to work on and even
provide some partners that can
help you develop a mobile site.
(For more information go to www.
getmo.com). For advertisers
that have neither the resources
nor time to develop a dedicated
mobile site, the incredible rise
of tablets presents another
opportunity. Tablet users tend to
be affluent and use their device
simultaneously whilst watching
television or using their phone.
They spend on average, one and
a half hours a day on their device
and around 10-20% more on their
orders than the average Internet
user. As Fig. 2 shows, while the
day is dominated by desktop
activity the mornings and evenings
have greater mobile and tablet
usage.
Last Christmas, mobile
searches peaked on Christmas
day, making up 26% of all
Christmas-related queries and this
year’s Christmas period is likely to
see even greater activity on mobile
devices.
A
s retailers gear up for
the busiest and most
profitable time of the year,
the world economy continues to
struggle as countries attempt to
keep their finances in order and
protect themselves from the risks
posed by the troubles seen in
Greece, Italy and Spain. Consumer
confidence has remained low as
shoppers tighten their belts and
defer purchases as household
budgets are squeezed. This
inevitably has had an effect on the
high street where, in the last year
alone, many established retailers
have gone into administration
including Clintons, Jane Norman
and Habitat. On the other hand,
others such as John Lewis are
posting record sales and double-
digit weekly growth figures. The
fact is, consumers have changed
the way that they shop, and those
who have adapted their strategies
with this in mind have reaped the
benefits.
According to the Office of
National Statistics, consumers
in the UK spent £42.1bn in
December last year with online
sales driving much of the growth
(up 16.5% year-on-year),
contributing around £7.9bn.
Looking at online queries over Q4
for the last three years we can
see that queries have continued
to grow strongly (queries were
up 18% year-on-year in 2011)
with the peak being Cyber
Monday that traditionally falls on
the last Monday of November.
Interestingly in the last two years,
the peak has been less sharp as
consumers continue to browse
for Christmas gifts over a longer
period to get the best deals.
Retailers often make the mistake
of peaking too early in their online
advertising campaigns by running
out of budget, or switching them
off entirely after Christmas Day.
However, this leads them to
miss out on the large number of
shoppers who are back on their
computers searching for Boxing
Day deals (fig. 1 ).
So what has changed? The
three key themes I would strongly
recommend retailers to take notice
of are: The emergence of the
‘nonline’ shopper; The meteoric
rise of mobile; Post-Christmas is
just as important as pre-Christmas
The emergence of the ‘nonline’
shopper
What we used to call ‘colour
televisions’ have now become
‘televisions’ and ‘cellphones’
are more commonly labelled
as ‘phones’. In the same way,
consumers are beginning to
distinguish less and less between
online shopping and offline
shopping. This new breed of
‘nonline’ shoppers are comfortable
shopping wherever they are
whether in-store, on a mobile
device, or desktop. Never has it
been more important than now to
offer users a seamless experience
regardless of the platform they
use. One idea that has seen great
success is the ‘click and collect’
model where consumers can
research and reserve an item
online and pick it up locally in a
nearby store. Argos has been a
pioneer in this retail model and
now almost half of it’s £4bn sales
come through multi-channel
paths. As a result, it has become
increasingly more important for
retailers to correctly attribute the
values of sales to online. Google
partnered with Vodafone to show
the impact of “Online to store”
or O2S. The results showed that
for every £1 spent online, £1.75
was spent in-store as a result.
For pureplay retailers, correct
attribution of online activity is just
as important and has to extend
beyond the last click model. Using
an Analytics package, you can
see what paths customers take
that convert best for you. It may
be that a customer sees your
email marketing, considers the
purchase and then returns either
through search or directly to
your site. Considering this more
expansive model will help ensure
you are present and relevant at the
crucial touch points for your target
audience. Christmas has an added
challenge whereby consumers
generally start their journey
looking for gift ideas using very
generic terms such as ‘christmas
gifts for him’ or ‘dresses’ before
filtering their searches down to
often very long-tailed queries for
a specific model. Therefore, it is
important for retailers to consider
the searches that potential
consumers may make further up
the purchase funnel.
The meteoric rise of mobile
2012 is the year of mobile.
Smartphones and tablets
have placed the internet in
the hands of millions and for
28% of smartphone owners,
it is their primary access point.
