With the help of Facebook engineer Arturo Bejar, an article entitled “Facebook tracking is under scrutiny” on the USA Today website reveals details of how members are tracked on the social network, whether connected or not, and how their stored data is used. Visitors who do not have accounts on Facebook are also involved. The social network uses tracking codes, also known as cookies, which are placed on the user’s computer during a website visit. Widespread, they are useful to sites and online services to see if a user is logged-in, or if they have already visited the website. A good example being when you shop on Amazon, the products you were shopping for last week are staring you straight in the face this week.

Different cookies for members and visitors

Facebook uses two types of cookies: one for members and one for non-members of the social media platform.

For members with an account, Facebook uses a session cookie to keep the user connected as long as the same browser is used. The cookie stores and compiles data such as name, email address, friends’ lists and preferences. It also stores unique elements such as the IP address and technical information on the configuration of your computer and browser. Finally, it logs the page views that contain a Facebook plugin such as the “Like” button with time and date and internet address (URL).

Non-members who are sent a link to a Facebook page, as well as members disconnected from their accounts, are also tracked. In these cases, a browser cookie replaces the session cookie. A unique identifier replaces the personal data such as name and Facebook data. Although no longer associated with the account of the social network, the rest of the information collected does not change. The technical information is retrieved from the computer (browser, operating system, IP address) as well as the date and address of visited web pages, particularly if they contain one of the many Facebook plugins: “Like” button, shares, comments, activities, etc.

Facebook has no plans to stop collecting this information and this stance is further supported by its representative Andrew Noyes. He explains that Google, Microsoft and other major Internet behemoths already use this method for targeted advertising. The social network with 800 million members said they use different data for advertising to members connected in Facebook.

For ordinary visitors, the tracking is helping to improve security and the user experience. According to Facebook’s spokesman, the connection logs are used to identify fake accounts and block misuse. The collected data is used to understand and improve the use of plugins.

The choice to the user?

Cookies in themselves are not dangerous files from a privacy perspective. And, it is possible to filter or block cookies for individual websites or services, but it also eliminates handling the practical side of this file tracer. But whatever the purpose, a visitor or user of a service should be able to choose whether to accept the tracking of their browsing activity.

In 2012, the W3C standards body will set the standard for DNT “Do Not Track”. It will allow the user to indicate whether he wishes his surfing habits to be used. Facebook, as well as Google, Microsoft and other major internet players took part in the discussions.

At Banner, user privacy is paramount. We constantly monitor legislation to integrate the latest directives into our campaigns and we use a carefully selected suite of online marketing tools that enable us to protect the user’s rights.

Interested in finding out more? Why not read our white paper: ‘Here comes the cookie monster – making sense of EU Data Protection Legal Framework’

So, what to do? Well, the general consensus out there is the following: If you’re advertising through publishers and affiliate networks you need to make users aware that you’re tracking their behaviour to serve tailored advertising. But what’s the best solution? It could get messy with multiple alerts, pop-ups and overlays.

Well, there’s an industry initiative led by the IAB seeking to provide an element of self-regulation, with a symbol like this appearing on behaviourally targeted ads.

When clicked the user will be advised on the data being captured, how it is used to serve advertising and asked for their explicit consent. They’re hoping to have this in place by the end of 2011. It seems like a simple solution that could work for the whole industry.

Matters get a bit more complicated when you’re using cookies on sites that you own and administer. The directive seems to imply that you still need to makes users aware of what you’re doing. But there’s a view out there that if you’re using cookies to improve the user’s experience e.g. shopping cart, remembering log-ins, preferred content, etc, then you don’t need to get explicit consent.

So, with the end of May looming, here are a few things to start planning:

• When advertising after May, consider using the enhanced notice (icon) to gather consent or opt-out.
• Apportion responsibility for data privacy within the context of behavioural advertising with publishers and ad networks.
• Ensure your privacy policy on your website sufficiently discloses the use of cookies and how they will be used.
• Provide a simple means for users to provide explicit consent or opt-out.
• Consider making “do not track” functionality compatible with the latest incarnations of browsers from Microsoft, Google and Mozilla.

