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Since coming back for South by Southwest, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about sponsored posts by bloggers. There were several events there that made me think about the topic, from Jeff Jarvis and others lampooning clumsy astroturfing to meeting the folks at Izea who run a pay per post service with a strict ethics code to attending a session on SEO for social media that mentioned that paid blogs can quickly bump up your Google rank for a new campaign. And I think that we’re finally reaching the point where the idea of blogging for money may be finding the right equilibrium to work.

The key requirement that bloggers and the rest of the social web seems to be asking for is disclosure. They don’t mind if you’re paid to shill for a product, just that you point out that you’re doing so. This is little different from the long-standing practice on political blogs of requesting that users disclose if they’re paid by a campaign when posting and commenting - it helps users understand the context and take the remarks with the appropriate amount of salt.

I look at some of the ways to provide this disclose, as well as why non-profits should consider paid posting, after the jump…

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It’s 10:00 pm, do you know where your AdWords are (pointing)? No, not another campaign ad, but a question that non-profits should be asking themselves in light of a new Google policy regard AdWords and redirects. According to their help center (emphasis mine),

Based on feedback from both our advertisers and users, and consistent with our efforts to present relevant results, we’ll no longer allow certain exceptions to our display URL policy. These include, but aren’t limited to, redirects and vanity URLs. In line with our existing policy, we’ll continue to require that your ad’s display URL matches its destination URL (the URL of your landing page). This policy will be strictly enforced for new ads, regardless of previous exceptions.

What this boils down to is that you can no longer send users to a different domain than the one you use in the display URL. This means, for users of many popular CRM systems, that you’ll have to display the name of your CRM instead of your organization in the your ad, if your donation or advocacy page is located there.

While it may be bad for non-profits, it’s overall a sensible policy. What likely happened is one too many ads pretended to be useful information like you’d find in organic search, only to turn around and be a business site. For example an ad for “XBox start on fire again?” with a display URL that says Microsoft would seem to be a public service announcement that would tell you what to do about it (hint: it involves a fire extinguisher). But what if that link went to Best Buy instead so you could buy a replacement? Google is doing what’s best for their users.

One way around this restriction is to send users to a landing page first instead of directly going to your advocacy or fundraising pages. This will also let you create a reinforcement of the text of your ad and help users get to the right page next. While you want to minimize the number of clicks to completion to minimize drop-off, a well written and formatted landing page can keep people from bouncing off and increase conversions.

The new AdWord rules are going to require some creative responses by non-profits and other marketers, but it’s worth examining carefully how you’ll build your ads. With the display URL comprising one quarter of your AdWord, you can’t afford not to have this vital reinforcement of your brand. I’ll be interested to see how major CRMs to help them make their ads effective. For more on the policy, and answers to your questions about it, check out the AdWords Google Group.

The New York Times has inspired me to coin a new motto:

What Would You Do Offline?

Not though an editorial, a news story, or a blog post, rather they inspired this with their homepage ad usage.

While it’s not present today, earlier this week, and at various times past, their homepage was adorned with a gigantic "Mac vs PC" ad that used both a banner and a skyscraper in tandem. While various people have opined on the ad content, including a much-dugg story on Gizmodo indicating that those weren’t really reviews to several posts praising the creativity of the ads to a post indicating that the ads tend to crash some browsers, I haven’t seen any commentary on with regard to the Times and other publications that ran the ad.

In short, I was amazed that the Times was willing to give up so significant a percentage of their above the fold homepage for this ad - would they really do the same with their offline edition?

I explore this phenomenon, and how it applies to NPOs, below the fold.

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Google ads are just the latest front in the escalating online war fought between the campaigns this election season. While adwords were still maturing last cycle, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how they’ve evolved in an era of search engine marketing consultants and near ubiquity of online advertising.

First, the ground rules: last month, Google posted on their policy blog about their guidelines for political ads:

• Editorial Guidelines. Like all AdWords ads, political ads must follow our editorial and content policies (including our trademark policies)…

• Fairness. We permit political advertisements regardless of the political views they represent, and apply our policies equally…
• No attacks on an individual’s personal life. Stating disagreement with or campaigning against a candidate[…] is generally permissible. However, political ads must not include accusations or attacks relating to an individual’s personal life, nor can they advocate against a protected group.
• Donations. If you’re soliciting political donations, your ad’s landing page must clearly state that the donations are non-tax-deductible.
• No misleading ads. As with all AdWords advertisements, political ads should not mislead users.

These policies seem remarkable even-minded and fair, as people have come to expect from Google. With these guidelines in mind, follow me below the fold for an analysis of the search engine marketing strategies of the 2008 presidential campaigns…

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The White House is famous for hiding unpopular policy announcements on Fridays when no one is paying attention. In this holiday week, it looks like two major developments are going on at Facebook that could see ramifications going far into the future, but which were probably scheduled to coincide with universities’ Thanksgiving break.

The first is the launch and response to Facebook Beacon (no relation to us, or so they would probably claim). Beacon integrates your site with Facebook and posts messages to your feed to say that you interacted with that site, so hopefully your friends will as well. The catch?

That it pops up a little notifier in the bottom right of the screen, telling you that a story will be posted on your feed unless you opt out within a few seconds. This bug already exists on such sites as Blockbuster and Fandango, and MoveOn has a quick demonstration of how it works right here.