Retail queries on desktops have
increased by 15% year-to-date,
while mobile queries are up an
astounding 147% with no sign
of slowing down. In fact, mobile
queries are projected to overtake
desktop queries in 2015, which
is no surprise when you see the
relative growth rates of queries on
these platforms.
Mobiles have fundamentally
changed the way that consumers
shop, by empowering them
with more decision influencing
information with which to base
their purchasing decisions on.
28% of smartphone users have
made a purchase using their
mobile and 34% check prices
in-store. Smart retailers even use
proximity targeting (currently in
beta) through Adwords, to target
consumers who are in a given
radius of a competitor’s store
catching consumers attention
Make the Web Work for You
Guest contributor Anuj Ghaghada from Google gets into the nitty gritty
IndexedQueryVolumes
28Sep
5Oct
12Oct
19Oct
26Oct
2Nov
9Nov
16Nov
23Nov
30Nov
7Dec
14Dec
21Dec
28Dec
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
2009 2010 2011 2012 (forecast)
Fig. 1 - Indexed Shopping Queries Q4 2009 -2012
...mobile queries are
up an astounding
147% with no signs
of slowing down
...consumers are
beginning to
distinguish less
and less between
online shopping and
offline shopping.
This new breed of
‘nonline’ shoppers are
comfortable shopping
wherever they are
whether in-store, on
a mobile device, or
desktop.
3 www.greenlightdigital.com
#Christmas12
the MAGAZINE - Greenlight 4
#Christmas12

4. T
he explosion of smart
phones and tablet devices
onto the market has
meant that for businesses with
an Internet presence, having a
mobile strategy has gone from a
‘nice to have’ feature to being an
integral part of a businesses online
strategy.
Mobile internet browsing is
supposed to present convenience
to your customers, but for many,
it is often a frustrating experience
when not implemented properly
(or at all). It is therefore essential,
to ensure you give your target
mobile browsing customers the
best experience. You can do this
in one of three ways - through
a standalone mobile site, an
optimised responsive site and/or
through a mobile app, depending
on how you want to connect with
your target audience.
Standalone Mobile site:
A separate stand alone
mobile site is a good choice for
a lot of companies, often it’s
a duplicate of your main site,
but stripped down to a visual
minimum so users on the move
have the smallest possible
download.
Pros:
„„ A site tailored exactly for a
mobile user’s needs can lead to a
better user experience.
„„ Nothing needs to be
installed on your device, it
will work on any mobile
device out of the
box.
„„ Optimised
for the
smallest
would be to have a Responsive
Design website.
Responsive Design has been
getting a lot of attention lately as
it solves the issue of companies
having to have a standalone
mobile site alongside a website.
The concept of the Responsive
Design technique is simple and
effective. It adjusts a websites’
pages based on the platform
which it is being viewed on, be
it a desktop, PC, smartphone or
a tablet. Through smart code in
the websites’ style sheets, the
Responsive Design technique
adapts the size and resolution of
the website pages so the end user
can experience the web page in
the best possible way. This
negates the need for
companies
having
to
run a
How to take your business mobile?
download possible. Users with
data-caps on their devices will
thank you.
Cons:
„„ Any changes to the non-mobile
site need to be duplicated in the
mobile site, since essentially you
are running two separate sites, this
can drive up costs.
„„ If not implemented properly,
having duplicated content on
two sites could affect your site
rankings and search engines could
be confused about which site to
show in SERPs.
„„ A standalone mobile site is
intended to cater for a huge
amount of devices with a wide
range of screen sizes, finding a
way to display information for all
of these often means settling on
a design for the lowest common
denominator, since the site doesn’t
adapt to the screen of the device.
Responsive Sites
The main issue with a
standalone mobile site, is that you
essentially have to maintain two
websites, which can prove to
be expensive and time
consuming. A
solution to
this
Post-Christmas is just as
important as pre-Christmas
In 2010, the UK saw some of
the worst weather that brought
large parts of the country and
infrastructure to a grinding halt.
Christmas tends to be one of
the few times when customers
pay premiums to ensure prompt
delivery. One interesting trend
from last year was that shoppers
held off their gift purchases
longer than usual in anticipation
of shops discounting heavily. In
a self-fulfilling prophecy, retailers
were forced to discount heavily in
order to drive customers through
the door. The key mistake that
advertisers make is peaking too
early with their online advertising
campaigns and missing out on a
significant number of potential
customers who are looking for
deals after Christmas Day.