Whilst it’s highly unlikely that the legislation is going to be enforced anytime soon, as responsible marketers, we all need to have a position on the directive and a plan to ensure we don’t fall foul of the law. So, if you need a bit of advice, get in touch and we’ll point you in the right direction.

I also used to enjoy getting stuck into long articles and curling up with an 800 page novel. Truth is, these days I find it challenging to read a lengthy online article without following the multiple links embedded within the page, the lure of checking Twitter, my netvibes news feeds and my multiple email accounts. Apparently, I’m not alone – there is a perception out there that the internet is changing our brains (and not always positively), how we consume information and retain knowledge. In effect, Google is becoming a replacement for our long-term memory and almost as quick at retrieving information (take a look at the new Google Instant).

Pancake People

Back in 2005, the playwright Richard Foreman wrote a piece about ‘Pancake People’, and it’s even more pertinent today than when he wrote it:

“I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self – evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the ‘instantly available’. A new self that needs to contain less and less of an inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance – as we all become “pancake people” – spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.“

Earlier this year, a client told me that people don’t read web pages anymore and that much of the beautifully crafted copy that we had produced was a waste of time. Instinctively, I fought back against this statement and zealously defended our work. After all, producing content and publishing web pages is one of the reasons we’re in business. However, there have been a number of articles lately that have re-ignited the discussions and changed my mind as to how the internet is altering the way our brains work and, therefore, the way we consume information.

Have we reached a point predicted back in 1985 by Max Headroom where blipverts will be the most effective way of getting our marketing messages across to our target audience; where high-speed, concentrated, high-intensity commercials lasting about three seconds are used to subliminally brainwash the masses?

We may not have reached that point yet, but changing trends in media consumption must have some real implications for marketers. Is the long copy ad dead? Will technology decision-makers no longer have the time or inclination to value whitepapers? Do we need to fundamentally address the taxonomy and content hierarchy of our websites? And, do we need to establish new measures of audience engagement? After all, a page view doesn’t mean a page has actually been read…

Bite-sized payloads of marketing gold

If the answer to any of the above is “Yes”, then we need to ensure that we’re producing concise marketing messages that are laser-targeted at our audiences. Let’s not create reams of written content that languish on our corporate websites. Instead, let’s embrace the notion of creating more engaging formats of content and distributing it in bite-sized payloads to the platforms where our audiences are spending their time. So that means featuring content on services like Scribd and Slideshare and finding new ways to feature content on publisher websites. It also means making your blog one of the primary destinations for your marketing messages. After all, the content changes regularly and is generally mercifully short.

Thank you for reading to the end of this post. It must have been difficult not to follow any of the embedded links or checking the status on your social universe… I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

Earlier this year Banner organised a Search Huddle. This was an intimate session for B2B marketers with speakers from Autodesk, Avaya, and Microsoft.

While the event was rounded off by Cedric Chambaz, marketing manager at Microsoft and myself, by looking at the latest developments of search and what lies ahead, what generated the most debate was how to get the fundamentals right; what can you do today, to make a tangible difference to achieve your objectives?

Dominic Jukes, web marketing manager at Autodesk shared his experience of managing international paid search campaigns, and highlighted recent corporate structural changes that had helped facilitate increased ownership and subsequent coordination of their search marketing efforts.

Avaya, represented by editor-in-chief Jerome Toulorge, used paid search in a different innovative fashion. With the objective of generating sales through their channel partners, together we had created a paid search reseller program that was rolled-out with selected partners across Europe. The challenges faced where not so much about technology as it was about communication and education.

The event clearly highlighted that although search can many times be perceived as a highly technology focused marketing channel; the biggest factor to success is still the people driving it.

Why are search engines doing this? The adverts CTR is an important signal of “quality” for search engines. The logic is that if the advert matches the users query, they will click it. Therefore the higher the CTR, the more relevant the advert is assumed to be. And of course, since the search engines charge advertisers per click, their revenue increases.

The following chart outlines the main factors that determine the quality score for a keyword on Google Adwords. This quality score is then used in an algorithm that determines click-cost and position.