More on the reaction, as well as a more positive new change, below the fold…

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Amy’s recent post on Facebook’s new social ads got me thinking about ways that non-profits could leverage these new ads to microtarget possible donors or members (incidentally, the social ads system confirms my theory of a couple months back that the infuriating fluff stories were a way to bolster interest filling out, which is the basis of how these ads do their targeting).

The system is  perhaps the ultimate affordable segmentation engine. While direct mail houses can segment out people to a very fine degree, it becomes prohibitively more expensive the more variations of a mailing you have to print to reach them all. What’s more, non-profits can’t go in and fine-tune their specifications in real time to see exactly who they’re hitting with each message.

Facebook social ads bring microtargeting to a whole new level. Let’s say that Beaconfire was looking for a Tech Lead (we are, incidentally - check our job listings for more!). I’ll walk through the process of creating the universe, and how you can do the same, below the fold.

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The other day, I was browsing Digg and came upon WhyFirefoxIsBlocked.com. This site blocks Firefox users because of the prevalence of the AdBlock plugin, which, as the name implies, blocks ads and deprives sites of revenue, either directly in pay-per-click or pay-per-conversion arrangements or indirectly by lowering hit counts in pay-per-impression situations.

The site raised strong reactions from Digg users, who were almost universally opposed and had angry words (many of them misspelled) for the site’s creator. In a way, they ironically confirmed many of the arguments that the author makes in his article "Firefox - a New Religion."

The site raised the ethical question in my mind of who’s really at fault here: people depriving content creators from ad revenue, webmasters who monotize every pixel of screen space to the detriment of their content, or advertisers who create more and more obnoxious ads in an arms race for eyeballs?

I’ll explore each below the fold…

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Facebook says their newly launched Social Ads will help you ‘reach the exact audience you want with targeted relevant ads.’ I’ve been toying around with this the last couple days and think Social ads are definitely worth a closer look. The ads come together in four easy steps.  This is how it works…

Get Started - You select whether your ad will direct to a Facebook page or your organization / campaign website.

Chose Audience - Determine who you want to reach.  Rich segmentation opportunities abound.  You can chose to reach out to Facebook users by several key parameters such as geographic location (down to city-level), gender, age, education (including schools attended), interests and political views.

As you manipulate the criteria within the Chose Audience Screen, the number of individuals your ad is targeted to reach adjusts in real-time.

Create Ad - Create a title, drop in some ad copy and upload an image.

Set Budget - Ads are pay as you go for the duration of your campaign. You set a daily budget and bid on placement by impression or click.

The payment minimums are around $5 / day the ad runs and the scenario goes like this…

For any available ad inventory, Facebook selects the best ad to run based on the cost per click or impression and ad performance.

If you choose a Pay for Clicks (CPC) model, you will also bid on how much you are willing to pay for each click on your ad. Facebook will display your ad in the Ad Space, News Feed, or both. The amount you are charged will never exceed your daily budget.

If you choose a Pay for Views (CPM) model, you will also bid on how much you are willing to pay for every thousand impressions of your ad. You will need to select if you want your ad to appear in News Feed or the Ad Space. The amount you are charged will never exceed your daily budget.

And then you launch. PRESTO!

You can find the link to Facebook Social Ads in the footer under Advertisers. When you try it out, let me know how it goes.

Microsoft’s $240 million purchase for a 1.6% equity stake in Facebook had everyone buzzing recently (read more). While that’s a lot of money to you and I, it’s probably a drop in the bucket for Microsoft and well worth keeping Google out of the picture (if you’re Microsoft anyway). Microsoft had already struck a deal with Facebook (in 2006) to sell display ads on Facebook. With the new deal, Microsoft has also won the rights to sell ads on international versions of Facebook through 2011. While the international advertising spend online isn’t as high as the US, it’s not insignificant either. Research firm eMarketer reports that advertisers plan to spend $900 million advertising on social-networking sites in the U.S., compared with $335 million overseas. So Microsoft also stands to gain some piece of that pie.

While the deal represents a nice infusion of capital to invest in technology and people, it’s a double-edge sword on the people side. The Wall Street Journal expects the deal to raise the valuation on Facebook stock options, which may make it more difficult to recruit new key talent. Given that Facebook wants to double their workforce in the next year, how much of a hurdle will this turn out to be?

With only a few months until the Iowa Caucus, the annual marathon of political ads is almost upon us. This year, more than ever before, the air war is coming online as both sides trade web versions of TV ads, and some ads will inevitably pick up enough earned media buzz to reach more people than they would have in a paid context.

While this is not new (look back at President Johnson’s "Daisy" ad for ancient viral video), this may be the first cycle that a search engine ad created a furor.

Google recently created a stir when they rejected ads by Sen. Collins’s campaign that slammed MoveOn. Google rejected the ads, according to Policy Council Pablo Chavez, not because of their political content, but because of a trademark violation:

Under our trademark policy, a registered trademark owner may request that its mark not be used in the text of other parties’ ads. Some time ago, MoveOn.org submitted a request to Google that its trademark not be used in any ads…

This all seems perfectly reasonable, but what does it mean for your ads? Follow me below the fold for thoughts on what you can do to make sure your ad gets through…

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