Traditionally, searches drop
on Christmas Day until the
evening when people are back
online after overindulging in their
Christmas dinners. Last year
however, retailers were much
more aggressive with John Lewis
and Superdrug who started their
clearance sales on Christmas
Eve. Given the tough economic
conditions faced by all, consumers
will continue to be price conscious
and happy to compromise on
delivery times to get bigger
discounts. A key recommendation
would be to ensure an ‘always on’
strategy over the Christmas period
to ensure that you don’t miss out
on customers who continue to
shop after the initial Christmas
shopping rush has passed.
Despite the difficult
conditions across most of Europe,
Christmas is geared to be another
season full of retailers posting
recording-breaking sales figures
and consumers out in force on
the high street and eCommerce
sites. Make the Web work for you
by being present wherever your
customer is and delivering the
best user experience to keep them
coming back again and again. n
Fig. 2 - Percentage of day’s queries by hour
Tablet Mobile Desktop
midnight 6am midday 6pm midnight
Anuj
Ghaghada
Industry Analyst
Retail Team
Google UK
duplicate mobile-friendly version
alongside their actual website.
Pros:
„„ The cheapest option in the long
run.
„„ Your site will be ‘future proof’ to
all new mobile devices as they are
released.
„„ When you add new content to
your website, it is automatically
ready for all mobile devices
„„ No need to duplicate content
from your standard site, like you
would have to do if you have a
standalone mobile site, as your
standard site IS your mobile site.
Cons:
„„ You can’t alter the information
architecture of the site so it may
not be optimal for mobile.
„„ It’s a relatively new technique,
so training existing staff or
seeking out experienced skills is a
prerequisite.
„„ You are essentially downloading
the desktop webpage version with
removed elements. Hence the size
of the page being downloaded
isn’t as small as it could be. This
can cause problems with both
page load speed times and mobile
bandwidth usage, which is often
capped.
Mobile apps
For those who already have
an optimised site, mobile apps
are the most effective way of
connecting with your target
audience, although they are
generally the most expensive
option.
Responsive Design
has been getting a
lot of attention lately
as it solves the issue
of companies having
to have a standalone
mobile site alongside a
website.
5 www.greenlightdigital.com
#Christmas12
the MAGAZINE - Greenlight 6
#Christmas12

5. it used to be, it’s still senseless
to start from scratch every year
with a new set of pages, and I’ve
personally seen more than one
retailer suffer as a result of such
a policy. Once Christmas is over,
demote the pages so they aren’t
as visible to users, but keep them
linked from somewhere like an
HTML sitemap.
3. Plan an integrated Social and
SEO campaign for December,
and support this with digital PR
distribution. Executed properly
this can be the key decider of who
ranks during the all-important
peak in search activity.
4. Don’t neglect Google Merchant
Center. Google is currently trialling
a paid version of product search
in Google.com so this is likely to
be the last year in which you can
take advantage of product search
traffic without paying for it.
5. Closely monitor your
competitor’s activities. They are
one of the best ways to inform
your own strategy and campaigns.
n
giving
the best
possible
experience for
your end users.
„„ App-icon on
users’ phones is an excellent
form of advertising for any
company.
„„ Lots of consumers browse
app stores looking for things to
install, so it’s a great way of finding
customers who might not have
discovered you via other means.
Cons:
„„ Apps are expensive to
develop. You’ll need specialised
Mobile
apps, are
applications
which mobile
users can download
to their mobile devices.
They present users with a
convenient way of accessing
the information they want - when
they want it. More importantly
they allow brands another
platform from which to connect
with their target customer. When
created well, mobile apps can be
extremely successful in driving
traffic to your website.
Pros:
„„ You can tailor the experience
precisely to a specific device, Adam
Bunn
Director of SEO,
Greenlight
T
he traditional logic around
Christmas SEO goes
something like this:
A. Christmas search demand
patterns are something like shown
in fig.1 (p.7).
B. SEO takes 3-6 months to take
effect.
C. Ergo, to be on the safe side,
SEO for Christmas keywords
should start in July.
Sadly these days this is not
really the case. The main fallacy
in the above logic is that SEO
always takes this long to take
effect. It’s a view based on an
old fashioned approach to SEO.
Slowly building up authority by
acquiring links consistently from
July onwards was the name of the
game, freshness was an unheard
of concept and Social Media
and blogging was in its infancy.