Due to this, it’s very possible that an advert appearing in top position is paying less per click than the one below. The search engines are of course maximising their revenues by the higher number of aggregate clicks that the top CTR advert is producing.

To make things more complex for advertisers, consider the following scenario: an advert with lower CTR is converting very strongly on the website, as it effectively pre-qualifies the traffic. In comparison a high CTR advert for the same campaign converts poorer, as it doesn’t seek to filter out unwanted traffic at the ad level, but instead on the landing page. Which should you run?

At this stage you would need to calculate the actual cost-per-action and volumes that can be achieved, depending on objective.

In practise, it’s difficult to make this type of direct comparison on a live campaign, due to the ever-changing nature of competition, quality score, positions and costs. However, from experience, typically for b2c the benefit of a higher quality score from optimising ad copies towards CTR (with resulting lowered CPC and higher position) outweighs the alternative, whereas for B2B it might not be the case.

I believe that’s because so many of the principles and thinking driving marketing communications are still derived from the old advertising world. The more attention spans have shortened, the more time we’ve spent agonising over the single ‘killer’ concept that’s going to stick in people’s heads, the arresting visual that’s going to grab their attention, the call to action that’s going to make them click or pick up the phone.

By comparison, most agencies tend to spend very little time thinking about what they’re actually driving people to. Typically, a landing page with a visual and headline that perhaps match the DM piece. A collection of all our analyst white papers and product datasheets. And forms asking customers to tell us everything from their budget to their waist size.

What if we were to channel more of our energy and creativity into developing the content that actually helps people decide whether our product or service is right for them? Better still, help them to get stuff that matters to them done. We are looking at re-writing our creative briefs so that we force ourselves to think about the content before we dive into the communication. The simple logic says if we first make the destination more attractive, then designing the signposts that get people there becomes so much easier.

So why are we doing this? Well we’re really seeing a major change in the way demand generation is moving. More importantly, the way in which prospects and customers are responding to campaigns. The fragmentation of media channels, increasing cynicism and resistance to push ‘marketing’, coupled with empowered customers who search for whatever they need and would sooner be talking to each other than vendors. OK, so this doesn’t necessarily make us marketing visionaries, but at a time when everyone’s beginning to feel the pinch (or waiting to feel it) — it makes it more of a pressing issue than it has been for the last year. Best start planning sooner rather than later.

We figured it would be a good start to gather together some experts from across the industry. Not just our fellow hosts, but some of our customers and their peers who are actually tackling some of the challenges we’re all facing… How to develop content that people want to engage with and map it to the buying cycle; how to target timely, relevant communications to someone whose name you don’t necessarily know; how to harness emerging and social media; and how to turn customers into advocates, either online or face-to-face. Then of course there’s the small matter of measuring return on all these marketing investments.

Over the next couple of weeks in the run-up to the event I’ll be picking up some of these themes and expanding on them. In the meantime you can visit the event site here. It’s open to marketers from technology and telecoms companies, B2B and B2C. A bunch of invitations should be going out in the next day or two so keep an eye on your in-tray and in-box.

To put where we are today into some context, take a look at the following video:

While the predictions will undoubtedly be false as they always are, the existing stats on their own are pretty impressive. The one that got me: if myspace was a country, it would be the 11th largest in the world.

One of the things that this drives home is that flux is a permanent state of affairs. There is no certainty about anything – and all the focus groups in the world will not provide the answers. Everything is in beta and the successful companies of tomorrow will be those that chart their own destination but who also remain flexible about exactly how they get there.

This is the age of plan B.

Lifehacker points to a handy new site – with yet another ridiculo.us name – popuri.us. Essentially the site aggregates a bunch of sources to give you a picture of how popular your site is. So you get its PageRank, Alexa rank, Technorati links and a bunch more. See the BBC example below:

While this isn’t rocket science, it does bring it all together in one place. One for the bookmarks.

Professor Michael Wesch (who’s Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University) has put together a four and a half minute piece tracing the path from text on paper through hypertext/HTML and on to XML in a really charming and engaging way. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about being in tech.

Source: Another planning blog