Today, freshness is usually the
focus of at least three or four
Google algorithm updates every
month, which shows us just how
important it is. It means that
search engines are much more
reactive to what we as marketers
do and as a result “slow and
steady wins the race” isn’t always
true anymore.
This was rammed home to
me a couple of years ago when we
were approached by a company
wanting to rank for “World
Cup shirts” about three weeks
before the 2010 World Cup.
Utilising digital PR distribution,
the campaign we executed for
them pushed them into the top
three results on Google in less
than a week (in the absence of
any further freshness signals this
is actually a ranking spot they still
hold to this day).
It’s true that when you sit
down to plan out all the activity
you will need to do in the lead
up to Christmas, it will end up
spreading across six months.
Also, several key milestones
remain the same and probably
always will, such as the need
to alter site structure before
and after Christmas in order to
increase (and then decrease) the
importance of Christmas pages
in your site. But as shown in our
Digital Campaign Planner we
put together (available in box 9
of Greenlight’s Digital Advent
Calendar) much more of this time
should be dedicated to monitoring,
analysis, strategy and integrating
SEO activity with Social Media
and Paid Media.
With all this in mind, here
are Greenlight’s top five tips for a
successful SEO Christmas.
1. Above all, the thing to be taking
care of right now is your website.
Last year mobile search demand
at Christmas really took off, so if
your site isn’t mobile friendly you
could be missing out on a lot of
valuable traffic. On top of that are
numerous other tweaks – utilising
Schema.org formatting to gain
rich snippets in the search results,
optimising load speeds and so on.
2. Use the same target pages
every year. Although historical
link equity isn’t as important as
Jan 11 Feb 11 Mar 11 Apr 11 May 11 Jun 11 Jul 11 Aug 11 Sep 11 Oct 11 Nov 11 Dec 11
Chistmas gifts
Gift ideas
Party dresses
Gifts for men
Christmas markets
Fig. 1 - Christmas search demand patterns
Top five tips for
a successful
SEO Christmas
programmers to create them.
„„ Apps aren’t cross-platform; you
will need to create new apps for
Android, IOS and any other future
app stores, which will drive up
costs.
„„ People have to find the app in
the app store and install your app.
Many won’t bother or don’t like
installing apps on their devices.
„„ You still additionally need to
have a mobile friendly site for
those consumers who won’t/can’t
install apps on their device.
Whichever direction you
wish your mobile strategy to take
this Christmas, make sure that
you start setting it up now! Give
yourself enough time to trial your
mobile site, so that by the time
the Christmas frenzy starts, your
mobile site works without a hitch
and can handle the substantial
number of mobile searches
expected for December 2012. n
Ben
Mckeown
Lead Designer,
Greenlight
7 www.greenlightdigital.com
#Christmas12
the MAGAZINE - Greenlight 8
#Christmas12

6. 1When is the best time of day
for a brand to post?
„„ According to Twitter, there are
140,000,000+ active daily users
with an average of 340,000,000
daily tweets. Content posted on
Twitter quickly disappears from
most users accounts, especially
on mobiles as users will not scroll
more than a few times to catch
up on tweets. Therefore, it is
important to tweet throughout
the day and at the times when
users are most active. This can be
discovered from listening tools and
analysis.
2Any tips on how companies
can increase the number
of followers in the lead up to
Christmas?
„„ Create visual content which is
exciting!
„„ Engage with your current
followers and follow influential
tweeters.
„„ Create a search for keywords
associated with your brand and/
or industry to ensure you are not
missing out on live conversations.
„„ Allow social sharing on your
website and ensure your Twitter
handle is on all promotional
material, email marketing, email
signatures and is clearly visible on
the website.
„„ Participate in industry Twitter
chats – Travel Goodies are #TTOT
#CruiseChat #FriFotos
„„ Ensure your handle is optimised
for Search!
„„ If you operate customer service
on Twitter, kindly state your hours
in your information section to
make users aware or they will
expect timely answers at all times
of the day.
„„ Do not buy followers – they
are wasted stats and when you
actually run a campaign, your
numbers will be skewed in a
negative way. Also, it looks terrible
to active followers. Users and
news sites commonly report these
fake followers, outing your brand!
3What is the importance
of creating a hashtag
for Christmas marketing
campaigns?
„„ The power of a hashtag is
crucial for a strong campaign,
especially over the Christmas
period when users are bombarded
with promotions and brand
campaigns. It provides an easily
identifiable visual to the brand
and the campaigns as well as
sparking curiosity in those who
may not follow the brand. A
powerful hashtag will influence
others to join the conversation,
some haghtags last longer than
the campaign which provides
lasting results for the brand. Users
can easily click on the hashtag to
follow the conversation and learn
about the campaign.
„„ Hashtags allow the brand
to easily track the reach of the
campaign and the number of
brand mentions. It will also attract
new users and influencers.
„„ Be creative with your hashtags
but make sure they are identifiable
to the campaign. Basic keyword
hashtags like #travel and #fashion
are commonly used and will not
show you the true results of your
campaign. Once you’ve narrowed
down your hashtag choices, check
to see if they already exist by using
Twitter’s search function. If they
do, is it positive and do you want
your brand associated with those
tweets?
„„ Most of all, promote your
hashtag so your fans know to use
it! You have to ask for what you
want in Social.
„„ Twitter recently launched Event
Hashtag pages, so an offline
marketing campaign could qualify
for its own page once Twitter
launches this fully. Right now,
the industry suspects these will
be rolled out to big sporting and
entertainment events first.
„„ Check out some examples
of hashtag usage from Twitter:
https://dev.twitter.com/media/
hashtags
4Interesting Twitter facts/
stats:
„„ According to Mashable:
ààThere are 140+ million active
users in 30 languages.
àà33% of users are aged 45+,
25% are 35-44 and 23% are
25-34.
àà59% of users are women
ààThe average user spends 11:50
minutes per visit on Twitter.80%
of users access their Twitter via a
mobile device.
ààThe first tweet from Space
happened on 22 January 2010
from @Astro_TJ.
àà In May 2010, Lady Gaga
became the first tweeter to have
over 10 million ‘Little Monsters’.
„„ In 2011, Twitter stated a figure
of around 500K visits each day,
but this statistic doesn’t clarify if
they are actual individuals or spam
bots which Twitter is unfortunately
plagued by. Some argue that users
who are not active in tweeting are
not useful, but users who are on
Twitter purely for receiving the
most up to the minute information
on topics that matter to them, are
still influenced and build brand
affinity.
„„ Twitter kicked off in 2006 and
it took three years to reach 1 billion
Tweets. In 2011, it announced 1
billion tweets are sent ever week.
5Does Twitter have any
upcoming developments that
could help companies improve
their market visibility?
„„ Hashtags for Events – Twitter
launched this new initiative via its
first commercial by teaming up
with Nascar. Expect to see this in
big, upcoming events!
„„ Improved Search – Twitter
recently announced it will be
rolling out new Search features
which will provide users with
better personalised results leading
to a better overall user experience.
„„ Enhanced Profiles - These
will be rolled out in the coming
months, Twitter states it will
increase engagement and drive
business goals. The page redesign
will allow brands to better
promote themselves as well as
feature important content which
will automatically expand to show
media. Right now, this feature is
only available to selected handles.
Check out Nike’s page for a
preview!
„„ Promoted Tweets – Paid
packages are available from
Twitter to have a tweet promoted.
First tweet from space
9 www.greenlightdigital.com
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7. increase in spread, engagement
and mentions but it might not be
worth the risk. Having a celebrity
who truly reflects the brand
and its goals whilst also relating
to the community and brand
endorsements works best.
10How beneficial is it to
follow organisations and
companies?
„„ Knowing what your competitors
are doing is always beneficial
to a brand! It provides you with
benchmarks and knowledge of
what they are doing and how
they are doing it. It also helps you
discover conversations about your
goods or services that you may
want to get involved in.
„„ If you are a retail brand, follow
your shopping centre accounts to
ensure you are up-to-date on what
is happening in the centre and see
if they can promote you and vice
versa. Any events in-store should
be mentioned on the centre’s
handle, they want visitors just like
you!
„„ If you are a travel brand, ensure
you follow your travel agents,
airports, cruise ports, excursion
companies etc. Utilising each
other will increase your reach! n
tweeters in key markets, you
naturally begin to enter streams
of conversations with users who
are interested in your brand/
industry, resulting in many of them
following you.
„„ Producing and sharing
campaigns and content that are
suitable for that market is really
important. If you do not produce
strong, engaging content, users
will not follow you.
8What are the key dates
and times that people will
be talking about Christmas on
Twitter?
„„ In December, Twitter is
inundated with Advent Calendars,
12 Days of Christmas giveaways,
Christmas wish lists and stocking
stuffers. Most campaigns begin
by launching hints and mentions
two weeks prior to the start of the
campaign.
„„ One of the busiest days on
Twitter is Christmas day and
the period just after it. We are a
society who likes to share.
9How advantageous is it to
use a celebrity to promote
campaigns on Twitter?
„„ It is always good to have a
celebrity promote your brand,
although users are beginning to
crack down on mindless celebrity
endorsements. Recently, Nike
ran into a problem with Twitter
for its #makeitcount campaign,
which included celebrities such as
Wayne Rooney. The tweets were
not clearly labelled as Marketing
Communications. Sometimes
this controversy will lead to an
Five Essential Paid Media Tips
By Dave Tillett
6Are there any tools which
can be used to monitor your
Twitter page analytics?
„„ Agencies such as Greenlight
provide this service for brands, as
most companies do not have the
Social Media resource, knowledge
or access to the different
monitoring tools. Certain agencies
have expertise of doing in-depth
Social Media monitoring research.
They are staffed by those who are
passionate about the industry and
who keep up-to-date on platform
changes and campaigns, plus
have extensive knowledge about a
range of industries so you can be
sure their ideas and optimisation
suggestions are well researched.
„„ Social listening tools such
as Brandwatch, Sysomos and
Radian6 help analyse your Twitter
results.
„„ HootSuite Pro account &
TweetDeck
„„ If you are advertising on Twitter,
it also provides some analytics for
you.
„„ Schmap.it is a great tool and
used by several Fortune 500
companies.
„„ SocialBro is a favourite amongst
many big name brands, as it helps
you learn about your community
through search criteria and filters.
7How can you use Twitter to
target different sectors?
„„ Twitter is a great way to
discover influential people in
specific industries, as well as
brand ambassadors. By building a
relationship with these users, you
can begin to show your industry
knowledge and brand personality.
„„ By engaging with high profile
Patricia
McElhinney
Social Media Project
Manager, Greenlight
H
aving a well thought out
Paid Media strategy, can
make all the difference
between having a successful
online campaign and falling
behind. However, to stand out
from the crowd, why not think
about integrating your Paid Media
campaign into other channels,
such as Social Media. Greenlight’s
Paid Media Campaign Director,
Dave Tillett, takes us through his
five essential Paid Media tips for
Christmas 2012.
1Google+
Google+ already has had a
significant impact on both PPC
and Natural Search and with
Google’s current drive to get as
many advertisers as possible using
the Social network, you can be
sure that it has serious plans to
integrate G+ into its entire suite of
products. It’s crucial therefore to
act now and build up a presence
on the Social platform. So how do
you get started if you don’t already
have a page? Essentially there are
four relatively simple steps:
A. Create a Google+
Business Page - Firstly take a
peek over at Google’s G+ Business
site (http://www.google.com/+/
business/). This will provide you
with all the tools necessary to
create your advertiser page on the
network.
B. Content – Content is king in
Social Media, therefore be sure to
brief your Social team on Google+
if they haven’t briefed you already!
Ensure that content is being
frequently added and user posts
are being responded to. Don’t put
all your eggs into one basket by
only focussing on Facebook.
C.Verification – The most
important step in creating a
Google+ Business page is the
verification process. Verifying
your page effectively means that
Google+ recognises it as being
authentic and linked to your
business. To check if your page is
verified, simply look for a little tick
box next to your profile name.
In order to be verified, there
are four basic requirements:
„„ Your Google+ page must be
authorised by your commercial
entity, organisation, brand, or
product.
„„ Your Google+ page’s profile
must contain a link to your
organization’s website.
„„ Your organisation’s website
must connect to your Google+
page, by adding the Google+
badge or by adding a snippet of
code.
„„ A meaningful number of people
must have added your Google+
page to their circles.
The third step is often the
most confusing for advertisers,
as the link between the website
and Google+ page needs to
be done both ways. To help
you out, information on linking
the two can be found here:
http://support.google.com/
webmasters/bin/answer.
py?hl=en&answer=1708844
D. Adwords Social Extensions
– Once your page is verified, you
will then have the advantage of
being able to implement Social
Extensions within your Adwords
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8. ‘product type’ variables. This will
allow for more effective campaign
management.
5Bestsellers
In the lead up to Christmas,
keep note of what products are
likely to be the best sellers across
your categories and work with
your buyers to ensure you have
enough stock to meet demand. As
an example, Hamleys has recently
released what it believes to be the
top toys for Christmas 2012:
Hamleys Top Toy List 2012
„„ Monster High Dolls, (Mattel)
„„ Web Shooting Spider-Man,
(Hasbro)
„„ Moshi Monster App Monster,
(Vivid)
„„ Subbuteo, (Paul Lamond)
„„ Innotab 2, (VTech)
„„ Nerf Elite Hail Fire, (Hasbro)
„„ Barbie Train to Trot Tawny,
(Mattel)
„„ Master Moves Mickey, (Mattel)
„„ The Lord of the Rings, The
Battle of Helms Deep, (Lego)
„„ LeapPad2, (LeapFrog)
„„ Cabbage Patch Kids, (Jakks)
Create your Adwords
campaigns for these bestsellers
as early as possible in order to
build Quality Score and traction in
the SERPs. Utilise Product Listing
Ads / Extensions to further boost
your prominence in the Search
rankings. n
Adcopy. Simply click on the Ad
Extensions tab within Adwords
and select Social Extensions
to link your G+ page to your
Adwords campaigns. Google has
reported advertisers seeing as
much as a 22% uplift in CTR as
a result of Social Extensions, the
biggest increase seen from an
Ad extension since Sitelinks was
launched!
Google+ can also act as a
great brand defence tool. Once
you are verified, the right hand
section of the SERPs (Search
Engine Results Pages), which
would typically be reserved for
Paid Search listings, in effect turns
into a hybrid Google+ / Natural
Search space for core brand
searches.
Having a presence on
Google+ will not only benefit
your reach and volume over this
Christmas period, but it will also
follow through way into 2013 and
beyond.
2Facebook
If you are a retailer that
generates a large proportion of
your Q4 / Q1 revenue from the
Christmas sale period, now is the
perfect time to use Facebook as
a mechanism to acquire a strong
‘fan base’. You can capitalise on
this investment across the latter
half of Q4 by pushing promotional
messages to the group once you
are in the sales period. As well
as sales that you will get from
the initial investment, you can
essentially remarket to these users
during the sale period to further
exaggerate ROI.
3Happy Mondays
Two dates retailers should
have noted in their 2012 calendars
are the 23rd November (Black
Friday) and 26th November
(Cyber Monday), but what
about December? If we compare
calendar dates between
December 2011 and 2012, there
is clearly more scope this year to
capitalise on ‘last order delivery
dates’ in conjunction with the
typical Monday sales rush.
Advertisers are effectively
awarded an extra Monday in
2012, with which to potentially
guarantee delivery before
Christmas. When cutting up your
Q4 budget make sure you phase
your budget in line with your last
order dates in order to squeeze
as many sales out of the festive
period as possible.
4Google Merchant Feed
If you haven’t got a robust
Google Merchant Feed currently
in place, use Q3 to task your
developers to structure it
accordingly so that you can make
the best use of Google Product
Extensions and PLAs (Product
Listing Ads) in time for the Q4
peak. Google is constantly testing
ways in which to display PLAs
/ Extensions in order to try and
maximise CTR. We have also
seen CPAs from PLAs which are
comparable to those delivered
from brands, therefore don’t be left
behind simply because your feed
isn’t in a good shape.
Ensure your feed is structured
in a way that you can create
granular campaigns in Adwords
which can be filtered by ‘brand’ or
Dave
Tillett
Paid Media
Campaign Director,
Greenlight
In July, Greenlight hosted a
Christmas Conference netting a
panel of representatives from some
of the biggest names in the Search
& Social Media space, including
Facebook, YouTube, Sysomos,
Google, Kred, Marketwire,
Hydra, Criteo and Brandwatch.
Each had a chance to tell the audience, made up
of digital marketers from a cross-section of
industries, exactly how their platform can best be
harnessed to derive maximum exposure online
before, during and post-Christmas season.
Our videos and slides captured it all. They can be
viewed and are available to download from our
Media Centre on our website
gossip.greenlightdigital.com.
So get clicking!
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9. Greenlight,
Level 14, The Broadgate Tower,
Primrose Street,
London, EC2A 2EW
www.greenlightdigital.com